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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Crimson Binome" data-source="post: 6845206" data-attributes="member: 6775031">It doesn't matter whether it's true. For the purpose of buy-in and ease-of-acceptability, what matters is that I believe it. If I know what something is, and can form a complete picture in my head without you having to explain it, then that lowers the barrier to entry. And if I'm wrong about any particular detail, for any particular setting, then the DM will correct me. However, the more that the reality of the setting differs from the image I had going in, the higher the barrier to entry will be. I have to spend more conscious effort on re-aligning my thought patterns, and there's a limit to how much most people will be willing to invest in something before they give up entirely. If I don't have to spend as much mental overhead on keeping these Dwarves straight, then that gives me more free processing power to deal with NPCs and plot elements and funky magic things.Familiarity is huge. It's a major reason why so many people are still playing Tolkien-esque fantasy, and a significant issue for most science fiction settings - people don't have any baseline for aliens (unless you're playing Star Trek), so they end up spending a huge chunk of their energy on that, and then they either get overwhelmed by the technology (and give up) or the rest of the setting is simple enough that it feels shallow. It's something that designers are constantly struggling with.</blockquote>

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