What common tropes in tabletop games go against the human spirit?

>>54452438
you

roll for will?

>>54452438
The tendency of enemies to always fight to the last man.

Seriously, it's like nameless henchmen never retreat or surrender, despite being the lowest paid and most unappreciated members of the villain's legion of doom.

>>54456283
This is a good one yeah.

Or how PC's always fight to the last man but those are PC's you can't really control them and shouldn't try

>>54456283
That's more of a GM problem than the system. I can't remember any systems where the majority of the enemies are described as "will always fight to the death no matter what"

>>54452438
A handful of big named characters control the fate of the world with their own stories and struggles

>>54456323

Uh, what? Most systems I know of focus on the idea of the players as badasses. Those that don't tend to have systems to wrest control of the character or otherwise make combat impractical.

>>54456370
This sounds like a GM problem more than a system problem. I personally don't know of any system that literally says "PCs are the baddest dudes who do all the things and the whole world bends to their will."

>>54456407
I didn't say PCs. I said big named characters. be they NPCs or PCs, battles getting decided by a brawl between PCs and a villain happens in games but never in real life.
Also, I didn't blame any system. It's just a trope.

But you're clearly memeing, so.

>>54456383
Or you have systems like exalted where it does both

>>54452438
The idea that all members of a particular race/species are inherently evil from birth, and only rare exceptions buck the trend. Instead of portraying them as an actual people with varied individuals.

>>54456383
Doesn't dark heresy sort of do that with it's insanity system?

Honestly it's a cool concept I'd like to integrate into DnD as something like a more defined stat than just having wisdom being this all encompassing measurement of how hell-bent my character is.

Like am I to believe a mountain of muscle barb that fights well beyond the human limits, has less willpower than say a wizard who can barely sling cantrips?

It'd be something interesting to have as a system of added benefits and drawbacks. Having higher willpower helps you do better on checks, but failing willpower checks specifically gives you drawbacks in the form of PTSD or causes panic attacks and other short term stints where control over the character is lost.

>Just watched a friendly NPC get cleaved in two?
>Roll Willpower
>Depending on degree of success or failure, your character powers through the horror, gets a slight buff during the encounter, isn't bothered by it but becomes increasingly numb to the horrors of war, is left jaded because of the incident and takes penalties in similar situations, or loses his shit

It may be the most generic example I got, but it made adding character flaws really interesting when my group was playing Adept Eva which used DHs insanity system

>>54456462

Wait, are they talking tropes in tabletop games, like including boardgames and wargames? Because in those I think it's even rarer for things to be in the hands of big named characters.

Most of the games I play tend to have factions be generic in terms of leadership, or have the player as a vague all-controlling force. Either that or they are on such a small scale that it's perfectly reasonable for a handful of people to be the big play makers.

>>54457090

I find that this is actually kind of rare. Off the top of my head the only games that do this are D&D and Warhammer.

Most other games I play have plenty of room for the various species to have unique individuels.

Hell, in recent years D&D has given a lot of slack for expressing various races. Usually focusing on the race's culture as opposed to any magical impulse for evil.

>>54457273

Yeah Dark Heresy does exactly that.

To be honest you could just crack open the book and lift it directly from one game to another.

The tendency for players to make PCs with no real ties to family, history, heritage or setting. Everyone wants to be "the guy whos village burnt down, his entire family line is dead and who just wants to become better at their martial/magical profession"

You know, a Murder Hobo. Its that kinda shit that makes me never want to play D&D again.

>>54456283
I actually think I'm way too prone to NPC grunts surrendering myself.

Combat will end up going like:
>Five guys burst in to confront PCs
>Two PCs in a row land critical hits and drop one of the guys hard
>Guys are demoralized
>Remaining PCs score some rather nasty blows on two of the others
>Grunts say 'fuck this' and surrender.
>PCs proceed to pump them for information and steal their shit

>>54456462
While you are correct for most cases, there are a few distinct examples throughout history of one side losing heart entirely due to their leader being struck down.

And more examples where the leader was killed/wounded and someone posed as them to maintain morale.

>>54456283
That's a GM problem, not a game problem

>>54458436

Uh, that's not D&D. That's the people you've been playing with.

>>54458436
Stop killing their families.

>>54458436
If I still have home and family, why would I go out adventuring?
Personally I see "having no place to go anymore" a much more logic choice to leave your home and fighting fucking monsters, than just Wanderlust.

>>54459195

Wanderlust is fine. I imagine plenty of soldiers and mercenaries from back in the day got people with wanderlust.

>>54452438
Questgivers who ask random groups of people for help instead of their friends or the local government.

>>54459341

This is a GM problem. Or perhaps even a videogame problem.

>>54459341
>instead of their friends
Why would someone rather put their friends in danger, instead of some random murder hobos?

>>54452438
Elves

>>54458492
Try fighting retreats next time if things are getting rough.

>>54459195
>>54459210
Make them third, or fourth sons. No real chance of any inheritance, family home or position.

>>54452438

Wait, is this a response to that one thread? Are you the guy who was so assblasted by that dude mentioning natural law and the human spirit that you decided to shitpost about it? That's actually amazing. He must have really got to you.

>>54457767
Yup, and most of the time good GMs make them have reasons to look evil, usually due to some other reason, not just "nature"