OK, I’ll admit that although I was always an excellent reader, “Verisimilitude” is a word I was fairly unfamiliar with until my return to gaming the other year. I’m pretty sure I read James at Grognardia using the word first in relation to gaming, and I’ve been using it ever since. A big word I have used for a long time in relation to gaming is “Gravitas.” I’ve known that big word for at least a decade (but my source was dubious; I think Howard Stern and his crew were goofing on a sound bite of Keiffer Sutherland saying that was his favorite word. I then looked it up). I’ll say something that sounds profound such as “I like my game world to have a certain amount of gravitas.”
But verisimilitude is what I say now. Me like that big world. The big “V” word is sort of philosophical in nature, so it can be expressed to mean a variety of related things. Officially, it is a philosophical concept that denotes amounts of truth or degrees of error. Articulating what it takes for one false theory to be closer to the truth than another false theory.
In games terms, it’s about doing what you can for your game world to feel real in terms of it’s own qualities. Back in the day all you could say (unless you were an encyclopedia of big brain words like Gary Gygax seemed to be) was “I want my game to be realistic” followed by boos and jeers from your gaming fellows who chided sarcastically (in the Comic Book Guys voice) “It’s a fantasy game man. Fantasy isn’t supposed to be realistic.”
Bullshit. If you just want to have your world be no more than a tavern, a supply shop, and a dungeon, or you are just playing the original Chainmail wargame, then fine. That is sort of how I approach my White Box games. But even then, I cannot help but want things to feel as real as possible, even in a dungeon as mythic underworld. Just go all wacky baccy like Arduin Grimoire or The City State of The Invincible Overlord, then you are getting closer to a fantasy world like Alice’s Wonderland, or The Beatles Pepperland. Cool fantasy worlds, but not one’s I want to seriously run a character in.
I know it is all ultimately silly fantasy. But to make my world feel like it has a little weight to it for a non-existent thing, I like to have a little versimilitude-itude. See that? I took a big word and the word “attitude” and made my own cool word. You can use it if ye like.
I'm not all that into the V-word. I'm okay with my game having "internal logic", but I don't worry too much about it describing our reality.
ReplyDeleteI just don't have the patience to do the research necessary to emulate reality.
So I cherry-pick!
Yep, been saying verisimilitude is my highest good also. It's one of the reasons I'm a big fan of Elmore and the artists like him, with their "you are there" feel to their art.
ReplyDeleteI hope you right more about this. I'm curious to hear how you bring this about in your gaming.
Right there with you.
ReplyDeleteI keep trying to work the word into "Favorite Things" when I sing, but it's not easy!
ReplyDeleteMaliszewski's "Gygaxian Naturalism" kicked off a long discussion about verisimilitude on the Paizo boards a couple of years back that had some interesting posts.
I take verisimilitude to be first of all the internal logic, the consistent ecology of our worlds, and only secondly the strictly realistic elements that might break suspension of belief, and depending on the demands placed on us and our own resources, might break our brain in research.
Paladin: Well, it for sure isn't Call of Cthulhu. I remember when I wanted to start a campaign in the early 90's, and so I put a ton of research into the 1920's, which I did not know very much about (I was more of a 30's guy). That is a situation (the real world) where must have the logic so that the weird things seems so much weierder.
ReplyDeleteTrolls: Like I said above, I like to try and paint a realistic-looking picture, so that the crazy stuff seems all that more out of the ordinary. I generally just try to make judgement calls as DM based on real world physics and realities.
Theo: I think you are probably still using "my favorite things" as the end of the line. Just use Versamillitude intead of that, then you can rhyme all kind of stuff with it "...geektards and munchkins and snark attitudes - these are the things that ruin my ver-sa-mill-i-tude!"
Having played with Hargrave years ago, I can vouch his games were not at all like Alice in Wonderland or trippy like a sit in with the Beatles. First game I ever played with him we ended up going to a shrine to Hastur guarded by Uru-kai orcs, a mated pair of Hydras an a undead Medusa who was the high priest of the joint. Five PC's out of eight killed. But we did score some great artifacts and a heap of treasure. One artifact card was actually drawn by Erol Otus no less. You would of loved playing in one of his games.
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