ITT: Cliches you hate but are too polite to say anything about

Yeah, Nier did it pretty well. I think my hatred of it comes from watching the Scrapped Princess anime as a kid.

Milennia-old elves work as NPCs, but make no sense for PCs when a person who's lived for 17 years has the same amount of life and combat experience as someone who's lived for 300.

Mono-cultural demihumans are stupid as fuck in general, though. It only works if your humans are also monocultural, and even then, the entire trope makes no sense.

>Just because a race is in the PHB or an expansion book, it suddenly HAS to exist in the world, whether that world is homebrew or an established setting already. Worse still, said race has to be a major world power now with it's own civilization/country/continent.

Like, I get that nobody wants their unique creation to be irrelevant of have no presence, but when you start having like 20, 30, 50+ races that you have to do this for, it starts to turn world lore into a bit of clusterfuck, just so somebody can play some retarded special-snowflake who's different than everything else that exists in the world.

I prefer insular, isolationist, xenophobic Goblins. Orcs are too oriented towards raiding to be peaceful, but I don't blanket-assign alignments to them either, so some raid, some farm, some do both. It's just part of their culture so in some places it's just considered normal and in others they are hunted because of it.

To answer the OP though: the troubled hero. Nobody ever does it right.

>princess/queen/helpless damsel was really the final BBEG.
Because they're probably the only thing you don't immediately murder for xp and loot.

Also the closest he can get to your characters showing something resembling vulnerability.

Mono-culture can actually make a lot of sense. But only in a situation where it's nigh impossible to get to them or they have been in stasis and even then even in the most conservative societies you'll likely see some gradual shifts.

The basic you have ninja's living a mile down the road from knights though is flat out bullshit.

Sounds like a personal issue, considering our party rarely ever kills ANY sentient beings except in absolute self-defense. We actually don't allow evil alignments in our games...

Wow, so much assumption and butthurt here. Just because you play with retards on Roll20, don't assume everyone else is a friendless basement-dweller forced to play with edgy teenagers on the internet. Holy shit.

That's your games man, my games are different.

>Murderhobos aren't the most common players

They apparently are for the user he's reply to. Because you know, one person's experiences are universal and apply to everyone.

>Your character is from modern Earth and they get pulled into another world/an occult underground

I can barely manage to force myself to come up with a character for anything that starts off in modern Earth any more because there's no fucking point. Anything interesting will be irrelevant immediately because that's not part of the new world they find themselves in, and I can't just make a character that makes sense in a setting because it just HAS to all be new and confusing to the PCs.

>person from real world goes to fantasy world
>bland protagonist for audience to project onto
Hand me the noose

>Side character: This monster absorbs all magic around it. You can't affect it with magic even indirectly, it will only get stronger. Seriously, don't even think about casting a spell!
>Main character: Nah, I'll just feed it a fuckton of magic on purpose until it explodes!
And you know it will explode because...

This but with real world human skin colors. People who think any fantasy setting HAS to have people who look Asian, HAS to have blacks, HAS to have whites. It's fantasy, it's fiction, you can make anything you want. If you want to make Game of Thrones but everyone's Mongolian, fine, do it. Don't feel compelled to include Hispanics just because they exist in real life. This ties in to all that bullshit about "inclusion".

I'm just generally sick of every setting having a not!asia, not!africa, not!arabia, etc. I'd prefer starting with the typical medieval european base and then coming up with your own cultures. This is especially annoying when the map looks like a slightly tweaked Earth.

t. WHFB, Golarion

> Anything interesting will be irrelevant immediately because that's not part of the new world they find themselves

That plot is easy to fuck up but it can be done pretty well. Someone from mondern day earth will have very different experiences and life then someone from another world.

Some guy who spent years working mining or a construction job and has been divorced twice will react a lot differently then a poet who has spent a few years living in the alps writing his next book.

I think the biggest screw up people have in these works is they tend to not make the new person relevant enough to not just have a native be the protagonist.

>You guys are part of a mercenary group

It gets even better in NieR: Automata where it's not just post-apocalyptic high fantasy, it's gone through enough apocalypses that it circled back on itself and became both high fantasy and high sci-fi.

>Adventurers are dirty mercenaries and nobody likes them NYEH!

Like, let me be a fucking hero for once.

>Wanting people and authority to like armed men and women using weapons.
>People who tend to be foreigners at that.

Aarakocra live in mountains and in small numbers, as do most of Volo's races, just replacing (mountain) with an habitat that gives you an excuse to be ignored if you don't want to use them nor delete them.

Is that ok?

I prefer this to "You all meet up in a tavern" at least/ It at least implies your characters have existing ties and reason to trust eachother already, rather than being a bunch of randos who met in a bar and decided to trust total strangers with your lives.

>seven years later, campaign is down to two players
>"One of you is a traitor"
>they both get it wrong

>They both get it wrong
So the traitor was already dead?
Otherwise I'm not liking the direction this is headed.

>Races that are just "They're Humans, but with AN ANIMAL TRAIT!"

Fuck this shit, for real.

None of them are?
Maybe the tabaxi.
But the giantkin and merfolk are really far from it.
And the Aarakocra have really different culture and views, making players often annoying if played well. Similar stuff with the lizarmen.

Tabaxi are the main offender, also the choice race of powergamer fags.

Yeah, Aarakocra are alien creatures with clashing moralities with most societies, Lizardmen are more like a bigger lizard in two legs than a scaled human.
Then the Tabaxi are gypsy cats.

Games aren't real life.

>when the GM was hurt and betrayed by a woman in his past so he has women hurt and betray the party
Sad really.

I think it's less THAT and more the shitty attempt at shock value from the idea that pure innocent creatures like women might actually be justt as power-hungry, manipulative, and capable as anyone else.

"Hurrbdurr Game of Thrones did it, I will be a great DM if I try to shove it in too, without understanding how or why it worked!"

I don't really get why that's a bad thing? It would honestly be kinda shitty if you let people play demonblooded, dragonblooded, and have in setting justifications for that but you can't play a Black or Asian guy because reasons.

Like jerking yourself off over "inclusion is bad", but I don't see what's wrong with having options like that.

There's a reason "nerds have problems with women" is such a common trope in shitty comedies

Women warriors being commonplace instead of novelties.

Shitty ANIME do this all the time too, without understanding how or why it works when used correctly.

Honestly that tends to be how I play most of the noble women in my games personally. Not sure why but I really like my cynical asshole manipulators.

Are...are you describing the plot of Naruto right now?

Sounds a bit more like Berserk to me. Mainly the

>Villain gets away with everything because someone worse than him showed up.

>Person who wants revenge for the death of a family member turns evil to get it, even if there's no reason to.

>The most important religion in the setting is corrupt and evil, possibly also a front for an evil eldritch abomination

stuff

>>The most important religion in the setting is corrupt and evil, possibly also a front for an evil eldritch abomination
Blame it on JRPGs, which you can blame on japan's weird as fuck relation with western religions.

Oh thank god, someone else hated that. I'm surrounded by twats here that can watch the main character whine for hours on end for some reason.

>millennia old elves only ever doing one thing only
I remember a book series with elves that had given up their magic, so their main schtick was being obscenely good at common everyday shit. Like, they make camo cloaks that aren't magic, but might as well be, because they're that fucking good. They make completely nonmagical armor that can stand up to shit magical armor can't. If you're halfway up a mountain in the middle of a goddamn windstorm in a set of hanging sleeping bags, there will still be hot tea somehow, and it will be the best goddamn tea you've ever tasted.

>mfw eldritch entities just look like random people
>mfw the royal guard/watch/any standing military that's not the party get slaughtered en masse to show how badass the BBEG is
>mfw the DM goes to painful lengths to emphasise how normal and ordinary obvious plot artifact is
>mfw I know what it's like to be built this way, with only the power to push others away

>Leader of [organization based around skill] is ALWAYS the most skillful member of that organization.
I once had a player revolt on my hands because an argument broke out after I informed them that no, the leader of the local city's mage guild was not the best mage in it.

Did you stop running for those faggots?

It's the exact reverse, you moron. "You are mercs" implies they work together. "You met in a tavern" means they've literally just met there. Hell, maybe even didn't met, but just sit in different parts of the tavern and need to met first.

>Evil magic corrupts in a nonspecific manner just to get around any safeguards you might try
>Evil magic causes incredibly obvious physical signs anyone can detect
>Evil magic isn't even fucking worth what you'd be paying out for it mechanically

I once had a 5 minute conversation with my bewildered players who were struggling to understand that a priest npc couldn't cast any healing spells for them because he didn't have cleric class levels. He was just a member of the clergy and a missionary.

If evil magic were easy, everyone would use it.

>Calls people morons
>Completely fails at basic reading comprehension.

>Perverted old man character who harasses pretty much everyone but never faces any serious consequences for what he does.

>Reoccurring "funny" character who screws over the party in LOLSOFUNNEY ECSDEE ways, but is inexplicably good at running away and dodging so he can survive to make himself a nuisance another day.

My DM has been watching too many shitty anime.

I swear though, if "El Bandito, greatest thief in the world" steals the party's food and escapes through fiat one more time, the DM is getting a broken nose.

>>Perverted old man character who harasses pretty much everyone.

Is nobody in the party playing a male character who's not some beta caster-cuck? Step it up, defend ur womenz in the party and fuck that old man up.

Unless your DM is the kind of faggot who's like "LOL the old man is secretly a retired level 20 adventurer monk who will end you with his super powerful martial arts LOL ECKSDEE"

>God is the badguy, the devil din do nuffin

Sometimes it's bad enough that it makes me want to drop a game.

As in, the old man dodges everything we throw at him, rather conspicuously without the clatter of dice from behind the DM screen.

The DM's attempts at comic relief characters are extremely obnoxious, and it seems like he hasn't even noticed that no one likes them.

>some beta caster-cuck

There's no need to be THIS mad over caster superiority, user

It's more just that I'm tired of every caster ever being the timid quiet bookish type with no personality other than "I read alot". I feel like alot of the time this happens because the player themselves are too busy crunching with their spells to actually develop an actual CHARACTER, so they just revert to this quick and easy stereotype without actually changing anything up about it.

I'm fine with religion being corrupt at the higher echelons of power, because that's just how things do.

Religion as a concept being bad is something that kind of makes me just roll my eyes, since while you can of course have your corrupt small town ministers and shit (stereotypes exist for a reason), a lot of holy folk just do it because they think that's what's right.

Now bad actions resulting from good people with good intentions, that works out fine (despite le edgy meme "hate degenerate" culture on a site full of porn, anime, and anime porn saying otherwise).

But an oldie that pisses me off?

>the paladin falls because of x action being evil by some definition

Oi fuck you, I either had to save the church run orphanage or save the nun.

>''And they lived happily ever after''

>tfw this is the basis of my games setting that I'm designing
Fuck....well let's hope I can pull it off

Humans being the generic as fuck, I can do anything, but I don't have anything especial guy because the creator couldn't be bothered to make a role for them in the setting/story.

Because in this particular setting, demonblooded people exist and hispanics (for example) don't.

I mean turn that argument on its head for a moment. If you had a grounded, realistic setting based on africa and a player wanted to play a half-blooded demon tabaxi you'd tell them to fuck off because it doesn't fit the setting.

Characters have to fit the setting, if you try to include EVERYTHING in a setting it turns into a monumental clusterfuck and just feels kinda lashed together. You have to pick and choose what to exclude.

>Morons claiming 'good is not nice' when all they do is just trying to excuse their kind of petty evil as "good" somehow

>Claiming doing evil things to evil people is good

>Claiming anarchy and free for all is better than rule of law because it somehow equals more liberty when all it means is freedom for the strong to oppress the weak however they see fit, by brute strength, economically, or politically

It's like cloistered teenagers and young adults living in first (or at worst second) world countries had no idea what any of these means in practice and instead of using their brains for once they choose to cling into edgy, cool sounding thing, and sadly a lot of them don't grow up from it...

>Claiming doing evil things to evil people is good

I want to agree with you but I guess that really depends on what you consider "doing evil things" to evil people to be, here.

I've played with a paladin player who was a gigantic edgelord teetering on an oathbreaker who played like he was Gonlin Slayer and that was obnoxious as fuck, but I've also had GMs tell me that I as a Paladin wasn't allowed to execute the pillaging warlord we beat because he had surrendered and needed to be carted three days through the woods back to the nearest town to stand trial and I always thought that was kind of bullshit

>the villain gets away with the terrible things they did because they did it for noble reasons/out of love

>The campaign's antagonist could wipe the players out from the start but chooses not to for no real reason except (maybe) overconfidence or because he can't be arsed to.
Bonus points if the player characters are prophesized or heroes of legend or in some other way foretold to be the only ones who could ever defeat the antagonist.

does "can only die through the heroes, and wants to commit suicide by hero" count as a good reason?

The hell are you on about? I could see

>The most important religion in the setting is corrupt and evil, possibly also a front for an evil eldritch abomination

But even then they really aren't evil, just misguided and also literally the Catholic church at the height of the Inquisition. And unlike irl, their Inquisition is kind of justified, considering demons literally exist and walk amongst humans in that setting.

For the other two, name one example.

>IT WAS ALL A DREAM AND YOU DONT REALLY EXIST NOTHING HAS CONSEQUENCES
>This clearly happy go lucky world has a DARK UNDERTONE (that's totally subtle right guys?) The fairies commit ritualistic sacrifice every weekend. The little old lady is actually a blood witch. They mayor is a mimic. The entire town is a mimic.
>The players fucked up. Shit, I have to throw them bone #307 because my campaign must continue as intended, I have a story to tell!
and the worst:
>I saw this in an anime and/or greentext screencap on Veeky Forums it'll be totally hilarious!

Have you ever seen a BBEG that start as a SBEG and grow to a world threat in that time as PC grow from peasants and orphans to a mighty heroes?

Do I even want the source for this image? Tell me anyway, I'll take the chance.

>I saw this in an anime and/or greentext screencap on Veeky Forums it'll be totally hilarious!

I actually do this in a not serious D&D campaign where my drows are slavs because that greentext really made me laugh

I bet you're great fun at parties

Honestly that's not terrible, but I've had serious campaigns where the DM did shit like bringing in a bandit played by his friend that was a cut and paste of the "It's not delivery it's DiGiorno!" story
I personally would still prefer to avoid them entirely but some can pass if its fitting and not focused heavily on

Honestly it's just a side joke, they just met a drow in the beginning and I gave him a slav accent, but he litteraly disappeared from the game after that, so yeah not that bad

That trope is old as fuck.

>Orcs are noble savages
>Gnomes are steampunk
>Nothing you do matters cause lol dark

>The empire is always evil, but might have the Imperial Propaganda filter from Helldivers/Movie Starship Troopers/etc on it.
>Conversely: The empire is a utopia and the only reason it has enemies is jealousy/ignorance/monsters are irredeemable.

The middle ground exists, and the things that don't fall into it somewhere are few and far between. I don't know why none of the people I've ever gamed with don't seem to get that.

But what if several races including myth-based ones such as centaurs or minotaurs were engineered/spliced with those traits to serve as various slave-castes for an ancient magically advanced civilization?

They beat me to the punch, but yes, the game ended.

Not him, but yes. In fact the SBEG's rise to BBEG status took close to 40 years in character, far longer than it takes for us heroes to rise from dirt farmers to badass adventurers.

Also, he mimicked his dead boss and assumed his identity, even to the level of marrying the guy's widow, which was really creepy and weird.

Rubber forehead aliens.
It's a shitty trope created for low-budget movies. Don't bring it up ever again.

But... But Star Trek...

... blows

I like corny schlock so I love rubber forehead aliens.

I have a villain in my current game that the party thinks is being set up for this. He's currently trying to find a replacement for the non-renewable resource the entire society is reliant on, but is going full on "no matter the cost" eco-terrorist with it.
If the party doesn't just outright kill him, he's gonna rot in jail forever if given a fair trial and everyone will just use his research without acknowledging it was him who did the nasty legwork for it. Nobody is going to remember him as anything more than an unethical mass murderer who forsook his ethics to take the easy way. The villain is of course going to bitch and moan about how what he did was necessary but pretty much nobody will agree with him on it due to the huge body-count he's already racked up. He's pretty much the only person who thinks he's being noble doing the things he does.

Basically my goal is to enable the players to be as smug about bringing him down as possible.

Do something heroic then

literally every setting without black/white morality. Everything has to have "motive" these days, all the bbegs are "misunderstood" or a "fallen hero" rather than a conniving bastard like the rest of his lawful evil kind. And don't get me started on Orcs! In the old days you could round up a posse and go hunting Orcs and you'd get a reward. Now we have to deal with their Orcish degeneracy everywhere, half Orcs all over the place, Orcish "culture" on the radio and TV. Even Orcish Clerics for gods sake. Bat and eyelid and next you know there'll be an Orc as head of state you mark my words

Now is it just me or you're not really talking about orcs ?

Can you really call villains having motivations a cliché rather than, say, a fundamental requirement of writing anything?

It's a disgusting trend

>That was the joke

>implying I wasn't joking too
>inb4 "it was merely an act !"

Fuck off, it doesn't matter what the aliens look like, we know they're going to be basically humans and the meat of the story is in their weird gimmick like how they assume gender roles based on the phases of the moon and die if they tell a lie.