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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Barastrondo" data-source="post: 5037420" data-attributes="member: 3820">Whenever the topic comes up I tend to ask "So, why are the common fantasy settings popular in the first place?"It's my belief that to a certain point, the unique qualities of a world, however plausible in accordance to its own rules, are at odds with emotional immersion. The more exposition you have to read to truly understand a setting that's really, truly different from what you're expecting, the less likely you are to feel like you're part of that setting, to be able to just casually picture yourself there. This is something that the creator is exempt from, of course: nobody knows the details of my campaign like I do, so naturally I have an easier time knowing what "makes sense" than my players do. The really logical worlds where you try to extrapolate something very different instead of relying on familiar tropes are, I think, largely attractive as an intellectual exercise. They're good workouts for the brain. But you have to a heavy-duty genius at characterization and communication to make them also emotionally immersive enough that people can slide into the world over the big old hump of scientific (or pseudo-scientific, if you're treating magic in a scientific method) exposition that's required to understand the place. It's a serious puzzle and no mistake. I like my games with immersion, but I also like them to have sufficient internal logic that they hold up when you're talking about them the morning after. Thankfully, myth is a definite framework for internal logic... though even it varies notably from place to place.</blockquote>

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