How do you create a setting free of tropes/cliches?

>Not doing woodwork with tooth and nail
Psht, fucking casual woodworkers.

You don't.
You just stop giving a shit. Make what you want and run with it.

erase history

You don't, because "trope" is just another word for "codified idea".

On the other-hand, if you want a setting that doesn't feel cookie-cutter the trick is to take a single or pair of ideas and expand/follow them into less-charted territory. When you encounter other tropes/ideas, you can judge whether to incorporate them or go in a different direction as relevant.

You just can't avoid them completely, because you end up with a non-understandable mess.

>How do you create a setting free of tropes/cliches?

1-Get a genre of painting, music, or sculpture or decor or fashion
2-List down their characteristics
3-Use logic to convert those characteristics to setting characteristcs
4-Make a setting that have ALL charateristics from step 3

Originality is overrated. Execution is the real deal.

You cannot. Pic related.

Step 1: Achieve Omnipotence.

You don't. It's just how the human mind works: pattern recognition.
If you're good enought then perhaps you'll be able to model new tropes on the old ones, that'll be different enought from their source to qualify as honestly new tropes, that'll expand the scope of human consciousness a little and that'll we used as springboard by others to do the same.
We all think thogether, we are all part of the same endless conversation we call Civilization, Truth, Life, Love.
The constants of our thought processes remain the same, and our basic condition (of limited flawed beings that for some inexplicable reason outside of darwinian evolution want the Infinite and the Perfect, thus suffering endlessy)
remain the same. And yet with each iteration, the Fractal that is US becomes more and more complex, beautifull and precious.

It was so since cavemen started copying each other's cave paintings and calling each others talentless hacks.
And yet each drawing is unique, and only that caveman could have drawn it like that.
Don't worry about being derivative (even if going too much the opposite direction is being lazy so try to avoid that too)
Worry about BEING.
Add to the fractal.

Pretty much exactly. Let yourself be influenced by what truly moves you and makes you passionate and you will create good writing and worldbuilding. Everything is derived from something else, just don't copy-paste your ideas and you should be fine. Cliches and Tropes are not inherently bad, they're just a way that the audience can frame characters and events to better understand and compare/contrast them. For all that people complain about tolkien-esque Elves and Dwarves being huge cliches, it's also how most people view such creatures and it gets people into your world faster if you follow those tropes closely. Defying every convention just slows down how quickly your audience can process and learn your setting, which can be a big barrier to entry especially for novice RPG players.

Wisdom right there, yo. Haters gonna hate, especially here on Veeky Forums.

You might manage it for the sake of some very short prose, but once you need boatloads of content it's hard as fuck (and kind of pointless) to keep every scrap of it original.

I don't. After playing and writing for so long you begin to realize that your most original ideas have been done before somewhere. Most of your most original ideas fall apart because you didn't think about how they makes sense in a setting or play a major part of the story you want to tell.

nihil sub sole novum

Moderation, in all things

Cliché evasion is a cliché in itself.

You could always have a child, lock them away for 20 years with no access to the outside world then force them to write fantastical stories with no inspiration.

>a setting about nothing where nothing is nothing all nothing and nothing...

Is also a trope. No escape, sorry.

>a setting about nothing where nothing is nothing all nothing and nothing... etc.
Isn't this just the tipical modern literary romance?

why would you want to?

He's going to smear the paper in his own feces since he's completely illiterate.

Still, it would be a better setting than Paizo Themepark

>uses the word tropes
Okay, we get it. You read some TVTropes and now you think you are le master setting and fiction critic and need to remove all cliches from your games and stories. But how to do that? For every cliche, doing the opposite is ALSO a cliche. Apparently you missed the very critical article on that very site "Tropes are Tools". They aren't bad or good, they're just ways of categorizing and describing common themes. You might find some themes bad, so don't use those ones, or maybe look around in those articles for examples of those things done well so that if you absolutely cannot avoid them you can at least keep them from sinking your setting. But also find tropes that you like, and read deeply into those to figure out what exactly makes them so good and avoid the Battlefield Earth problem of using a narrative trick you like (ex. Dutch Angles) but not demonstrating any knowledge of how or when to use it (ex. Every. Single. Frame.).

Your setting will be filled with cliches. Accept it and do them well.

> How do you create a setting free of tropes/cliches?
>giving a shit about originality
Authencity, not originality.

So what you're saying is...

By not being human.

Go read some Joseph Campbell and shut up.

>implying the first fictional setting wasn't influenced by reality.

You don't, it is not the question where the parts of your setting come from, but where you take them to and what you do with them.

The human brain already works largely with recognizing or even implementing patterns.

So the way to work is, taking something already familiar to your players and take your own spin on it. Make them create a new pattern for the mix of familiar pattern pieces you present them.

For starters, avoid all and any universal cultural traits and reject all junguian archetypes and the basic instincts they represent.

Warning: if you come up with a science based on metaphysical plants which can't be examined, people communicating through vomit, men ejaculating centipedes, nuclear directed energy weapons and giant hands breaking the stalemate of WWI, I already read about them.

Good luck.

Hold on, let me try:
˜”*°•.˜”*°• ҉Ꮈ҉ꙅ҉H҉ɒ҉H҉҉ꙅ҉ ҉҉ꞁ҉҉Ꮈ҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉ɿ҉҉҉ƚ҉҉҉҉҉Ꮈ҉ǫ҉҉H҉Ꮈ҉ꞁ҉H҉҉҉ꞁ҉҉ꞁ҉H҉ꙅ҉ꙅ҉ꙅ҉ꙅ҉ꙅ҉ꙅ҉
҉ǫ҉ꞁ҉҉H҉Ꮈ҉҉ ҉҉ʞ҉Ꮈ҉҉ꙅ҉ ҉ꞁ҉Ꮈ҉҉ꙅ҉ ҉҉ɿ҉҉҉҉Ꮈ҉ɒ҉ꙅ҉ ҉҉ɒ҉ǫ҉ꙅ҉ʞ҉҉ꞁ҉ ҉ꙅ҉ᴎ҉ǫ҉Ꮈ҉҉ʞ҉ꞁ҉ǫ҉
•°*”˜.•°*”˜

Nothing wrong with abiding by cliches and tropes f-am, just as long as their YOUR tropes and cliches.

I just don't do it and use a premade setting.
That way I get rid of the "Everything must be so original" trope/cliche.
It's the best I could ask for.

Create an entire setting based around alien sensations, thoughts and emotions which have no equivalent for humans and cannot be explained through human words.

...

Surprised this hasn't been linked yet.

tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/JustForFun/TheTropelessTale

Exactly. There are no elves in talislanta. Now fuck off.

>Grog you fucking asshole, fire was my idea first.

Nope, nihilism is sure to invoke it's share of tropes.

I thought Arrival was pretty good too.

...

By creating something so unique that it is alien and indeciferable to all but you.

Like the voynich manuscript.

Oh, damn. Nevermind.

Zalgo

>Implying the first fictional works weren't just poorly-informed attempts at non-fiction.

God damn it what is the name of that comic?

I never saw the ending of it. Iirc the dude becomes everyones friend and becomes emperor of japan or some shit?

20th Century Boys

Pfft, shitty beaver cliche

D̪̖̙̮̻̤͞a̺̝̦̤̦͙ͅn̘̠̘̝̳̺̫͢g҉͉͈̭̮̯

>using elves an elfs in the same image

You've never visited TVtropes, have you? That website is full of autists who call EVERYTHING a fucking trope. There's literally a "stabbed in the eye" trope. That's right, being STABBED IN THE EYE is a fucking trope.

>implying reality wasn't the first setting

You reject structuralism and start reading some litcrit more contemporary than the early 20th century, then apply.

>Implying nothing
Blatantly stating that this version of reality is shit. Rolling as wealthy is totally OP and the sex mechanics were never as good in use as they seemed on paper.

You don't. Tropes and cliches are good things if not overused

Well obviously he would need to be homeschooled .

Tropes basically mean recognizable concepts and symbols, so it's impossible. What you an do is present them in a interesting and/or non-tradtional way where they don't feel cliche. Or by choosing ones your players like so they don't care if the thing is familiar or not. RPG players are actually willing to put up with a lot of storytelling cliches because they can interact with them and they're already having fun hanging out with friends.

>That website is full of autists who call EVERYTHING a fucking trope.
It's a type of taxonomy, dumbass. Everything IS a trope, because if it isn't one they will create a new trope for it.

That's where trope creators and namers come from. Someone came first, and the trope existed from there on out. That's how taxonomy works.

You might as well get autistically-pissed that scientists keep classifying organisms into species.

But getting stabbed in the eye isn't a trope. It's just a thing that happens. Tropes don't mean "things that happen". They mean "devices used for a purpose".

Chairs are not tropes, as they themselves say.

>implying they weren't excellently-informed attempts at non-fiction

>bitch we both saw the lightning hit it

The struggle continues over 4000 years
>For what is already said can only be repeated; what is said once has been said [...] If only I knew what was unknown to others, what is still unrepeated. I would say "Ah!" on account of my relief.
>- Khakheperre-seneb, Egyptian Middle Kingdom, nineteenth century BC

>But getting stabbed in the eye isn't a trope. It's just a thing that happens.
It IS a trope when it's being used to shock the audience based on their primal fear of eye injury. Or when it's used as a critical weakness for a monster. Or when it is used for comedic effect.

Khakheperre knew what was going on. It's weird that even in such old and comparativley alien time and place, the simple issues are exactly the same.

Oh look, the 'omnipotent faceless figure in dressy clothing holding the world in his grasp' trope... How humdrum.

It's not really weird, when you think about it. We're biologically identical to those people. We have all the same basic needs and wants and drives.

This is best post

Literally can't. The lack of tropes is a trope in and of itself.

OP confirmed master troll. Whale Plaid.

you can't, just try and present old ideas in new and interesting ways

stop using the term trope or start using the item rope

This makes me think of Henry Darger.