Signal & Static in Storytelling

You know the animation in a cartoon? It doesn’t have every single detail of a real image, every wrinkle and crease. Most likely, it just has the necessary and relevant details to depict its subject. An imaginary reality with just the essential details to invoke subjects and spaces and symbols. Now, just as with roleplaying game mechanics, the dungeon spaces in tabletop RPGs, at their core, function more for story than for simulation. Like, no one wants to play with ALL the muck in the sewer, we’re really there for the kobolds. No one wants a game with all the radio static, no matter how much “realism” it adds, we just want what we do have to hold some logic.

On Verisimilitude

This simplification and streamlining allows game designers to keep gameplay rules fair and fun without getting too boring, and allows worldbuilders to push toward verisimilitude, the appearance of realism, without having to run overly complex physics systems like in video games. It also aims at making a setting internally consistent from its fictional assumptions. If you have a world of magic wands, larger urban areas probably have wand repair shops. These simple impacts promote the willing suspension of disbelief, and they ripple outward in ways players can interact with as touchstones, contributing to a more immersive fantasy world. Verisimilitude differs from strict realism in that it does accept fictional assumptions like heroes and villains exist, consistent exaggeration of just-so and just-in-time actions, compressed storyspaces with more dungeons than DMVs, all of which build meaningful playspaces and stakes, story tension and dramatic resolution.

So, let’s look at how we can add some verisimilitude into dungeons in Dungeons & Dragons.