Where does the work go when we simplify?

A rule disappears.

Has the game become simpler?

Not necessarily.

The work it performed may have moved to the GM, player improvisation, group negotiation, preparation, memory, or implicit genre knowledge.

So the question is less:

“How many rules did we remove?”

than:

When something becomes easier here, who or what is now doing the work?

This question produced a first map of burden distribution.

It also returns in Situation and the blank page, where a very short procedure such as “improvise what happens” can hide a major demand, and in Regard, where part of the complexity is moved toward judgments of relevance.

I do not assume all burden should disappear.

Some complications are useful. Some make possible an experience that otherwise would not be.

The question mainly serves to make visible what simplification moves elsewhere.