Why do RPGs have rules?

[pemerton]

I am not saying that none of the concepts and ideas behind "Story Now" RPGs are useless to sandbox campaigns.

It seems to me that they mostly are.

The key to the sandbox campaign, as you have articulated it, is that the GM is a neutral arbiter. The key to "story now" GMing is that the GM is not a neutral arbiter.

To relate this back to @clearstream's posts not far upthread: the GM as "neutral arbiter" is one fairly well-known technique for ensuring that "internal cause is king".

 

[pemerton]

-Burning Wheel, Gold; Page 11.

Found in the discussion of the Flow of the Game in the Hub and Wheel chapter.

In his foreword to the AD&D PHB, Gygax tells us that each player will become an accomplished thespian. Do you think that means that theatrical notions are essential to playing AD&D?

Your own play uses the notion of character. Do you think that means that sandbox play, contra your assertions, is in fact committed to explaining play using literary concepts?

The remarks you quote from BW are nothing but explanatory text of the sort that is found in forewords to many RPGs - which refer characters, events/stories, etc.

If you actually read the instructions to players and GMs in BW, you will see that they don't depend upon literary notions. They require understanding particular elements of the game, like Beliefs, Instincts, traits, Relationships etc.

Then you felt the need to reiterate Vincent Baker's view on the importance of the rules. Which leaves me wondering, "Why?" I see no contradiction in Baker and Edwards using literary terms and using rules.

Because the point of rules, in Bakers' view, is to make it unnecessary for the participants to think in literary terms and to think about collaborating on a story.

The concepts the players need, in a game like BW or AW, are various forms of what does my character want? Where this is generally understood in a rich, layered, way with a lot of reference to other, immediately salient, elements of the gameworld (eg other PCs, prominent NPCs with whom the PCs have connections, etc).

The concepts the GM needs, in a game like BW or AW, are various forms of what would fulfil this player's aspirations for their PC, and what would thwart those aspirations?

This is where the difference from sandboxing is found. It is why, in these games, internal cause is not king. It is why the notion of "neutral arbiter" is not part of the GM role in these RPGs.

I personally don't think the contrast is very complicated, and I am repeatedly puzzled by the heavy weather that gets made of it.

 

[clearstream]

The key to the sandbox campaign, as you have articulated it, is that the GM is a neutral arbiter. The key to "story now" GMing is that the GM is not a neutral arbiter.

To relate this back to @clearstream's posts not far upthread: the GM as "neutral arbiter" is one fairly well-known technique for ensuring that "internal cause is king".

My view on simulationist GM as putatively neutral arbiter is an evolving one, that I hope to give some signposts toward here. I will lay some groundwork and then suggest a conclusion. Long story short, I'll argue that simulationist GMing, done powerfully, is non-neutral.

First I want to highlight a few jobs often done by GM.

• Author: They create material in advance of and in response to play.
• Referee: I put the obligation like this: if you want to play the game as intended, then you ought to follow the rules. A referee can secure that through knowing the rules, giving thought to their interpretation, saying what obtains in case of doubts, and holding participants to follow the rules.
• Advocate: For adversaries and adversities; in cognizance of the Czege principle.

All of these jobs can be done by players. Recollecting Suits' construct that players form pre-lusory goals, adopt a lusory attitude in light of those goals, and submit to the lusory means. In what ways might GM be exceptional? There are a few permutations, already discussed in earlier posts. Under Suits' construct, these are their components

• Pre-lusory goals: GM isn't excepted from a stake in the pre-lusory goals. That is self-evident. To draw an analogy, a soccer referee does not come onto the field wielding and enforcing the rules of badminton: players and referee are all there to see played a game of soccer.
• Lusory attitude: This appears to be optional for a GM and the lines are blurred... possibly crossed and recrossed over during play. Either they agree to work within the rules, which constrain them in concrete ways, or they exempt themselves from the rules, or those rules aren't written so as to constrain them. In case of the former (constraining), the lusory attitude isn't to accept the same inefficiencies as players, but it is to accept inefficiencies.
• Lusory means: From the players' perspective, GM is normally counted among the lusory means. That's described above. GM of course, might have lusory means of their own that constrain them: moves they can make, prices they must pay.

I'm going to stick with the label GM, but what I mean by it sheds assumptions about what assignments of the above jobs and components are in play.

Stipulating that someone's job is to decide something impartially doesn't make their decision-making impartial.

I pondered this for a long while, and in the end concluded that GM is not "impartial." Drawing again on the analogy of soccer, the referee is opinionated: they aim to see soccer played, and to a noble standard (or perhaps, to a debauched standard!) This is evident on reading in full football club guidance for referees.

I don't think simulationist-GM is impartial. The group has chosen a subject, and simulationist-GM has as much desire to achieve an elevated appreciation and understanding as the players. More, possibly. I recall a Land of the Rising Sun game GM'd by an aficionado of the period. Their facilitation of play was highly intentional: to help us get ourselves into situations where truths of the subject became palpable. To the extent that rules and subject were conjoined, simulationist-GM was their advocate and obedient servant. They held strong opinions on their meaning and implementation, and had a stake in seeing them upheld.

GM as advocate of adversaries and adversities can't be impartial. Conflict is an over-burdened term, but in whatever form it takes in your play, GM can't be impartial in dishing it out. However, their dissimilar lusory-goals can (and must) be satisfied without harm to player lusory-goals, which might at times look like neutrality or impartiality.

The concepts the GM needs, in a game like BW or AW, are various forms of what would fulfil this player's aspirations for their PC, and what would thwart those aspirations?

This is where the difference from sandboxing is found. It is why, in these games, internal cause is not king. It is why the notion of "neutral arbiter" is not part of the GM role in these RPGs.

According to Tuovinen, the concepts a GM needs in a game like RuneQuest would be various forms of what would drive this player's elevated appreciation and understanding of Glorantha?

Internal cause is a central technique in simulationism, not its ends. Just as addressing an "engaging issue or problematic feature of human existence" via "player makes choices" is a central technique in narrativism. Maybe those techniques can't be done without? Whether that's right, it's not required to be neutral arbiter to apply the techniques. Working with the group, simulationist-GMing can emphasise some internal causes, cast others into doubt, develop an opinion that this is not the cause we are looking for. (After all, what are the definitive factual causes of an imagined reality? That's no more than normatively established.)

The next section I am quoting not in disagreement, but to highlight some consequences of resisting sterile-neutrality in simulationist-GMing.

* My job (as GM) is to follow their lead, bring Duskvol and the game's engine to life via the process of that lead-following meeting the deployment of my own creative capacities while relentlessly following the agenda, adhering without fail to the principles, rules, and application of (again; out-in-the-open) system.

There are process differences, but it can't be denied that bringing Duskvol and the game's engine to life are very much on the agenda for simulationist-GMing. Simulationist-GM willingly follows players' leads and deploys their own capacities. A divider might be found in player authorship, but sim-players can author (as discussed in several posts up-thread). Am I blurring boundaries? Yes: I'm philosophically skeptical about stable identities and boundaries in the domain of TTRPGs.

* I don't get to deviate from their lead and introduce whatever crap I want to (such as situation-framing that is unresponsive to players or introducing Setting or Faction Clocks that have nothing to do with play-to-date or are secret backstory that I shouldn't be employing in the first place)

Simulationist-GM don't get to introduce whatever crap they want to. They must be responsive to subject and players engagement with it.

* I don't get to have an off-week to bring sterile, conflict-neutral situation framing or boring Devil's Bargains or fictionally-feckless, mechanically-toothless consequences to their actions or to idly stand by and watch them free play affectation and performative color and goal-less wandering and setting-touring. I have to bring "lead-following antagonism"...hard...and correct...every session. Players say "punch me here please;" I punch them there. We find out how they handle the punch and what their swingback does.

I can only recoil in horror. Sterility, neutrality, goal-less wandering... if these are used to characterize simulationism (and I'm pulling them out of context to make my point, not saying this is @Manbearcat's point!) then we have a full-house of misapprehensions that arise from the struggle to put in words what made us care about simulationism in the first place. Returning to LRS, players (samurai) say they're obedient to the daimyo. Right then, let's get a visceral appreciation of that by putting it under stress.

* I don't get to deviate from the codified agenda and principles at any moment.

This represents ideal simulationist practice. (Of course the agenda and principles may differ.)

* I don't get to suspend rules, structure, or the application of system (for any purpose, especially for the purpose of some kind of story imperatives that I shouldn't have in the first place).

By my lights nar rejects story imperatives while sim can go either way. (I have some quibbles with "story imperatives" that I'll come to further on.) "GM story hour" is one approach to achieving elevated appreciation and understanding of a subject. I personally feel it doesn't take best advantage of game as game, but that doesn't stop it working for others.... and being a launchpad into other sim modes. Eero describes multiple approaches to achieving sim, he reports that in one campaign

The GM brings the story: this is the “it” for the Simulationist play agenda in this type of game. It is not a story in a dramaturgical sense, but rather a visceral emotional notion coupled to concrete horror imagery. In our first DoN scenario, that came so well together despite being improvised on the spot, the visceral emotional notion was a Psycho-like image of a ever-youthful homosexual serial killer; the concrete horror imagery was the idea of the long hair on a man, setting him firmly in the counter-culture setting and beyond the reach of the honorable society.

* I don't get to hide stuff. Its all out there.

It's moot to sim play. Let's say our subject is Cold War intelligence operations in Europe and the Middle East. If we see a way in which hiding information will let us more vigorously investigate subject, so be it. Subject isn't hidden. Contingent details might be.

If all of that sounds like your game...well, then you're running a sandbox that is very much like Blades in the Dark. If not, then whatever differences you see when contrasted with the above should hopefully be clear.

From my perspective, it's the first one... I haven't run BitD but I believe I could run a sandbox using it. As Eero says

Narrativist agendas mainly conflict with Sim because Nar is inherently about you, while Sim is inherently about it. I’d like to say that this is often a less emotionally charged conflict than others, but the truth of the matter is that some Simmy games are just more easily drifted towards Narrativism, while others are easier for Gamism

When I'm doing what subject demands - analytical or empathic: resolutely authentic - my choices are hard and accurate. My curiousity is limitless, whether in designing, prepping, playing, authoring, or responding. Players say what about this, and we really get into it. Something I'm not doing is making dramatically potent choices that create a story. (This is a quibble, but I think that although nar doesn't want to be told a story, it does demand potential to create one. I'm assuming "story imperatives" are about the former, not the latter.)

When will it conflict?

As always, discussion of a game text’s creative agenda is a discussion of the perceived utility of the text; the agenda is not in the text, strictly speaking, so much as it is in how you understand it.

Consistent with my skepticism about the stability of TTRPG identities and boundaries, different groups might be successfully eliciting different play from the same textual artifacts (published game texts). That could be down to different readings, different emphasises, unanticipated elements in their social contract.... As I've noted in earlier posts, if nar-choices often enough turn out non-disruptive, it seems hard to rule out (and on grounds of observation and experience I'd rule in) hybrid or toggled play.

Still, one can say how things normally work out. An incomplete list of the utility of good sim-texts would include supplying an abundance of subject (RuneQuest), an abundance of procedures for developing subject (Ironsworn), a thought-provoking view on subject (Far From Home), mechanics as subject (GURPS). The second to last implies that some texts overtly designed for story play could turn out to have utility for sim play (Stonetop?) Sim-participants want to get into subject far beyond what nar-participants are looking for. Instantiate it, explore it, stress it, immerse in it, understand it mechanically (something that may drive the sim predilection for bespoke mechanics, described by @Bedrockgames or @robertsconley above.)

In conclusion, my view on neutral-GM is that if it exists, it's not ideal for powerful sim. Either it's a semantic mistake (accepting a label that turns out to be inappropriate) or the sim purpose isn't being vigorously pursued. GM can't be neutral while joining the effort to elevate appreciation and understanding. In closing, this has been a long and complex train of thought. I think the sense of it is right. Errors will be interesting to understand and rethink.

 

[robertsconley]

In his foreword to the AD&D PHB, Gygax tells us that each player will become an accomplished thespian. Do you think that means that theatrical notions are essential to playing AD&D?

This is the entire quote from the AD&D 1e PHB

As a role player, you become Falstaff the fighter. You know how strong, intelligent, wise, healthy, dexterous and, relatively speaking, how commanding a personality you have. Details as to your appearance, your body proportions, and your history can be produced by you or the Dungeon Master. You act out the game as this character, staying within your “god-given abilities”, and as molded by your philosophical and moral ethics (called alignment). You interact with your fellow role players, not as Jim and Bob and Mary who work at the office together, but as Falstaff the fighter, Angore the cleric, and Filmar, the mistress of magic! The Dungeon Master will act the parts of “everyone else”, and will present to you a variety of new characters to talk with, drink with, gamble with, adventure with, and often fight with! Each of you will become an artful thespian as time goes by — and you will acquire gold, magic items, and great renown as you become Falstaff the Invincible!

This is not at all similar to what Baker talked about in the Flow of the Game section.

Your own play uses the notion of character. Do you think that means that sandbox play, contra your assertions, is in fact committed to explaining play using literary concepts?

Yes, characters are a literary concept. No type of RPG can avoid some connection to literary concepts. But which concept Sandbox Campaigns uses and how they are used is very different than what concepts are used in and how they are used in "Story Now" campaigns. Which is why they are two distinct styles for playing out a campaign.

If you actually read the instructions to players and GMs in BW, you will see that they don't depend upon literary notions. They require understanding particular elements of the game, like Beliefs, Instincts, traits, Relationships etc.

Because the point of rules, in Bakers' view, is to make it unnecessary for the participants to think in literary terms and to think about collaborating on a story.

I don't need to research and learn the intricacies of how medieval weapons work as the Harnmaster rules do a good job encapsulating how they work, their trade offs, and implemented in a way that is resolved quickly during play.

Good RPGs systems are that way because their author successfully designs mechanics that allow groups to get going with a campaign with a minimum of hassle. Thus I accept your assertion that BW doesn't require one to know about literary concepts or understand that the group is collaborating on a story. I don't need to be convinced that Baker did a good job of this in regard to literary terms and collaborative storytelling with Burning Wheel.

The remarks you quote from BW are nothing but explanatory text of the sort that is found in forewords to many RPGs - which refer characters, events/stories, etc.

I disagree. From reading the rest of Burning Wheel it is an important underlying design philosophy behind the mechanics and procedures he created for Burning Wheel.

I personally don't think the contrast is very complicated, and I am repeatedly puzzled by the heavy weather that gets made of it.

Because so far you demonstrated a lack of understanding as to what makes Sandbox Campaigns distinct compared to "Story Now" Campaigns. You don't ask questions to clarify the parts you don't understand. Instead, you focus on debating definitions and meanings.

For example, you still have not demonstrated an understanding of why I choose to use the analogy of a trip in my post. All your counterpoints so far have been incorrect and focused on the wrong elements of the analogy. Then you stopped when you shifted to debating about whether literary concepts and story collaboration are found in "Story Now" RPGs and campaigns.

The concepts the players need, in a game like BW or AW, are various forms of what does my character want? Where this is generally understood in a rich, layered, way with a lot of reference to other, immediately salient, elements of the gameworld (eg other PCs, prominent NPCs with whom the PCs have connections, etc).

I explained in my reply how this works for sandbox campaigns. It happens the group decides on a setting to play. And you would have understood this had you chosen to ask questions rather than debate over my use of the analogy of the trip.

I would not be surprised if you would consider this unmediated collaboration. But you would be incorrect as it requires the group to know how to listen and participate in small group discussions. Anybody who dealt with small group discussions on a regular basis knows that there are a variety of techniques one can use depending on the type of discussion. For sandbox campaigns only the basic skill is needed.

The concepts the GM needs, in a game like BW or AW, are various forms of what would fulfil this player's aspirations for their PC, and what would thwart those aspirations?

This is where having a correct understanding of my use of a trip analogy would help you understand the distinction between "Story Now" campaigns and Sandbox campaigns.

This is where the difference from sandboxing is found. It is why, in these games, internal cause is not king. It is why the notion of "neutral arbiter" is not part of the GM role in these RPGs.

The key to the sandbox campaign, as you have articulated it, is that the GM is a neutral arbiter. The key to "story now" GMing is that the GM is not a neutral arbiter.

To relate this back to @clearstream's posts not far upthread: the GM as "neutral arbiter" is one fairly well-known technique for ensuring that "internal cause is king".

Due to the way you used this in two separate replies, I assume that your use of Edwards' concept of "internal cause is king" is a criticism of the Sandbox Campaign's neutral arbiter. If this is so, then your criticism wasn't completed. You need to explain how the difference matters. The consequences of the Sandbox referee being a natural arbiter versus the consequences of a "Story Now" referee not being a neutral referee.

The key to the sandbox campaign, as you have articulated it, is that the GM is a neutral arbiter.

That is incorrect, the referee as a neutral arbiter is only one of the keys. The others I outlined in my reply.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Still, one can say how things normally work out. An incomplete list of the utility of good sim-texts would include supplying an abundance of subject (RuneQuest), an abundance of procedures for developing subject (Ironsworn), a thought-provoking view on subject (Far From Home), mechanics as subject (GURPS). The second to last implies that some texts overtly designed for story play could turn out to have utility for sim play (Stonetop?) Sim-participants want to get into subject far beyond what nar-participants are looking for. Instantiate it, explore it, stress it, immerse in it, understand it mechanically (something that may drive the sim predilection for bespoke mechanics, described by @Bedrockgames or @robertsconley above.)

Sometimes our opinions and tastes get reduced to this category or this side of the discussion or that side. I can't speak for Rob but I think what I am about to say probably is something that will at least touch on some of his thoughts. For me it isn't so much about all the other stuff we layer onto the experience (the instantiation, exploration, immersion, mechanical understanding you point to) but doing the thing that first made RPG so wonderful for us. Not everyone is going to have had this be their foundational RPG experience, but for me it really does boil down to the fact that suddenly I was playing in a medium where I could really feel like I was there, the world faded away, and I could try to do anything. Up to that point, the closes I had experienced to that was video games, and there even games like Kings Quest fell far short of this. This was I could try anything and the GM had to respond. It was like a game with no limits and that is what I loved. I think both Rob and I have come to the conclusion that what made this work was the human referee adjudicating what you are trying to do through rulings (yes you can have a well made, even comprehensive system, but to truly be limitless you have to have rulings and the GM needs to be able to go beyond the rules when possible). What I say here really doesn't have much, in my opinion, to do with concerns about what you are simulating or emulating. It just has to do with the experience of the player (and that experience can exist in a range of approaches and styles, sandbox is just one that I find happens to fit it well).

From my very first session this was my experience and it is the thing that keeps me coming back to the table. It is also why I like a game like Hillfolk even though that is far from the kind of sandbox simulation style game Rob and I have been trying to shed light on here. That is a game much more interested in drama, but it still has that basic element of feeling like I am there and able to try anything I want (there is a sense of limitlessness to it).

 

[clearstream]

Sometimes our opinions and tastes get reduced to this category or this side of the discussion or that side. I can't speak for Rob but I think what I am about to say probably is something that will at least touch on some of his thoughts. For me it isn't so much about all the other stuff we layer onto the experience (the instantiation, exploration, immersion, mechanical understanding you point to) but doing the thing that first made RPG so wonderful for us. Not everyone is going to have had this be their foundational RPG experience, but for me it really does boil down to the fact that suddenly I was playing in a medium where I could really feel like I was there, the world faded away, and I could try to do anything. Up to that point, the closes I had experienced to that was video games, and there even games like Kings Quest fell far short of this. This was I could try anything and the GM had to respond. It was like a game with no limits and that is what I loved. I think both Rob and I have come to the conclusion that what made this work was the human referee adjudicating what you are trying to do through rulings (yes you can have a well made, even comprehensive system, but to truly be limitless you have to have rulings and the GM needs to be able to go beyond the rules when possible). What I say here really doesn't have much, in my opinion, to do with concerns about what you are simulating or emulating. It just has to do with the experience of the player (and that experience can exist in a range of approaches and styles, sandbox is just one that I find happens to fit it well).

From my very first session this was my experience and it is the thing that keeps me coming back to the table. It is also why I like a game like Hillfolk even though that is far from the kind of sandbox simulation style game Rob and I have been trying to shed light on here. That is a game much more interested in drama, but it still has that basic element of feeling like I am there and able to try anything I want (there is a sense of limitlessness to it).

A few posts up-thread (perhaps where I first referenced Tuovinen) I stressed that to me there's at least as much weight on appreciating... maybe more.

When I read your words I'm unsure what is missing from exploration and immersion? I think they cover what you're getting at. And aren't rulings an expression of mechanical understanding (a desire to articulate in mechanics any aspect of subject, not just those with rules preloaded.)

 

[Bedrockgames]

A few posts up-thread (perhaps where I first referenced Tuovinen) I stressed that to me there's at least as much weight on appreciating... maybe more.

When I read your words I'm unsure what is missing from exploration and immersion? I think they cover what you're getting at. And aren't rulings an expression of mechanical understanding (a desire to articulate in mechanics any aspect of subject, not just those with rules preloaded.)

It isn't that those don't apply. It is more like Occam's Razor for me now. For me what matters is that initial experience I am referring to. Anything else is an attempt to explain it, and I think might be on to something but also usually leads me to troubled roads as a GM and player. My aim is to steer away from any kind of gaming ideology and really just stick with the direct experience of it and table play. I think when I get hung up on concepts like immersion, it naturally tends to lead to lists of things that can violate immersion or enhance them, and you start being guided more by that list than by your direct experience (I think you can even teach yourself to have your immersion disrupted by things that wouldn't otherwise disrupt it). At least for me, sticking as closely to ideas like this and to very broad concepts like having a living world, is what helps guide my GMing more than focusing on a list of set things

 

[clearstream]

It isn't that those don't apply. It is more like Occam's Razor for me now. For me what matters is that initial experience I am referring to. Anything else is an attempt to explain it, and I think might be on to something but also usually leads me to troubled roads as a GM and player. My aim is to steer away from any kind of gaming ideology and really just stick with the direct experience of it and table play. I think when I get hung up on concepts like immersion, it naturally tends to lead to lists of things that can violate immersion or enhance them, and you start being guided more by that list than by your direct experience (I think you can even teach yourself to have your immersion disrupted by things that wouldn't otherwise disrupt it). At least for me, sticking as closely to ideas like this and to very broad concepts like having a living world, is what helps guide my GMing more than focusing on a list of set things

That makes a lot of sense. The direct experience of a living world rings like a bell.

 

[robertsconley]

It isn't that those don't apply. It is more like Occam's Razor for me now. For me what matters is that initial experience I am referring to. Anything else is an attempt to explain it, and I think might be on to something but also usually leads me to troubled roads as a GM and player.

In the long run, I think it is going to take either transcripts or well-edited videos with commentary to help reinforce the points we make. From working on the youtube video of our session it is proving to be a lot more work than I thought to distill it. Even when I just limit myself to the first half-hour to the point where you and Adam met up with the kids on the road to the monastery.

 

[pemerton]

According to Tuovinen, the concepts a GM needs in a game like RuneQuest would be various forms of what would drive this player's elevated appreciation and understanding of Glorantha?

I don't recall him saying that in the essay. Do you have a passage in mind?

If you are assuming that A can't achieve goal X without having a concept of what it would be to achieve goal X, then I disagree. To go back to the OP, and also to point to more general work on the function of rules (in particular Rawls, "Two Concepts of Rules): one function of well-designed rules can be to ensure that those who follow them achieve a given goal or purpose, although none of those who are doing the following are required to have regard to that goal or purpose.

To give a simple example: if the traffic engineers have done a good job, then if everyone follows the instructions that are posted on the road (eg keeps to their correct lane, turns only when the lane markings and traffic lights permit it, etc) the flow of traffic will be optimised (at least within some practical limits of what is possible) even though the individual drivers, in making their own decisions, are not having any regard to the problem of optimising traffic flow (and may not even have a concept of such a thing).

The best-known "story now" RPGs work on a similar principle: the designer of the RPG needs to understand how it is that the operationalisation of the various rules will produce the desired outcome, and thus needs to have some concept of the desired outcome. But the game participants do not need to share this designer's overview and understanding in order to get the intended experience: they just need to to their bits in accordance with the rules. Eero Tuovinen made exactly this point in an earlier essay: having explained the "standard narrativistic model" (which encompasses well known "story now" games), he goes on to say that

The fun in these games from the player’s viewpoint comes from the fact that he can create an amazing story with nothing but choices made in playing his character; this is the holy grail of rpg design, this is exactly the thing that was promised to me in 1992 in the MERP rulebook. And it works . . .​

Likewise, all the GM has to do in these games is

reference the backstory, determine complications to introduce into the game, and figure out consequences. Much of the rules systems in these games address these challenges, and in addition the GM might have methodical tools outside the rules . . .​

I would expect that Tuovinen thinks that the same contrast between designer's role and participants role(s) obtains in the context of simulationist RPGing too.

Internal cause is a central technique in simulationism, not its ends. Just as addressing an "engaging issue or problematic feature of human existence" via "player makes choices" is a central technique in narrativism.

The second sentence here is not correct: you are not describing a narrativist technique. You are describing the goal of narrativist play.

In his "story now" essay, under the heading "Fundamental Techniques", Edwards discusses the roles of the participants in "story now" RPGing. He makes reference to Sorcerer, Maelstrom Storytelling and the Interactive Toolkit. And here are the opening and closing remarks of that section:

Narrativist play makes special use of the general role-playing principle that the participants are simultaneously authors and audience. The common metaphor of improvisational jazz applies quite well, better than any other medium-comparison. "Entertainment," in role-playing in general and in Narrativist play especially, does not flow from playwright to script to production team to audience. Instead, the shared-imagining act = the shared-performance act = the entertainment = the audience feedback. . . .

It all comes down to this: a "player" in a Narrativist role-playing context necessarily makes the thematic choices for a given player-character. Even if this role switches around from person to person (as in Universalis), it's always sacrosanct in the moment of decision. "GMing," then, for this sort of play, is all about facilitating another person's ability to do this.​

Not too long ago I made a post about some more concrete techniques and approaches that can help achieve such facilitation. Those, as well as more particular techniques associated with particular RPGs (eg "say 'yes' or roll the dice" as a technique for scene-based, intent-and-task, play), are the techniques of narrativism. By using them properly (ie in accordance with good design), then it will be the case that player choices will address premises and generate theme.

Similarly, "internal cause is king" is not a simulationist technique. It's a goal of simulationist play, and hence a constraint on simulationist design.