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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Clavis" data-source="post: 4813571" data-attributes="member: 31898">As a DM, I prefer the run campaigns where the Weird collides with the Mundane. I tend to start things off looking fairly ordinary and historically based, and gradually reveal the utter strangeness lurking under the surface. In my opinion, the Weird (or Wahoo) quickly becomes ordinary and just as boring as the mundane, unless it used sparingly and in contrast to the ordinary order of things.The other reason I like to start things out more mundane is that it makes it easier for players to grasp the setting initially. If you can just tell players "think medieval Arabia" or "think Aztec" when they are making up characters, things go much faster and they play their characters more in tune with the setting's expectations. I've found that in practice, no matter how hard you try to create bizarre and unique cultures, players actually base their PCs characterizations (when they bother with them at all) on other characters from fiction, movies, or history. So, I create settings where that's possible. As they go on, the players discover that the old washerwoman is actually a shape-changing reptiloid in disguise, or that the brothel hides a doorway to the Plains of Liquid Sapphire. So there's Wahoo, but its hidden by the Traditional.</blockquote>