I haven’t done an article like this in quite some time, but recent events have had me in a somewhat reflective mood. Both the embarkation upon Project Skeleton and the events surrounding my Kickstarter campaign have me thinking about RPG philosophy more than I have in awhile. In the lead-up to my stream Anatomy of an RPG Ruleset, I began thinking about what exactly a game is. There was only one word that accurately described a game other than the word itself; simulation. That’s right, a game is a simulation. These concepts cannot be decoupled from one another. That’s all well and good, but why worry about GNS theory at this point? It’s a nearly 30-year-old idea that people don’t seem to care much about anymore. Well, the thing about GNS theory is that it was influential. Extremely so, in fact. The Apocalypse Worlds of gaming were heavily influenced by it, but I would argue that even OSR games were influenced by GNS theory. The entire notion of rules-lite vs crunch is tied up in this concept and I’m taking a fire ax to all of it today.
As a refresher for those of you who, like me, were not around during the GNS heyday, GNS stands for Gamist, Narrativist and Simulationist Theory. The idea, originally articulated by Ron Edwards on The Forge, was that these three groups of gamers valued one of those three concepts (game, narrative or simulation) above all others and games should focus on trying to satisfy one desire at the expense of all others. On the surface, that’s all well and good. Focus on satisfying a particular audience rather than trying to please everyone. However, the real issue here is that the three categories cannot stand on their own. If narrative is the one-and-only goal then playing a roleplaying game to accomplish that is a bit like catching a flight because you want peanuts and a tiny can of Coke. There are far easier ways to obtain those things. All you’re doing is wasting time and resources. Game and simulation are the two that really cannot stand on their own though. At least, not in the manner that GNS theory posits.
What is a simulation? By definition, a simulation is a set of artificial circumstances set up to model an outcome or create a particular scenario. What is a game? A game is a competition in which participants submit to a set of pre-determined rules in pursuit of a certain outcome or objective. In other words, a game involves artificial circumstances being imposed upon a limited field to model an outcome. Almost like, you guessed it, a simulation. The idea of separating the concept of game from the concept of simulation takes some Cirque Du Soleil levels of mental gymnastics. A game requires artificial parameters that participants submit to and work within in pursuit of a goal. That being said, I understand why Edwards has made this error. The term “simulation” has taken on a context of complexity, especially since the creation of video games and the dawn of the simulator genre. Both Call of Duty 4 and Arma III are, technically speaking, simulations of modern military combat. However, only Arma is classified that way and calling Call of Duty a simulation would draw either rage or uproarious laughter from ardent fans of Arma. The difference between these video games, for those of you who don’t know, is that Call of Duty is more akin to a blockbuster action movie where players control a lone soldier while Arma is a military tactics game where players have control over not just one soldier, but entire squads. Arma contains more in-depth mechanics for weapon physics, requires players to think strategically about their approach to an objective, and gives them near-total freedom of approach. Call of Duty has a very linear structure with usually one possible solution: shoot the bad guys. This is the context in which many people view the term “simulationism.” This is not a good framing to have in my opinion because it doesn’t account for some very important details.
To continue using our examples of Arma and Call of Duty, both of these games have a very distinct identity that attracts a specific type of fan. To add the mechanics of Arma to Call of Duty would be to alienate its fans. Likewise, stripping complexity from Arma would alienate its fans. These two games have two different scopes that require two different levels of complexity. They attract two different audiences and there’s plenty of room for each. If only the same could be said about the world of RPGs. In our hobby, there is a poor understanding of a game’s telos or purpose. This is largely due to the influence of Edwards and his GNS theory which is why this topic deserves such scrutiny. One of my most controversial livestreams involved myself and my friends Malaky and Viktor Gorchev watching an commenting on a Professor Dungeon Master video. One of my core criticisms of the Professor’s video was that he expressed a preference for light mechanics regardless of the setting or genre of game being played. As Viktor, a master of modern military roleplay, pointed out, a lot of complex activities require more in-depth mechanics than just “Roll a D6.” The thing that every game designer not currently working in RPGs already understands is that the complexity of mechanics is determined by the scope of your simulation. In some cases, this can be subjective. In other cases though, there is an objective standard of complexity needed to approximate a given action. Some actions need to be simple and some need to be granular. Which ones need to be which? Again, it depends on the complexity of the action. There’s room for abstraction, but complicated actions have a minimum threshold of crunch needed to properly simulate them.
This is the main reason why I would surgically remove GNS from the memory of the RPG world. Complexity isn’t a matter of taste, but a matter of necessity. You can’t separate the ideas of narrative, which is emergent, from simulation and game which are linked concepts. These ideas have to work together. This has created an ecosystem where complexity is viewed as purely negative instead of properly as a consequence of complicated simulations. The fact of the matter is that rules aren’t genres. There’s no accounting for taste or preference. The rules should be as complex as they need to be to properly convey the desired scenario. Every game is a simulation. Crunch and simulation are not slurs to be thrown around by people who want to occasionally roll dice while telling bedtime stories. They are the correct way to approach gaming and I’m tired of pretending that they aren’t.