D&D General The Importance of Verisimilitude (or "Why you don't need realism to keep it real")

[Cadence]

Going by the second phrasing of the definition, though, genuineness and authenticity, in no way forces RL realism. Genuineness and authenticity could be in reference to the Fantasy genre, itself, or to archetypes within it, examples of it like specific works, and their settings, and so forth.

You could, of course, still get completely arbitrary. Define your own setting, and the things you place in it are, by definition, genuine and authentic to the settings, and the things you exclude are not.

I've been tempted to try having alternate science that used to be believed in our world. What if the emission theory of vision was true and some people could feel when they were looked at? What if vermin did spontaneously generate in trash heaps? Etc...

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

I don't care about "realism" so that aspect of verisimilitude is uninteresting to me, but I think it can help with the tone of a campaign by putting some restrictions on things like class selection or race selection. Eccentric character creation choices can definitely be annoying.

I had a call of cthulhu campaign with a player who made design choices that were obviously not fit for the adventure, and it did not help make the game good.

I've been tempted to try having alternate science that used to be believed in our world. What if the emission theory of vision was true and some people could feel when they were looked at? What if vermin did spontaneously generate in trash heaps? Etc...

That's super interesting. Objects fall because they belong on the ground not because of gravity etc etc.

 

[Irlo]

I've been tempted to try having alternate science that used to be believed in our world. What if the emission theory of vision was true and some people could feel when they were looked at? What if vermin did spontaneously generate in trash heaps? Etc...

I ususally do a little if that in my campaigns, but it’s never been a prominent factor. I still like the evil wizard who “bred” a line of tailless house cats via Lamarckian evolution (by routinely cutting off the tails of pregnant cats for a few generations) .

 

[Tony Vargas]

I've been tempted to try having alternate science that used to be believed in our world. What if the emission theory of vision was true and some people could feel when they were looked at? What if vermin did spontaneously generate in trash heaps? Etc...

Yes! I went there back in the day. I read up on as much Aristotle as my 15yo brain could handle (which was hardly any, tbh), and ran with it. Infravision? No, Orcs have Darksight, the rays their eyes emit are blocked by light but reach through darkness unimpeded (light and darkness being elements, like air or water). Plus, when you think about it, vision explained by 'touching' what you see makes gaze weapons and the like that much more verisimilitudinous, doesn't it?
Spontaneous Generation sure helps make dungeons less insane. Not needing to respect those johnny-come-lately "Laws" of thermodynamics helps, too.

 

[billd91]

I've been tempted to try having alternate science that used to be believed in our world. What if the emission theory of vision was true and some people could feel when they were looked at? What if vermin did spontaneously generate in trash heaps? Etc...

How much are you going to have to explain to your players and will it be worth the effort? That's always a concern when it comes to replacing our real world assumptions or genre experiences with a different reality. If there's too much explanation for the players to build and accept a mental model of how your campaign world works, then they'll be clashing with it - a lot.

 

[J.Quondam]

Spontaneous Generation sure helps make dungeons less insane. Not needing to respect those johnny-come-lately "Laws" of thermodynamics helps, too.

All those random monsters spawned by dungeons eventually - if they survive the adventurers! - wander off on their own, settle down in a quiet place, and transform into sprawling dungeons themselves.

 

[CreamCloud0]

i'd like to ask the question: what are the best non-DnD settings that people know of that have alot of verisimilitude while not being at all realistic? and what specific factors in those worlds make them feel verisimilitous?

also, great post OP.

 

[Tony Vargas]

i'd like to ask the question: what are the best non-DnD settings that people know of that have alot of verisimilitude while not being at all realistic? and what specific factors in those worlds make them feel verisimilitous?

also, great post OP.

Glorantha (in the context of RQII, don't know about more recent offerings).

It had a detailed, thought out mythology/history, and the way magic worked in the system - using your "power" (POW), mystic connectedness to the universe, spending, storing, saving, or offering it to spirits or gods for service or rune magic - was consistent with the way spirits & gods worked in the lore of the setting.

 

[Alzrius]

i'd like to ask the question: what are the best non-DnD settings that people know of that have alot of verisimilitude while not being at all realistic? and what specific factors in those worlds make them feel verisimilitous?

I'd say that Dias ex Machina Games's Amethyst campaign setting is a good example of this. It's set (as I recall) on Earth where magic has returned, bringing with it catastrophic consequences (much more than, say, Shadowrun) due to the fact that it's return caused world-wide failures of technology, along with the return of monsters, fey, etc.

What makes it verisimilitudinous (damn you, autocorrect; that is a real word!) is that it explores and defines things such as the sources of magic in the game (which are Attricana and Ixindar, essentially the Light and Dark Sides of the Force, respectively) and how using one is different from the other; certain spells are exclusive to each, and using Ixindar causes mental corruption...but unlike with Attricana, Ixindar lets you use technology without penalty. Which is another factor, in that there are major cities which are technological holdouts, and so magic use is necessarily policed, because the people there don't want to lose access to their technological creature comforts. There's even a significant focus on how different races get along with humanity due to how their biology affects their psychology; elves are fey creatures, and don't have the breeding instincts that humans do, and so that colors a lot of interactions between the two races.

It's really a great setting, but it's not one I'd put forward for casual play, since getting the most out of it requires investing in those (and other) aspects of the setting.

 

[Alzrius]

I've been tempted to try having alternate science that used to be believed in our world. What if the emission theory of vision was true and some people could feel when they were looked at? What if vermin did spontaneously generate in trash heaps? Etc...

There was a great article on abiogenesis (life generating spontaneously from non-living things) in your campaign world in an old issue of Kobold Quarterly a while back.