Rollenspielgedankenexperiment

When describing his theory of gravity, Einstein considered the thought experiment of a man inside an elevator. If the elevator is falling freely, the man seems to be weightless and his pocket change floats beside him. The man can't tell if his elevator is floating in outer space or falling down a shaft on Earth. Similarly, if he feels the sensation of gravity, he can't tell if the elevator is sitting on the Earth's surface, or if the elevator is in outer space being pushed with constant acceleration.

Let's apply this to tabletop RPGs!

A party loot a dungeon, stealing the priceless Termite Sceptre. The miners' guild had hired them to retrieve the sceptre, but the greedy party keep it for themselves and run away. The GM announces that the senior quartermaster of the guild is the sister of a renowned tracker, and now that tracker is in pursuit of the party.

Like the man in the elevator, the players can't see the origin of the forces applied to them. Behind the GM screen, there may be reams of paper, elaborate biographies and interconnected family trees. The tracker may have been an already prepared character, ready to drop into the campaign at this perfect moment, or the GM may have improvised them on the spot.

Also like the man in the elevator, the players may be hard at work trying to determine which case applies to them. And they have more information to work with than Einstein's unfortunate captive.

1. They can just ask. It would simplify physics greatly if we could just shout questions about fundamental forces into the cosmos and get a response back. For ttrpgs, the players can (and often do) ask "Did you just make that up?"
2. They can look for patterns. If every time they break an agreement, they are immediately told about a renowned tracker, fearsome bounty hunter, or relentless constable hot on their trail, they could reasonably conclude that this is just a habit that the GM has.
3. They can question the consistency. It's reasonable to think that a carefully planned setting, with clockwork components, will operate logically. A world driven by improv may be more likely to have loose ends, twists, or reversals of fortune that beggar belief.

When we talk about low prep, I think we often have the goal of creating something that feels indistinguishable from high prep. To continue the analogy, we want to put the players in an elevator in outer space, apply a gentle acceleration from a cobbled-together engine, and make them think that outside their opaque box there is a whole world working its gravity on them. This may sound deceptive, as though I'm suggesting that the GM tricks the players. But I think there's another layer to this, where the analogy gets more complicated.

There's a really fun experience that sometimes comes with running a game, where the session ends and the players are thinking "That was cool - I wonder did the GM plan that, or was it improvised?" and the GM is thinking "Wow, that was cool. How did that happen?"

I think that the players' elevator, sitting on a world built by an exhaustively prepared GM, or being pushed through space by an engine built by a seat-of-the-pants GM, is enclosed inside another bigger elevator. One big enough to hold the GM and their world or their engine. And that outer elevator is experiencing forces too. What's causing those forces? Is it an intricate game system tuned precisely to tilt the balance at particular moments? Is it hundreds of pages of lore that implant their subtle tones in the reader? Is it pages and pages of random tables covering every conceivable situation? Is it something from another game, half-remembered at just the right moment? Is it the group just getting in sync with each other? Is it an appointment in 15 minutes, and something big better happen to end this session?

I've read and listened to commentary from people who've been playing RPGs far longer than I have. From time to time there will be a note of "I've seen it all before." This dungeon has X, this system has Y, these players have the wild idea to play a party made up entirely of Z - and this very experienced player has a story from 35 years ago where that exact situation already happened. And it was fun. But they don't feel the need to do it again. The more time you spend inside the elevator, the more you feel like you know exactly what's happening outside of it, and what's about to happen next.

I don't think my conclusion is "Don't try to understand your fun, because maybe it will not be fun anymore." One of the reasons ttrpgs are special is that they have generative elements. There is something in every game, at every table, that is generating something new and unexpected. It can happen that, after awhile, whatever is being generated no longer seems new and unexpected. Then it may be time for a shift. But there are so many shifts possible - the combination of the game system, setting, players, play environment are extremely complex and it's hard to see and know how all of those parts will interact. It is hard to play without being inside some kind of moving box, wondering who or what is pushing you around. And if you eventually understand how that box works, you can swap it for another.