Defining “Player Solipsism”

27 May 2026

My friend Inumo reached out last week about a topic we had discussed a number of times before, that I haven't really seen discussed in broader roleplaying game discussion. A while ago I coined the term "player solipsism" to refer to a school of RPG design that is based around a fundamentally different set of principles from simulationism. A while ago Inumo wrote a sketch getting into these ideas, but since my thoughts on the matter have crystallized more, and Inumo desired a stronger foundation to write further on the material, I opted to write my thoughts out fully. So, here we are: allow me to define "Player Solipsism" strongly.

Player Solipsism vs. Simulationism

For the purposes of this discussion, it's also important we briefly define what I mean by "simulationist", since we will be contrasting the two multiple times. So here we have a foundational definition of both. You can easily debate my definition of Simulationist here, and I will welcome it! You can send me an email at the bottom of the article.

The Rules of Solipsism

In solipsistic games the only real thing are the players. Their characters are the only thing that have concrete reality, and only as long as they are playing. The world does not exist beyond reflecting the actions the players take through their characters. By "real" we use Descartes's definition, that reality only exists in processing from an intelligent mind.

Players engage in a storytelling game where the rules of play govern who has control of the narrative at any one time. If a player wants their character to do something, they must roll to see if they have control over the storytelling. But they are not rolling in regards to elements of their character in the universe- they are rolling in regards to the reflections under their observation and imagination.

In a solipsistic game, narrative always follows narrative, and action exists strictly for the purpose of negotiating who has control over the narrative. If a character action would allow a player to take control of the narrative, a check is performed to see if the player gains control. When people remark on Powered By The Apocalypse being narrative-first, this is what they mean.

Example: Powered by the Apocalypse

We can see this most succinctly in Powered By The Apocalypse. In Powered By The Apocalypse, you "perform moves" which are things like "Act Under Fire". When a player Acts Under Fire, they may be gunning for a specific outcome, but that outcome isn't defined in any world-relative way. The roll they make determines whether they get control over the narrative instead of the game master. If their roll fails, the game master imposes limitations on their desired narrative. Importantly, in this action the character is not "acting under fire" - if we were inside their perspective, they would say they are doing something mechanically. Leaping between buildings, dodging arrows, etc. But they would not call it "acting under fire", because that is a phrase used to describe a narrative direction, not an agentic decision.

Contrast with Simulationism

This contrasts with simulationist games, in which players take actions through their characters, like puppets. A puppet need not be complex, but is still directly controlled. Functionally much of the outcomes can look and feel the same, but the rules that govern the system are fundamentally different. When they dodge arrows like in the above situation, they must roll "Dodge" or "Dexterity" or some similar device, and the outcome determines, flatly, whether the character in the game world did or did not succeed at dodging those arrows. The narrative control is not relinquished unless the Game Master wishes it.

I've played many Dungeons and Dragons games where the Game Master allows a player to briefly control the narrative after succeeding a check, but it's important to emphasize that there is nothing in the rules which states this is what happens. It's often a good, and fun, idea! It involves the players more actively in the storytelling in a way that is very fun. But it is not an outcome governed by the rules of the game - the game has not handed narrative to the player, the Dungeon Master did.

A Digression on Size

I often hear people describe simulationist games as sprawling, or huge. I believe this comes from people falsely taking Dungeons and Dragons as a neutral middle-ground, devoid of ideology, and deciding anything crunchier than that is "simulationist." Instead I would like to emphasize that there are several very minimalist simulationist games that I heartily enjoy, that are actually much lighter to run than even Powered By the Apocalypse!

If you want to try something simulationist which is quite tiny, I recommend both Troika! and Risus. Both use very small scales of numbers and narrow selections of abstracted and character-specific skills to provide fast environments for fun storytelling. The former is very Terry-Pratchett-on-psychedelics and the latter is very stickman-webcomic.

Mixing Oil and Water

I think in many ways simulationism and solipsism are incompatible, but that doesn't mean a single role-playing game can't contain elements from both design schools. I think it does mean that often fundamental choices about a game are governed by one school of thought. You can't really say the story is entirely dictated by narrative control, but then limit that by simulated aspects of the characters. If you do, then you have made narrative control secondary to the simulation - in other words, you have made it simulationist. However, there are some roleplaying games which operate modally, with some parts clearly simulationist, and others solipsistic. I haven't personally played it, but my friend Foxglove tells me that Lancer operates like so: Downtime is narrative, but once everyone gets in the cockpit of their mech it's a simulationist wargame. I think that's fascinating, and a great way to emphasize how conflicting design schools can actually be used with intention to lend specific feelings of weight to different parts of a grander storytelling experience!

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