I Reject Your Reality!

And substitute my own. At least, in this TTRPG we're playing.

Remember when simulating realism was a core plank of TTRPG design? It’s been a hot decade or two since it’s been a key design consideration. When we think of simulation, games like GURPS and Champions both spring to mind. The universal reality simulator as TTRPG was a holy grail of the hobby up until around 2000. Then, things changed. What happened?

When I run OSR games, I find that players treat the fiction in the game as fixed but are comfortable talking about rules and procedures as malleable. Usually, these discussions are framed around an understanding of real world physics.

For instance, I ran Dark Tower at Gary Con a few years back. At one point, a PC was inside a building and could see a mob of unwitting cultists of Set right outside a window. The player wanted to leap through the window to attack.

Before we resolved that, the exchange looked something like this:

DM: You’ll surprise him, but you’ll take damage crashing through window.

Player: What if I lead with my shield?

DM: OK, that’ll avoid the damage but you’ll be attacking as if blind.

Player: That’s fine, I just need to get through the window and engage these guys before they get to the front door.

The discussion is around the rules as a physics engine. This is what would happen in real life, how can that situation change to reorient the situation? It makes sense that I’d take damage crashing through a window. How about using my shield to absorb that? OK, but then you can’t see what you’re doing. It’s an intuitive tradeoff.

In contrast, I find that narrative games tend to do the opposite. It’s a writers’ room vibe, with people tossing story suggestions out. Players treat the narrative as flexible and rely on the “physics” of storytelling to move things along. So if this was a narrative game, we might see this:

Player: They’re right outside the window? OK, I need to keep them from reaching the front door so I’ll leap through the window to stop them. I knew my Head First Into Danger trait would come in handy.

GM: The window is pretty stout, so I think you’ll take stress going through it.

Player: Head First Into Danger makes him bite off more than he can chew. Maybe instead he has some more friends coming around the corner?

GM: That’s perfect, roll it.

It’s a subtle but important difference. The recognition that GMs and players could use a standard other than realism to interact with the game space was a huge step forward in design. Until that point, games largely leaned into simulation to set that standard.

But did we lose something?

Realism is a pain to model, but it has the advantage of aiming at the most mass market audience possible - people who interact with the physical world.

Think of the new TTRPG player. A key aspect of TTRPG play is that it asks players to create mechanics on the fly. In D&D, there is no, “I slam the door on the orc’s hand so he drops his sword!” button. That’s just a player hearing a description (“The orc pushes the door open and points his sword at you”) and reacting as if that was a real life situation.

That stipulation is a foundational part of bringing new players into the hobby and explaining how it works. It opens up the magic of TTRPGs.

The challenge lies in ensuring that a game’s mechanics or procedures are flexible enough to allow something sensible, as defined by the players’ expectations of reality, to happen next. D&D solves this with a flexible attribute and check system. In the example above, you might use opposed Strength rolls, or a Strength (Athletics) check. A fancy DM might say DC 10 closes the door, DC 20 damages the orc and makes him drop his weapon.

A narrative game, with its veering way from simulation, requires the player to first understand the procedures for creating fiction in the game. They can figure it out, but it requires an understanding that this game is a tool to create interesting stories, not something trying to model reality.

It’s a subtle an important distinction. I think it also highlights the divide between narrative and trad games in TTRPGs. They represent two different ways of approaching play that are fundamentally incompatible. Go to any D&D forum and ask people what hit points represent to see that in action. Some folks get that they’re a narrative tool, but others want them to fit into a physics model.

In design, you need to figure out where you’re drawing the line. When a player does something that lacks a specific rules procedure, how do you want them to frame their thinking? Reality, narrative, or somewhere in between?

My experience is that while simulation seems more complex, practically speaking it is much easier for new players to grok. People don’t usually come to TTRPGs with an understanding of writing, storytelling, and how to manage dramatic pacing, rising tension, and so on. Trad games rely on robust mechanical models to supply those without active player input on those axes (that’s why D&D-likes have encounter balancing tools; ones that work produce fights with the right narrative shape).

In any case, simulation might no longer be in vogue but players, especially new ones, still naturally gravitate for it. Think about how your rules work when someone tries to interact with them from a purely simulation stand point. Doing so might help you understand where new players and GMs hit frustration points.