Simulation vs Narrative

This is something that's been on my mind for a while.

The traditional spirit of wargames was simulation- how would you command Napoleon's forces, etc? It was a scenario, a simulation. You could go back to the same battle and do it over and over again. It would never get boring because your (hopefully) human opponent would also be adapting.

The spirit of Tabletop RPGs, however, was narrative. It's bad taste to do the same dungeon more than once, maybe twice. Because then everyone knows the play of it- it's hardly unexplored territory with unexpected surprises.

So, unlike a wargame, an RPG has basically no replay value. One and done. The GM, and the players, get one chance to go through a mission which may have taken days (or months, in Sunburn's case) to make.

Things get even more complicated with multiple options inside the constructed scenario. Let's say there's only one choice players can make at any time- fight, flight, or socialize.

Highlighting all of the choices let the players tailor it to their needs. This group is good at talking, so they will socialize their way through the problem. That group can kill hundreds and hundreds of enemies- their option of choice is "fight."

Each option has a certain amount of gameplay. Enemy maps for the fight option, terrain challenges for the flight option, and new characters to interact with for the "socialize" option. No matter which choice the PCs take, they miss a certain amount of gameplay. But they have choice.

If I leave it to the players to pick their own course of action, the same thing happens. Either they "find" one of my pre-made options, or they make their own, and it's up to me to improvise. Still a loss of gameplay, even if they don't know about it.

So, a truly "completionist" story has only one option- no missed gameplay. There is one option. You must complete it this way, in a fine tradition of stoicism.

On the flipside, a simulation has no missed gameplay, because it gets replayed up to an infinite amount of times.

But, in order to achieve that, I need to be able to constantly adapt to any player's tactic. That sounds really tedious, after the third time or so. So, for the time being, I'm fine on the narrative side of the fence.

Sunburn's coming, I promise- I just need to make sure it doesn't explode.