Paul Mitchener I like Strange Stars too, and I’m glad you like it. 🙂

I’m not sure whether or not it would be easier or harder to write a system-free setting. I mean, what’s the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, but a book of NPCs, locations and history that has D&D stats? The Grand History of the Realms is in a sense a system-free setting book, though it’s more a roll of years and doesn’t dig into people and places to the degree that the campaign setting books do.

I respectfully disagree about their degree of awfulness.

I’ll also add, though it’s not directly in response to you Paul, that I also don’t believe that people who write system-free settings are “crappy writers who couldn’t write a game/novel”. That’s just some arrogant bullshit right there, but that’s just my opinion.