Saurondor, if you want me to consider your position, go ahead and tell me what it is. That would be super refreshing compared to your continuous bizarre misunderstandings of everything I say.
Ok. Well you're talking about the hard encoded rules in a game (written rules) and how these lead to the resolution of things. In your words from the opening post:
So there are rules for how to determine the winner of a fight, how magic works, what various monsters can do, and etc.
You also mention "narrative rules" or in your words "narrative principles", and I used the word rules previously because you refer to their "encoding":
I do not tend to like games where narrative principles are too heavily encoded in the rules of the game.
Regarding these principles you mention:
I don't want to know for a fact that the main characters are not actually in danger because they are narratively protected by the rules of the game. I don't want a final outcome that is never in doubt. I don't want to be railroaded along some predetermined plot trajectory. I don't want the villain to always escape because that is how it works in the source material.
So far we're in agreement and I follow you that far. Now the other side is my point of view which is quite different and that doesn't mean I misunderstand you. I'm saying I view things differently.
You have two set of rules as far as I understand: simulationist which concern themselves with the resolution of things and narrative ones which can be encoded into the game an in a way "protect the storyline" from the former rules (simulation). They can "protect the storyline" by narratively protecting the main characters, guarantee a certain outcome or railroading the story, among other methods.
You also draw a line between narrative and simulationist in that simulationist is "written down" as rules and that which resolves something in the game while at the same time not acting as a narrative principle is for you "authored". Said authored content can act as one of the narrative mechanisms to protect the protagonist and story.
So far so good. I understand you and I see your point. Yes I can resolve the outcome of a gunshot through rules of simulation, or I can author it and dictate the outcome. Outcome which can be interpreted as part of a narrative principle to protect the character, story or plot. I understand you and agree with you so far within the context of this point of view.
Now comes my point of view which is quite different and the cause of your belief that I don't understand you.
I see things from the point of view of outcomes and not processes leading to the outcome. Narrative principles, simulationist, authoring, etc., they're all the same thing, means to move the story forward. What I'm concerned about is if that outcome was within the ballpark of the expected, was it challenging enough to be interesting and easy enough to be attainable without being too easy to be boring. Did it get resolved fast enough to be engaging, was it detailed enough to please the players involved? I'm not stupid and I'm quite clear on the differences of simulation and authoring as you portray it, or the usage of narrative principles. I just don't care, because after taking a closer look at them I've found many to be similar to others.
Simulationist rules can be used as narrative principles. Can I narratively protect the protagonists with simulationist rules? Sure I can, just saturate the roll so it's not possible to fail. Can I guarantee an outcome? Yes, see previous point about saturating the roll. Can I railroad an adventure in spite of using mostly simulationist rules? Sure, I believe many of us have seen it happen.
Can I author a combat scene without rules of simulation, dice and all that which we are used to? Yes. Can I do it without narrative protection? Sure I can, it's hard, but possible. Can I resolve the scene with rules of simulation and still introduce narrative protection? Yes, just work the dice mechanics to one's favor. Just take a moment to reconsider all the conversations about dice curves and the focus on "words" over "numbers" over clear cut probabilities over uncertain outcomes. For example, I strongly believe that Lunamancer champions the d20 and d100 and flat probability distributions because they are easy to understand and easy to arrive at a "number" on which a decision is made. I take X percent, add Y, subtract Z and arrive at P. Based on the value of P I can then decide to take the action or not. If as I player I only have "good" or "excellent" and some required outcome of 5 or better or 10 which is quite harder, so 0 is trivial, 4 is achievable, 8 is hard and 10 is near impossible, but I don't have an associate 80%, 40%, 20%, etc. it gets hard to "easily decide". What I see here are players applying "narrative principles" under the guise of "simulationist concerns or principles".
If you take a step back and get an eagle's view of the situation it seems quite the same. Both simulationist players and narrative players start at point A in the story. Narrative players apply rules and things get all goofy, but through narrative principles they get to alter the story and arrive at B. Simulationist players understand the mechanics and work the system to get the results that lead directly to B. Arriving at B was never in question, one did the correction after the fact and one prior to the fact.
This is the reason I always keep going back to the black box analogy. Can you tell the difference between one and the other if you can't see into the black box and observer what is taking place? I'm not saying that they're the same. If I get my electricity from a nuclear power plant, a coal power plant, solar cells or a gas operated generator at home I really can't tell the difference if they're all 120V 60Hz. It powers my laptop just as well. Each means of generating power pollutes differently, has different risks, etc., they're clearly not the same, but the outcome is.
When you begin to look at it that way you'll see that narrative and simulationist terms are just constructs to group "similar mechanisms", but none is exempt from the vices of the other and separating them into two terms can inhibit your game from enjoying the virtues of the other. Namely I can author something "as if simulated" and could very well be considered a simulation (although you would not agree with this position). This has been mentioned over and over again, I can simulate things without a mechanical, math and die based procedure and still call it a simulation. The issue here is that I can slip in narrative principles to "protect the protagonist" and such a task would be easier than using a clear cut and written out rule set, but as I've mentioned I can also work the rule set to "infuse" it with narrative protection.
If you go back to my posts you'll see a focus on things such as:
Mechanics that hide the percentages and odds from the players. Why do players need to know the exact odds of something happening?
Die rolls with a broad range of outcomes instead of the binary ones of success/failure. This gives the GM a broader "narrative range" when narrating outcomes.
Die rolls with really unexpected outcomes. There's more than one critical outcome.
Higher lethality in the game. Getting hit kills you quickly.
More to combat than just hitting. Getting hit is actually rare. What about the tension and drama of combat without all that damage being delivered?
If combat isn't the easy way out of a conflict then other "narrative" elements take the stage.
Focus on high speed resolution of steps. The perception of reality is better than thorough reality if it's fast paced enough. The high resolution video at low frame rate vs low resolution at high frame rate.
Focus on the information that really matters. Take a look at the MTTD graphs, representing combat as a single roll and looking at the real value of initiative.
I'm less concerned about these terms simulationist and narrative and how they tend to divide games and more about the underlying events taking place. What can be done to improve this and create a more fluid and a the same time richer experience for the player.
As a closing comment I'll let you ponder on the following. In many games, many combat centered games, combat is the narrative principle. It is highly "simulated" in the sense that there are rules for all sorts of things during combat and clearly fall into your "non authored department", but in many cases the outcome is ensured, there's even the term "balance" being thrown in. Encounters are "balanced", there's a rating system for the adventure, the hit points and recovery rates are set in a way that guarantees player success. They're systems that don't use Fate points or beanies or other classic "narrative principles", but in truth they manifest all that which you associate narrative principles to: secure story protagonist, final outcome was never in doubt, aside from small story deviations the encounters are pretty well known and the boss will be the boss and the boss will be defeated. Even random encounters which at first may seem random are in truth quite predictable because they're rolled off a known table, a table probably set for the character's level. A gold dragon could come up, but that's from the Lvl10+ table and "totally unfair now" and players will whine because they can't kill it, and will also complain because actually roleplaying the encounter is uncertain (the GM has to author it) and that can get their characters into a big mess unlike combat which is clear cut and understandable with d20s and damage rolls.