So, I helped to develop DendryNexus as a way to replicate some of the original features of StoryNexus (and thus Fallen London), such as the card deck system. There’s a thread here.
Check out Social Democracy: An Alternate History or Petrograd 1917 to see examples of games within the system. These are… not really like Fallen London at all, but I hope they can serve as inspirations for games with a similar system? The main character is a political party as a whole, and overall I wanted to minimize grinding and build something like a political/economic simulation, where narrative and mechanics are one and the same. The cards represent government or party policies, and there’s a constantly advancing time variable and specific time-keyed events.
Regardless of the game’s genre, I definitely agree with points 5-7 - it’s important to have a clear relationship between the causes and consequences of actions.