You want the world to function like a real place, with rules that tell you how it operates. You track ammo and plan around an injury that won't heal by morning. Working through procedure is how you get into character. A reckless move should cost you, and you'd hate it if there were no consequence.
Your GM match: The Systemic Architect. Both want a world where the rules apply, so skill and planning are important and consequences last.
World simulation wants the setting to mimic a real place, with the rules as its physical laws. Good players develop plans from those rules and live with the consequences they produce.
What you bring
- Since you know the rules, your strategy holds up when the dice come out.
- You keep track of the injuries and travel days that everyone else tends to overlook.
- You raise rules points as questions, then abide by the GM's call, whatever it is.
Where your style trips
The stickler. You stop play over a rules difference that makes no difference, and the scene loses all momentum while everyone flips pages.
The fix: Never correct something before asking if it affects the outcome. If it doesn't, take note of it and raise the issue after the session.
Things to try
- Offer to be the table's rules reference, so your GM can run scenes without worrying about rules.
- Take one night to play a rules-light game and see which of your instincts still work.
- Give your character one goal beyond surviving, and write it down on their sheet.
Player types you lean toward
You'll probably recognize yourself in Tactician, Specialist, from Robin D. Laws's player types. Most players fall into more than one category.
GMs who'll suit you
- Best match
- The Systemic Architect
- Also works
- The Tactical Arbiter
- Talk it through first
- The Ultralight World-Simulant. Decide how much gets written down: the player wants written rules, while the referee prefers to rule on the spot.
Bring this to session one
Keep notes organized by category, beginning with an NPC page: name, where you met, what they were looking for.
Point your table at these
- On screen
- Interstellar, Gravity, The Revenant, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Chernobyl
- Actual play
- Long campaigns within heavily documented settings, played strictly by the rules as written, where players maintain the lore wiki and the travel log.
- Games
- Traveller, GURPS, RuneQuest, Rolemaster, Twilight: 2000, HackMaster
A culture of play describes a group sitting around a table playing together, so one 5th edition group could find itself in two separate cultures on two different Tuesdays. The idea comes from John Bell's "Six Cultures of Play". FKR and world simulation are both missing from Bell's list, and sit here alongside it.