This essay is an attempt to outline a type of fun – simulationist narrativist fun – that players can have while playing RPGs, and therefore, that a tabletop roleplaying game might prioritize.

In it, I attempt to do six things:

1. Describe four things that a game prioritizing this type of fun should focus on
2. Describe what makes this type of game fun and its relation to player-stances
3. Outline questions we can ask of a game to see how well it supports this type of fun
4. Apply those questions to Shadowdark as a worked example
5. Deduce some broad mechanical constraints on simulationist narrativist games
6. Provide some semi-serious alternative names for this type of play

Background

When designing (and redesigning) Super Dead, I found myself repeatedly asking three questions:

1. Do the game’s mechanics consistently and cogently model the world
2. Do the game’s mechanics invoke the feeling of the zombie and superhero genres
3. Do the games mechanic’s promote stories typical of zombie and superhero genres

The game I wanted to play – and therefore, the game I was designing – was going to let me experience stories that crossed Batman with The Walking Dead; The Boys with Zombieland; Spiderman with Dawn of the Dead. It was important to me that the realities of those worlds were represented in the game, and that playing the game felt like being in those worlds. It was also important to me that the game had mechanics that consistently created stories that could be apart of the same fictional milieu as those other works.

And so, half-intentionally, I went about creating a game in the tradition of Simulationist Narrativism.

A brief definition of Simulationist Narrativism

A simulationist narrativist game is one that prioritizes these four things:

1. genre emulation ¹
2. character immersion ¹
3. passionate, capable characters in conflict ²
4. no one knowing what is going to happen next ²

This is in slight contrast to an exclusively narrativist game, which only concerns itself with the later 2; and an exclusively simulationist game, which only concerns itself with the former two. Simulationist Narrativism is trying to achieve simulationist objectives–getting the feeling of inhabiting the genre–and narrativist objectives–of watching cool shit unfold–at the same time.

What makes Simulationist Narrativism fun?

Simulationist narrativist games are fun because all the players, including the gamemaster, get to experience both immersion in a fictional world and a compelling emergent story. In the Manyfold parlance, a simulationist Narrativist enjoyer is someone who wants their games to consistently pay off Kenosis (deep engagement) ³ and Kairosis (literary fulfillment) ³.

The needle a simulationist narrativist system must thread is creating structures lightweight enough to support deep engagement, while robust and systemic enough to consistently generate the literary payoffs. No simple task.

Consider a heavy simulationist game like GURPS. In GURPS, the rules simulate a world, but the rules are so complex as to be prohibitive to immersive, in-character play. The result is that the system emphasizes rule application (Ludus ³) and victory (Fiero ³).

Or consider a strong narrativist game like Blades in the Dark. BitD has a litany of mechanics for creating exciting heist and crime stories. "The GM isn’t in charge of the story and doesn’t have to plan events ahead of time." However, while mechanics in BitD support telling fulfilling crime stories (Kairosis ³), they trade character-oriented immersion (Kenosis ³) for free-wheeling fun (Paidia ³).

Simulationist narrativist games emphasize character stance; acquiesce to a player stance, audience stance, and performer stance; but abhor author stance. The fact that in a Blades in the Dark game players are encouraged to "take responsibility as co-authors of the game" is antagonistic to the idea that we want everyone – including the gamemaster – to be experiencing the game fiction as the characters in that fiction.

In a simulationist narrativist game, we might prefer to see a sentence like the following:

"During play, the gamemaster should, like other players, attempt to play their characters as earnestly and passionately as possible."

While the gamemaster has a unique set of responsibilities in resolving and adjudicating actions, the simulationist narrativist game designer aims to have those resolutions and adjudications come from an audience-stance gamemaster and not an author-stance gamemaster. That is, the gamemaster should be describing what they are watching happen; not reading the dice and inventing fiction. Simulationist narrativist games must therefore be high-GM support games; otherwise, gamemasters will necessarily move towards author stance as they create the world from their imagination.

The Three Question Review

If we likes to have the type of fun that Simulationist Narrativist games provide – and I do – we can use a variation of the three questions I was asking myself when designing Super Dead as a rubric for game criticism. In their generic form, those three questions are:

1. Do the game's mechanics consistently model the fictional world they purport to?
2. Do the game's mechanics evoke the feeling of the fictional world they purport to?
3. Do the game's mechanics consistently result in stories typical of the fictional tradition the game emphasizes?

Answering these questions requires some pre-work. Before we can begin to address them, we need to understand:

1. What is the nature of the fictional world that this game is attempting to model?
2. What are the game's mechanics?
3. How do we feel while playing the game?
4. What stories emerge while playing the game?

As an exercise, I'd like to apply this means of analysis of an excellent game: Shadowdark.

Analyzing Shadowdark

1. What is the nature of the fictional world this game is attempting to model?

It's hard to say earnestly that Shadowdark is trying to model any fictional world at all. There is an implied, medieval-fantasy setting, but it's not detailed in the core book.

In her livestreamed character class design videos–e.g., for the ranger and necromancer–creater Kelsey Dionne refers explicitly to fantasy inspiration, but it is not obvious that the sources she references exist in compatible worlds.

This is a variant of the Justice League problem. Batman must be part of the Justice League, because he's the most important D.C. star, but he has no powers, so he doesn't really fit in the same world as Superman. Why wouldn't Superman just clean up Gotham in an afternoon with his super speed? Necromancers must exist – because they're cool – but it's not obvious what they are in a Tolkien-esque setting with Rangers and, famously, has its chief wizard a 3rd-level magic user.

Further, as an OSR game, we can advance a good argument that the fantasy world she is trying to emulate is the Dungeons and Dragons fantasy world, which itself lacks internal consistency.

So right off the bat, we're in trouble. But let's say that Shadowdark is attempting to model something along the lines of "Medieval Grimdark Heroic Fantasy" a la The Witcher.

2. What are the game's mechanics?

Shadowdark is characterized by its d20 roll high-system, chaotic Vancian magic, a strict turn-order, torch and darkness mechanics, randomized class-based advancement, and carousing.

The torchlight, darkness and carousing mechanics are the most flavorful here.

3. How do we feel while playing the game?

Fragile. Strategic. Nostalgic. Like a gamer. For me, Shadowdark quickly brings me into player stance, where I use my character to achieve ends (surviving and acquiring gold) instead of inhabiting my character and pursuing their wants. As a crawler-style game, Shadowdark encourages player exploration and the experience of nostalgic novelty – which is a lot of fun.

There's also the over-the-top almost comedic grimdark elements to the game, that can play into performer stance quite well – and there are even a metacurrency (luck tokens) that can support player- or performer-stance objectives.

4. What stories emerge from playing the game?

Going dungeon and wilderness crawling, acquiring wealth, using that wealth to acquire new tools for crawling, and then going dungeon and wilderness crawling again. Characters are variously called crawlers and adventurers in the rules – so this is fitting.

Now for the real questions.

1. Do the game's mechanics consistently model a Medieval Grimdark Heroic Fantasy world?

Not really. There is an underlying assumption of game boundaries between mechanics and fiction embedded in the game, typical of most D&D.

For example, the spell acid arrow refers to the arrow persisting and continuing to deal damage, but doesn't have any mention of what the acid can or cannot burn through. Some acids oxidize and can cause wood to combust. What's the nature of this magical acid? An important question, never addressed because it's not really important to the game and players are supposed to be content with: 1d6 damage per round as long as concentration is maintained.

2. Do the game's mechanics evoke the feeling of adventuring in an MGHF world?

Yes. More or less.

In Shadowdark, you have low survivability and things like magic have a degree of chaos to them. That feels grimdark high-fantasy to me. That everyone can always be assumed to be after gold is also MGHF, in a sense. Even though you are very often playing Shadowdark in player stance, as a player, what you are feeling is consistent with the genre promise of the game.

Some of the game modes (e.g., the pulp and momentum modes) can add to the heroic feeling, while others add to the grimdark flavor (e.g., fatality and grinder modes).

3. Do the game's mechanics consistently result in stories typical of MGHF?

I'm a bit mixed on this one. Shadowdark is clearly geared towards dungeon and wilderness crawls, but I'm reluctant to grant the assertion that dungeon and wilderness crawls are the full breadth of grimdark heroic fantasy – or even the most important aspect.

If we are to take the setting seriously as MGHF, I'd want war and assassination rules; I'd want rules that tell the GM who the sovereigns are sending after the players to ensure they bend the knee and stay servants of the crown; I'd want to accumulate a list of personal sacrifices the characters made along the way as they leveled up, morals and principles they left behind.

Overall Assessment

Overall, Shadowdark is not a good game for simulationist narrativist play. At best, it leaves a lot of the simulationism and narrativism as an exercise for the players.

Some mechanics, like the torch timer, are good simulationist narrativist tools; others, like the luck token metacurrency, are not.

Because it's a rules-light system, you can have simulationist narrativisit fun with Shadowdark – it won't get in your way – but it is better if you are interested in things like: player stance gaming, treasure-filled puzzle dungeons, and overcoming challenges established by the gamemaster. If you are after that, Shadowdark is a royal flush.

Closing thoughts on Simulationist Narrativism

The critique of Shadowdark was a bit obtuse, intentionally so. Nothing about Shadowdark positions it as simulationist or narrativist – so expecting it to be both was a silly conceit. But I think it was worthwhile to point out that a good game can exist, while having entirely different design goals from the ones prioritized here. There are lots of things people can enjoy in games. An immersive game that consistently results in compelling narratives is only one of many possible good combinations.

It's probably worthwhile to note that when we talk about simulationist narrativism we are using old, burdened words: simulationism and narrativism. But I'm not particularly interested in the baggage either of these words carries, and you don't need to be either.

When I talk about simulationism, I mean that the mechanics of the game should bring the player more in touch with the game world; when I talk about narrativism, I mean games that generate stories through their play.

We can deduce some assertions from these statements about what types of games are more likely to support simulationist narrativist play.

• there can't be too many rules, otherwise players will constantly be checking the rule book and not interacting with the world
• there can't be too few rules, otherwise stories won't be generated consistently
• metacurrencies and non-diegetic mechanics are out
• genre-agnostic, setting-neutral, or generic games are out
• the core game mechanics must present conflicts to the player characters, otherwise narratives will not be created through play
• the game must support the gamemaster in developing meaningful conflicts in near-real time during play

It might be worthwhile to expand on those deductions – especially the notion of a core game loop that presents conflicts to players characters – but for now, I think it's enough to establish these as general, hypothesized design requirements for games looking to facilitate simulationist narrativist fun.

To close, I'll give you a few prejoratives for this type of gaming. You can't call us these things, only we can use these terms about ourselves.

• Passionate Princess Play ⁴
• Simulationist Story-Gaming
• Emergent Story Elf Games

Footnotes