The Culture: Users Don't Care About Your Setting Preferences

"I can't get behind all the silly wresting and anime references. I just want a serious setting."

Buddy, I have some bad news for you: the majority of hobbyists give no fucks about that. They never have. They never will.

Crack open those ancient Greyhawk tomes. Look at the names of those world-shaping wizards and warlords. Xagyg is "Gygax" backwards; "Drawmij" is even lazier, but the same idea. Others are nicknames, sly nods, inside jokes, and similar less-than-serious names and labels for things: characters, items, locations, monsters, etc.

Why? Because those were the users, and the users thought it was fun and funny so they did it.

They also don't care about your tropes. If they can, they'll meme up whatever works to get what they want or what they think is funny. They'll turn a kingdom into a steam-powered Roman Empire. They'll figure how to use Enchant An Item to make an item that enchants items so they don't have to worry about the risks to casting that spell. They'll turn Potions of Polymorph Other into Titan Serum, declare that their Clerics/Druids/etc. worship gods based off VTubers, and make new spells based off professional wrestler icon moves. or create automata capable of dealing with giants and the like when not making more monsters of their own.

And all you, Referee, need to do is get out of their way.

Stop making them be the Get Along Gang. Players want different things, which inevitably sets up conflicts. They do all the prep work for you.

The users define the setting, and they will redefine any commercial one to suit their preferences no matter what anyone says or does; Revealed Preferences are Revealed.

Stop fighting a losing battle. Just set up the board, give them an objective to fight over, brief them, and let them go at it until someone wins or everyone loses.

Because otherwise you're doing that Frustrated Novelist faggotry again, in which case write your damned novel and leave the gaming to the gamers.