Originally Posted by
Kelrugem
We have a good imagination, yes, but it has its limits, especially when it goes towards subjects/sizes etc we are not used to. Extremely big sizes and high numbers for example is normally something someone cannot really imagine. Saying how many earths give the size of a sun only gives you a rough estimation, but at a certain size our brain will just think "that's big" :D Showing an image how big our sun is compared with earth is way more impressive in my opinion :) Of course that is an extreme example, but for SciFi games actually not rare to have big stuff flying around (astrophysics has very big sizes of stuff)
Another example are very detailed things like mentioned from Frunobulax, reliefs etc.. Describing such things is extremely difficult and we only do that very vague, "On the wall you see a relief about the history of the people here". We know what it is about, but it is still difficult to depict, having an explicit image can be also here way more impressive. I often like to use images of certain dungeons of computer games to show my players what the style is, because I could never ever describe in the same detail what type of dungeon they go into. There is a reason why there is the mentioned citation, "A picture is worth a thousand words" :) and then there is the component of art an artist also adds to that which gives you some sort of atmosphere etc; difficult to describe what I mean without showing pictures (hah! :p)
In some sense our brain needs also training to imagine certain things, unknown things are difficult to do
And both together, the effect I describe and the effect you describe (which I do not deny of course), can be even more impressive when used and combined right :)