Fantasy Tropes to avoid

>At this point a full-on psycho asshole is fresher and more original.

Honestly, the best is a full-on psycho who has may have once been just a misunderstood extremist, but has since fallen so far as to be irredeemable.

>if you kill me you are almost as bad as me!

NIGGA I KILLED MULTIPLE IF NOT ENTIRE SWARMS OF PEOPLE TO GET TO YOU

>if you kill me you are almost as bad as me!
Nice try, Trudeau.

God these hats are fucking stupid, I hated this part of Innistrad

sorry, I worded it wrong.

The trope I'm trying to avoid is the sympathetic/"""""tragic"""""/pathetic villain, whose motivations are "righteous".

It's such a cheap and ineffective way to create drama and emotional attachment.

It just falls flat.

An evil asshole who's just an evil asshole is more fun to go after.

>What kinds of fantasy tropes do you avoid using?
This doesn't mean "tropes are bad", it means "what tropes do you dislike?".

Shut your damn faggot mouth.
Tricorn hats were the best part of innistrad.

Just go all the way and have a guy who can't comprehend evil as you know it.

>tropes
shut up
just make something interesting

>You all meet in a tavern

I don't see the problem here, honestly
If the GM is trying to make you feel bad about killing them, then that's pretty stupid, but that's its own problem
I can't understand how giving someone motivation and making them believable can be construed as "a bad trope"

just because an evil dude has a motive doesn't mean you have to agree or respect anything he does, says, or thinks

>The Witch Hunters are always evil and unjust
>The witches or mages you meet are always peaceful nature lovers who use magic to heal

Gunpowder doesn't exist, but technology is otherwise at renaissance or industrial revolution levels.

All sympathetic people have exactly the worldview of 21st century middle-class white westerners except for being monarchists.

Recorded history goes back at least 4,000 years. Any nation less than 1,000 years old is an oddity.

All gods are real, share the same pantheon, have extremely specific areas of responsibility and everyone worships exactly one of them in pretty much the same way that worshippers of that god do everywhere even if they come from completely different cultures.

All gods and priests who aren't dedicated to nature or healing are dicks.

The god of thieves is a trickster god who isn't evil.

Huge pauldrons, belts and pouches everywhere, no helmets.

Trousers are worn by pretty much everyone except barbarians, who prefer a fur breechcloth.

Women often expose their lower bellies in exactly the style fashionable among 21-century westerners.

Hats are rare, especially with women and almost always culture or profession specific.

Everyone who can cast spells wears a distinctive costume which identifies what kind of spellcaster they are.

>Other races besides humans

The worst part about everyone obsessed with ripping off tolkein. You don't see this in science fiction, so why is it a thing in fantasy?

tropes don't exist in a vacuum (no shit) they're often here for reasons and it's extremely unlikely that you'd find a villain with understandable motives if it's not meant to elicit sympathy. Which is fucking obnoxious because there's often the implication that it's enough to make you question your moral stance on some issues.

Of course it can be done right, but it's unlikely so who gives a shit?

> You don't see this in science fiction, so why is it a thing in fantasy?
You do

I try to avoid the following
>misunderstood badguys
>every town you visit gets rekt
>all authority figures mistrust you by default
>all authority figures inevitably betray you
>battles you can't win
>failure means death or the campaign ends

>All sympathetic people have exactly the worldview of 21st century middle-class white westerners except for being monarchists.
I try to avoid this, too.

>every PC's family and loved ones must die horribly
Gettin' real tired of this one. When I GM, I include them as NPCs in the game and if they're ever in danger, I give the players a chance to protect them. Just killing them offscreen is weak storytelling, and killing them in front of the players without letting them do something is pointless and sadistic.

>90lb pretty boys that are somehow physically stronger than the 220lb beefcake
>High heel armored boots
>Huge fluffy hairstyles for female fighters
>A super metal that is just better than steel in every conceivable way
>Peasants are 100% worthless
>1 dude takes out an army of 100 by himself with no problems (The hobbit)
>Armor is worthless if bad guys are wearing it (the hobbit)

>enemy is wearing a breastplate
>protagonist slashes him across the chest
>enemy dies
Do they even hire fight choreographers anymore?

I thought that was Preston Gravery

>A super metal that is just better than steel in every conceivable way

Thats a cool trope pham.

>enemy is wearing a breastplate
>protagonist slashes him across the chest
>enemy dies
I hate this more than life itself

Trying to enhance yourself or extend your life always being considered evil or destructive, and only bad people do it. This, and always having the good guys be agrarian or stately, no central industry or advanced technology(besides maybe magic).

>A super metal that is just better than steel in every conceivable way
And usually done with no understanding of metallurgy
also
>Super sword cuts through regular steel sword with 0 resistance

YES. This cultural pessimism just sucks.

How do we make Witch Hunters not be dicks?

Prophesies and The Chosen One. It's just bad, lazy storytelling.

>avoiding huge fluffy hairstyles for female fighters
If you said that to my face I might try to strangle you for a few seconds.

>Magic users are actually fucking dangerous
>witch hunters are not just lel just burn them but actually investigate things
>they really try to only kill dangerous ones
>actually explore the societal reality of a few people who basically have superpowers
>magic crime syndicates, magic terrorists etc.

>The players face when the chosen one isn't protected by plot and dies in a random engagement with the enemy.

Do we keep muh giant hat is the question?

>BBEG has plot armor a mile thick

>I might try to strangle you for a few seconds.
>Implying I wouldn't enjoy it

>You don't see this in science fiction
Uh, yes you do. All the time?

>Magic users are actually fucking dangerous
>Their activities cause animals to mutate into monsters
>Crops wither and die
>Illnesses
>Bizarre occurrences such as clouds growing legs and scuttling around the nation while raining angry hornets nests

You do, but people view them as they fedoras today.

this

>All sympathetic people have exactly the worldview of 21st century middle-class white westerners except for being monarchists.
this

>50% female rank and file military
>friend of nature using animals as literal battle thralls without second thought
>neatly organized forest realm that looks like a Zen garden is natural and good because elves are living in it
>adventurers as special category of people
>adventurers guild
>always evil races
>elemental infused race
>gods with neat monothematic portfolios
>insanity on sight cthulhu creatures
>magical realm of whimsy and fey trickery

>Huge pauldrons, belts and pouches everywhere,
hey fuck you
>no helmets.
this one i agree with though

i didn't know it was physically possible to write with your head so far up your own ass

mah nigga.

t. your ass

>Highly religious zealots
>Wear bigger fedoras than atheists

like pottery

>Main quest giver is a god

really nigga?

Take a few pages from Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters.
>stop idiot peasants from burning people who aren't witches
>have actual methods and logic to their hunting
>take the 'good witch' trope at face value instead of half a movie's worth of skepticism and drama
>recognize inherent goodness in thrall creatures like trolls if they demonstrate such traits

The thing I hate most is guilds, of any sort, but especially Thieves' Guilds.

What sort of fucking limpdick Duke of Dunceville allows thievery to be encouraged, and what sort of dimwitted guild leader is smart enough to name their secret club "WE TEACH YOU HOW TO STEAL".

And they're always founded by someone with the name "Fox".

Yeah exactly stuff like this. I would make magic more call of cthulu style. No actual demon possesion but the shit you do ALWAYS has unforeseen consequences. Bring back a loved one? She now needs human flesh to survive. Make a guy love you? He does now but he also really likes skinning people alive. Killing another merchant out of greed? He dies but because of a highly contagious plague you just created.

Everybody can use magic, its more about rituals and finding rare books bound in human flesh. No guilds or pointy robes. People use it to problem solve and create much more problems in the process. They try to solve these problems with magic too creating a vicious cycle because magic detoriates the mind and is highly addictive.

Nobility doesn't care because they are either hunting, fighting wars or having decadent orgies. Witch Hunters are not much more than amateurs sent by the church because if the nobility has to solve the magic problem they do it by just slaughtering the people and burning down everything.

>The thing I hate most is guilds
What about business guilds? Which are essentially just organized alliances of craftsmen and merchants

Business guilds make for great quest givers
>Lumber guild
>Really want to collect the lumber from a forest they just bought
>assholes neglected to tell them its full of giant spiders
>Sentient mega spider living in the woods they neglect to mention to the adventurers

>God of exact domain
>Every single cult worships him the same way
>All his legends are coherent and standardized
>He's never given attributes of other deities
>He either a total goody two shoes or baby eating monster
>He doesn't have a laundry list of names
>All his myths are dead serious with no sense of whimsy
>His holidays are generic gift giving occasions with no background like being born, vanquishing evil, offering boon to mankind like agriculture, or returning from the dead

Kill me already

But what if YOU are the one who can't comprehend evil?

Guilds and pointy hats serve a purpose in magical traditions, you know.
You need to discipline yourself to perform magic. Purity, focus, all that shit doesn't boil down to thinking really hard for a few seconds before casting a spell. That's why so many magic orders are organized like monasteries.

Of course DnD completely glosses over that but keeps the superficial aspects of it.

Yeah but for a world where witch hunters are supposed to be the good guys guilds are counter productive my dude.

Remember that you have to explain where the magic comes from.
>A prince one day is struck with an illness
>Fever, nausea, weakness, and horrible, horrible nightmares
>Every night it gets worse
>Writing his will, he begins scribbling mad drawings and words in a language he can't understand
>Every word he writes seems to alleviate the illness
>He demands more paper and ink
>Every day he writes more, and every day the prince gets better
>Eventually, he has penned an entire tome
>Distraught with what he has written, he tries to destroy the book
>Every wound he inflicts on the book brings about terrible pain and suffering in himself
>Instead he elects to have the book of vile rituals and secrets stored away somewhere secret
>The book however, corrupts the minds of whoever holds it, begging them to read it and spread its dark knowledge

Yeah it makes more sense if you think about guilds like modern-day unions or companies. I'll probably use that, cheers.

Then that's a completely different cliché.

I ran a campaign in the "Immortals" setting
Ashed guilds make for good quest givers

Nice! Thats the stuff i am talking about. Maybe magic is just a contagious force of change and madness that tries to find its way into the mortal world. It preys on the weak, the troubled and the mad and whispers promises of ending the pain or making you strong.

yeah but then 99% of the lowly populace would end up corrupted in no time.

If it's just a tradition then not everyone will have access to it, but if it's just a matter of being curious and desperate, then your setting will go full-on grimdark.

Go on.

>yeah but then 99% of the lowly populace would end up corrupted in no time.

Ah not necessarily. I would actually see it like working for the cartells in mexico. Most sane people just see its immoral and dangerous. Maybe you actually have to put in effort to find the right rituals etc. Also Witch Hunters as the good guys in a grimdark world doesn't sound so bad.

>where magic comes from

It's like, a concept of reality or some shit. Like gravity or whatever.

Fuck, who even cares.

>yeah but then 99% of the lowly populace would end up corrupted in no time.
Unless they flee from the impending doom
Or if the kingdom's warriors actually protect them like they are wont to do
Or if the village has myths and legends that tell them what to do (burn the witch) in such instances
Or if heroes and adventurers are present

I thought you said fantasy troops but I guess this still counts.

Battlemages.

Mages are people with an extraordinary gift of magic. They can heal for money, become assassins, enchant items, even amass their own armies, or become mercenaries. Why the fuck would they become some rank and file soldier? Why not become a leader or general?

>inb4 conscription
Well yeah I guess but that's stupid. Maybe people with simple healing magic couldn't escape but they'd practically be given as slaves to nobles. Anyone else would have either completely useless or powerful enough abilities that they could fight off their conscriptors with and just run away.

>Fuck, who even cares.
People who like settings with internal consistency
People who like stories with depth instead of the storyteller just shrugging and going "lol I dunno"
Even calling it a concept of reality is explaining it it some respect

It's FUCKING MAGIC. It's not supposed to make sense. There are fucktons of concepts and shit, and it's a terrible explanation anyway.

Warhammer and Warhammer 40k have ways to work around that.
In warhammer, wizards are basically scholars, they don't want to rule and make money, they just want to study and settle rivalries between colleges. So they help the Empire in battle so that they can keep living their cushy lifestyle without having to worry about anything other than their jobs. The ambitious ones fall to chaos anyway.

And in 40k there's a bunch of military branches dedicated to keeping psykers in check.

It's always the inverse in games I've played in.

Yes it is supposed to make sense. All real-life magic systems explain why magic works the way it does. Only in romantic literature (and derived traditions) does magic appear as incomprehensible.

>real-life magic

Oh shit I'm sorry, I didn't know magic was real.

I've been getting weary of all the religious cliches that have been showing up all over stories for a while now.

DISCALIMER: I'm aware that *some* religious people IRL embody the tropes I'm bitching about below, but the problem I have is how it seems nearly everyone who's religious is portrayed like this.

>I'm a good person, but my religion says I must do horrible things!
Because everyone religious is willing to throw all common sense and decency out the window because a cleric told them so, with no critical thought whatsoever. If the pope came out tomorrow and ordered every Catholic to murder their neighbors, I seriously doubt many of them would heed the call. Also, pic related.

>I don't gotta explain shit, it's religion!
Most religions have at least something of an explanation behind their beliefs, the idea that a person's motivations can be entirely summed up by "my religion told me so" is really simplistic. For example, even the most hardcore anti-gay Christian/Muslim will at least attempt to give a logical answer to why they don't support gay marriage "It's unnatural!" "The point of marriage is to produce children." I'm not saying these are good arguments, but it should be recognized that most won't just say "Because God said so.", and leave it at that, which is what they frequently do in fiction.

It's okay, gothic novels and horror films propagate a lot of misconceptions that sometimes end up seeping into RPGs.

Actually, the point of sex is to produce children. Marriage by itself does nothing.

Battlemages would be mages who are trained to use a limited number of spells quickly and repeatedly. They wouldn't be rank-and-file soldiers, they'd be elite units. You'd more than likely see skill specialization based on their position within armies and generous pay. Unless your setting is the type where every wizard is easily and casually rewriting reality to his whims with nary an effort, they're pretty easy to justify in a setting.

Bullshit, what do you think cauliflowers are for?

I dunno.

Yes and no. While I agree that extremist villains are boring (no matter what their motivations are), they should still be relate-able. We should be able to understand why they're doing what they're doing, what their logic is. IMO the best villains are ones who are, in many ways, ordinary people, or at least, similar to the players, but with a different outlook on things that brings them into conflict. Moral greys are more interesting than black and white.

Most Judeo-Christian-Muslim theology promotes the belief that sex should not happen until marriage.

Well, believing in something doesn't make it true.

You're right, I'm just trying to explain the mindset they're approaching the issue from.

>What sort of fucking limpdick Duke of Dunceville allows thievery to be encouraged
the patrician of ankh-morpork, and it actually made crime go down because the guilds did their own policing.

>but with a different outlook on things

So basically, "your opinion is different than mine, so you must die"?

Your simplistic opinion is exactly the cliché I'm trying to avoid.

Maybe magic users aren't evil, but witches are, who are sort of like liches.

What about bitches? And snitches?

not funny

Potentially. Depends on what the conflict is about. While it's doubtful that competing prosecuting and defending lawyers will try to kill each other, military officers of opposing nations might, even if, at the end of the day, the two sides are essentially fighting for the same thing (justice and national security, respectively).

I didn't realize that complex characters are simplistic or cliché. I figured that was just a rule of good storytelling.

If people in a fantasy world use supernatural/paranormal/spiritual abilities to fight are the Wizards or something else? Yknow like using some sort of energy to punch really hard, set their swords on fire, run so fast you see clones, etc

>Mages are people with an extraordinary gift of magic.
In your setting.

>(justice and national security, respectively)

What?

Modern white guilt over The Crusades has forever ruined pop culture depictions of paladins and fanatics.

I honest to god want an rpg/vidya about a brutal crusader destroying infidels and demons. I want it so bad that it becomes popular and gets its on version of Spec Ops the Line where you play a medieval soldier questioning the righteousness of butchering so many civilians the city streets literally run red with blood with religion barely ever mattering to the plot