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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5758633" data-attributes="member: 82106">Here's the thing though. People want referents. Why are PC races all (generally speaking) pretty similar to humans? Because it is pretty hard for people to relate to a genuinely alien character. Consider what races seem to be popular in 4e for instance. They are pretty much the more human-like races. Not too many people play shardminds, wilden, etc. Even minotaurs, githzerai, and changelings are not really the most overall popular races. You'll have people try them out, but the less easy it is to relate the character to what the player knows and understands the less easy it is to play except in a 'human with a funny forehead' type way. Likewise with cultures. Why do most settings hew pretty close to the model of a sort of modernized faux fantasy Europe? Because players draw their concepts about society and their basic world view, dramatic repertoire, etc from that tradition. They understand it. Heck, often your average player isn't really enough aware of the way any society but the one they live in works to really even know what actual realistic medieval Europe would be like.Beyond that there's just a limit to what any given setting designer can deal with. Nobody knows how entirely alien societies might possibly work. Nobody knows what other possible social organizations even COULD be. Even if there are plenty of examples of various societies in history few people know enough about them to easily build them into a setting. Players won't understand them well enough to easily play in them, etc. Again, to consider trying to imagine a completely novel society, let alone evolved in a magical world who's ultimate rules are at best fuzzy, is just asking more than is possible. At best what you would imagine as 'realistic' or at least interesting is likely to seem ridiculous and obtuse to other people.Now and then you will find someone with the world-building chops and sensibilities necessary to at least make a stab at it that is interesting and playable enough to attempt. Thus you may have worlds like Tekumel, Jorune, etc. Notice though that the VAST majority of games end up set in something like FR vs something like Jorune. It is just vastly easier to run a game in the former vs the later, and even if you do use such an original setting it is pretty hard for DMs to live up to the task of making it work.</blockquote>

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