Fantasy Tropes to avoid.

"The hero was orphaned at a young age, and..."

>BBEG is just a misunderstood extremist
it's not bad but it gets old real quick. At this point a full-on psycho asshole is fresher and more original.

>>49540598
>the antagonists are just misunderstood
>the antagonists that tried to kill you, have zero qualms about killing you and initiated trying to kill you first are just misunderstood
THEY ARE FUCKING CULTISTS, I DON'T CARE THAT THEIR GOD IS REALLY NICE TO THEM OR SOMETHING

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Literally every village having over arching problems with unknown evils.
>Another settlement needs your help!

>>49540598
Medieval stagnation and long lived races.

Subverting stuff for the sake of it. It doesn't automatically make you clever.

Deliberately making a religious sect the primary evil group of your world.

Alternatively, you're forced to fight on behalf of this same religious group before later turning on them.

>>49540686
I dont mind long lived races that much, although it really depends on execution and how they live with it
Apathic immortal beings are allright, because when you live forever, why care about others issues that much

>>49540598
>What kinds of fantasy tropes do you avoid using?
The modern one where using a stereo type is akin to the black plague. Can't remember the last one I saw in game that I didn't make.

>>49540622
>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

>>49540816
>if you kill me you are almost as bad as me!
Nice try, Trudeau.

>>49540641
God these hats are fucking stupid, I hated this part of Innistrad

>>49540813
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.

>>49540806
>What kinds of fantasy tropes do you avoid using?
This doesn't mean "tropes are bad", it means "what tropes do you dislike?".

>>49540889
Shut your damn faggot mouth.
Tricorn hats were the best part of innistrad.

>>49540921
Just go all the way and have a guy who can't comprehend evil as you know it.

>>49540598
>tropes
shut up
just make something interesting

>>49540598
>You all meet in a tavern

>>49540622
>>49540640
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?

>>49541031
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?

>>49541196
> You don't see this in science fiction, so why is it a thing in fantasy?
You do

>>49540598
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

>>49541180
>All sympathetic people have exactly the worldview of 21st century middle-class white westerners except for being monarchists.
I try to avoid this, too.

>>49540598
>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.

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>>49540598
>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)

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>>49541477
>enemy is wearing a breastplate
>protagonist slashes him across the chest
>enemy dies
Do they even hire fight choreographers anymore?

>>49540641
I thought that was Preston Gravery

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

Thats a cool trope pham.

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>>49541498
>enemy is wearing a breastplate
>protagonist slashes him across the chest
>enemy dies
I hate this more than life itself

>>49540598
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).

>>49541531
>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

>>49541664
YES. This cultural pessimism just sucks.

>>49541052

How do we make Witch Hunters not be dicks?

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

>>49541477
>avoiding huge fluffy hairstyles for female fighters
If you said that to my face I might try to strangle you for a few seconds.

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>>49541716
>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.

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>>49541730
>The players face when the chosen one isn't protected by plot and dies in a random engagement with the enemy.

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>>49541716
>>49541773

Do we keep muh giant hat is the question?

>BBEG has plot armor a mile thick

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>>49541760
>I might try to strangle you for a few seconds.
>Implying I wouldn't enjoy it

>>49541196
>You don't see this in science fiction
Uh, yes you do. All the time?

>>49541773
>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

>>49541792
You do, but people view them as they fedoras today.

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>>49540686
this

>>49541180
>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

>>49541180
>Huge pauldrons, belts and pouches everywhere,
hey fuck you
>no helmets.
this one i agree with though

>>49541196
i didn't know it was physically possible to write with your head so far up your own ass

>>49540957
mah nigga.

>>49541908
t. your ass

>>49541908

>Highly religious zealots
>Wear bigger fedoras than atheists

like pottery

>Main quest giver is a god

really nigga?

>>49541716
>>49541773
>>49541869
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

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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".

>>49541869
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.

>>49542237
>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

>>49540962

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

>>49542287
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.

>>49542347
Yeah but for a world where witch hunters are supposed to be the good guys guilds are counter productive my dude.

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>>49542287
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

>>49542309
Yeah it makes more sense if you think about guilds like modern-day unions or companies. I'll probably use that, cheers.

>>49542336
Then that's a completely different cliché.

>>49542365
I ran a campaign in the "Immortals" setting
Ashed guilds make for good quest givers

>>49542362
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.

>>49542401
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.

>>49542373

Go on.

>>49542435
>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.

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>>49542362

>where magic comes from

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

Fuck, who even cares.

>>49542435
>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

>>49540598
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.

>>49542475
>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

>>49542510

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.

>>49542504
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.

>>49541052
It's always the inverse in games I've played in.

>>49542525
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.

>>49542587

>real-life magic

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

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>>49540598
>>49540781
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.

>>49542602
It's okay, gothic novels and horror films propagate a lot of misconceptions that sometimes end up seeping into RPGs.

>>49542646

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

>>49542504
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.

>>49542668
Bullshit, what do you think cauliflowers are for?

>>49542686

I dunno.

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>>49540622
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.

>>49542668
Most Judeo-Christian-Muslim theology promotes the belief that sex should not happen until marriage.

>>49542734

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

>>49542747
You're right, I'm just trying to explain the mindset they're approaching the issue from.

>>49542237
>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.

>>49542700

>but with a different outlook on things

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

>>49542700

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

>>49541716
Maybe magic users aren't evil, but witches are, who are sort of like liches.

>>49542794

What about bitches? And snitches?

>>49542844
not funny

>>49542784
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).

>>49542789
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

>>49542504
>Mages are people with an extraordinary gift of magic.
In your setting.

>>49542856

>(justice and national security, respectively)

What?

>>49542646
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

>>49542856
>I didn't realize that complex characters are simplistic or cliché. I figured that was just a rule of good storytelling.

Well you were wrong, it's just a trope like any other, and it's being overused right now because amateurish storytellers all think it's an imperative. In fact I doubt that you "figured" it by yourself, I'm pretty sure you just saw a vaguely eloquent post on /tg/ about relatable villains with maybe a picture of Nox (or any other pathetic villain) attached and a misquote of Aristotle, and just rolled with it. Or maybe it came from a youtube reviewer trying to nitpick a dumb movie and failing to come up with anything better.

>>49542475
>>49542525
>>49542602
I think this is more what the other anon is trying to get at:
http://mythcreants.com/blog/how-to-create-a-rational-magic-system/

>>49542875
The competing lawyers are fighting for justice, and the soldiers are fighting for national security, they're just doing it from opposite sides..

>>49542579

What games?

>>49542602
Magic as an unknowable mysterious thing is something that pops up in Renaissance, scholars before that would treat a spellbook like a cookbook.

>>49542913

But if you have Justice you also have national security. That is, if your nation is just.

>>49542913
No, I'm talking about real-life magic systems, but the fact that most RPGs also try to make rational magic systems goes to prove that magic isn't inherently absurd and incomprehensible.

>>49542930

I'm sorry, I don't know what any of that means.

>>49542930
Well, a cookbook that prescribes a quasi-monacal lifestyle, so it's never as simple as just reading formulas. And that's something RPGs rarely take into account, and we end up with games where wizards are dressed and organized like highly-disciplined mystics, but are really just random assholes who know how to read books.

>>49540921
Best way is if you can make someone straight up obviously evil and still sympathetic.

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>>49542906
> I'm pretty sure you just saw a vaguely eloquent post on /tg/ about relatable villains with maybe a picture of Nox (or any other pathetic villain) attached and a misquote of Aristotle
I think that's most weirdly specific rant I've ever seen on this site.

>>49541716
I once played an inquisitor who spent more time debunking not-witches than actually fighting witches.

>>49542965
it means that up until the XVIIth century, magic had rules. Mysterious rules that weren't revealed to anyone, but still rules. It was a rational system, not just "boom, shit happens!".

>>49542981
No.
That depends purely upon the dramatic stakes of the story you're making.
>>49542982
I've seen a bunch of these posts on /tg/ along the years with people paraphrasing each other a lot, there's nothing weird about assuming that you might have come across one of them.

>>49541244

I just think all characters should be written with the philosophy that (except in very, very rare cases) they don't actually think they're being evil. Maybe they realize they're immoral, but it's not often you get someone who intentionally TRIES to be evil.

>>49543014

How do you know? Were you there in the 17th century?

>>49543026
And when you actually get someone like that it can make for a very unique and memorable character. It just depends on your story and what's at stake.

>>49543040
You know there's a bunch of grimoires that date back to well before the XVIIth century right?

Grimoires that have been extensively studied by historians, commented, translated, put online and are readily available if you're a bit curious. They don't do a lot of explaining but they're all loaded with precise philosophical and religious references that point out to a body of classical doctrines and theories that are taught in any good university

>>49543114

>implying anyone can't write books

I'm not falling for your dirty tricks, Satan.

>Technological development HAS to follow the exact same pattern that it did in our timeline
Wait, I guess that's more of a /tg/ trope.

>>49541942
>gods with monothematic portfolios
I'm not sure I understand.

>>49543122
The overwhelming majority of medieval and renaissance occultists were christian.
Maybe not exactly catholic. They borrowed a lot from heretical doctrines and jewish traditions but they were christian nonetheless and a lot of magical formulas are just regular prayers written in weird ways to give them power.

>>49543187

So? It's not like all the shit they wrote is true.

>>49540598
I avoid having every NPC being a dick, have some truly nice, good and just folk, and the setting's pretty noblebright instead of grimdark.

I wanna give the players a Good Empire they should fight to protect, an Empire that doesn't fuck them over and the Emperor isn't really an evil demon in disguise or what not, or a bumbling retard, the nobles aren't all decadent as shit, the peasants aren't all dirt farmers and the guard and Imperial guard isn't incompetent, just overworked and overstretched.

The bad guys are obviously, very obviously mustache-twirling bad irredeemable fucks. Shit's simple.

>>49543161
god of X
god of Y
god of Z
happens very rarely IRL.
usually it's
god of X, Y and maybe Z
god(dess?) of A, B, Z and sometimes Y
etc...

>>49543200
Doesn't matter, by writing all that stuff, they defined the concept of magic, even if it's fiction. By saying that magic makes no sense, you're being wrong, in the same sense as you'd be wrong to say that Harry Potter has purple eyes.

>>49542930
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

No

Medieval and ancient people saw magic and a mysterious vague unknowable force, like in LOTR

Read the romances from the age

It was during the Renaissance and Cavalier/Enlightenment age that the revival of the European magical tradition caused people to see magic as "do X ritual, summon being Y, ask for Z, get power to do A"

Magic and Science weren't distinguishable until a while after the discovery of calculus

>>49543245

Butt Harry Potter isn't real.

>>49542334
I've seen one side of this problem (GMs not at all interested in the religions of the setting) and the other side (GM who won't shut up about his fav god in his setting.)

>>49543248
Maybe medieval people, but ancient people CERTAINLY had precise, rational magic systems.

Pythagoras' musical theory is technically a magical system able to cure all sorts of ailments. At least that's how it's exposed in the accounts that are made of it.

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>>49543204
>Noblebright
>Not Nobledark

>>49540598
>every continent has elves and dwarves and halflings and magical races that are more or less exactly the same as on every other continent
>demons and devils are totally different u guiz, srsly
>there's a "common" language that fucking e v e r y o n e knows across all places
>unique snowflake homebrew races with long ass stupid fucking names: The Sahaerlraine, cousins to the Ethanelvor
>no fucking unified naming conventions among cities or places

>>49543328
>demons and devils are totally different u guiz, srsly
I actually really like the idea of different kinds of evil begetting different forms of supernatural creatures (40K chaos)

>there's a "common" language that fucking e v e r y o n e knows across all places
But this actually happened IRL with English becoming the language of commerce due to the age of sail

>unique snowflake homebrew races with long ass stupid fucking names: The Sahaerlraine, cousins to the Ethanelvor
Okay I hate this one, especially if its literally just elves with wings because fuck you.
Especially egregious if they are described as (Humans but better looking with longer lives and god forbid the ability to control shadow but only if their eyes change color first)

>no fucking unified naming conventions among cities or places
explain?

>>49543222
yeah, and they're not really avatars of the concept they represent so much as characters whose facets are given as certain domains

>>49540622
>>BBEG is just a misunderstood extremist
I don't think that actually makes sense.
It kinda depends on how you define extremist, but by the point you are worthy of being BBEG there is nothing to misunderstand.

Of course it is possible that they haven't done nothing and PCs just chase baseless stories and rumors, but at that point whole thing is just huge joke with shitty punchline.

>>49543366
>no fucking unified naming conventions among cities or places
>explain?

Welcome to not!Arabia, we have our team of Apu, Aladdin, Jasmine and >Bob.

>>49543403
So basically you dislike how names are poorly handled in fantasy settings
I can understand that.

Whats the best way to actually come up with good fantasy names

>>49543366
the demons and devils being different is fucking retarded. they're creatures of pure evil and that's that

The "i-i-it happened IRL" excuse can be made for literally anything and it doesn't make up for the fact that it's lazy

no unified naming conventions as in, you have one city named "Goyimberg" and another, five miles away, named "Al-zharizagahangabad" that's nestled up to "Shiro Ryushu"

all of these cities have the same ethnic makeup and no explanation as to why they have completely different names other than FLAVOR

>>49541428
Who does that?
Why would you waste good tools by killing them off screen or without character interaction.

As long as dice are being rolled characters fuck up all the time so it's trivial to get characters carry the blood of their loved ones in their hands.

>>49543421
Method 1: Pick a real life language and create a set of names around that

Method 2: Make up some fantasy bullshit but keep it coherent and logical. If you're making a dwarven country, make a short-list of dwarven words for specific things and mash them together or add on them to make the names of cities and places. "Datboi" is dwarven for "haven", so make "oshitdatboi" and "theregodatboi" and "waddupdatboi"

>>49540598
The fact that the players are the solution to every problem in the world. I can understand that gobos attacking a village could be solved by the party, or the party could stop an evil lich, but sometimes the world needs to flow organically, the players can't fix or solve everything and are just pawns in a bigger game. cogs in a machine.

I tend not to draw on medieval history, I go back to antiquity instead. I also find it kinda cheesy to treat ancient empires as if they're super centralized when power projection was always very difficult.

>>49542237
Christ, it's just organized crime. It's just the mob. We've always had organized crime, and sometimes it's better to, while fighting them, occasionally look the other way while they handle more reckless disorganized crime, at least in older societies. Even police states can benefit from them, as long as they focus mainly on vices and not murdering random civvies for no reason.

>>49543470
yes but

why are they called 'The Thieves' Guild"? That's basically going "The dudes that steal shit and rob things."

We don't call organized crime rings "The Bad Guys" or "The Drug Runners" or "The Dudes That Perform Less Than Savory Acts."

>>49543424
>lazy
Not only did a commonly known language happen due to exportation of culture and dominance of trade markets, but its goddamn convenient for your characters to not be speaking all different languages, or being unable to speak to anyone they come across

>The "i-i-it happened IRL" excuse can be made for literally anything and it doesn't make up for the fact that it's lazy
So you are advocating to make the game harder despite that its a convenient thing that exists IRL.

>>49543424
>the demons and devils being different is fucking retarded. they're creatures of pure evil and that's that
In the one game I ran where demons were relevant they weren't just evil.
But they did belong in hell and had potential to be dangerous, so group's paladin was justified chasing them down
But demons also had reason to avoid dangerous looking group, trying to pass off as human instead of jumping out of a bush in front of the group and shouting "raaa, I'm demon, roll intiative!"

Also when group went to hell there was no need to chase demons there as it was their natural habitat.

>>49540598
Titling someone as The [Animal] of [Place]

>>49543424
it's like you're doing everything in the most bland, self-indulgent ways in order to stroke off your own misguided sense of realism

>>49543479
because it's a secret organization of braggadocious criminals who are probably aware that they don't represent an actual literal guild of thieves, but use the name anyway because they like it

>>49543479
>"The Dudes That Perform Less Than Savory Acts."
The villain organization in my next game is going to be called "The gentlemen's club of less than savory acts"

Human, Elf, Dorf, Orc, Halfling. Either ALL HUMANS or NO HUMANS and you can't be one of the other four. Fuck you.

>>49543509
>I want universal translators and communication to be INSTANT and FLAWLESS
>The concept of having to maybe do some cool shit to get a translator handbook, have comedic mishaps happen due to miscommunication, or have certain scenes be tense and white-knuckle because you cannot tell whether your shaky foreign-accented testimony has just sentenced ubutnu the coconut farmer to death or not
>not having a magical universal common language that e v e r y o n e speaks makes the game "'"'harder""" to """"win""""

>>49543456
I have this trope in play.
Sometimes, the party does actually play into a villain's hands.
Right now, one of the parties I DM for is face to face with the BBEG of their campaign and they have no idea who he is.
>>49543522
I kinda like titles of that sort, or '[Color] [Occupation] of [Place]'.
>>49543544
>Perfectly respectable men go there because they think the name is a joke

>>49543563
are you saying all-elf campaigns should be more common

>>49543536
>having demons and devils be the same thing is "bland"
>not wanting a universal language that everyone knows is "bland"
>wanting coherent naming conventions is "bland"

lol okay

have fun re-reading Eragon

>>49543479
Sure, the NAME thieves guild is stupid, I won't argue that.

But hell, this is a tangent, but I live in Chicsgo, people practically worship Al Capone here. I see no reason the leader of such a guild can't be famous, and even do shit like soup kitchens so the PC's or the cops or whatever can't convince the populace to give up their folk hero, even if in reality he's a brutal thug.

>>49543522
But what if it's a hilariously inappropriate animal? Like a tapeworm? Or a parakeet?

>>49542365
That's basically what they were. Unions with enforcers and trade secrets that demanded 100% membership of the relevant workers.

>>49543622
it's not the leader being famous or not that's the problem

it's that his outfit is literally named "those guys that do a thing" instead of literally anything else with more flavor, pizzaz or local relevance. "The thieves' guild" is "hey yo i played skyrim once" tier

>>49543575
no it just makes it a gigantic pain in the ass keeping track of IC vs OOC knowledge, and makes it so that half or more of the group won't be able to hold conversation for a few sessions

>>49543602
having demons and devils always be the same "creatures of pure evil" gimmick with no opportunities for say, them being different heirarchic categories of underworld creatures, or servants of different gods, or whatever, is fucking awful m8

>>49543636
>"We meet again, Naked Mole Rat of Tidetown."
>"So we do, my old rival Mamba of Jagoff City."

>>49543648
>implying my thieves' guild doesn't have eight different names that they drop at different times, or all in a row if they're feeling melodramatic

>>49543575
Not having language makes interacting with characters hard.
There is also danger of what GM assumes to be interesting might not be what players find interesting.
Players think:
>Time to chase Mr Evil to the west before the trail goes cold. This story is really going somewhere.
Meanwhile GM thinks:
>Oh, they are about to enter the area of Fuckass language-group. Time to spend six months rolling int checks and building basic vocabulary.

>>49543651
different categories of underworld creatures or servants of different gods that are, in the end, all pretty much varying flavors of the same pure evil soup

trying to go "b-but they're DIFFERENT, they have a HIERARCHY" is pointless when the backstory and lore is LITERALLY "they're pure evil guys from HEEELLL or THE ABYYYSSSS but some are from HEEEELLL or THE ABYYSSS and some LIKE LAAAAW and some DON'T LIKE LAAAAW"

>>49543687
do you seriously not have the ability to think deeper than the absolute surface concepts, or are you just being deliberately reductionist so that you don't actually have to defend this

>>49540598
>All members of a race are evil.

Barring a lack of sentience every member of a particular race being evil is a tad far fetched. Also can something that lacks sentience even be truly evil?

>>49543687
>demons are more clever than devils
>demons organize devils, devils mob places and fuck shit up that they otherwise wouldn't be fucking up thanks to the demon's help
>demon knows better magic than devils, is more of a challenge to PC's
>demon likely has a magical artifact or something cool in his possession that a devil would otherwise break, giving players a reward for beating him down

Using your train of logic, why not just call Kobolds Dragons? Or call Goblins Orcs?

>>49543544
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Operations_Executive
Also know as the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.
Christopher "Saruman" Lee was a member.
Thought you might appreciate this.

>>49542921
Just any D&D or similar thing, all mages are bad, all witch hunters/inquistion are good.

>>49543761
but that's not how demons and devils work, at all, in dnpathfinder, unless you've made some homebrew shit where they aren't for some abstractly dumb reason completely separate entities, in which case, good on you

>>49543732
you can sniff and side-step all you want, buddyboy, bottom line is that demons and devils being separate bullshit is stupid and exists only to spread the evil-sauce wide and thin to appeal to "MUH ALIGNMENT"

>>49543798
>dnpathfinder
Oh, alright. Nothing to see here, then.

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>>49543798
if you're arguing against the way it's done in mediocre D&D shit then, that's fine? But D&D is not the only thing in the world

>>49543187

This is interesting. I also ran into something similar in East Africa where people, and a healthy amount, still believe in forms of spellcasting. Interestingly they see Christianity as a safeguard against the magic of witches in the area. There's still a portion that practice both, though.

>>49543798
Demon and devil being two different things is just because there are two different words and it's easier to use those than groups demon/devil on other side and jsighs on other.

Just like somehow wizard, sorcerer, warlock, witch and mage are supposed to be different things in some fantasy settings.

>>49540598
Fuck all this talk of tropes.

I want play OP's pic as a modern-era Witcher.

>>49543895

What woulda modern witcher even do?

Hunter the vigil shit?

>>49543915
Hunt monsters?

>>49543915
Get drunk and fight in bars

>>49543915
Don't forget fucking the sorceress.

After fighting monsters, getting in drunken brawls and blowing all his money on new gear.

Rinse and repeat. Gruff narration optional.

>>49543312
>>49543204
agreed, i feel like the wh40k setting is the best when intentions are good, people are different but generally atleast trying to do the right thing, but the world is huge and merciless. Guards don't get sent into death because of retardation but out of necassity, Comissars have a hard job they have to balance and not just blamming around cause its fun, the Emperor tried what he thought was right but underestimated the shittery, etc.

>>49543970

>blowing all his money on hookers

Fixed that for ya.

>>49543939

but I dunno would he use 2 pistols or something? One with silver bullets?

>>49544023

And swords.

>>49544009
How is that different than what I said?

>>49544030

Gear isn't hookers.

>>49544040
>Not listing hookers under work expenses
It's like you've never committed tax fraud before.

>>49544023
I imagine it's more about the ammunition similar to the oils, bombs, and potions. Hence all the easy access to the different shells and grenades, after that I'm sure there would be a hand gun/alternate combination depending on the school.

>>49540598

The party just met and are best friends already!

I defied that with my ranger in my current campaign and it worked pretty well. Paladin, a former mercenary like me (we fought a battle on the same side years beforehand and had a passing familiarity) warmed up pretty quick. Kobold thief took a little longer. Goblin merchant thinks I'm racist though (we're playing 5e Red Hand of Doom) and the cleric can't get over the fact that I wasn't immediately nice to her and just goes on about how I'm a dick.

Meanwhile they're all sitting on thousands of gold pieces and gems and I've donated everything i didn't need for supplies and lodging to help evacuate towns (I am a sucker for "good does not equal nice." Can't help myself.).

>>49544040
But hookers are gear.

>>49541942
>>adventurers as special category of people
Well why fucking not, if you're going for a semblance of historical grounding, ehich seems to be your shtick? If most people are somehow bound to a particular place by villeinage, cottaging, or even being a freeholder and still having to stay with your land because that's how you live; and there are landless wanderers who aren't clergy, chartered merchants, or free townspeople; and those landless wanderers make their money largely by bounties for various requests, then it seems to me that those so-called adventurers occupy a strange legal and social place in a "medieval" world.

>>49544091

How so?

>>49540598
>noguns
>technological/cultural stagnation in general

>>49544108
Half of them are a waste of money and you never have the other half when you need them the most.

>>49544127

How does that make them gear

>>49544117
>magic is a thing
>there's been literally no innovation with magic beyond "shoot fireball"
At least it gives a reason why gunpowder based weaponry wouldn't take off, due to the ease of exploding and what not.

>>49544108

>something used on a regular basis when doing one's job

>>49544143

You fuck hookers regularly while you work?

What do you do

>>49544137
It's like you've never been indoctrinated into a military organization from a young age.

>>49544139

>innovations

Nigga please, magic is only limited by your imagination, or some shit. You can make existence itself bend over backwards if you weren't a fuckwad.

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>>49544159

>>49544205

I thought you'd be busy actually working to do that

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>>49540889
Not liking tricorns

I dont have any smugs with tricorn

>>49540813
I do it this way oftentimes.
>Guy had a legitimate reason to do bad things
>Slowly starts using worse and worse means to accomplish his goals
>Eventually his goals become pointless, no longer exist, or outright impossible
>Villain still commits his acts of violence simply for fun or so he has a purpose

>>49544176
My point is that settings have this all powerful magic (or even less than that), yet they don't implement any of that into inventions or other societal improvements. From small things like a magic cellphone/walkie-talkie or a magic vehicle that's safer/faster than a broom for when you can't teleport shit or just need a tank-like thing.

>>49544218

It's only impossible if you think it is.

>>49544218
>simply for fun or so he has a purpose
Nah, he's gotta be to far gone to let all of it go to waste now.

>>49544248

Who are "they"?

>>49544248
My answer to that is that the goddess of magic in the setting happens to be a spiteful bitch who will take any excuse to fuck you over, so magicians are really damn careful.
That and that world-threatening calamities happen with alarming regularity, so much so that universities of magic are constantly destroyed and rebuilt.

>>49544267
Cultures and societies as a whole in the setting, with only the occasional evil empire that knows how to develop any new technologies.

Drives me mad, even in shit like harry potter.

avoiding trope for the sake of avoiding them

>>49544301

Hey man, hate the one who made it that way, not the people in the setting. Do you expect fire to be wet and fish to fly as well?

>>49544300
My issue with that is that feels like a literal Deus ex machina for why magic is "muh sekrit club"

>>49544319
No but this is a thread where we're talking about tropes we don't like so I'm not seeing the issue.

>>49544009
>Implying menial labour hasn't historically spent most of their wealth on sex, gambling, and alcohol
Unless they are full Punisher levels of autistic about their job gear should be a minor investment like

>Hey I just got paid
>Gonna get some more ammo
>Spend the rest on hookers, beer, and blackjack
Alternatively
>Hey I just got paid
>Gonna get some more ammo
>Gonna buy some food, a sixpack, put some aside for rent, and put the rest into financial investments

not
>Hey I just got paid
>Gonna buy a new gun, a scope, a grenade launcher
>Now lets buy some canned beans to eat for the next three weeks until my next pay day

>>49544341

That's because people are stupid and don't care about investing in their future.

>>49544258
And he reached that point.
>Want to overthrow corrupt government
>Commit horrible acts, torture and kill innocent people, sacrifice friends
>Corrupt government assaults my base, I escape but all my supporters are dead
>Fuck it, I give up, I'm just going to burn everything to the ground now
Even if its not impossible you could have him reach the point where he destroys whatever is left of his work in frustration and just wants to fuck shit up because he is sick of this bullshit.

>>49544367

>I'm just going to burn everything to the ground now

Everything is part of that corrupt government, so nothing has changed.

>>49544340
>My issue with that is that feels like a literal Deus ex machina for why magic is "muh sekrit club"
The reason she does it is exactly that, actually.
It used to be that anyone could do lower-powered but more general magic at will, so when the switch to a Vancian system was made, she decided to take out her anger with the status quo out on the people she was required to provide magic to (which generally tended to be the same people who lobbied for Vancian form in the first place).
It's sort of a big setting secret, because she's mostly given up on convincing anyone else and instead is getting some of her flunkies to build a magical machine that will brainwash everyone on the continent into worshiping her, technically giving her the influence she needs to overturn the decision.
After over 5000 years, some people just stop giving a shit about their methodology's side effects.

>>49544354
Buying more guns isn't investing in your future.
>I have $500 in gear
>Complete a job and get $1000
>Spend all of it on gear
>Net gain of $0

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>>49544367
Ah the good ol' "Char's Counterattack" approach.

>>49544384
I mean I guess? It just seems like it's a handwave as to why magic isn't being used to be inventive and to a lesser extent, common in general. If that's a setting point it's fine, but it's lazy if it's just an excuse that would never come up.

Defining anything about the world before it's necessary. It's more of a worldbuliding/DMing nitpick, but it's the defining mark of an amateur.

>>49544417

But in the future you'll have to spend less on guns and ammo since you have more of them.

Besides, if you wanna save money you need to be efficient and if you aren't you might wanna find another job.

>>49544422
It's the reason why the BBEG fights, actually. The current party doesn't know it because one, she doesn't care what anyone thinks of her anymore, and two, why would they believe her if she did?
>Fuck all of you, I haven't gotten what I wanted for 5000 years, all the time having to feed magic to these petty mortals who don't appreciate me because I caused an apocalypse that one time.
>Well, guess what? It's not gonna be the last time, either.
If her current plan (which has been lined up by her cultists for over fifty years) fails, she's leaving the setting. For good.

>>49544490

Not him, but you are talking about a Goddess here, right? What happened to the whole "omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient" part?

>medieval stasis

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

FUCKING DICKSHITTING NIPPLES COCKFUCK!!!

While it is not, in and of itself, a bad thing, as it creates a set mood and style of play, we run into the fact that many writers are hacks, and use it to both rip-off other writers (principally, Tolkien) and to keep the world stagnant enough that they don't risk smashing something people actually like that they didn't have the skill to realize they shouldn't smash, while still maintaining the illusion of forward momentum. The Forgotten Realms is a prime example of this, featuring both several powerful organizations out to stifle any attempt to progress the technology or socio-economic advancement of the setting, and many lame-brained "advances" in story from edition to edition, most infamously with the "Spellplague" of 4e.

>>49544509
Polytheistic setting, which means divine politics, which means that if she doesn't play by Da Rules she doesn't get to influence the Material Plane.
Her dad (god of death) is closer to omnipotent.

>>49544417
I was just coming from the perspective of Witchers loving their gear.

When you're living an unnaturally prolonged life dedicated to fighting monsters, the gear you carry is basically family.

>>49544523
I hate this almost as much as I hate the "it's the xth century but also magic" approach. I'm not expecting every author to make settings where magic has always been a thing, but make societies have a few interesting applications of magic that have been around for a while and think through some consequences of those applications.

>>49544563
So...take the sci-fi approach to magic.

That seems reasonable.

>>49544547

So this one is more Demi-God than anything else. Got it.

>>49544550

Nigga, don't pretend to be me.

>>49544581
If someone wanted to do a "it's the xth century but also magic", I'd say go back anywhere from 150-500 years (maybe even more if timescales really matter) and assume relative world tech level for that time and then add magic. Let the world cook for 150-500 year, remove from oven and enjoy.

>>49540598

Non-evil evil races.

As a PC, I've started killing them out of hand. Oh, this orc doesn't appear to be as evil as the others? Fuck you, I don't want a plot about learning about special snowflakes. I'm killing him as soon as I can.

Oh, turns out the main villain has a good reason fo - Nope, I don't care, I'm stabbing him first chance I get. Not another word out of your filthy mouth.

It's actually more entertaining to do this than to actually play the game, sometimes. You can carefully guide a party like this, and it involves going out of your way to derail any plot that makes the enemy sympathetic.

>>49544619

Killing everyone is a good rule of thumb.

>>49544631

Basically, yes. I stress that NPCs are not there for people to get emotionally involved in their struggle for emancipation, they're there to get killed and looted.

>>49544563
>>49544614
I never got the need to stick to a "time period" when using your imagination

My setting has tv, primitive radio & computers, air conditioning, refrigerators, photography, telephones, public mandatory education, rubber, and plastic.

Yet at the same time people ride horses everywhere, fight with medieval weapons, mostly farm, and live in constitutional monarchies.

>>49544728
Anachronism makes any setting better.

>>49544728
I don't like it either I was just giving a better method if you did want to. I like magic-powered tech.

>>49544728

So it's the Flintstones in the middle ages?

>>49540598

Ancient, medieval or renaissance settings. They're all overused. Play modern or near-future sci-fi.

>>49544832
but post-renaissance, pre modern is the most interesting time period. Especially when there's no steamshit

>>49544752
Damn straight
>>49544753
Always fun
>>49544794
Think "Swashbuckler meets Cold War action films"

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>>49540598
I don't really avoid any specific of tropes when I start making a world. I always viewed them as pieces to be mixed into a big pot of ideas. The only times I avoid using certain tropes are if they just do not work for the system I'm trying to use.

Like for instance I would never run a Heroic Fantasy game using the Runequest, because that system is for more brutal and fatal combat.

In the same vein I would never use 3.5 rules for The Black Company because after level 4 character basically turn into shonen anime characters.

I find sympathetic / cool / motivated / interesting demons to be bullshit

Demons are evil, evil is bad. Now you might think being interesting and cool isn't mutually exclusive with true evil but you'd be wrong, evil is a complete lack of all types of virtue, pure evil is reprehensible at the most base level. Even bacteria despise it

That means a cunning demon has one redeeming trait, it is cunning, a intelligent cunning demon has two, a beautiful intelligent cunning demon has three.

Generally in my settings demons don't actively DO anything, they're parasites that are attracted to 'evil' in a host, using them like a life support system. Great evils are one hundred percent man made since they require a skeleton of virtue to exist and the road to hell is quite literally paved with good intentions

>>49545033

Wow, edgy much?

>>49542921
Warhammer (both of them)

>>49542362
Stolen.

>>49542359
>magic is dangerous
>but it can be useful
>guild-mages are controlled, careful, disciplined and (mostly) sane
>wild witches are assholes who crave destruction and dick of that Shub-Niggurath that increases and twists their powers

>>49544991
Is that series any good? Been eyeing it for a while.

>>49545135
>If its related to demons its edgy

peak /tg/

>>49545135
>demons are bad
>thats pretty edgy

I'll bet you play teiflings you fucking faggot.

>>49540598
>Fantasy Tropes to avoid

Fantasy.

It's not realistic enough.

>>49545209
It's a bit too edgy for my tastes if I'm totally honest.

I don't mind much other than there being late Renaissance clothing randomly added into 13th-14th century flavoured settings.

I try to keep the overall "tech level" of setting consistent because tech spreads like wildfire unless there's massive geographic separation.

A few other minor gripes:
>tiefling warlocks essentially being the same character no matter who plays them
>dwarves being the same character no matter who plays them
>gnomes being the same character no matter who plays them
>halflings being the same character no matter who plays them.

Honestly, half-orc barbs and white middled aged male fighters tend to have more depth and originality than most of the aforementioned tropes.

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>>49545209
I like most of it. Some of the books dip in quality (Silver Spike, off the top of my head), but generally they're very well written.

The main character's sort of dry way of looking at things is an interesting perspective on the grim fantasy setting. The magic in the setting is also really well done.

>thief character is always some agile stealthy backstabbing rogue

Nigga, i'm a six foot five muscle bound thug. I can pick a guy off the ground by his throat and punch him till coins fall out of him. Don't confine me to stereotypes.

>>49545703
So a fighter?

>>49545738
No, a really strong thief.

Maybe thug could be the combo of fighter and thief. Not as subtle as a normal thief.

>>49541005
> You all agreed to meet in a tavern to plan the next job.

>>49541716
They only hunt witches who use their magic to harm people. The old lady who mixes healing balms is all right, the old lady who kidnaps children to turn into evil minions is a target.

>>49545756
I mean really what you're talking about is basically being a thug which really doesn't really require any special thief skills. I mean if you want to play a thug that's fine but mechanically thief don't exactly support that type of play.

>>49545818
Anon, what do you call someone who steals shit from people?

A thief. My point is the thief profession should be a bit more open to different skill sets than just sneaky.

I mean, technically I could be a wizard thief too.

>>49542334
In a setting where mortals can communicate directly with their gods, legends rarely get conflated, muddled, or otherwise altered because they can always refer back to the source.

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>>49540598
>the chosen one
Nothing gets my dick hard like finding out the hero is a fucking nobody and still manages to get shit done.

>>49545834
Not really muggers and bank robbers steal shit from people. There's a reason why thieves have that traditional image of someone sneaking through a house and taking shit, it's because we have other words to describe other types of crime.

>>49543575
The webcomic "Stand Still, Stay Silent" is a good example of language barriers in action. The principal cast are from various Scandinavian countries and can barely understand each other, especially the Finn because Finnish is nothing like the other Scand languages.

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>>49545834
>Anon, what do you call someone who steals shit from people?
A lot of things, but 'thief' is defined as:
>a person who steals another person's property, especially by stealth and without using force or violence.
or from dictionary.com
>a person who steals, especially secretly or without open force; one guilty of theft or larceny.

Yes, technically beating the snot out of someone and stealing their wallet does qualify one as a thief, but that is not generally what the word is used to describe and it isn't the connotation that the word carries.

This is why its called rogue these days and focuses on dealing damage fyi desu senpai lol

>>49546066
no it's not, it changed to rogue because of the shift to setpiece encounter balance and hour-long combats where an old-school thief would just be doing nothing

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>>49540598
Any trope just "because". I don't enjoy most stories using "destiny" or "chosen one", but I'll like if the concept has a good role in the story. Like the fate in greek mythology.

>>49545834
That's a mugger for me. You take the highest crime.
Someone who murder another person then loot the body is not a thief. He's a murderer.

>>49540921
Putting aside the fact that moral facts or properties don't exist, no one thinks of themselves "I'm an evil asshole" so the character you're proposing makes no sense. "Mwahaha I eat babies for breakfast" is just retarded.

>>49542906

Who hurt you? You can tell us, you're in a safe space.

>>49541716
Witch Hunters are also mages who either capture runaway or "wild" magic users or dispose of them silently so the Church can't do it.

>>49540598
none

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>>49543248
*invented calculus.
Its a process that was innovated, not a law that was discovered (like pi or gravity)

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>>49541515
SHIT HE'S FOUND THE THREAD
RUN

>>49543424
>The "i-i-it happened IRL" excuse can be made for literally anything and it doesn't make up for the fact that it's lazy

At this point you should realize that intentionally being subversive and contrary "just because" doesn't make your setting good.

>>49544845
Fucking steamshit

>"Oh, so I made this super cool setting and it's so unique and cool and please come check it out pls."
>"Okay, fine. What is it?"
>"So pretty much it's JUST like any other setting, with NO meaningful difference whatsoever, but in this world, things are powered by-"
>"Fuck you."

>>49542789
>complicated characters are simplistic
Are you soft in the head, anon?

>>49545930
>>49546046
>>49546637

I think what he's saying is that, IRL, anybody can learn to pickpocket, and anybody can learn to read, and anybody can learn to pray; no matter what your body type.

This 6-foot-something Chad I knew ended up getting scouted for football. He just said no and went to some Ivy league school instead.

In particular, I remember going to a magic show with my mom one day, and I saw this bouncer waiting by the door, welcoming everyone in. I remember thinking to myself "Jesus, if they need a bouncer like this guy, then the magician running the show must be REALLY important."

Surprise. It turns out the bouncer WAS the magician.

He did that shit where he'd invite people up on stage, shake their hands, ask them how their day was, and then he'd hold up a golden band and say "Hey, by the way; is this your watch?" And everyone would go nuts.

So overall, my gripe with DnD is the fact that musclebound characters are always stereotyped as dumb and slow.

>inb4 hurr durr have you tried not playing blah blah blah

Nigga, the more red-muscle you have, the more explosive and fast you tend to be. And I honestly can't remember the last time I've seen a big guy for you who was also a really dumb guy for you.

As for the contractors of those that say nay to musclebound thugs; fuck you. Sometimes it's a lot easier to just fuck shit up then to sneak around.

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>>49544619
You sound like a pretty shit player DESU.

>>49544728
>>49544752
I love technological anachronism.

I haven't looked at this thread yet

I predict that at least 50% of the posts appear to be from people who think that fantasy is a bad genre and don't like anything about it.

Am I wrong?

>>49541477
>>1 dude takes out an army of 100 by himself with no problems (The hobbit)
What? The only one who did that, did it as a bear, whose skin was too thick for the goblin arrows to pierce.

>>49555805
>and don't like what it's become

ftfy, tolkien-fag

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>>49542700
>Dukat

You might be a tripfag, but at least you have good taste.

>>49542906
>Well you were wrong, it's just a trope like any other,

Son, you have no idea what the word "trope" means. And it's kind of hilarious how you're trying to be so "counter-culture" that you come full circle and sound exactly like a late 90's edgetard.

>>49541477

I find nothing wrong with fantasy strength-factor, sometimes the 90 lb prettyboy is high level and the beefcake isn't. And I think that you owe an apology to army-crushing heroes, flamboyant hairdoos, and mithril.

I admit that I find combat in fantasy action movies to be extremely unsatisfying. Like, any fantasy action movie, ever, in the last 20 years. It's all depressingly bad and has ruined my enjoyment of the genre, the badguys always have all this strength and all these powers and advantages that make them look scary in the first half of the movie, then we get to the end and the goodguy goes 'Bop!" and the badguys just fall down like they were paid to.

Moral gray is a LITTLE over-rated. As in, badguys that are just plain selfish are a little under-rated, They're both very good if they're written well.

I really like villains that are amoral without being selfish, like The Dark Knight's version of the Joker.

>>49543479
Murder Inc. was a thing though.

>>49542646
>I'm not saying these are good arguments

Natural law is based, though.

>>49542646
Well honestly it really comes down to "because my religion told me so" what you are encountering is for the most part modern western people struggling to explain the modern experience and also hang onto their strongly held beliefs. That's why there is usually such a mish-mash of explanations for these sorts of things.

>>49540802
Reminds me of the Hyperboreans in Conan.

>>49541716
Make the organisation itself less inherently dickish - from there, you can have good and bad inquisitors.
The inquisition is founded to have sole hunting-rights to witches, keeping the practise out of the hands of lynch mobs.
Magic is not always illegal, rather strictly regulated; necromancy requires state permission, alchemy requires licencing, to prevent the counterfeiting of gold.
Even benevolent magic use can have harmful effects (spreads plague, causes stillbirths, invites demonic entities)

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>>49541180
>Women often expose their lower bellies in exactly the style fashionable among 21-century westerners.

I, too, prefer ancient Minoan dress of about ~2000 to ~1200 BCE

>>49545474
A fellow player played a Tiefling Warlock, then retired him in order to play a Dwarfish Cleric. His Drow Bard sidekick was far more entertaining.

>>49556333
I think it's a combination of that, religious people who don't understand the belief system they follow but stick with it because that's how they were raised, and atheists who don't understand religion very well.

>>49541716
>>49541716
Dorohedoro sort of does something like this.

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>>49542899
Sort of fits to destroying demons and stuff minus the fanatical religious part

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>>49540813
>tfw playing a character en route to that destination
I'm honestly having trouble with making him more psycho since he started off a bit nuts to begin with. I'm almost afraid his crazies are plateauing.

>>49541716
Classify witches as something extremely different to magic users. They're extremely dangerous and must be destroyed

That street vendor casting burning hands to "infuse the meat with magical energy"? Whatever, he can charge an extra silver for his food and the hunters don't give a shit

That time mage trying to drain the energy of the most powerful beings on the planet in order to reverse time in some crazed experiment that will rip apart the fabric of space and time? Hunt that cunt down

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>>49542362
How would I explain to players playing a set of fantasy!1560's Adventurers that magic is actually a mixture of nanites and genetic manipulation that allows the user to alter some fundamental force of nature?

I know, because it effects the way magic works (example, can't violate the law of thermodynamics entirely, just multiply it with Magic, so casting fireball makes your hand cold), but imagine trying to explain nanite-genetics to Don Quixote.

They might figure it out OOC once they reach an ancient ruin. Hopefully it bothers them enough that they don't activate the security robots with laser beams.

>tfw your setting is inspired by Might & Magic, not D&D

>>49540856
Wait what? Also which one?

>>49558871
IT'S 2016 weed man said something close to that. "If you kill your enemies they win"

How the fuck did he get in

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>>49554429
While you are correct that a thief isn't required to be some squirrelly little dude, this was Anon's specific example of what a thief could be:
>Nigga, i'm a six foot five muscle bound thug. I can pick a guy off the ground by his throat and punch him till coins fall out of him. Don't confine me to stereotypes.

Which is not what the term 'thief' traditionally means. Yes, stealing someone's wallet is technically thievery, but traditionally 'thief' used to describe someone who commits theft without direct confrontation. Mugging does not and has never come under their purview in a /tg/ context.

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>>49558897
>How the fuck did he get in

because of the shitty old fuck who hid in a cupboard and fucked the economy

>>49540640
Wait, you have your antagonists always try to kill the party from the get go?

>>49541180
> All gods and priests who aren't dedicated to nature or healing are dicks.

Huh. I actually pretty much always have both those gods be dicks.

Mostly because I've lived out in the woods and work in health care.

It just seems natural for a Nature god to be neutral-fuck you.

And a God of healing to be outright evil and work as the administration and his Clerics are more like Medics with the clergy being Physicians and Nuns are nurses because women don't have the temperament to be Doctors,

Paladins are like Firefighters and everyone thinks they're smug fucking assholes.

So, I mean, it's full of cliches from my point of view.

>>49541477

>High heel armored boots

Cavalry boots are where high heels come from, actually.

>>49540640
>>the antagonists that tried to kill you, have zero qualms about killing you and initiated trying to kill you first are just misunderstood
You urinated on their holy text and refused to leave.

>>49541180
>All sympathetic people have exactly the worldview of 21st century middle-class white westerners except for being monarchists.
I get harassed for not being a straight guy enough in the real world, thanks. I don't need your """realistic""" and """historically accurate""" bigotry, thanks.

>>49540598
The so-called superior, ageless, beautiful, enlightened mystic race/god/culture/group who are actually pretty much worthless, incompetent, selfish, arrogant, pretentious morons who follow ridiculous nonsense philosophies, do ridiculously evil things, enact ridiculously flawed plots, or do other ridiculous things, basically existing just so that the "real" heroes can upstage them and look better by comparison. The aforementioned "real" heroes are of course humble, common, down-to-earth types who succeed through hard work, determination, badassery, cleverness, NOT being anything vaguely like a "chosen one" (or they are, but it's ignored), all-around awesomeness, and being better than the so-called "higher" beings at everything that matters all the time, which they are glad to rub in the faces of those miserable worthless people who dare to be smug.

This sort of thing gets very old, very fast. It usually seems to be making a point about the folly of arrogance and contempt, and ends up more like the so-called "humble" types are the REAL superior beings while the superficially majestic things are the REAL worthless garbage. If some ancient majestic mystic race pops up in a story, I want their pride to be for a reason. If the ancient mystics have some weird philosophy, I want it to make some sense. If the elves think they're a superior race, I want them to have a reason for it. If a radiant god of light sends his angels to do some morally questionable deeds, I want him to have answers for those questions.

You know, I've pretty much never seen it the other way around, where the self-proclaimed down-to-earth humble types with their gritty determination and reasonless badassery are actually called out for their arrogance, or have their "common sense" mortal insight genuinely called into question. It's something I'd like to see some time.

>>49540598
I avoid mindless undead, especially ones created by a spellcaster for combat.
My undead are always PEOPLE who came back to life in a bad way. Sometimes they lose a lot of intelligence coming back, but none of them are simply animated objects that happen to have once been someone's skeleton. If you insist on making something like that, it's classified as a construct and you don't use necromancy spells to make it.

>>49540686
>Medieval stagnation

Eh, it make some sense in a world with magic. One if a rare, hard to train, but very real skill can fix most issues that will markedly reduce the motive to find a technical solution to a problem. Most later technical solutions needed a not small amount of skilled human capital, trial & error, time, money, and a bit of luck to get right. Weighted against a costly but proved means the costly yet unproven with possible savings over a long time will lose out most of the time. More importantly getting the basics of science right when there is more variables is just harder. Appalling the scientific method afterwords to a real and complex event also becomes harder.

> long lived races.

This. It causes so many issues anytime a GM or player stops and thinks about what it means. A long ago event lost to human history is just thing that a elf heard about from his father who lived thru it.