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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jürgen Hubert" data-source="post: 3581279" data-attributes="member: 7177">I frequently see deliberate efforts in designing a fantasy setting to reject the "standard" fantasy tropes. Many setting designers put a lot of time and effort into making sure that their world is completely different than the others out there, using entirely new races, magic systems, and so forth.But I am sometimes wondering if all that effort isn't counterproductive at times.Often, the "new" invention is just something old in a new guise - all that changed were the names, or possibly some minor features. In such cases, the whole reason for introducing something "new" becomes somewhat dubious.In rarer cases, the author actually does come up with something genuinely new - but in that case, he will have to spend a lot of time explaining everything about it so that the players and the game master can use it effectively in their campaigns. And too much of such novelty, and you might end up with a setting that is universally lauded for its design, but which hardly anyone plays - since it requires too much time for most players to understand. Tekumel is probably the best example for this.On the other hand, elves, dwarves, orcs, halfings and so forth all have a rich myth body attached to them. Almost every gamer knows something about these beings - and many know a lot. The same goes for the quirks and details of the D&D rule system - they are familiar to many, if not most gamers.By starting out from all these familiar tropes with Urbis, I do not have to explain the basics. That dwarves are skilled craftsmen, that elves often live in the forests, or that fireballs are a great way to kill lots of enemies. By assuming that all these are well known, I can built on it all and expand the world into new and strange directions - which simply wouldn't be possible if I had to explain the fundamentals all over again.In a way, by embracing the standard fantasy and D&D tropes it becomes possible to create a far richer and detailed setting than if you decided to reinvent everything from the ground up - assuming, of course, that you have the same amount of time to create either setting. But it should not be forgotten that the players also often only have a limited amount of time they can invest in learning about a setting - and here settings that use the familiar tropes have a clear advantage.Your thoughts?</blockquote>

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