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<blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 5872909" data-attributes="member: 85870">Over on RPG.net, someone started thread trying to define &quot;verisimilitude&quot; in RPG settings, asking participants to talk about their personal ideas about what it means to them, etc. I don't necessarily want to rehash the whole conversation here, though I suppose it might pop up regardless, but the real point is that it got me thinking about why verisimilitude is sometimes such a &quot;big deal&quot; in RPGs to begin with. Surely this is one of those things that we all decide for ourselves and our groups, right? One person's verisimilitude may be totally different than someone else's, and that's okay..... But I think the reason it keeps coming up in discussions, talked about in terms of game design, etc., is that at its core, verisimilitude is about finding the easiest &quot;short hand&quot; GMs and players have for figuring out how the world / game works. The closer a mechanic adheres to some basic semblance of &quot;real world&quot; property, the faster it is to assimilate and &quot;grok.&quot; When a system assumes that a large amount of &quot;hand waving&quot; is the norm, it's also assuming that basic resolutions can be made by players and GMs because the verisimilitude of the game world is consistent enough--either with the &quot;real world,&quot; or within its own rules--for rulings to made fairly and impartially. The fewer the rules an RPG has, the more the system assumes that the GM and players have a clear idea of how the game is intrinsically &quot;supposed to work,&quot; and to me that agreement is very much intertwined with verisimilitude. I think my real question is for those that play, or have extensively played &quot;rules lite&quot; RPGs. I've never actually played a &quot;rules lite&quot; RPG. To be honest, I don't know that I even own one, either in print or PDF formats. I own the Legends of Anglerre version of FATE, but I don't know that I'd even totally categorize it as &quot;rules lite.&quot; I might put it somewhere around &quot;medium lite.&quot; My question, though, is in rules lite RPG play, do discussions about &quot;the rules,&quot; or what was happening in the game world, or &quot;what my player can do right now&quot; tend to focus more on the group's shared agreement about the &quot;verisimilitude&quot; of the world? Does it change the players' &quot;negotiating&quot; style with the GM, when much more of the world's control mechanisms are grounded in how the GM sees the world working in their head, and not bound by &quot;what my character sheet says I can do&quot;? If you're a rules lite player, how do your expectations about the way you interact with the GM, the world, and players change? And for rules-heavy play, are we trading one version of verisimilitude for another? Are we simply trading a more GM-centric view of &quot;how the world works,&quot; for one where the system largely dictates it for us?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="innerdude, post: 5872909, member: 85870"] Over on RPG.net, someone started thread trying to define "verisimilitude" in RPG settings, asking participants to talk about their personal ideas about what it means to them, etc. I don't necessarily want to rehash the whole conversation here, though I suppose it might pop up regardless, but the real point is that it got me thinking about why verisimilitude is sometimes such a "big deal" in RPGs to begin with. Surely this is one of those things that we all decide for ourselves and our groups, right? One person's verisimilitude may be totally different than someone else's, and that's okay..... But I think the reason it keeps coming up in discussions, talked about in terms of game design, etc., is that at its core, verisimilitude is about finding the easiest "short hand" GMs and players have for figuring out how the world / game works. The closer a mechanic adheres to some basic semblance of "real world" property, the faster it is to assimilate and "grok." When a system assumes that a large amount of "hand waving" is the norm, it's also assuming that basic resolutions can be made by players and GMs because the verisimilitude of the game world is consistent enough--either with the "real world," or within its own rules--for rulings to made fairly and impartially. The fewer the rules an RPG has, the more the system assumes that the GM and players have a clear idea of how the game is intrinsically "supposed to work," and to me that agreement is very much intertwined with verisimilitude. I think my real question is for those that play, or have extensively played "rules lite" RPGs. I've never actually played a "rules lite" RPG. To be honest, I don't know that I even own one, either in print or PDF formats. I own the Legends of Anglerre version of FATE, but I don't know that I'd even totally categorize it as "rules lite." I might put it somewhere around "medium lite." My question, though, is in rules lite RPG play, do discussions about "the rules," or what was happening in the game world, or "what my player can do right now" tend to focus more on the group's shared agreement about the "verisimilitude" of the world? Does it change the players' "negotiating" style with the GM, when much more of the world's control mechanisms are grounded in how the GM sees the world working in their head, and not bound by "what my character sheet says I can do"? If you're a rules lite player, how do your expectations about the way you interact with the GM, the world, and players change? And for rules-heavy play, are we trading one version of verisimilitude for another? Are we simply trading a more GM-centric view of "how the world works," for one where the system largely dictates it for us? [/QUOTE]

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