TauNoyen

Matrix Game Simulation

life in 2100.webp

 

Matrix games are a form of  structured argument and a great way to explore future scenarios and ideas. One player (representing a country, faction, agency, personality etc) says what they are going to do, supported by a number of arguments as to why it will be successful. Other players (representing other factions etc) can offer up arguments as to why the action won’t succeed - or how they might support it to make it happen. Then through some form of adjudication (e.g. umpire or expert opinion, dice roll +DMs, collaborative likelihood estimation etc) you decide whether the actions succeeds, the game “state” updates, and the game moves on to the next player.

My Matrix Game Simulation (MGS) system lets you run a matrix game where the bot plays all of the roles - both umpire and all the players. Its not using any sophisticated segmentation of knowledge, just a quick and dirty way to use a matrix game to explore a topic. As mentioned in the posts below this lets you use MGS to help develop a matrix game to be played with humans, or to explore many more variations of a scenario than would be possible with humans, or to play a game to completion with an hour of having an idea, or to just build your own matrix game authoring and playing skills and understanding. (They are also a great way to learn how not to write heavily biased scenarios!)

Here are my original Substack posts on the topic:

And here is a YouTube video of the presentation and demo I did of the system to the Virtual Conference of Wargamers in 2025, and a preprint of my Nugget article on MGS.

I am now making the ChatGPT CustomGPT I created for MGS available for public use. You can find it at: https://chatgpt.com/g/g-3RKiRqavx-matrix-game-simulation.

Note that you will need a paid ChatGPT account in order to upload your own scenario, but you can chat to scenario conversations that others have created with a free account - such as my 2025 Greenland game demo at VCOW or my 2026 Greenland playthrough.

(For a slightly different take on AI and Matrix Games, here's my AI playing an AGI in a human matrix game, where only the AGI player is an AI).

Setting Up The System

To set up a game do the following:

  • Write your scenario. This should be about 3-4 pages and saved as a PDF. Here is an example from my 2025 Greenland game. Good headings are:
    • Background - what's happened before the scenario starts, and what contextual information might be useful. Note that ChatGPT seems pretty hit and mess about how well it understands maps, so if you do include a map it might also be worth including a text description of how the different countries/areas relate geographically - particularly shared borders etc.
    • Current Situation - what the current situation is. Give a date for when the scenario starts.
    • Issues/Challenges/Disagreements/Crux/Dissonances - take your choice. What is/are the dilemmas, choices and options that the game is exploring, tied to each actor.
    • Actors - Who are the main actors (countries, personalities, factions, movements, organisations etc) in the game, what are their aims, what are their beliefs, and what resources do they have access to. You can also specify if the players have a fixed, random or other order each turn, and whether the bot should base its behaviour on what it knows of any personality being represented or to generate a player with a particularly personality to play that actor.
    • Game Turns - Roughly how long each game turn lasts. You might want to lay out how many turns and what time period they represent, but a danger of doing this is that ChatGPT tends to like to bring things to a conclusion on the final term, so it may be better not to set a turn limit and just finish the runs once the issue is resolved or a new steady state is achieved or you just get bored!
    • Reporting - How you'd like the bot to report, for instance do you just want a summary at the end of each turn, or do you want a blow by blow account of the arguments, counter-arguments, adjudication and impacts.
    • Sources - Either embed some useful source material (e.g. news analysis) or links to relevant material (not sure if ChatGPT will follow that), or upload the documents alongside the scenario.
    • Note that any of this information, including the actors and aims can be changed at any time whilst you are playing the game by just asking ChatGPT to make the change.
  • In the ChatGPT interface go to Explore GPTs, search for "Matrix Game Simulation" and click on Start Chat.

Using the System

Once the chat is open, to start the game tell ChatGPT/MGS that you want to play a matrix game of a particular name (or about a particular subject) and upload the PDF of the scenario that you defined above, as well as any supporting material. Also tell it or reiterate how you want it to play the game in terms of what level of reporting etc.

MGS might then ask a few confirming questions, but otherwise MGS will then get the game underway.

As mentioned, at any point you can ask MGS to change any feature of the game, including how it is reporting, what players are involved, a change in the situation etc. Just have fun!

At the end of the game MGS should provide a summary of what happened and the end state. It may also score each actor in terms of how well they achieved their goals. You can also ask it to summarise or analyse the game in a variety of different ways.

Note that if you ask MGS to give turn summaries only, or even just a game summary only and then ask it to give you the detail of what happened on a particular turn or with a particular actor it will do so, but I'm not sure whether this is actually what "happened" in that part of the game or MGS/ChatGPT is doing a bit of retcon (retrospective continuity) and making up "afresh" what might have happened at that point.

 

Support

MGS was developed just as a bit of fun and as an adjunct to my PhD on Wargaming Urban Conflict. As such it is very much supplied as is. If you have questions about it, or need help using it then by all means email me at david@burden.name and I'll do my best to respond.

If you'd like a copy of the system prompt I use for MGS then get in touch.

I'd also be interested to find out what you think of MGS, and any ideas for further development or exploitation.

Example Games and Scenarios

Here are some example scenarios I've created, and in some cases examples of MGS playing them. Feel free to use the scenarios yourselves as-is, or edit them to suit your needs.

 

 

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