What I meant is games being basically numbers dressed up in something more fun. Pretty much all games are just data manipulation GUIs. Though some do definitely incorporate game mechanics that strongly prioritize and reward good decision making and input by the player.

Even many tabletop games are really just interesting ways to modify numbers.

Though of course, it's the way you manipulate the numbers that makes it fun.

yeah, I ca see that. A lot of that (particularly for RPGs) is more that you’re trying to simulate a real-world experience. How do you represent how dextrous a player character is, or how hard someone can bludgeon you over the head with a morning star?

So you create these gross oversimplifications as numerical values that can be discretely manipulated, then toss in some RNG to make things a bit more fun especially in games like Dungeons & Dragons.

But I've also been DM'ing a D&D campaign for years, and I've found that the farther you can get away from needing to refer to the numbers, and instead rewarding player ingenuity is both more liberating and more fun.