Foundational

 Recently, on Facebook, Jeff Dee (yeah, that Jeff Dee) has been talking about "simulationist" RPG design. 

Younger gamers might not know this but back around the turn of the century, Ron Edwards proposed the GNS Theory (later refined into what he called The Big Model, but I never understood the difference and TBM didn't catch public attention the way GNS did). GNS stands for Gamist-Narrativist-Simulationist. 

According to Edwards and his group of thinkers/designers on The Forge, good game design stems from identifying which of these three modes you want to focus on, and really leaning hard into it. Because according to The Forge, all gamers are one of the three, and will have the most fun if their games cater to that strongest desire. 

Now, for my money, Gamist and Narrativist were well defined. Gamists want to "win." They play RPGs to smash all the orcs and loot all the treasure. They want to gain levels, more hit points, better combat power, more spells, more magic items. If, as the tech-bros say nowadays, the "line goes up" they're happy. Narrativists, on the other hand, are there for the story. They want their Big Damn HeroTM to protagonize all through the DM's hand-crafted narrative (if there is a DM--a lot of the indie/story game people came out of The Forge's "narrativist" camp, and may of these games are GMless). 

Simulationism, according to GNS (as I remember it) was a desire to...not make the game realistic, as we're talking about dragons and fireballs and aliens and FTL travel and so on...make the game as realist as possible without ruining game play, but also to focus on the world-building and emulation of genre tropes and... Like I said, it was the least well defined of the three. I feel like "simulationism" as far as consistent and sensible world-building is a GM concern more than a player concern. I don't know many RPG players who WANT to limit their characters because "in the real world, that wouldn't happen." 

Now Dee is taking a different tract with what he calls simulationist design. To me it seems like a rejection of "bennies" or other metacurrencies in modern RPGs meant to give the PCs a boost. This goes all the way back to early game design, with things like Force Points and spendable character points in d6 Star Wars, Karma in the old Marvel Superheroes game (the FASERIP one), to things like Action Points in d20 Modern to Inspiration in 5E D&D.  And again, many of the indie/story games coming out of the old Forge narrativist tradition have a lot of these. Some games are ONLY this as a mechanic, with otherwise free-form play. 

A quote from Dee that sums it up, replying to someone asking about "The Rule of Cool": 

The least egregious version of it, as far as simulationism is concerned, is that “players should be allowed to try things outside the written rules, as long as they’re ‘cool’”. And under simulationism, I reject that because it places an unnecessary emphasis on ‘coolness’. You know what simulationism says that players should be able to try, outside of the rules? ANYTHING. Cool or not.

Simulationism isn’t limited to rules as written, and doesn’t need to be trumped by ‘cool’ things. Simulationism is an attempt to provide rules which *can* be played as written, producing satisfactory results as often as possible when played as written. But OF COURSE more things are possible than just the ones directly mechanized in any finite rules set.

And so all that simulationism requires is that when characters try to do things, their chance and degree of success should be informed by the difficulty of the task and the character’s abilities. Regardless of whether the written rules cover it. Whether it’s ‘cool’ is irrelevant.

 

I get what Dee's saying here, but I have a hard time distinguishing this from Gamism as far as GNS is concerned. The game has rules, you're playing a game. From a designer/GM perspective,  yeah, you want a rule set that has reasonable and well-defined rules. But as a player, how would this be a concern as compared to a rule-set that allows for cartoonish superheroism with metagame currencies? 

Let me get this straight. I'm not criticizing Dee at all. He's got the best understanding of "simulationism" I've come across in the past 25 years. 

I think this points to the foundational flaw of GNS/Big Model thinking. They have things backwards. They think good game design flows from pandering to the wants of the players. But you don't know who your players will be when you're designing a game. And even Edwards admits that most gamers enjoy all three of his pillars of game design to a greater or lesser extent. Gamist players enjoy the story, and appreciate a logical, consistent game world. World-builders have fun facing and overcoming challenges, and seeing how the actions in game affect the status quo of the world. And even the most loosey-goosey narrativist wants some sort of mechanical system within the game (wouldn't be a "game" without one), and a big part of creating a compelling drama is having a consistent world that doesn't violate suspension of disbelief. 

They're all intertwined. So why would "good" game design seek to isolate and hyperfocus on one of these three things? Seems like a bad design principle to me.

New GM Workshop May Be Back, Baby!

 Yesterday, a member of the Busan Gaming Discord server was asking for advice on how to start running games. Several of us chimed in. Then another player said they're also interested in learning. I mentioned the workshop we had planned that was cancelled. I suggested we do something like that as a standalone event. A few others agreed. 

 So, 

 [Pending discussion of when, where, and who will actually be doing this, that is.]

All Systems are Go

 I finished editing my Missions & Mayhem core rules draft, as well as Cryptids & Conspiracy and Bughunts & Bedlam modules based on the feedback I got from the Busan Con 2026 players. I also just ran an adventure I wrote with the revisions, but the players (my usual group) wanted to jump right in so they used their old version characters. 

No problem. What changes we needed to make on the fly were minimal. 

This was a car chase adventure. There ended up not being much car-vs-car combat action. Instead, Denis' Hero used a rocket launcher to clear a path for the party's vehicles (a semi on loan from the company they were working for, hauling a load, and driven by Charles' Hero) and a motorcycle (Jada's Hero) and a sports car (Steven's Hero).  

There were some chases, a few gun fights, an attempt by an agent from a rival company to steal a sample of the cargo, and a final chase/gun fight at the Mexican border as the party attempted to finish smuggling drugs INTO Mexico (pharmaceuticals, not recreational drugs, but still). 

Everyone had a good time. After the adventure, I had them level up to 5th. And we converted them to the new version of the rules at the same time. The conversion was pretty painless. I'd removed a few proficiencies, but for the most part it wasn't an issue. The eliminated proficiency slots transferred to proficiencies the characters hadn't trained yet, so it was pretty easy. 

I think the main core rules, except for a typo or two (found one already) are good to go. They just need some illustrations and formatting. Oh, and a cover. Need to figure out what I want to do for covers for these games. 

Cryptids & Conspiracy isn't quite done yet, but it's close. I need to write up the sample adventures (ones I ran my group through) and add a bit more advice about how to create adventures or manage a campaign. 

Bughunts & Bedlam is still pretty bare bones. I have the advanced classes, rules for androids, and weapons done. The rest of the equipment & vehicles, space travel rules, guidelines for creating planets/moons/space stations for missions to take place on, and a whole bunch of alien, robot, and NPC stats need designing. Then I'll need to add the campaign advice and sample adventures. So it's a long way off. But if I can get the gear section and a few aliens/robots as opponents done soon, I'll start play testing it even if there are holes in the game. 

The Antithesis of DIY

 A few days ago, I came home from work to find my wife had spent most of the day watching YouTube videos about how to leverage AI into making extra income. She has some ideas of how to use AI to advertise the small business she's trying to start up. I don't begrudge her that, as we definitely don't have a budget for advertising. But she was pretty insistent that I should also use AI to help me produce and market my RPG products. 

I'm not a fan of "AI" as it currently stands. As I often say, it's very artificial and not very intelligent. I will admit, though, that the current crop of LLMs are MUCH better than just a year or two ago, at producing some simulacrum of human output. 

We've probably all seen examples of AI generated text that is impressive, and some that is not. Similar with images and video clips. Flynn often uses AI to generate pictures of his RPG characters. It's not that he doesn't have artistic talent, but the AI saves him a lot of time on something that isn't that important to him. He likes having a cool picture, but not enough to spend days or even weeks creating it. Again, I don't have a problem with that. It's for his personal use, not anything he's trying to sell. 

When it comes to producing content, though, even if it's something to be given away, I don't want to let AI do my creating for me. Ted posted a great essay on AI in RPGs the other day, conveniently. I'm in agreement with him. Yes, an AI could write, illustrate, and probably even format your RPG for you. I've been working on Missions & Mayhem for months now. Since last November or December, I forget exactly when I started (I should check my old blog posts). I spent most of 2025 working on the second edition of Flying Swordsmen, converting it to the d6 system. [It's still coming! Eventually...] I could have completed both of these projects months ago if I'd allowed AI to do the work for me. 

But would they be any good? Would they play well at the table, the way I want them to play? I doubt it. And would I actively turn off a portion of the RPG community by doing so? I'm pretty sure I would. 

The OSR and the Indie game scene both thrive on the DIY spirit. And generative AI is the antithesis of DIY. It's the ultimate plagiarism machine. 

Now, does AI have its uses? Yes. I admit to using a couple of AI generated images in my TS&R monster books. The elementals in TS&R Ruby for example. I couldn't find good images in the public domain. And when I tried modifying some images with GIMP, they looked like crap. Take a look at the golem illustration to see how bad I am at this stuff...although the golems came out looking much better than the elementals I tried to make did. But I state that up front in the front matter of the book, and it's a Pay What You Want title. Don't want to pay for something that has even 1 AI generated image in it? Then don't. Download it for free. 

Working on Missions & Mayhem, AI search has saved me a lot of time with gear and vehicle pricing. I don't need to sort through pages and pages of sales sites or whatever to see how much a fire extinguisher or a speed boat should cost. The AI assisted search can give me a plausible average price. I could make up a number, but this way I've got something reasonable. The game text itself, the rules and mechanics, I'm writing all of that myself.  

What's the difference? Well, in one instance AI is saving me a bit of time to provide a number that isn't super relevant to game play. In the other instance, AI would be doing my thinking and expressing of the ideas for me. One is lazy, the other is cheating. I'll admit to laziness, but I'm not about to ask people for money on something I'm cheating to produce. 

My wife was baffled (to get back to her). I had to explain the whole DIY ethos to her, and how using AI to crank out a bunch of slop game rules or adventure modules would turn a segment of the gaming population away from my work. 

I'm already producing games in a niche (Asian-themed fantasy, or Modern day action genre) of a niche (old school rules) of a niche hobby (RPGs). Yeah, there are the Shadowdarks making millions on Kickstarter and whatnot. And if I were to run a Kickstarter for M&M or FS2E, I'd only be shooting for a few thousand to help pay for art and layout/editing. I could probably make that happen. But I suck at promotion. 

Chanbara has been available for eight years now, and it's only an Electrum seller on DTRPG. My wife suggested I use AI to strategize marketing for it, M&M, and eventually FS2E. I might end up doing that, as it's really not my forte. I'm more of an Arneson than a Gygax.  

But I'm also now more committed to DIYing my games. 

I still plan to pay a few artists for artwork for Missions & Mayhem. But I'm also thinking I should just do a bunch of art myself. It won't be great, but it will be real art by a real human being.  My game may not be slick and polished with my own artwork gracing its pages, but it will be real. 

Movie Review: Star Wars The Mandalorian and Grogu

The Mandalorian and Grogu, the latest Star Wars movie, and a continuation of the Disney+ series, was released a week late here in South Korea. I just missed its US release date by a few days when I was back for Flynn's graduation. Then I had to spend a week avoiding nerdy YouTube channels and social media posts to prevent spoilers. Anyway, I finally saw it yesterday with Steven. 

Is there cursing in the movie?  The in-universe swear "dank ferrik" gets spoken a time or two. But despite Hutts being integral to the plot and Zeb Orrelios being a major supporting character, I don't remember any "bantha poodoo" or "kerabast" uttered. So a pretty clean movie, language wise, parents!

How was the movie itself? It was a really well done adventure movie that just happens to be set in the Star Wars universe. It carries the style and the themes of The Mandalorian onto the big screen. If you like the show, you're gonna like the movie. If you don't like the show, well, there's no accounting for taste. 

Seriously, though, it's not the high concept and high execution level of Andor. Mando has always been Star Wars for kids (which Star Wars always was) and the kids in us adults that grew up with Star Wars.  At its heart, TM&G is a movie about a father and son, trying to make their way in the universe. And it does it well. It's got good pacing, lots of action, fun moments, some emotionally tense moments and a lot of laughs. 

I think the movie benefits from not being shot on The Volume. While the show had some impressive backdrops, there were many times when it feels like the worlds are kinda empty when using The Volume (the Obi Wan series was worse than most Mando episodes for this, I think, but it's still an issue). There are definitely some CGI wonderland scenes, but a lot more of it was practical and you can see the difference.  

I've seen some people complaining about the puppet used for Grogu, but I still like it. While its movements aren't completely natural, the fact that Grogu, and the Anzellans (the little weirdo mechanics) are practical puppets in the scenes gives them more presence. Of course, I'm an old Gen-Xer who grew up with Sesame Street, Muppets, The Dark Crystal, and various other Jim Henson properties, and puppet Yoda. Young whipper-snappers can get off my puppet-appreciating lawn!

Long story short, if you think all Star Wars should be serious drama like Andor from now on (I get it, I do! Andor was GREAT!), you might be disappointed by this kid-friendly adventure movie. But if you like classic action-adventure, and like Star Wars, you're probably going to like it. 

Busan Con 2026 Day 2

 The second day of the 2026 Busan Con was yesterday (Sunday), and I had a full day. 

The first games started at 9:30. I was in an indie game called Goblin Quest. Matt was the GM (although the game says it can be played GM-less) and guided us through making our five goblins each, creating the quest we would go on, and then adjudicating the wacky hijinx we got into on the way. None of my goblins survived, but we managed to complete the quest just slightly over the time limit, and had a lot of laughs along the way. It's obviously a very narrative first/improv RPG, with lots of stuff decided on the fly and super simple rules. 

Fellow players included Elyse (my friend, who plays CoC and sometimes D&D with us), McKayla (who played in M&M the day before), Leo (who I'd met the day before and said M&M was a good idea to fill the niche of modern-era non-horror RPGs), and another guy whose name I've already forgotten but who only lost one goblin the whole adventure. 

After a too short lunch break, it was time for my Star Wars d6 game. Charles (one of my regulars), Ling (who played in my Classic D&D game last Fall), Jacob and Cindy (a couple who I just met) were my players. Rowan, one of the organizers of the con, was scheduled to play, but she was exhausted and over-stimulated so bowed out that the last minute, and I don't blame her.  

The adventure was the Coruscant Grand Ball, an adventure I'd originally run four years ago with my regular group. Charles hadn't joined us yet, so it was OK for him to play. He'd wanted to play in my M&M game on Saturday, but he'd just run through that one two weeks or so ago. 

The adventure played out pretty differently from the first go around. I made a few changes, as well. Instead of "social combat" I made a chart of the three suitors' attitudes towards the five debutantes, and their pre-scripted interactions were set, but then PC actions could countermand or enhance the effects of the events that were scripted to play out. 

This group of players actually spent a lot more time BEFORE the event, trying to tarnish the reputation of the other debutantes or learn what might help endear Marjon the Hutt to the other suitors. I had to shorten the interactions of the Ball itself in order to fit into the time slot. I also dropped the Zygerian slaver attack, although I had that waiting in the wings. 

In the end, everyone had a good time (and too much Tattooine Spice), and we never had a combat. Also, yes, they got Marjon to dance with the hunky Togruta playboy, rather than the nerdy Bith artist or the biz-bro Arcona exec's son. 

We had a bit more break time before the evening game, so I went to a nice Japanese restaurant nearby. Rowan and two of her friends dropped in when I was halfway through my gyudon, so I joined them and we discussed Stranger Things Season 5 as we ate. They had very different takes on the season than me, mainly stemming from the lazy writing (which I agreed with) and their disappointment with the teased Will-Mike romance never happening (something I didn't think the writers were actually teasing, but that's my straight perspective vs their LBGTQ+ perspectives). Despite the disagreements, we had a civil discussion. 

Anyway, on to the final game. Richard (our usual Keeper) ran Call of Cthulhu. I pulled up one of my old characters who'd survived and not gone mad, the rum-runner Monte Perrineau. Fellow players included Rowan, Chris (who works at the same uni as me, but we've strangely never played an RPG together until last night), Keith (who ran Cyberpunk for me last fall and in Daegu last year for Flynn) and his girlfriend Cray (who was also in the Cyberpunk game), and Alan (who I've been acquainted with through Halloween events for quite a few years, and who delivered a big box of 1/72 miniature knights and a castle to me on Saturday so we can maybe play some Chainmail at a future event). 

We all did our best to stay in character, using our funny voices. I was exhausted from the long day, and still a bit jet lagged from our recent trip to the USA, so I struggled a bit, but managed to stay awake through the whole game. Rowan was also yawning a lot at the end. But we managed to "solve" the mystery, rescue Rowan's character's friend, and only Alan's doctor went a little crazy. It was a good time, but it finished at 11pm. Long day. 

Scott and Shane had been giving out tokens all through the two days, and had prizes that could be purchased. I had one after the CoC game, and got a capsule with a bunch more tokens. That got me an RPG setting book I'll probably never use (for 5E) and a set of mini dice. 

And that's about it for the con. A successful event, and much bigger than the one Justin and I put on last fall.  

Success!

 Day 1 of the 2026 Busan Con has come to a close. I didn't have any games in the morning, because I was thinking I'd either be too tired from my trip to the USA, or I'd want to go see The Mandalorian and Grogu. Well, M&G doesn't open until next Wednesday in Korea, but I was kinda tired. So it's a good thing I didn't sign up for any morning games.  

I did show up early, and talked to some fellow gamers. After lunch, and a bit more chatting, my Missions & Mayhem game started. I had three players: Jonathan (who also goes by JB, but not the BX Blackrazor JB), McKayla, and Sterling. Sterling was playing his second ever session of an RPG, after his first during the morning session. I'd met Jonathan last fall and knew McKayla was there although I didn't get to talk to her then.  

I'd sent them five pre-gen characters to choose from, and they all had one they liked decided. We spent some time going over the basics of the game, and they had some questions (including some that suggest improvements I could make to the game). When they were ready, I gave them the premise of the scenario I'd prepared (they were all psychics trapped in a government research facility, and suddenly their power-dampening collars all switched off -- Go!). 

It played out very differently than when I ran the adventure with my regular group, which is no surprise. It's not a railroad adventure. Sterling, after it was done, even commented that it was a lot more open and less structured (narratively) than his morning game. There was investigation, there were crazy schemes, there was a bit of combat, there were attempts to manipulate, and of course plenty of use of the psychic powers. 

The players weren't really in a situation where they could use the I Know a Guy rule (although they loved the concept!), but they did use the Gamble mechanic a lot. McKayla used five out of six ability scores to gamble along the way, and Jonathan and Sterling each used three (I think). 

The psychic powers were useful, but definitely not overpowered at low level. They only had 2d4 rolls for activation, so only the lower two tiers of effect were possible without a gamble and a lucky throw...although McKayla pulled that one off. 

The combat was also fun, as they didn't only swing and do damage. They used a combination of normal attacks, subdual unarmed strikes, psychic powers, and special maneuvers during the fight. That shows me the game can be dynamic in combat, not just roll to hit, roll for damage ad nauseam.  

They did not escape from Facility 826 in the end, but the ending to the adventure they did get was satisfying (the 'bad guy' trying to recruit them into his psychic strike force), and the twist [no, not gonna tell you what it is] was a surprise but also made other things make sense to them. So that also went well. 

The feedback from the players was positive. They thought the game was simple to explain, easy to understand the mechanics - especially after they started playing, and they liked how it fit together. They also liked how the mechanics seem to fit the mood of an action flick. Before the game started, talking to some other gamers, one guy mentioned that he didn't know of many modern era RPGs that weren't supernatural or zombie themed. He thought this was a good niche to fill. 

I've got some good notes for more changes (streamlining) and I'll hopefully get those into the playtest document soon.