Planet of Hats

Basic Information

Planet of Hats is a Speculative Fiction Trope where the population of an entire planet is summarized by a single culture, a single philosophy, a single personality trait, or a single trope. Heck, maybe even by a single wardrobe element that everybody wears!

Contrast with the Earth, which houses hundreds of nations, numerous cultures, and a seemingly infinite number of philosophies, personalities, and styles.

Related Tropes:

Character Exaggeration
Humans Are Bastards
Humans Are Special
Intelligent Gerbil
My Species Doth Protest Too Much
People of Hair Color
Plot Tumor
Proud Warrior Race Guy
Rubber Forehead Aliens
Scary Dogmatic Aliens
Sci Fi Writers Have No Sense Of Scale
Serious Business
Single Biome Planet
Unfortunate Implications

Sources

Bibliography

1. TV Tropes Wiki

Game and Story Use

• For a game where the PCs visit a new world every session or two, this is a great little time-saver. Pick one aspect of the world to focus on, and play it to the hilt. Instant flavor, and they'll remember it later if the plot ever returns to that planet. "Oh, that's the planet with the antigrav samurai! Why didn't you say so?"
• Or, you can subvert the trope and have fun that way.
  • Our Random Nation Generator can whip up some fairly detailed countries for you - put a dozen on your planet and it will feel very complicated and realistic (despite still technically being much simpler than the earth).
  • Or set up the planet to look like a Planet of Hats. Later, after the PCs have swallowed the trope, switch things up.
    • The "hat group" they'd met is just one minority group - something akin to Otaku or a Cult - and the rest of the planet is more nuanced.
    • Or maybe it's the Planet of Rotating Hats - new fads sweep through their culture almost daily.
      • I had some luck with the later in an Everway campaign once. I modeled them on the Courtier culture prior to the French Revolution, with bizarre new styles and interests every couple of scenes. Keeping ahead of the daily fashion curve was very difficult.