aramis erak
Legend
L5R has this issue, despite being "Rokugan, Not Japan"... but the level of it varies by group and especially by GM. 5E having dropped the post-1E timeline, it's much easier again...Now, reviewer Quinns pointed out that while SPIRE has a terrific campaign concept, the sheer amount of lore and setting that players are expected to know, playing natives of Spire, can be overwhelming and he as a GM had a tough time explaining all of it. Plus, as he notes, in a typical Spire campaign, most of the party will be dead in two months!!
What other campaign settings have you folks seen that are like this, specifically where PCs are expected to be locals familiar with their world?
Several D&D settings had this issue, too... Dark Sun, Spelljammer, and (to a lesser extent) Dragonlance. The lore includes a bunch of elements that, if players don't grok them, but the GM doesn't nerf them, will hurt the PCs badly...
Dark Sun, the rules for rations are brutal - you can't expect to forage on the way, either.
Spelljammer, seeing there are beholders on that shipp and attacking may in fact be far more a messy form of suicide for Name Level PC's than a single one at first in a dungeon.
Dragonlance changes a bunch of things, especially the Irda... so its assumptions are going to bite. Plus, the tracking of good vs evil acts....
Mechanical Dream has so much setting that is so weird that there is no way I can present it intelligibly; mostly because I'm not sure I understand it.
Albedo is one of those cases where the game runs fine with fans of the comics, but everyone else seems to try and force it into slapstick humor, pissing off the fans of the comic AND ruining the game.