RuPaul’s Drag Race Simulator: What Most People Get Wrong About the Algorithm

You've probably seen the screenshots on Twitter or Reddit. A custom cast where Trixie Mattel somehow wins a sewing challenge or Serena ChaCha makes it to the Top 3 of an All-Winners season. It’s chaos. It’s glorious. And it’s all thanks to the RuPaul’s Drag Race Simulator.

If you’ve ever spent three hours simulating a "Global All Stars" season just to see if your favorite underdog finally gets a crown, you’re not alone. Honestly, these simulators have become the backbone of the fandom’s fantasy booking. But there’s a lot of confusion about how they actually work. Some people think it’s just a random name generator. It isn't. Others think it’s a perfect crystal ball. It’s definitely not that either.

How the Magic (and the Math) Happens

Basically, most versions of the RuPaul’s Drag Race simulator—like the popular ones hosted on GitHub by developers like myrainboww or edssb—run on a specific set of attributes. We’re talking about stats. Every queen in the database usually has a rating for seven core skills:

• Acting
• Comedy
• Dance
• Design
• Improv
• Runway
• Lip-Sync

When the simulator "runs" an episode, it doesn't just flip a coin. It looks at the challenge type. If it’s a Snatch Game, the code prioritizes the Comedy and Improv stats. If it’s a Ball, it weighs Design and Runway heavily.

But here’s the kicker: there’s always a "randomness" variable. In most algorithms, a queen’s performance is calculated as something like (Stat + Random Modifier). This explains why a queen with a "Design" stat of 5 might occasionally beat a queen with a 9. It mimics the "bad day" or "stiff competition" vibes of the actual show.

The Evolution of the Sim: From BrantSteele to Custom Code

The community didn't start with these high-fidelity dedicated sims. In the early days, everyone used BrantSteele, which was originally built for Survivor and Big Brother. It was clunky. You had to pretend a "Power Struggle" was a "Lip Sync for Your Life."

Then, fans started building their own. The current gold standard, often referred to as the Drag Race Simulator (myrainboww version), allows for insane customization. You can toggle things like:

1. The Chocolate Bar Twist: Will the gold bar actually save someone? It's a 1-in-14 chance, just like the show.
2. Lip Sync Assassins: You can pull in queens from outside the cast to participate in the All Stars 5/6 format.
3. The LaLaPaRUza: A mid-season tournament that can completely flip the elimination order.

One of the most impressive technical feats in the newer sims is the PPE (Points Per Episode) calculation. Serious "stat-heads" in the fandom use this to track who is mathematically the frontrunner. A win usually nets 5 points, a "High" placement 4, and so on. If you're running a simulator and notice a queen has a 4.25 PPE, she's basically the Keiona of your season.

Why Your "Rigged" Simulations Feel So Real

We’ve all seen it. You run a simulation, and the frontrunner gets eliminated right before the finale because they landed in the bottom against a Lip-Sync Assassin.

That’s not a glitch; it’s a feature.

The Lip-Sync stat is the ultimate equalizer. In the simulator's logic, if a queen with a 10/10 Lip-Sync stat hits the Bottom 2 against a frontrunner with a 3/10 Lip-Sync stat, the frontrunner is going home 95% of the time. This "Lip Sync Slayage" factor is what makes the simulator feel so much like the real show—it captures that "anybody can go home at any time" anxiety.

What Most People Get Wrong

People often complain that the simulator is "biased" against certain queens. "Why does Jinkx always lose the design challenge?" Well, because her design stat is historically set lower based on her performance in Season 5.

The data usually comes from community polls or crowdsourced spreadsheets. For example, a 2025 update to one of the GitHub repos used a weighted average of over 500 fan votes to determine the base stats for the Season 16 cast. If the stats are "wrong," the sim will feel wrong.

Also, the "Riggory" toggle is a real thing. Some simulators have a hidden setting that slightly boosts the "protagonist" of the season—essentially the queen who has the most confessionals or wins early on. It’s a bit of a meta-joke about the show’s editing, but it actually helps create a more satisfying narrative arc in the simulated season.

How to Get the Most Out of Your Sims

If you're just clicking "Randomize" and "Next Episode," you're missing out. To really make it interesting, try these three things:

• Edit the Stats Manually: Give a "look queen" a 10 in Comedy and see what happens. It turns the show into a total "what if" scenario.
• Run "vs. The World" Casts: Mix queens from Drag Race Philippines, España, and France. The simulator handles international casts perfectly, and it's the only way to see if Carmen Farala really is unstoppable (spoiler: she usually is).
• Use the "Discord Link" for Custom Casts: Most sims allow you to import a JSON file. This means you can create your own friends as drag queens, give them stats, and see who would actually win in a Werk Room setting.

Moving Beyond the Simulation

The RuPaul’s Drag Race Simulator is more than just a time-waster. It’s a tool for understanding how the show’s format impacts the winners. It proves that so much of Drag Race is about the order of the challenges. If the first three challenges are sewing, the comedy queens are toast.

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Next time you’re bored, don't just run a standard Season 1 cast. Go into the Custom tab. Build an "Early Outs" season with 14 queens who were eliminated first or second. Set the format to All Stars 7 (Legendary Legend Stars) so nobody goes home. Watch the PPE scores climb.

It’s the closest any of us will get to being a producer in the 100-page "Master Spreadsheet" of RuPaul’s mind.

Step-by-Step: Your First Custom Simulation

If you're ready to dive in, start with a simple All Stars format.

1. Navigate to a reputable host like myrainboww.github.io.
2. Select Custom Cast and pick exactly 12 queens.
3. Set the Elimination Format to "Top 2 Lip Sync for Your Legacy." This usually results in the most "drama" as queens vote each other off.
4. Pay attention to the Runway stat; in many sim versions, a high Runway score can actually save a queen from the Bottom 3 if her challenge performance was mediocre.
5. Export your results. Many players save the "Track Record" table as a PNG to share on social media.

This isn't just about finding a winner—it's about seeing the story the numbers tell.