Shitty Attempts at Subverting Tropes

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>>52255533
Op sounds like the sort of faggot I don't allow to play in my games.

>>52255533
>annoyed and going to show him this thread
Why not just talk to him about it like an adult?

>>52255533

Maybe instead of making the orcs automatically evil, just make them like any other primitive culture.

They want to survive and thrive.

>>52255533
>I'm gonna show him this thread later
Leave this board and never return you petty little shit.

>>52255533
Such a waste of digits. A pox on both of you.

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>>52255533
>shitty attempts at subverting tropes
>implying there's any other kind

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>>52255552
Because OP is an autist.

>>52255558
>>52255552
I tried talking to him about it yesterday. He just told me to stop shitting on his campaign and that his races are fine - even though his orcs are pretty much the Aldmeri Dominion from skyrim, but green and buff.

He uses /tg/ himself, so I figure he might want constructive criticism. I will admit that I sounded like a petty faggot in the OP tho

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>>52255533
>show him this thread later

Yeah, because a bunch of internet strangers are really going to make the argument for you, faggot.

>>52255606
See >>52255600

Me - and another player - already talked to him about it. He couldn't see anything wrong, and he's taken advice from random strangers online over us before.

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>>52255533
>I'm annoyed and I'm gonna show him this thread later.
>Throw some tips his way for not being such a faggot
So you called him a faggot on an anonymous image board. Guess you won't be friends for long.

>>52255533
>wanting to change orcs/elves
The correct way to do that, is to create a hybrid race that comes from having a orc and elf reproduce.

The new race would have their racial strengths and weaknesses balanced out.

They would be physically stronger than elves but weaker than orcs. They would be more magically adept than orcs but not as much as elves.

They would have a middling lifespan, between orcs and elves, but reproduce frequently like orcs allowing them to spread quickly and colonize massive areas in a relatively short time.


This race would be able to breed with orcs or elves as well, to produce offspring that are more magically or physically adept.

The way you make elves and orcs more interesting, is by making humans more interesting.

>>52255554
That's what most orcs are in post-Warcraft III fantasy.

>>52255533
>Your campaign sucks! I'm gonna go get my buddies on 4chan to all say how bad it is!

I hope you really do show him this thread. So he can see everyone calling you out like the autist you are.

>>52255533
Subverting tropes is something people do when they can't actually be creative or original. Subversion as a concept still revolves around the existence of the trope and really ever manifests as it's Opposite Day version.

If your friend really wanted to be original or creative he would have made his own races and built things up for them from there. I'ld rather play with straight up vanilla races then their "subversive" counterparts.

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>>52255631
I doubt the GM even exists. OP sounds like a forever alone.

>>52255554
so warcraft orcs then?

>>52256067
Warcraft orcs would be still evil as fuck but surrounded by people that will scream that it is never their fault and how they totes used to be noble people before them evul demonz made them drink their koolaid.

>>52255924
Fucking incels, man.

>>52256067
>>52255718

Didn't they willingly try to conquer the world in the new lore?

>>52256108
>>52256260
WC orcs are just a mess now.
In the first two games, they had no real backstory beyond being a generic evil horde of orcs the heroic humans fight against.
Then in Lord of Clans (the unreleased adventure game made between WC2 and 3; most of the footage can be found online), they made the player character an orc and portrayed them in a more rounded fashion; they were pretty much vikings or mongols; a culture that respected martial strength above all else and was perfectly fine with takign what you need by force. I think the idea that the orcs original homeworld was fucked and they ahd to invade the human lands to survive was first introduced here. It also established that while some orcs were colossal assholes, some were not bad, and the average orc grunts were just soldiers fighting in a war, rather than being particularly evil.
In WC3 (or rather, the lore in the manual, as the game didn't touch on ti roo much) they incorporated some elements from LotC, but also established that the orcs had originally been shamanistic tribal people (who still valued martial strength, though) that had been corrupted by demons and forged into the Horde for the purpose of invading Azeroth. The storyline for orcs in WC3 and orginal WoW was them finding their place in the world and reconnecting with their old culture.
Where things get messed up is some time in WoW when the writing team got mostly replaced with WC2 "it's not WARcraft if there isn't a constant pointless conflict between Red and Blue" fanboys, who started writing the orcs more and more like the (competely evil) WC2-era orcs. So now we're in a situation where the lore still says the orcs used to be "noble savage" type people who were corrupted by demons, but based on what we actually see in the game they are and always were colossal assholed, demons or no demons.

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>Well MY elves are different

>>52255554
>like any other primitive culture.
>not automatically evil

>Tropes
Fuck off with this reddit shit

>>52255533
On campaign, my elves came from the stars, arriving on their Mother Tree, which crash landed and is "Withering" over millennia, returning the elves slowly toward a savage, wood-elf like state while retaining some various form of technology and concepts. While considering demons and angels to be "Other aliens".

Orcs are orcs, but the aforementioned elves made a sentient axe that later went insane and started preaching to the orcs, subverting them to the way of culture appreciation and farming, making them negotiate with the human kingdom in the area when the mountain start overflowing with orcs.

Honestly, just do whatever works, anything goes really.

>>52255533
Let me tell you why 'Tropes' are shit: it's not that they don't exist, they absolutely do. The problem is that seeing shit in tropes, such as reading that awful black hole of autism that is TV Tropes does not make you a good writer. Oh sure, you can 'see' the components of a story or character and how they exist but this kind of approach doesn't teach you WHY these tropes exist in the first place. You see, people only look at them as some raw component and think that the secret to good writing is either a certain assemblage of tropes or being oh-so-clever-and-smug and 'subverting' the tropes.

But it doesn't work.

Because, again, seeing a story only in Tropes does not allow you to see the organic greater picture. All you see are the building blocks and what they are, not how they are assembled and used. You're focusing on the bricks and only the bricks, not the building. That is why you can have stories which are technically nothing but a ball of mostly-cookie-cutter elements and still be enjoyable. Or, to make a cooking metaphor, tropes are the ingredient. But what you're missing are not so much the instructions as the understanding on how to prepare. You people are looking at onions, tomato, pasta and spices but you only see them as ingredients and you are so dumb to not understand the order of preparation to make a spaghetti.

Even worse, you think you're clever for changing these ingredients not to improve the recipe or make it unique but rather just for the sake of 'sticking it' to the age old way because you think you are oh-so-clever.

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>>52258412

>>52258193
>inb4 "Garrosh did nothing wrong"

>>52258412
We aren't so different, you and I.

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>>52255694
>create a hybrid race that comes from having a orc and elf reproduce.

This fucker gets it.

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>>52256108

Relevant.

>>52262312
Modern writers lack the talent to portray a situation as complicated as *choice* which damn someone or some group. Nowadays we're all either evil oppressors or unfortunate victims of circumstances. Individual choice and accountability are things which cannot be conceived by the modern mind.

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>>52262063
>he actually drew their child
The absolute mad man

>>52255622
>He couldn't see anything wrong, and he's taken advice from random strangers online over us before.
Fuck this thread, but this shit annoys the hell out of me when some people do it.

>>52262063
>you go to her house, elf mom seems at best oblivious at her daughters 'mistakes', and at worst an acomplice.
>Orc dad tries his best to be around you, not because he wants to kill his little flower bf, but because he sees in you his young self and is trying to protect your dignity.

>>52258280
>that pic
Elves are not for lewd anon.

>>52255533
I have a homebrew setting where the Dwarves are like the Illuminati and play everyone else off against each other.

>>52255811
Subverting tropes isn't inherently bad. If done right, subversions can actually turn out rather interesting. Besides, it would get pretty boring seeing the same tropes played the same way every time. What people do wrong is they subvert things just for the sake of being subversive. They see successful and well-written media subvert tropes and conclude being subversive makes something good, without stopping to consider the how and why of it. In other words, much like representation, subversion can be a good thing if done right but has been ruined in /tg/'s cynical eyes thanks to idiots using it as some kind of substitute for writing talent.

>>52255567
The trick to subverting a trope is to do it in such a way that it's not obvious, or to do it in such a way that the entire plot doesn't depend on the trope being inverted.

>>52259592
>Even worse, you think you're clever for changing these ingredients not to improve the recipe or make it unique but rather just for the sake of 'sticking it' to the age old way because you think you are oh-so-clever.

Bless this anon.

Subverting tropes is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, and can be done very well on occasion. The problem is when the entire story depends on the trope being subverted, and/or the writer believes that the inversion is the entire selling point of his story.

Nobody gives a shit about your backstory, worldbuilding, or character development if you are a shitty writer.

Why is it that we couldn't have collectively rejected the word "trope" instead of BBEG

>>52266477
Wait, wasn't trope an already existing word in the english language?

>>52262948
i have an urgent need for this

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>>52262063

>>52267051
Yes. If you see anyone bitching about it, it's probably the same moron that's been complaining about it for the past several days, and who will hopefully lose interest soon.

>>52255533
>subverting tropes

>>52255533
This is why you get grogs who say the only good type of Orc is an oldschool one, because every time someone tries to subvert a trope they end up failing miserably, and almost always reverting the trope anyway. It happens with Elves and Dwarfs too. It's not necessarily a bad thing to try to be unique, but no one has the creativity to actually do anything unique with them.

>>52263958
it can't be done well, ever

>>52267051
doesn't matter, it's a shit word, the website has nothing to do with it

>>52264184
Best subversion I ever did: multi-cultural demihumans.
The entire mono-cultural race trope began because people copied the appearance of Tolkien, who didn't even have mono-cultural races - but he didn't show all of them, so people forget about them.

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>>52255533
Let me guess, you're one of those players that likes to bitch about your GM but never actually steps up to run a game yourself.

Instead of being a twat and trying to embarrass your 'friend' (on /tg/ of all places) how about you appreciate the work that went in to the free entertainment.

>>52269111
>appreciate the work that went in to the free entertainment.
but that's the thing, zero work went into it and it's not entertaining

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Barbaric elves.

People don't really take me seriously when I say primitive and savage elves should be a thing. You can make them distinct from just brutes and make them primitive like cunning velociraptors.

Take Link as an example. A savage elf is not one that brutes their way through everything with strength, but unearthly finesse. They're less like raging bulls and more like relentless, aggressive snakes. Silent. Stealthy. Still not driven by martial prowess so much as running off of sheer animal instinct. Action and reaction.

They move with unearthly grace and flexibility, seemingly able to comprehend what an enemy or multiple enemies are doing and react with hard wired agility, not unlike how a Barricuda's brain makes them perceive the world as going much slower than it is for them to move so quickly. Their balance an inherent and horrifying part of their physiology. Their architecture takes into account non-elven humanoids cannot balance nor jump as well as they do, and unless humans like dragging ladders everywhere, pursuit will be fruitless and frustrating with ha-ha walls with starved warriors at the bottom of 10 foot pits, skewered on punji spike pits and drowned in moats. All accomplished with primitive concrete and wood to disguise villages as forests.

Stark naked, they prefer swift penetrating weapons, like triangular tipped two handed spears to puncture armor. Favorite targets are helmet visors and mobility joints. For to fight a savage elf as naked as they are is to be chopped, slashed and stabbed or bludgeoned into jelly.

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>>52271335
Barbaric elves are getting rather common nowadays. TES bosmer, WoW night elves, DnD wild elves, to a lesser extent DA dalish elves, etc. I've played in at least three home games where barbaric elves were the standard. Honestly I'm beginning to see them so often it's seeming cliche. Them and nazi elves.

>subverting
>tropes
Your "postmodernism" is not welcome here. >>>/lit/

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>>52271335
Why does Link have woman hips? Have the trapfags infected nintendo too?

>>52255533
Make Elves into Valkries and Einherjar aesthetic, and they were made from the gods themselves. They hold themselves in higher regard because

>They typically live on mountain peaks, making them literally higher in regard to other races
>They're the ones to judge who can commune with their gods and who can't, making them very judgmental by nature
>They forge all of their metals using Lightning instead of a typical forge, and they think it both looks better and functions better. Sometimes correct.

They're flaws come from typical isolationism, very conservative religious ideologies, and both leading towards a lagging behind as far as technology goes. Their magic (typically storm/lightning magic) makes up for this slightly, but the ever increasing gap with other races is becoming more and more noticeable.

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>>52271443
MtG elves, too. It's pretty much the default for them regardless of plane.

To be honest, I agree with you, it's starting to become overplayed. I want sophisticated Age of Enlightenment elves.

>>52271547
You can dress him like a bellydancer so figure.

>>52271335
I personally like the idea of Elves as savages, maybe not all of them, but at least wood elves. I've always viewed fantasy races as akin to peoples living in medieval Britain.
>Welsh are Elves, strange foreign people who speak a strange language, are known for their archery and tend to avoid outright warfare
>English are Humans, the most numerous and most powerful group, relative newcomers that adopt new methods relatively easily (Germanic shield walls, switched to heavy cavalry after Norman conquest, later switched to widespread usage of longbows)
>Scottish are Dwarves live in mountains, are known for using big two handed weapons (claymores and axes respectively) and drinking.
>Irish are Orcs, uncivilized savages who are easily conquered and better off dead

>>52255567
>>52264129
The best way to subvert a trope is to ignore it and go back to the source material. Look at how things developed and why they developed that way, then explore alternate interpretations of certain key elements.

For example, let's take dwarves. Secretive, xenophobic, a tendency towards clan identity, and master craftsman. Rather than drunken Scottish Jews, these elements could be identified with dynastic China. By adding in other Chinese elements, you can end up with something that is recognizably a dwarf while also subverting the trope of alcoholic midgets.

>>52258193
>I think the idea that the orcs original homeworld was fucked and they ahd to invade the human lands to survive was first introduced here

You do go to Draenor in the expansion for Warcraft 2. Haven't played it since the 90s, though, so I couldn't say for sure.

>>52273199
Their homeland was fucked, but the invasion was more Gul'dan sucking off Kil'jaeden than "we must survive".

>>52255533
You forgot one
>French are Dragons, the ruling class and true masterrace who conquered the land in their sleep

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>>52271335
>>52271443
>getting rather common nowadays
Barbaric elves are nothing new - they've been around since '80s