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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jürgen Hubert" data-source="post: 3582309" data-attributes="member: 7177">If you manage to capture the imaginations of your players along with you, sure. However, you should make sure that you aren't confusing or boring them for the sake of "novelty".I remember that I used to buy pretty much every Monster Compendium that got published by TSR - all so that I could throw the "monster of the week" against the players, something that they hadn't encountered before. But such monsters usually ended up being stats without contexts, random encounters without meaning. These days I am better, limit the variety of monsters the PC encounter in a campaign, and instead try to give those monsters the PCs do encounter more of a reason to exist.Like I said, I have nothing at all against novelty - just novelty for novelty's sake.Those were brilliant settings - but in their case, the novel concepts certainly had a point, since they all tied into the strong thematic cores of the setting.Though it probably should be noted that in the end these settings were not popular enough to remain in print...Who still seem to be in the minority, if sales numbers are anything to judge by. If you are concerned about attracting customers, you should certainly come up with good reasons why not to use the standard fantasy tropes.If you do come up with good reasons, more power to you. And the thoughts you put into answering this question will certainly not be in vain, and your setting will probably be stronger for it. But it is a question that you probably should ask yourself, regardless of the answer you will end up with.Not at all. My thoughts were intended primarily for world-builders, not players. If you do get your players to try out and invest time in learning the details of one of these obscure but brilliant settings, whether Tekumel, Transhuman Space, Blue Planet or any of the others, I will say nothing but that I and many other GMs probably envy you deeply.Instead I will say the following:If you are a GM who wishes to create a new setting for your campaign world: Think carefully if you are able to come up with new material for new races, cultures and so forth to bring them alive in the minds of your players - and if you are, think again if you are able to communicate all this to your players efficiently enough to get them interested. If you can answer "yes" to both of these, by all means go ahead. But it is probably wise to think about this from the start.If you are creating a setting intended for publication, remember that rejecting the established fantasy tropes for your setting has significant downsides, and that this alone will not help your setting stand out from the crowd. It is probably easier to make your setting interesting when you use at least some of these tropes instead of rejecting them outright. You can create an interesting setting that uses a multitude of new ideas and concepts - but doing so will involve considerably more effort, and in the end might condemn your world to obscurity.</blockquote>

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