Aldarc
Legend
I will not tread heavily into summarizing the well-known principle of the "uncanny valley" (as per the link) regarding the corollary relationship between an object's resemblance to a human being and the emotional response to it. But I am wondering whether Fantasy TTRPG settings operate as the inverse. This is to hypothesize that there is a general "canny valley" of psychologically acceptable play with settings for the aggregate of people between the "all too historical" and "all too ahistorical."
It is difficult for people to relate well to both the more historically accurate societies and the more utterly fantastical ones, both being "alien" or "uncanny" in some regards to cultural mindset of players of contemporary society, particularly the greater the amount of detail and depth these settings are given. On one end, the settings are perhaps too similar to the familiar, while on the other end, the settings are to dissimilar to the familiar. So settings often have the onerous task of striking the right balance between the poles of familiarity to create a "canny valley" of play. Outside of this "canny valley," players have difficulty psychologically plugging themselves into the setting and so such settings are mostly niche. Examples of possible niche settings may include settings like Hârn and Tékumel.
But it's also possible that we are not dealing with a canny valley of playable settings at all, but, rather, we are in fact dealing with an uncanny valley of unplayable/niche settings.
It is difficult for people to relate well to both the more historically accurate societies and the more utterly fantastical ones, both being "alien" or "uncanny" in some regards to cultural mindset of players of contemporary society, particularly the greater the amount of detail and depth these settings are given. On one end, the settings are perhaps too similar to the familiar, while on the other end, the settings are to dissimilar to the familiar. So settings often have the onerous task of striking the right balance between the poles of familiarity to create a "canny valley" of play. Outside of this "canny valley," players have difficulty psychologically plugging themselves into the setting and so such settings are mostly niche. Examples of possible niche settings may include settings like Hârn and Tékumel.
But it's also possible that we are not dealing with a canny valley of playable settings at all, but, rather, we are in fact dealing with an uncanny valley of unplayable/niche settings.