For those who do not know, GNS Theory (and the Big Model) is a treatise on gaming written by Ron Edwards, and has had a deeply influential effect on the gaming community. It's also a morass of useless static whose only saving grace is that it got people to be willing to talking about gaming, and the community seems to have persevered from a deeply regressive mode of thought to actually succeed.
It's an idea that game theory can be used to categorize all games into three parts, and the quality of a game depends on how much it cleaves toward a particular category, while also positing that different people approach those categories differently and therefore different games have different (and subjective) quality levels to different people. All told, it solves nothing and describes nothing. It makes no predictions and gives no advice when designing or even playing a game, therefore failing as a theory.
For as verbose as Ron is, he says a lot of nothing. Nobody knows what Simulationism even means. He's so incapable of succinctness, that
his
definition of that one word is over 14,000 words long. I've seen dozens of people 'tell' me what Narrativism is, and nearly every single person gives an appreciably different one; and NONE of them actually account or justify the actual writings of Edwards on the subject...
* In Narrativism, by contrast, the major source of themes are the ones that are brought to the table by the players/GM (if there is one) regardless of the genre or setting used.
* theme: a judgmental point, perceivable as a certain charge they generate for the listener or reader
*"literary merit" of a theme is irrelevant.
If you introduce a cowboy riding a dinosaur into your game, and the response is "Holy crap, that's awesome!!", then you have a theme. That then makes it desirable to introduce into any Narrativist game, regardless of genre. Rambo going on a rampage in the forests of Middle-Earth, occasionally dueling an army of orcs with lightsabers, is more Narrativist (and more desirable) than a Eunuch Sorcerer plotting the distribution of poison into a noble's food in the Imperial Court.
The design goals of the Big Model (GNS included) are not defined with any consistency or even understanding by the most ardent of followers. It tells us nothing about what will succeed or fail except for the goal of having a game be ALL Gamist (or all N, or all S), and should not even attempt to cater to the other two without failing utterly; which is a demonstrably false statement, even outside the fact the models can't even reliably tell you what Gamist means.
In the end, GNS only really seems to serve the purpose of providing an esoteric way to insult gamers who don't play the way they do; calling them munchkins without getting their face punched in, as it were. It's to the point that I feel dirty using terms like "simulationist" with their actual, dictionary, meaning because of the association other gamers will have with GNS and thus bring that mode of thought back into the fold.
Onto something productive...
My Little Premise
Say you want to make a game. You're going to want to have a goal. Broadly speaking, there are three main categories for RPGs in the market:
Story Games - Ultimately every game is a story-telling game. But in a lot of ways, these are more direct about that purpose. They are frequently (but not truly required) rules-light, but those rules serve predominantly to create narrative structure for cooperative story-telling to take place. These are more the forte of the creative and social types, as they require more trust in your fellow player to have a good time than other systems.
Examples - Munchausen, Fiasco!, most LARPs
War Games - There's a veneer of story, to provide context, but very often the game is more about plopping down and following the structured rules and making choices off a precise list. The medium/presentation is important, as Arkham Horror wouldn't have been as popular if there wasn't such a good production value of the game itself. These are essentially more involved board games, but video games technically fall in this category as well.
Examples - Battletech, Arkham Horror
D&D Clones - The archetype of D&D colours the public view of RPGs, and nearly every system is judged in comparison to D&D. People play a single character, very commonly with a DM controlling the rest, built with a set of numbers according to rules to better structure who they are and what they are capable of, and dice are rolled to determine success. This is largely a mix between Story and War games, with some systems cleaving closer to one via rules (Spirit of the Century & Mouse Guard have elements of a Story Game) or by cultural response (Vampire players frequently ignore the rules to be more like a Story Game).
Examples - D&D, Rifts, Vampire, most systems in the market
There are mixes, obviously, and mainly serve to illustrate public perception w/broad strokes. Not every Story Game has the player fill a specific role and get into character, and has a level of player-game separation on par with that found in most War Games. Some War Games will immerse you into the role and the setting, such as a horror video game.
There's also another category that's usually independent of the three types:
Rules Heavy - Explicit choices, outcomes, and restrictions.
Examples - Vast majority of War Games
Rules Light - Guidelines, vague rules to be interpreted.
Examples - Vast majority of Story Games
Please note that number of rules and complexity is independent of the Heavy/Light category. The Dresden Files RPG is a rules light game, but it has 500 pages of rules! Amber is nominally a Story Game (diceless, even), but there are also explicit restrictions and robust set of rules. Checkers is Rules Heavy, but I knew how to play in the 1st grade when it was introduced to me. What it essentially means is that Heavy games generally have more predictable outputs and won't vary as much between groups, while the Light games can have wildly different experiences between groups based on the interpretation of an open-ended rule. The advantages and disadvantages with this should be self-evident.
It's for this reason that games like Vampire, nominally Rules Heavy, frequently acts as a Rules Light game. Many groups will flat-out ignore rules and instead follow an interpretation that creates a different and preferred outcome; even if that outcome is "not having to read the rules."
