Even the most “A Wizard Did It” person has a weird suspension of disbelief bugbear when it comes to creating a setting for play. What we understand as sign or simply convenience in a piece of non-interactive fiction can become a question of high scrutiny in a world simulation. For some, those are potatoes in a fantasy world. For others, how dungeons can even exist.
For some time, my bugbear was actually how humans existed in a given setting. I know humans, I dwell among you. I can accept most things in a setting, but not why humans exist without a sound reason. A human being, as I know it, seems as strange to see in fantasy as it would be for some to run into silent cartoon characters in their otherwise Tolkienesque setting. Unless I have a reason for humans to exist, I just can’t get on with the rest of setting creation.
So I made a small table of reasons for it, because it’s not OSR unless you do a table with the possible answers you sketched on a napkin while waiting for lunch.
- It’s Earth, but the fantasy elements arrived at some point of our past, creating a different historical timeline or a mythic age which remains erased of our historical records.
- It’s Earth, but during our era.
- It’s Earth, but after our era.
- Humans came from Earth to this separate world, either through portals or interstellar travel. They may not even remember Earth or be here for a specific objective.
- They don’t exist in this world and have never existed, even if parallels to our cultures exist for play convenience.
- Some entity or god created a species identical to humans for slave labor due to our opposing thumbs and bipedal walking.
Roll to Doubt 