# What D&D cliches are you sick of?



## shadow (Dec 31, 2003)

We all love D&D (we wouldn't be posting here if we didn't), but let's face it- there are some things about the game that we really don't like.
For me:

1. Everyone speaks the same language: I understand this for game reasons.  However, it seems very silly to me that EVERYONE in the whole world speak common by default.  I can understand a trade language, but the idea of a universal speech that even peasants in isolated communities speak is just absurd.

2. The prevalence of "raise dead spells": Any mid-to-high level cleric can raise the dead.  Again, this makes sense from a game perspective, but this really puts a cramp in the internal consistency of most campaign worlds.  Why should anyone fear death if they can just be raised later?  Although the family of Joe Peasant couldn't afford to have him raised, kings and people in power have little to fear of death creating a powerful dynasty.  Assassinations become much harder (since the person can just be raised as long as the body is intact).

3. High prevalence of magic, but no application of it: Although most D&D worlds feature absurd amounts of magic, most people still live in a psuedo-medieval society.  If magic was as prevalent as it is in most D&D campaigns, I can imagine wizards getting together and applying it to society.  Many people hate the idea of "magic as technology" paradigm, but if even the smallest hamlet has at least a couple of spell casters, why is all D&D magic seem to be centered around adventuring.

4. The default polytheistic assumption:  I have nothing against the standard D&D polytheistic pantheon, but it seems to be getting a little cliched.  What about different religious systems, such as pantheism (everything is part of the universal spirit), animism (worship of nature spirits), and even monotheism?  One of the main problems of most D&D pantheons is that they seem so contrived.  All the gods of the pantheons deal with adventuring and kicking-butt.  We have war gods, death gods, fire gods, and nature gods for druids, but we usually don't have gods of fertility, or gods of the home which existed in many classical myths.

Any others?


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## MarauderX (Dec 31, 2003)

5.  Encumberance.  "What encumberance?  I'm not carrying too much... oh... well, wait... I suppose I am...but I can't get rid of the wand of prestidigitation...and this old buckler would be of use if I can't carry a shield for some reason..."  

6.  Rations.  There are always clerics now that can whip up meals for everyone out of thin air.  Your village is starving?  No prob, I'll just pray for some food tomorrow.  Long distance travel (if still done without magic) becomes much less lethal when you don't have to worry about water or food.  

7.  Horses.  They are in most campaign worlds, but for some reason no one ever specializes in using them too much.  Players will sink points into Craft(basketweaving) before maxing out Ride.  And the horses conveniently disappear when entering a cave, dungeon, walking through a city, wherever.  

8.  Diseases.  What happened to them?  No one gets sick with the flu anymore?  I suppose not when there are a pile of clerics at the 12 local churches to heal you up.  

9.  Healing.  No one is maimed, dying or otherwise in bad shape.  Uber-clerics must have come along and tagged everyone with a healing spell whenever they sprain an ankle.  

10.  Magic shops.  In a 'low-magic' campaign why would there be any?  Guys just hanging around waiting for you to trade in your sword +1 and a pile of gold so you can buy the sword +2?  Ugh.  

Sorry, I'll stop here for now before it really seems like I have issues that need therapy.


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## Nightfall (Dec 31, 2003)

666) Gamers whining on message boards in various extremes about stuff they hate. Can we all just game in FUN for once?


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## MarauderX (Dec 31, 2003)

Nightfall said:
			
		

> 666) Gamers whining on message boards in various extremes about stuff they hate. Can we all just game in FUN for once?





sorry, good point, I will shut up for awhile.


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## Nightfall (Dec 31, 2003)

Not directing it you Maurder. Just my general feeling of the day. I spend it a lot doing this sage stuff.


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## just__al (Dec 31, 2003)

These seem more like complaints than cliches.

Here's some cliches....

Campaigns that start with everybody sitting around a tavern table.

Adventurers being hired to deal with a monster menace.

Every rogue is a pickpocketing treasure hoarding scumbag.

Haflings played like kender.

Avariacious dwarves

Flighty elves

Boorish hostile half orcs

Tinkering/inventing gnomes...

THOSE are the cliches


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## DaveMage (Dec 31, 2003)

MarauderX said:
			
		

> 6.  Rations.  There are always clerics now that can whip up meals for everyone out of thin air.  Your village is starving?  No prob, I'll just pray for some food tomorrow.  Long distance travel (if still done without magic) becomes much less lethal when you don't have to worry about water or food.




Slight hijack:

I've been thinking about this one issue lately and I think that changing the _create water _ and _create food and water_ spells to a higher level might be appropriate.

/hijack


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## Wombat (Dec 31, 2003)

Actually the magic angle amuses me most.

Consider magic -- here is the vast, all-encompassing power, yet 80% of the spells are for combat.  And there is almost no magic devouted to increasing crops, making childbirth easier, and the like.

I think most commoners would fear wizards  

But for true cliches, we have to go with the old standby:  "So, you walk into this tavern..."


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## Mistwell (Dec 31, 2003)

Wombat said:
			
		

> Actually the magic angle amuses me most.
> 
> Consider magic -- here is the vast, all-encompassing power, yet 80% of the spells are for combat.  And there is almost no magic devouted to increasing crops, making childbirth easier, and the like.
> 
> ...





I was thinking the other day about spells I would like, if they existed in the real world.

Locate Object was WAY high on my list.  
Mending is up there. So is Light and continual light.
Enchanting Flavor, Heigene, Contact, and Sense Thoughts, all 0-level spells from Arcana Unearthed, would be on the list.


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## Dark Jezter (Dec 31, 2003)

Wombat said:
			
		

> Actually the magic angle amuses me most.
> 
> Consider magic -- here is the vast, all-encompassing power, yet 80% of the spells are for combat.  And there is almost no magic devouted to increasing crops, making childbirth easier, and the like.
> 
> I think most commoners would fear wizards




Actually, there is a spell for improving crops:  _Plant Growth_.


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## Lu Wei Fong (Dec 31, 2003)

The cliches that really irk me are the typical portrayals of humanoid opponents (like goblinoids) as mindless cannon-fodder that can't figure out which end of the sword to hold without the tyranical supervision of some wizard or dragon. Granted, these races aren't as sophisticated or industrially advanced as the playable races, but if they're so suicidally incompetant that they wait in dungeon rooms for low-level adventurers to come and kill them on the road to "interesting" adventures, then they would have gone extinct ages ago. The Slayers Guides that Mongoose puts out I've found are really helpful in that regard, but haven't really seen too many people use them. *shrug*
   Oh well, it's still a great game and I love it regardless. 
   Huzzah for Monks!


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## Dirigible (Dec 31, 2003)

(shados' #1, 2, 3 & 4)
None of those apply to my games, thank Gord.



> I've been thinking about this one issue lately and I think that changing the create water and create food and water spells to a higher level might be appropriate.




The technical term for this, of course, being _midnighting_. As in:

"I'm going to midnight _create food and water_"


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## Harlock (Dec 31, 2003)

Biggest cliche: Halfling rgues, Half Orc Barbarians, Elven Wizards, DWarven fighters et al.  And it's built right into the system!


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## Geron Raveneye (Dec 31, 2003)

*Balance*

The notion that my wizard cannot be less powerful at low levels and may not be more powerful at high levely is a sad cliché in D&D nowadays. :shrug:


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## Darkness (Dec 31, 2003)

The economy. Too much gold; silver taking the place of gold (and gold the place of platinum, etc.) would be more to my liking.


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## TiQuinn (Dec 31, 2003)

Let's see....that's a RED dragon over there, so that means he's evil and breathes fire, mmmmkay?

And that one is a GOLD dragon, and that mean's he's good, and breathes gas AND fire, mmmkay?


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## KenM (Dec 31, 2003)

One thing I see at least two times a year at the gaming table that I don't like: Players playing Drizzit clones. Think of something orginal.


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## Flyspeck23 (Dec 31, 2003)

KenM said:
			
		

> One thing I see at least two times a year at the gaming table that I don't like: Players playing Drizzit clones. Think of something orginal.



It could be worse: players playing Gandalf clones. Or Elminster clones. Or... [insert random powerful mage here].
I've seen it all 

The worst cliche is the Paladin. Really, that's a walking cliche right there. 

Apart from that... well: human-centered worlds, right down to the pantheon of gods. Why does every sentient species get their own god or (sub-) pantheon, and all the other gods are to some degree human gods?


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## Altalazar (Dec 31, 2003)

shadow said:
			
		

> We all love D&D (we wouldn't be posting here if we didn't), but let's face it- there are some things about the game that we really don't like.
> For me:
> 
> 1. Everyone speaks the same language: I understand this for game reasons.  However, it seems very silly to me that EVERYONE in the whole world speak common by default.  I can understand a trade language, but the idea of a universal speech that even peasants in isolated communities speak is just absurd.
> ...




1, 3, 4 are not issues in my world, and never have been.  Magic IS seen in many places even at the peasant level, in terms of community benefit, though it probably still wouldn't qualify for "high magic" - but a good king knows that to have the mages and clerics help the crops and such is good for the kingdom as a whole.  And my pantheon is filled with gods to things other than war, death, fire, and nature.  With special details and differences for each.  

Oh, and language - players always take a bunch of different languages and this becomes important because there is no single common tongue... 

Raise dead isn't an issue because most people could never afford it - (I have the silver as main currency thing going).  I mean, full plate armor was available historically, but realistically, almost no one could afford it.


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## diaglo (Dec 31, 2003)

49) power ups. 

50) rolling diplomacy/skill checks without doing or saying anything else  

51) gaining ability stats  

52) point buy 

edit: you can guess where i'm going with this  

Original D&D (1974) is the only true game. All the other editions are trite.


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## Holy Bovine (Dec 31, 2003)

53) Old gamers trying to recapture lost youth by constantly droning on about how great some older, crappier edition of the game was.


Not that we have anyone like that _here_ 




			
				Darkness said:
			
		

> The economy. Too much gold; silver taking the place of gold (and gold the place of platinum, etc.) would be more to my liking.




I have to ask - what practical difference would that make?  You would simply exchange an abundance of gold for an abundance of silver (assuming you'd still use the recommended treasure allotment, just changed over to silver).  I assume it is solely a flavour issue.


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## TiQuinn (Dec 31, 2003)

diaglo said:
			
		

> 49) power ups.
> 
> 50) rolling diplomacy/skill checks without doing or saying anything else
> 
> ...




Funny, but when I think of cliches, most of them started with oD&D.


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## borc killer (Dec 31, 2003)

5X) People forgetting about rule 0...

Who says any of this stuff has to be an issue?  Just change it 

Oh and what is wrong with using a tavern as a center for an adventure?  It is one of the few truly public spaces were people can gather easily and talk about what they want to talk about.  Should the PCs go door to door or stop people in the street to do gather info checks?  Hehe.  To see this in action go to some back roads town in England and walk into their pub (and they will have one even if the population is 50 people) and just listen to the conversations that go on… quite interesting… if you can figure out what the hell they are saying hehehe. 


Borc Killer


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## Altalazar (Dec 31, 2003)

diaglo said:
			
		

> 49) power ups.
> 
> 50) rolling diplomacy/skill checks without doing or saying anything else
> 
> ...




Original D&D players never posted to web bulletin boards in 1974 - that is something exclusive to the 3.x crowd.  So I guess that means we won't be hearing from Diaglo anymore, or else he'll be admitting that the new medium is better...


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## Phoenix_Knightwind (Dec 31, 2003)

Geron Raveneye said:
			
		

> The notion that my wizard cannot be less powerful at low levels and may not be more powerful at high levely is a sad cliché in D&D nowadays. :shrug:





???


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## diaglo (Dec 31, 2003)

Altalazar said:
			
		

> Original D&D players never posted to web bulletin boards in 1974 - that is something exclusive to the 3.x crowd.  So I guess that means we won't be hearing from Diaglo anymore, or else he'll be admitting that the new medium is better...




did you ever see Wargames?  

that's the way we did it back then. you called directly to someone else's board.

even back in the early 80's gamers were computer geeks too.  

i'm not saying it's better. i'm saying i keep up with all that's out there.  

yes, i know how to use punch card technology but i also have Word on my PC.


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## Psiblade (Dec 31, 2003)

The Common tongue and the adventurers meeting in the tavern are the two clichés that really bother me. On the other hand, I really do like point buy. So your mileage may vary.

-Psiblade


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## Altalazar (Dec 31, 2003)

diaglo said:
			
		

> did you ever see Wargames?
> 
> that's the way we did it back then. you called directly to someone else's board.
> 
> ...




As you know how to use 3E - but that doesn't change the fact that here you are using the new, 3rd edition technology and not the dial-in crappy text bulletin boards - so you must be admitting that the new, 3E medium is superior to the 1974 edition...


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## NewJeffCT (Dec 31, 2003)

Nightfall said:
			
		

> 666) Gamers whining on message boards in various extremes about stuff they hate. Can we all just game in FUN for once?




That is definitely a huge cliche that I hate - Every rule change is a disaster that ruins the game.

Another is people complaining that the latest edition is only for munchkiny power-gamers while older editions were perfect, or maybe not perfect, but had their charms that made them superior.  People still don't realize that munchkinism is in the hands of the DM.


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## Frost (Dec 31, 2003)

-- Rangers with two-weapon style


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## gordonknox (Dec 31, 2003)

Two rangers not allowed to work in the same party together.


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## Darkness (Dec 31, 2003)

Holy Bovine said:
			
		

> I have to ask - what practical difference would that make? You would simply exchange an abundance of gold for an abundance of silver (assuming you'd still use the recommended treasure allotment, just changed over to silver). I assume it is solely a flavour issue.



Exactly, mate.


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## Gundark (Dec 31, 2003)

NewJeffCT said:
			
		

> That is definitely a huge cliche that I hate - Every rule change is a disaster that ruins the game.
> 
> Another is people complaining that the latest edition is only for munchkiny power-gamers while older editions were perfect, or maybe not perfect, but had their charms that made them superior.  People still don't realize that munchkinism is in the hands of the DM.




Dude this is sooooo true, especially lately with 3.5


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## Orius (Dec 31, 2003)

shadow said:
			
		

> One of the main problems of most D&D pantheons is that they seem so contrived.  All the gods of the pantheons deal with adventuring and kicking-butt.  We have war gods, death gods, fire gods, and nature gods for druids, but we usually don't have gods of fertility, or gods of the home which existed in many classical myths.
> Any others?




But what kind of domains are you going to give to gods of the hearth/home besides alignment domains?  Maybe Protection?  Throw in the Realms domains and you can add Family.  There's really not much to choose from.  And it's not likely to be a choice picked my many PCs anyway, since most such priests aren't likely to adventure.  I mean really, how many classical myths revolve around Hestia?  Hearth gods are boring.

Fertility gods are a little easier to work with.  Plant and Earth are good domains for a fertility god, since the worship of fertility gods often is connected with agriculture.  If you're using the Realms domains, Charm and possibly Time would be viable domains for a fertility god.


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## Orius (Dec 31, 2003)

Wombat said:
			
		

> Actually the magic angle amuses me most.
> 
> Consider magic -- here is the vast, all-encompassing power, yet 80% of the spells are for combat.  And there is almost no magic devouted to increasing crops, making childbirth easier, and the like.
> 
> I think most commoners would fear wizards




That's probably because the types of spells adventuring wizards and clerics are going to use are more popular.  How many clerics in the party are going to pray for an _ease labor pains_ or whatever spell?  Besides, the player's fellow players would probably say something like this: "What are you, mental?  Prep a cure light wounds!"    Hell, that would probably be the first spell the cleric would swap out.  

And besides, how many companies are going to publish a book with a selection of spells like that?  Who'd buy it?

I know it's not very logical, but really a sort of meta-game issue.


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## NewJeffCT (Dec 31, 2003)

Gundark said:
			
		

> Dude this is sooooo true, especially lately with 3.5




If you go back to when 2E came out and read some of the letters in Dragon Magazine back then, you'd notice a lot of the same whining about 2E as you heard with 3E and 3.5.

I'm guessing we could save some of the posts from when 3.5 and 3.0 came out and just reprint them when 4E comes out in 3-5 years.


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## Cbas10 (Dec 31, 2003)

Well, this seems to be a topic of three different topics: bad cliches, bad aspects of the game, and bad aspects of how people run games.  I'll chime in with a couple of each.

---cliches:
two-weapon drow [or insert other evil race] who now hate their origins
random monsters at night
tavern meetings with employers
dungeon complexes full of traps _and_ living quarters
the concept of "adventurers"

---annoying aspects of the game itself:
the common "merchant's tongue"
the lack of any character with a focus on skills (unless you want to be a rogue or a bard)
the term "Market Value" instead of something like "Base Construction Cost"

---annoying aspects of games I've been in:
   Clerics: don't they have more to do than to wait around for "adventurers" to stumble in needing healing.  Evidently they also stockpile precious gems for near-endless uses of healing, restoring, raising, etc
   Magic items: Ye Olde Magick Shoppe (I better not rant...)
   Pawning items found in ruins and stuff:  why are there always buyers for some of the most expensive and off-the-wall crap?


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## Vaxalon (Dec 31, 2003)

Orius said:
			
		

> .... How many clerics in the party are going to pray for an _ease labor pains_ or whatever spell?  ....




That's why I always leave city-based NPC casters with lots of open slots when I write them up.  Anyone who isn't expecting a situation like combat, where action is needed IMMEDIATELY, will keep his options open.  Prepping spells is for people who are in stressful situations.


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## Kae'Yoss (Dec 31, 2003)

Holy Bovine said:
			
		

> 53) Old gamers trying to recapture lost youth by constantly droning on about how great some older, crappier edition of the game was.




I second that. And third. In fact, I 10d% that.

Really, If I hear something like "Edition X sucks because you can now do Y" only one more time, I get nostalgical on that guy.   


The chlichés I find annoying: 
*Halflings that are portrayed like annoying little bastards.* Never mind their tendency to be thieves (as long as they aren't made into cleptomaniacs), but after the 10th or so DM who tries to get his players committing genocid on the poor halflings, it really gets irritating

*Charisma with females directly translates into size of breasts.*

*Evil = Psychotic Mass Murderer.* This is the case in many evil PC's I've seen over time. OK, I played some of those as well, but some people don't seem to realize that there are other ways to play an evil character, preferring to start slaughtering whole cities (or trying to anyway).


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## Wormwood (Dec 31, 2003)

A cliché I'm really, really sick of: Robes on wizards.

I like that the WotC art department is trying to break out of that boooring 1970's bong-art mindset, but I'm still dying to see the 'Practical Yet Stylish Vest of the Archwizard' in the DMG.


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## Kae'Yoss (Dec 31, 2003)

Wormwood said:
			
		

> A cliché I'm really, really sick of: Robes on wizards.
> 
> I like that the WotC art department is trying to break out of that boooring 1970's bong-art mindset, but I'm still dying to see the 'Practical Yet Stylish Vest of the Archwizard' in the DMG.




Going in the opposite direction, another thing (not necessarily chliché) I hate: *Changes in our culture have to carry over into D&D*. Played Baldur's Gate? Baldur's Gate 2? I really hated how all the new portraits in BG2 had more piercings in the face than that poor guy in an iron maiden.


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## Nightfall (Dec 31, 2003)

NewJeffCT said:
			
		

> If you go back to when 2E came out and read some of the letters in Dragon Magazine back then, you'd notice a lot of the same whining about 2E as you heard with 3E and 3.5.
> 
> I'm guessing we could save some of the posts from when 3.5 and 3.0 came out and just reprint them when 4E comes out in 3-5 years.



Thanks Jeff and Gundark for the support. Yes the RPG genre is FILLED with cliches and stuff that seems annoying. But you get over and push on. Why? Cause this is a GAME folks and we are trying to have fun. (At least one hopes so!) Anyway so I'm sticking with #666. Cause so far it's held true for an edition and revision.


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## Vahktang (Dec 31, 2003)

> Adventurers being hired to deal with a monster menace.



Hey!
I like that one.
 
Ah well.
Maybe you and six buddies can be hired by a village of farmers to protect them from bandits instead.

More later,

Vahktang


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## maddman75 (Dec 31, 2003)

Wormwood said:
			
		

> A cliché I'm really, really sick of: Robes on wizards.
> 
> I like that the WotC art department is trying to break out of that boooring 1970's bong-art mindset, but I'm still dying to see the 'Practical Yet Stylish Vest of the Archwizard' in the DMG.




I actually know of a game where that makes sense.  It's a video game, but still it could be used in an RPG.

It was the MMORPG Asheron's Call.  Your warrior types increased their armor by getting heavier and heavier pieces of armor.  Breastplates, greaves, gloves, etc.  Now wizards didn't have the high strength to wear that stuff, so they had spells to make a piece of clothing act like strong armor.  But you'd be casting all day if you had to boost your shirt, pants, gloves, hat, etc.  But buy yourself a hooded robe and you only had to cast it on one item!  All the wizards wore robes, and it made sense for them to do so.

Most of my wizards don't wear robes.  I mean that's like putting a big sign over your head that says "WIZARD HERE!  BETTER KILL ME FIRST!"


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## Kesh (Dec 31, 2003)

Wormwood said:
			
		

> A cliché I'm really, really sick of: Robes on wizards.
> 
> I like that the WotC art department is trying to break out of that boooring 1970's bong-art mindset, but I'm still dying to see the 'Practical Yet Stylish Vest of the Archwizard' in the DMG.




Yeah. That's why I prefer to have most of my sorcerers/wizards dress in commoner's clothes, or leathers. Sometimes monk's clothing, for the ones that want to dress really simply.


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## MarauderX (Dec 31, 2003)

diaglo said:
			
		

> Original D&D (1974) is the only true game. All the other editions are trite.




Amen, brother, preach it... but then again each class was a cliche...


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## shadow (Dec 31, 2003)

KaeYoss said:
			
		

> I really hated how all the new portraits in BG2 had more piercings in the face than that poor guy in an iron maiden.




Preach on brother!  I have a lot of problems with 3.Xe artwork.  While technically very good, it often seems very weird and bizarre.  Apparently all the adventurers started hanging out with the bondage and fetish crowd between 2e and 3e!


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## Aust Diamondew (Dec 31, 2003)

Kesh said:
			
		

> Yeah. That's why I prefer to have most of my sorcerers/wizards dress in commoner's clothes, or leathers. Sometimes monk's clothing, for the ones that want to dress really simply.




Sorta the opposite of wizards in my campaign.  They wear fancy clothing, nobles outfits.  They usually end up looking overly uped dressed with a bunch of gaudy jewelry.


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## Flyspeck23 (Jan 1, 2004)

Aust Diamondew said:
			
		

> Sorta the opposite of wizards in my campaign. They wear fancy clothing, nobles outfits. They usually end up looking overly uped dressed with a bunch of gaudy jewelry.



That's a cliche too  [At least in some systems/worlds.]


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## shilsen (Jan 1, 2004)

Aust Diamondew said:
			
		

> Sorta the opposite of wizards in my campaign.  They wear fancy clothing, nobles outfits.  They usually end up looking overly uped dressed with a bunch of gaudy jewelry.




What about staves? Everybody knows a wizard's staff has a knob on the end.


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## Darrin Drader (Jan 1, 2004)

You know what I hate? I hate chasing some imbecile villain across hell and back, finally corner him and kill him, only to have him come back as a death knight! So then I have to deal with him and his brand new undead friends, pursue him across hell and back, and kill him again. But you know what? Its not over then! No, the gods can't just let a good villain die! Oh no, that would be way too easy. No, they have a break in their sacreed circle or some ridiculou crap like that and the next hing you know, this guy is being promoted to godhood. Now he's the ultimate evil in the entire campaign setting and its all because I tried to bring some justice to the world. I should do the world a favor and fall on my sword!!!


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## Kichwas (Jan 1, 2004)

Altalazar said:
			
		

> Original D&D players never posted to web bulletin boards in 1974 - that is something exclusive to the 3.x crowd.  So I guess that means we won't be hearing from Diaglo anymore, or else he'll be admitting that the new medium is better...



I've been posting on the internet since before second edition came out. 

One or two of those old posts of mine are still archived by happenstance in places...

Anyway:

The town in the wilderness - without trucking and refrigeration this place has no reason or ability to exist out there like that.

The claim of medieval, without actually using any medieval dynamics other than armor. Actual DnD looks more like the Roman era in everything but the existance of full plate mail - which is largely post medieval.

Alignment. Created only because the game comes from a group of people who were more interested in miniatures simulation than roleplay... Most of us give our characters personalities now... dropping this could only help.

Religion that exists only to heal adventurers.

Adventurers themselves... this large body of people who have no place or role in the social structure... and nobody seems to care about it. Again, if we actually used anything but a society based on the late 20th century western world, merrit has no meaning over pedigree.

Action by alignment, which largely ties to my issue of alignment itself. But this one is more a cliche than a complaint. The old assumption that Orcs act a certain way because of alignment, or the paladin that runs around with detect evil on a stick...

Kender.

Dungeons - most of which are illogical in origin or ecology anyway.

Iconic archetypal labeling - ties to alignment. Everything fits into a simple box with no grey zones. From morality to abilities to every other last piece of existance, DnD in it's default presentation lacks complexity.


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## Dyir (Jan 1, 2004)

Black cloaked people.  The sad thing is that since I'm the DM I'm responsible for all of them.  Necromancers, cultists, assassins, demons, dark elves...they all wore black cloaks.  After several campaign settings were the main bad guy (or at least the villain of the week) always wore a black cloak, one of my players has started trying to harm every black cloak figure he runs across.  I'd twist this idea into something mean...except that I'm sick of them.


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## Kae'Yoss (Jan 1, 2004)

arcady said:
			
		

> Alignment. Created only because the game comes from a group of people who were more interested in miniatures simulation than roleplay... Most of us give our characters personalities now... dropping this could only help.



I don't know, it does serve a purpose, rules-wise. And spells like "protection from arrogant" and "smite misunderstood with a hard childhood" are just plain silly.


> Religion that exists only to heal adventurers.



I don't know. In my campaigns and with my characters, I often use religion as an excuse to beat up people. 


> Iconic archetypal labeling - ties to alignment. Everything fits into a simple box with no grey zones. From morality to abilities to every other last piece of existance, DnD in it's default presentation lacks complexity.



Firstly, that isn't true. While there are some archetypical concepts, a great deal of DnD isn't that way.

Second: The iconic concept has a purpose: Keep the game simple. The alternative is taking roughly half a week for character creation and having character books instead of sheets.


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## Mystic_23 (Jan 1, 2004)

KaeYoss said:
			
		

> I don't know, it does serve a purpose, rules-wise. And spells like "protection from arrogant" and "smite misunderstood with a hard childhood" are just plain silly.




I agree.  "Darn.  I was sure he was "misunderstood with a hard childhood", but it turns out he's "misunderstood with feelings of deep regret".  I knew I should have prepared that spell."
And now for my complaint:

I agree with the "Drizzt Clone" haters.  "No...my 2 scimitar wielding Drow Ranger/Fighter isn't exactly like Drizzt!  See...he rides a bear!  That's much different."


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## Flyspeck23 (Jan 1, 2004)

Whisperfoot said:
			
		

> You know what I hate? I hate chasing some imbecile villain across hell and back, finally corner him and kill him, only to have him come back as a death knight! So then I have to deal with him and his brand new undead friends, pursue him across hell and back, and kill him again. But you know what? Its not over then! No, the gods can't just let a good villain die! Oh no, that would be way too easy. No, they have a break in their sacreed circle or some ridiculou crap like that and the next hing you know, this guy is being promoted to godhood. Now he's the ultimate evil in the entire campaign setting and its all because I tried to bring some justice to the world. I should do the world a favor and fall on my sword!!!



That happened in my campaign too... twice


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## Dark Jezter (Jan 1, 2004)

KaeYoss said:
			
		

> I don't know, it does serve a purpose, rules-wise. And spells like "protection from arrogant" and "smite misunderstood with a hard childhood" are just plain silly.




Well, I wouldn't mind seeing a spell called "Magic circle against brooding and angsty" myself.


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## kirinke (Jan 1, 2004)

*go quest, young elf*

weeellll. i've done something a bit different with my character.

she's had a perfectly normal elvish childhood. both her parents are wizards, so in the typical rebellious teen-ager thing, she decided to become a ranger with plans on multi-classing to cleric. I'm also playing her as very polite, friendly and gregarious, due to her average charisma (the typical elf has med-high charisma, which accounts for the arrogance). 

and the reason why she went out adventuring was to get away from the "Why can't you become a wizard like your younger brother and sister? It's not as if...."

****
concerning the tavern cliche
in most small towns, the local tavern, coffee/tea shop, post-office, barber-shop etc was the main gathering point for most of the populance. so it would be logical for the adventurers to go there in order to glean information/jobs etc. heck. that's true today.


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## Elder-Basilisk (Jan 1, 2004)

Thieves' guilds that are full of nice and reasonable people who "just happen to be thieves" but who are really good for the city they're in because they keep crime under control or some such rot. I'd much prefer to drop the name "thieves' guild" because of that connotation and, instead, have the Bloods, the Crips, the Colione and Gambino families, and the Cali Cartel. Forget nice thieves with honor and a social conscience.

The idea that only the "real villains" are evil--the villain who murders the PC's wife and children but not the starving commoner with a poisoned crossbow who apparently would rather spend his money on weapons and poison and then attempt to kill people visiting the local inn in order to get food than simply spend 1/5 the price of the crossbow (let alone the poison) on passage to a nearby city where he can get honest work. But, of course, he's a "neutral" victim of the cruel misfortunes of society.


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## Kichwas (Jan 2, 2004)

Speaking of Thieves Guilds:

The idea that there's just one, and not a host of them locked in violent competition.

The idea that someone not born locally could join.

Even a spell like Protection from Evil could work without alignments... But DnD players are so used to thinking in such simple basic 'typed' ways...


Speaking of 'common evil', I grew up in the inner city and when I get those 'mid western suburbanite types' with their 'Vile Darkness' and other such comic bookish evil I can easily 'squick them' way beyond that just be 'acting normal' - shifting my baseline for the moral compass to something more born of the urban reality I know rather than the one in those action movies, hip hop videos, and comic-book themes like the Book of Vile Darkness.


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## Bloodstone Mage (Jan 2, 2004)

This is going to be somewhat rambling, and some of these have been mentioned already, but what annoys me about D&D/RPGs...

Alignment. To me, it seems to defy the purpose of role-playing. It simplifies and defines a character's morals and obligations with two little words. I mean, I know that alignment is handled different in each campaign out there, and it depends on how the DM interprets it. But some of the players I've met seem to create one-dimensional characters based on the concept of alignment. How often have I asked, "Why does your character do evil things?" and hear the dreaded response of a player saying, "I dunno. 'Cause he's neutral evil."

Abundance of magic. This is really only a problem in certain games, and I guess I'm just being picky, but as a DM and a player, I tend to treat magic with a more esoteric and metaphysical respect towards it than for it to be packaged and sold in some market. Usually, in my games, magic items cost more than just mere gold. But that's just me. I loved the movie "Gremlins" as a kid, and that's the way I kinda envisioned magic shops...hidden, secluded, and with a mysterious man who makes warnings and foretellings about items sold in his shop. _"And it comes with a free frogurt..."_

Armor designs. Those female warriors that wear revealing armor and still expect it to protect them.

Big Bad Evil Guys. They seem so...bland. They're evil and usually act alone, 
except with the aid of some henchmen or summoned creatures. They live in some over-elaborate lair and never die until the characters reach 20th level.

I don't know if this counts, but a cliche I dislike is how people think D&D is played in sewers, it's a cult, or that it's too geeky. I mean, D&D is geeky, but I've met people who are real geeks and don't even play RPGs...people obsessed with their favorite bands, or artists...like Mike Patton. C'mon.  

Haha.

Cheers!


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## Moe Ronalds (Jan 2, 2004)

arcady said:
			
		

> I've been posting on the internet since before second edition came out.
> 
> One or two of those old posts of mine are still archived by happenstance in places...
> 
> ...




So basically D&D, right?   

-Kids Because he Loves;
Moe Ronalds


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## kirinke (Jan 2, 2004)

*lol*

chain-mail form-fitting bikini's. riiigghhhht.
and you think that's gonna protect you from the bad-guys sword? unless of course you want to distract him with the raging horniness.....

i gotta agree with you. a female warrior is not gonna go for the bikini- chainmail fashion statement and in fact, would probably want to blend in with the guys as much as possible to avoid gaining the attention from the other bad-guys.


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## Moe Ronalds (Jan 2, 2004)

Wormwood said:
			
		

> A cliché I'm really, really sick of: Robes on wizards.
> 
> I like that the WotC art department is trying to break out of that boooring 1970's bong-art mindset, but I'm still dying to see the 'Practical Yet Stylish Vest of the Archwizard' in the DMG.




I always thought wizards wore robes for the simple reason that their slimming. I mean, you probably don't get enough excercise sitting in a drafty tower all day long studying arcane texts, right?


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## kirinke (Jan 2, 2004)

*in response to the practical, yet stylish vest of the archwizard.*

Originally Posted by Wormwood
A cliché I'm really, really sick of: Robes on wizards.

I like that the WotC art department is trying to break out of that boooring 1970's bong-art mindset, but I'm still dying to see the 'Practical Yet Stylish Vest of the Archwizard' in the DMG.
****
I couldn't resist.

Practical Yet Stylish Vest of the Archwizard
This strange garment always appears to be of the latest style of adventuring vest, usually with plenty of pockets. White (01–45 on d%, good alignment), gray (46–75, neither good nor evil alignment), or black (76–100, evil alignment). Its wearer, if an arcane spellcaster, gains the following powers.
• +5 armor bonus to AC.
• Spell resistance 18.
• +4 resistance bonus on all saving throws.
• +2 enhancement bonus on caster level checks made to overcome spell resistance.
If a white vest is donned by an evil character, she immediately gains three negative levels. The reverse is true with respect to a black vest donned by a good character. An evil or good character who puts on a gray vest, or a neutral character who dons either a white or black vest, gains two negative levels. While these negative levels never result in lost levels, they remain as long as the garment is worn and cannot be overcome in any way (including restoration spells).
Strong varied; CL 14th; Craft Wondrous Item, antimagic field, mage armor or shield of faith, minor image, creator must be of same alignment as vest; Price 75,000 gp;Weight 1 lb.


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## Ackem (Jan 2, 2004)

Alignment for Humanoids, ANY Raising of the Dead, Magic Item Dependance, Interventionist Gods, and the sheer number of incredibly deadly monsters just kicking around the average wilderness.


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## Ukyo the undead (Jan 2, 2004)

Vaxalon said:
			
		

> That's why I always leave city-based NPC casters with lots of open slots when I write them up.  Anyone who isn't expecting a situation like combat, where action is needed IMMEDIATELY, will keep his options open.  Prepping spells is for people who are in stressful situations.





You do know there is people that don't even know that the rules allow leaving slots open, don´t you?


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## Ulrick (Jan 2, 2004)

All of Monte Cook's half-bred monsters in Return of the Temple of Elemental Evil and the other modules he's put out for 3.0/3.5. 

It wasn't a cliche before...but it is _now._


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## Dark Jezter (Jan 2, 2004)

arcady said:
			
		

> Even a spell like Protection from Evil could work without alignments... But DnD players are so used to thinking in such simple basic 'typed' ways...




Gee, no condescention there.


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## Gnarlo (Jan 2, 2004)

KaeYoss said:
			
		

> I don't know, it does serve a purpose, rules-wise. And spells like "protection from arrogant" and "smite misunderstood with a hard childhood" are just plain silly.




 Thank you for that, nice to have a good hard laugh first thing in the morning, even if it did trigger a coughing spell.

Now, my cliche I'm tired of: the BBEG Overlord threat whose overarching plot the adventurers will eventually stumble across and realize that all their adventures have been steps leading up to a confrontation with the great evil as only they have a chance to save the world!

When did it become a sin to admit that you liike to kill things and take their stuff?


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## Tonguez (Jan 2, 2004)

arcady said:
			
		

> Adventurers themselves... this large body of people who have no place or role in the social structure... and nobody seems to care about it. Again, if we actually used anything but a society based on the late 20th century western world, merrit has no meaning over pedigree.




I've always viewed Adventurer parties as Mercenary companies (which were prevalent from about the 15th century)

but the cliche I've always hated is the 'spell for every occasion' mentality of DnD - need to open a door? no put away the lockpicks we have Knock! need to climb a wall? nope no need for a rope when we have Spiderclimb...


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## Orius (Jan 2, 2004)

KaeYoss said:
			
		

> Going in the opposite direction, another thing (not necessarily chliché) I hate: *Changes in our culture have to carry over into D&D*. Played Baldur's Gate? Baldur's Gate 2? I really hated how all the new portraits in BG2 had more piercings in the face than that poor guy in an iron maiden.




Oh, I definitely agree there.  Maybe it's because I tend to have an aesthetic dislike for piercings, but a lot of the iconic 3e art doesn't really do it for me.  I'm talking about all the heavy piercings, tattooes (to some degree), and excessive buckles.  Dumping old well-worn styles for something that's completely and radically different is a little jarring.


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## Orius (Jan 2, 2004)

arcady said:
			
		

> The claim of medieval, without actually using any medieval dynamics other than armor. Actual DnD looks more like the Roman era in everything but the existance of full plate mail - which is largely post medieval.




I'm of the opinion that the typical D&D society pretty much resembles a Renaissance fair or SCA event on crack.


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## Henry (Jan 2, 2004)

My list of annoying clichés?

-Characters with names drawn from household cleaning products and trendy corporations (Calgon the Wizard, Nipro the rogue, Dilmar the Warrior)

-Use of the term "level" to refer to anything and everything! (I'm surprised the term Difficulty class wasn't referred to as "Difficulty Level.") Originally we had 9th level characters attacking 7th level monsters on the 6th dungeon level with 4th level spells; we now have 6th level characters using 2nd level spells on an Encounter Level 4 Encounter. Wait a minute, he's not just 6th character level , he's a 4th class level cleric/2nd class level bard!   The room was not built on a level grade of slope, either.

-Adventurers who only exist to adventure. How many people only live a mercenary lifestyle in historical experience? A very rare few, comparatively. I'd like to see more characters with missions of vengance, goals of starting businesses, or just pay out a massive family debt, or something besides being an orphan and living for treasure seeking. It's a "grade-b" version of the old series _Kung Fu._

-Spells with cutesy material components. Spells that need legume seeds to break wind? Copper pieces to read thoughts? In-can telephones to send messages by magic? Sympathetic magic was funny in 1st edition, but it's now a staple that wears thin to me.


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## Mercule (Jan 2, 2004)

Kesh said:
			
		

> Yeah. That's why I prefer to have most of my sorcerers/wizards dress in commoner's clothes, or leathers. Sometimes monk's clothing, for the ones that want to dress really simply.



Likewise.  My wizards/sorcerers tend to be visibly indistinguishible from a Rogue who eschews armor.  I figure that once the fireworks begin, you'll be target enough.  Why paint a target on yourself before the need arises.


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## NewJeffCT (Jan 5, 2004)

Henry said:
			
		

> My list of annoying clichés?
> 
> -Characters with names drawn from household cleaning products and trendy corporations (Calgon the Wizard, Nipro the rogue, Dilmar the Warrior)
> 
> ...


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## Viehl (Jan 5, 2004)

NewJeffCT said:
			
		

> And, you could technically say that the current US military is mercenary




 

<I>Overheard at the capture of Saddam Hussein:</I>

<B>Pfc. Fett:</B> What if he doesn't survive? He's worth a lot to me...

<B>Lt. Vader:</B> The Emp...um...President will compensate you if he dies. Put him in!


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## Numion (Jan 5, 2004)

Mercule said:
			
		

> Likewise.  My wizards/sorcerers tend to be visibly indistinguishible from a Rogue who eschews armor.  I figure that once the fireworks begin, you'll be target enough.  Why paint a target on yourself before the need arises.




Our group does it for the style and status. Outrageously large pointy hats, wizard robes with gold symbols on it, and one even had a large golden "D" on his back. He was named D something, obviously. There just isn't mojo in playing an incognito wizard for me. 

A halfling sorcerer with a hat the size of himself instantly gets respect from me  In a game with SWAT tactics this isn't suitable, of course.


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## The Hanged Man (Jan 5, 2004)

I think most of the good cliches are covered.

It's not a cliche, but one annoyanceis hearing about somebody's Fighter4/Rogue3/Ranger3/Shadowdancer2/etc.  If you really want to play Gurps, can't you just play it?


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## Henry (Jan 5, 2004)

NewJeffCT said:
			
		

> ...And, when the Byzantines were at war with the Turks/Ottomans, they often used mercenaries to fight for them (sometimes, the mercenaries were even Turks).  And, you could technically say that the current US military is mercenary, as people have to volunteer to fight for the military for a salary and/or education.  If nobody signed up, they'd either have to recruit harder, raise salaries, or re-institute the draft.




Historically, there have been plenty of mercenaries; but rarely did they always fight only for the next paycheck. Most had a goal in mind - fight as long as they could, then find a place to settle down with their savings, etc. It didn't always happen that way, but rarely do human beings intentionally say, "I live for the next fight, and more treasure," because the ones that do, don't stay alive for a year or three at most (vis-a-vis the bulk of pirates of the 17th century.)

And the volunteer army is again not quite the definition I've trying to get at, because you have people entering for anything from patriotism to paid college. I've only known one person who made a career out of the National Guard, and he didn't stay in it but about 1 or two terms before calling it quits.

I'm talking mainly about those D&D Orphans, wandering the realms in search of treasure with no ultimate goal but the next slain monster. Those are the personality-bereft weirdo PC's I refer to.


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## NewJeffCT (Jan 6, 2004)

Henry said:
			
		

> Historically, there have been plenty of mercenaries; but rarely did they always fight only for the next paycheck. Most had a goal in mind - fight as long as they could, then find a place to settle down with their savings, etc. It didn't always happen that way, but rarely do human beings intentionally say, "I live for the next fight, and more treasure," because the ones that do, don't stay alive for a year or three at most (vis-a-vis the bulk of pirates of the 17th century.)
> 
> And the volunteer army is again not quite the definition I've trying to get at, because you have people entering for anything from patriotism to paid college. I've only known one person who made a career out of the National Guard, and he didn't stay in it but about 1 or two terms before calling it quits.
> 
> I'm talking mainly about those D&D Orphans, wandering the realms in search of treasure with no ultimate goal but the next slain monster. Those are the personality-bereft weirdo PC's I refer to.




True, a lifetime spent rooting about dungeons in search of treasure and killing monsters is rare through history... but, adventurers are supposed to be a rare breed.  And, in history, there have been quests that have had many adventurers drawn to them, or events that thrust adventure on to some, even if it was for a period of time (i.e., the king leading a crusade to re-take the 'Holy Land' and the men that joined the crusade - as well as the men that defended their lands from the crusaders.  A crusade may have kept some away from home for years..., or in fiction, the Quest for the Holy Grail... )

Most of the time I have gamed has been in epic style campaigns where the PCs have the goal of saving the world.  I had assumed that was the norm?  Would a PC being in a campaign to save the world be justified in taking a few years of game time adventuring?  What about somebody like Maximus in "Gladiator" being a general, but having the goal of returning to his farm?


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## Emirikol (Nov 16, 2014)

My cliche list as a player, GM, editor, and designer:



All-time #1 CLICHE:  Bandit encounters.  I want to PUKE everytime I see some lame-o "bandit" encounter.


Obsidian flipping anything (walls, pillars, monoliths, thrones.. ETCETERA)


Detect evil


Getting the party to eat human flesh yet again


The guy who hires you then later tries to kill you


I used to have some other cliche's that I had burned out on but have had to just deal with:
* Dungeon crawls without innovative plots with interesting NPCs/monsters/whatever OUTSIDE of the dungeon (oh, lemme guess, the dungeon is to blame! Why are we standing around? Let's go nuke the cave.)  Cave in the front door and move along.  You know what item should be in the pHB?  Dynamite.  But what would we do then?
* Magic for every class as a crutch instead of innovative game design of multiple non-magical classes/careers/backgrounds and a system that encourages something other than a spell/magic to solve any problem or as an excuse to for leveling goodies.
* Cliche systems: Spells are commonplace and are pretty much a complete replacement for skills
* Cliche bad scenario design:  Scenarios without a "Synopsis of Expected Play"
* Cliche wasted game design: Space wasted in books for high level and epic play (and spells)..especially in fantasy heartbreakers (or D&D for that matter). 


Cliche's that I love?  
* Gnomes, halflings, elves, dwarves
* big caverns
* rolling lots of dice all the time
* watching storytellers battle it out with boardgamers over what percentage should go into an RPG
* house rules!




jh


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 16, 2014)

> Getting the party to eat human flesh yet again




A 10+ year necro, but THIS made me laugh!







Gotta say, though, haven't seen this one in person.


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## Samloyal23 (Nov 17, 2014)

> * Dungeon crawls without innovative plots with interesting NPCs/monsters/whatever OUTSIDE of the dungeon (oh, lemme guess, the dungeon is to blame! Why are we standing around? Let's go nuke the cave.) Cave in the front door and move along. You know what item should be in the pHB? Dynamite. But what would we do then?




You would like my warlocks, I made a invocation that turned an eldritch blast into a bomb...


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## rocket1969 (Nov 17, 2014)

hmmm...i'm gming a bunch of 5e campaigns in a homebrew world. and i hate dnd for a number of reasons--5e is getting there to bring me around but--
1-clerics. clerics bug me---healing with a touch is an amazing power--a cleric would be a founder of a cult in and of himself...but in this world...they can all do this. odd. really imbalancing...and raising the dead? 
2. falling damage--come on---5 editions and it still has people falling from orbit and running into battle?
3. the environment not being a problem. a whole chunk of fiction is man against the elements...not here
a bunch of other stuff--but it isnt a cliche so much as it is power gaming and build over story...


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## Samloyal23 (Nov 17, 2014)

Lack of environment rules is a serious problem. Try simulating the effects of fighting in snow or on ice, I dare you. Just developing a prestige class around snow and ice has me pulling my hair out.


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## amerigoV (Nov 17, 2014)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> > Getting the party to eat human flesh yet again
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Your choices of words makes that even more funny. I have to say I have not seen that in groups I have played in either. Although, I suspect if the concept were introduced, it would be akin to that South Park episode where the town gets snowed in and they start eating each other within hours.


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## Celebrim (Nov 17, 2014)

shadow said:


> 1. Everyone speaks the same language: I understand this for game reasons.  However, it seems very silly to me that EVERYONE in the whole world speak common by default.  I can understand a trade language, but the idea of a universal speech that even peasants in isolated communities speak is just absurd.




Well, first, there is no reason to assume that even peasants in isolated communities speak the same language.  However, I used to think like you do and tried to create a more realistic world.  The problem is that a more realistic world sucks.  RP with NPCs is one of the most fun aspects of the game.  If you cut that off so that the PCs can't meaningfully interact with an NPC, it's not a win, no matter how much more realistic it might be.   So as a practical matter, what you want is for every NPC that can RP or is likely to have non-violent interaction with the PCs, for it to actually be able to speak with the PC.  This won't mean that they all speak common, but does mean that its in your interest as a DM to ensure the number of languages is small and that some sort of common tongue is shared with someone in the party.



> 2. The prevalence of "raise dead spells": Any mid-to-high level cleric can raise the dead.  Again, this makes sense from a game perspective, but this really puts a cramp in the internal consistency of most campaign worlds.  Why should anyone fear death if they can just be raised later?  Although the family of Joe Peasant couldn't afford to have him raised, kings and people in power have little to fear of death creating a powerful dynasty.  Assassinations become much harder (since the person can just be raised as long as the body is intact).




First, my definition of mid-level seems pretty different than yours.   Raise dead isn't available until 9th level, even putting aside house rules that might limit how many clerics know each priestly spell, 9th level is IMO a fairly high level character.   If such characters are reasonably common, the problem is that you tend to deprotagonize the PC's.   If you've got lots of NPCs around that could easily handle any challenge that the PC's face before 5th level, it is in my opinion harder to explain how the world needs the PC's than it would be to explain how the world functions when some people can reliably bring others back from the dead.   For example, in my current campaign (now in its fourth year), in the nation that the PC's started out in, there were to my knowledge only 3 characters of 9th level or higher - and none was a cleric.  Three 7th level clerics represented the highest level clerics in the whole nation.  So raise dead isn't necessarily widely available.

And to the extent that it is, it's impact on the campaign world can be reasonably construed.  The general path I take is the 'Grimm's Fairy Tale' rule.  In the fairy tales, evil villains seeking to assassinate socially important figures just about never attempt to simply kill them.   Instead, they enchant them, or polymorph them, or curse them or do things that seemingly are less effectual than slitting a throat would be.  But that perspective seems entirely reasonable if raising someone from the dead is a doable thing.   So yes, assassinating someone important becomes harder and requires proportionally more planning and resources.  But beyond that, raising socially important figures from the dead has a huge social and legal impact.  For example, present real world law has a lot of provisions for inheritance, but no real provision for disinheritance.  Once someone is recognized as dead, their wealth and titles pass to their heirs.   Imagine the chaos resulting from the reverse, a legitimate heir losing wealth and title because their progenitor returned to life.  All is well and good if this is a welcome occasion, but it's easy to imagine situations were it is not or where it disturbs the peace.   For this reason, in my game most societies make it illegal to bring someone back to life if that person has legitimate heirs.  In particular, returning someone back to life in a manner that effects succession is usually impossible by social custom.  It's in fact easier for a peasant to justify being brought back from the dead than a king.   The only exception tends to be if it can be proved that a relative coordinate the event in order to manipulate succession to their benefit.   Society has a strong incentive to prevent any possibility of a succession crisis.



> 3. High prevalence of magic, but no application of it: Although most D&D worlds feature absurd amounts of magic, most people still live in a psuedo-medieval society.  If magic was as prevalent as it is in most D&D campaigns, I can imagine wizards getting together and applying it to society.  Many people hate the idea of "magic as technology" paradigm, but if even the smallest hamlet has at least a couple of spell casters, why is all D&D magic seem to be centered around adventuring.




Yes, and no.   Very few low level spells exist with profound social effects.  Probably the single most important examples I can think of is create water, create food, and cure disease.   These spells have profound economic consequences, but we can mostly summarize them as - these societies are much wealthier than equivalent real world societies.   And I would argue that (perhaps by accident and failure of imagination) that is exactly what we see when typical D&D societies are described.   Poverty is something largely missing from most D&D settings.   However, I certainly agree this is a big problem in some settings where magic is very common - for example, The Forgotten Realms makes absolutely no sense IMO.



> 4. The default polytheistic assumption:  I have nothing against the standard D&D polytheistic pantheon, but it seems to be getting a little cliched.  What about different religious systems, such as pantheism (everything is part of the universal spirit), animism (worship of nature spirits), and even monotheism?  One of the main problems of most D&D pantheons is that they seem so contrived.  All the gods of the pantheons deal with adventuring and kicking-butt.  We have war gods, death gods, fire gods, and nature gods for druids, but we usually don't have gods of fertility, or gods of the home which existed in many classical myths.




Well, that's certainly a trope of Forgotten Realms, which has probably the worst pantheon in all of fantasy.   But I would argue that's not a trope of D&D generally, which often uses either real world pantheons or some better thought out polytheism such as the Lords of Heaven from Green Ronin's Book of the Righteous.   Heck, your average home brew pantheon is light years beyond the FR in terms of philosophical depth.

I guess my point is that while I understand your frustration with all these things, I don't think that they are inherently problems or need to be inherently problems.   If you are actually thinking about the clichés, you can easily subvert them.


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## Celebrim (Nov 17, 2014)

Wow is this thread old.   I just realized.   Ok, actual clichés that I really hate:

a) The PC's invent magic.  That is to say, in so many games I'm in the DM has never considered how magic might alter society and so the NPCs have never prepared for magic, and as such when the PC's use a spell for even the most obvious advantage, the NPCs are completely unprepared for coping with it.   Examples: merchants have never heard of illusions or other means of magical trickery and have no means of protecting themselves, society that hasn't made charming someone illegal, societies with insecure jail/prison practices unable to accommodate spell-casters, fortresses unable to protect themselves from invisible intruders, anyone seemingly oblivious to or surprised by magical effects that would be common given the prevalence of wizards in the world ("Look, the door just opened on its own.  Must have been a freak occurrence and there is nothing strange going on."), wooden warships unable to deal with magical fire, or pretty much any economic investment that amount to the Maginot Line blind to inexpensive magic.  

b) Barbarians: If there is one class trope I hate above all others, it's the barbarian.  Everything about this class is wrong.  First of all, most barbarians you actually run into in published adventures aren't actually remote wilderness tribesman, but just big tough guys living amidst mainstream civilization.  So why do they still retain the flavor of being a 'barbarian'?   Secondly, why must everyone from the wilderness be chaotic?   We don't make the reverse assumption, that if you are a city dweller you are lawful.   In fact, its highly likely that a remote tribesman has a more developed sense of place in the world, duty, respect for tradition, loyalty to kith and kin, and so forth than your average city dweller in a cosmopolitan ever changing social structure loosely based off the modern.   So why do we retain this assumption that wilderness = chaotic?  Ditto the same assumption with shamans.

c) Lightly armored fighters deserve the same AC as heavily armored fighters, because 'balance'.  Ugh, no.  That's just stupid.  Not having to wear heavy armor is itself a huge advantage in every version of D&D that ever was.

d) High level mundane classed individuals are limited to what real world normal people can do.   Beyond about 6th level, even if you are a fighter, rogue, or what not, your abilities are so beyond what normal people can do, that you are still superhuman even if not explicitly supernatural.   By 15th level, you are The Batman.  Or, you are Green Arrow.   Actually, by high level, you probably are more potent and capable than either one, since the comics require plot protection to prevent heroes of that sort from actually falling off high places or taking devastating wounds - and high level D&D fighters don't.   They are literally superheroic 'bricks' with magic swords that reasonably can chop through stone.   You can do not just what Olympic level athletes can do, but pretty much anything you see an action movie hero do.  DMs that refuse to acknowledge this, perhaps out of a misplaced desire to be 'gritty', are effectively adding a house rule that amounts to, "Play a spell caster if you want to be cool."

e) Caves are flat with level floors.  Been in a real cave?  Enough said.

f) Every single threat the PCs discover rises to the level of saving the world, but only the PCs are involved and every NPC is trying to thwart them no matter how obvious the threat or how trivial the aid would be to provide.  NPCs with vastly more resources than the PCs are all over the place, but are uninvolved beyond having gold exclamation points over their head for no obvious reason.

All of these clichés can be fairly easily escaped and unlike escaping uniform currency or universal trades languages they have immediate benefits for your game IMO, but conscious attempts to escape them seem fairly rare.


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## rocket1969 (Nov 17, 2014)

Celebrim said:


> Wow is this thread old.   I just realized.   Ok, actual clichés that I really hate:
> 
> a) The PC's invent magic.  That is to say, in so many games I'm in the DM has never considered how magic might alter society and so the NPCs have never prepared for magic, and as such when the PC's use a spell for even the most obvious advantage, the NPCs are completely unprepared for coping with it.   Examples: merchants have never heard of illusions or other means of magical trickery and have no means of protecting themselves, society that hasn't made charming someone illegal, societies with insecure jail/prison practices unable to accommodate spell-casters, fortresses unable to protect themselves from invisible intruders, anyone seemingly oblivious to or surprised by magical effects that would be common given the prevalence of wizards in the world ("Look, the door just opened on its own.  Must have been a freak occurrence and there is nothing strong going on."), wooden warships unable to deal with magical fire, or pretty much any economic investment that amount to the Maginot Line blind to inexpensive magic.
> 
> ...




OOo Ooo--so much of this is in my new 5E campaign. First off...a small outpost of goblins that were not evil were routed and killed by elves when they were driven to the surface. 

a) So far the low level magic is really not game imbalancing. Though admittedly we have only a bard as caster. The warlock comes in at the next session but--not so much a problem so far.

b) I agree. my previous pathfinder homebrew had penty of barbarian characters--but I limited the game world to the four base classes--and they were fighters. Not a fan of monks or--to be honest druids either. And i posted about my problem with clerics...still i'm being open to allow the players to be what they want to be--to play the system as it is writtenw ith some very minor exceptions.

c) I agree with you here. But the second heavy armour feat adds in the damage removal aspect which is a good step. the AC system is an emulation--not a simulation. Just like hit points arent really wounds (in my game anyway) so much as knocking a dude off his pins, rattling him, taking him off his game until that last hit point damage hits home...AC is simply missing doing that kind of damage--whether it glances off the pauldron or is spun away from...

d) it's my literary base...but i hate that...my gf--who games pointed out that my sources--thieves world, lotr, elric, conan, lankhmar--are not her cup of tea at all...she likes the feist stuff---the saberhagen works--the really high powered--demi-gods as lead character stuff. Chacon son Gout...but falling damage is BS. It is the one thing I will houserule the holy hamburger out of--damage goes up fast--1d6 at 10ft, 3d at 20, 4d at 30, 7d at 40, 11d at 50 etc. Save at increments of 5 per 10 feet or drop to zero and begin making death saves. (fact: at 50- feet 95% of people die.) HALO jumping monks indeed--pshaw!

e) my caves have slippery, slopey chasmey, underground riverish effects...nothing like a hook horror attacking you while you try and navigate an 80 degree waterslick slope without sliding on your face.


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## Celebrim (Nov 17, 2014)

rocket1969 said:


> a) So far the low level magic is really not game imbalancing.




The problem with the trope is not so much that magic is imbalancing (5e is presumably well balanced magic) but that no NPCs in the setting seem to be aware that magic exists, has never before dealt with a magic user, and knows less about the abilities of magic users (something that in their world exists) than modern people know about the abilities of zombies and vampires.  It might be one thing if they had misperceptions about wizards, but so often I see campaigns were the DM assumes both that there is a magic shop in town but that no one has ever seen or heard of a spell being used before for a nefarious purpose.



> Not a fan of monks or--to be honest druids either.




Coming clean, I removed barbarians, paladins, monks, druids, and rangers from my house rules.   I replaced them with alternatives (fanatics, champions, shamans, and hunters), but the classes themselves I felt carried too much baggage and had to go.   The alternatives are at least clean of unnecessary setting assumptions.



> ...but falling damage is BS.




I waffled back and forth between the exponentially increasing damage concept (which I used in 1e) and a more complex 'Russian Roulette' rule  that kept falling potentially dangerous, but meant that on the average falling was no more dangerous than in traditional D&D.  I went with the complex rule mainly for game balance reasons.  The basic idea here is that the average damage is about 3.5/10' fallen, but it's not on a normal curve and the upper end is quite open ended.  One way you could do that is with exploding d6's, but I don't like exploding dice particularly so I have a system where in a nut shell you roll d20's for fall damage but you divide the resulting damage by 1d6.   If you throw that '1' for the divisor dice, falling is pretty darn lethal, averaging over 10 damage per 10' fallen.  I don't in general feel the need for making falling more harsh than that as a matter of verisimilitude.  So long as the range of possibilities includes the range of real world possibilities, I don't worry too much about the odds.

In general, this is explained/handwaved by magic as physics.   You don't fall in my game because of gravity.  Gravity per se doesn't exist.  You fall because Earth spirits pull you to the ground.   Likewise, one thing a physicist in the game world would observe is that kinetic energy would be linear with velocity, rather than exponentially increase with velocity - Gravesande's experiment would yield a completely different result.   So there is no need for perfect consistency with real experience, because you are in a completely different world that only superficially resembles this world in casual observation (to the same extent that this world could be casually mistaken for a world that worked according to pre-modern understanding of physics).


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## Zhaleskra (Nov 17, 2014)

The assumption that even in a world where magic is known about, that it's cheap, everyone has access to it, and the spellcasters want to cast it for you.


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## rocket1969 (Nov 17, 2014)

Celebrim said:


> In general, this is explained/handwaved by magic as physics.   You don't fall in my game because of gravity.  Gravity per se doesn't exist.  You fall because Earth spirits pull you to the ground.   Likewise, one thing a physicist in the game world would observe is that kinetic energy would be linear with velocity, rather than exponentially increase with velocity - Gravesande's experiment would yield a completely different result.   So there is no need for perfect consistency with real experience, because you are in a completely different world that only superficially resembles this world in casual observation (to the same extent that this world could be casually mistaken for a world that worked according to pre-modern understanding of physics).




Yeah--but that is in essence the problem i have with DnD. It isn't really an RPG "system"...it is a very particular set of rules that works within a very particular setting. It is DnD. And it is what it is..y'dig?  Right now I'm working on a post apocalyptic world for 5E--with exactly the same base rule set--with world specific concepts--this it works for...a more modern one it is a much harder fit and don't get me started on attempting superhero rules with it...there are far easier systems out there for almost anything else that don't require as much handwaving. 

I have run a HEAVILY modified pathfinder game for 3 years with no other races except humans and no classes beyond the basic four...it works very well--but pathfinder itself is far too world specific and 3.5 has too many rules--

--and I don't know if it's just me--but DnD has always seemed to attract the more--shall we say--detail oriented folk than other more free and generic systems. Havign said that--I'm having fun. So allons-y.


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## Celebrim (Nov 17, 2014)

Zhaleskra said:


> The assumption that even in a world where magic is known about, that it's cheap, everyone has access to it, and the spellcasters want to cast it for you.




I don't think that's a cliché of D&D generally.

Certainly it's the opposite of the way Gygax promotes handling NPC spellcasters.  If you look at what Gygax suggests circa 1e that NPC's will attempt to extort from PC's before they are willing to cast a spell, it's pretty much ridiculous in the other direction.  Gygax basically requires the PC's to promise their first born child or bring back the toenail of a red dragon, before NPC's will even agree to allow the PC's to pay the equivalent of a year's salary for casting a low level spell.   

He may have experienced players arguing that NPCs would freely cast spells for the PCs, but his guidelines suggest squashing that to almost an unbelievable degree.  If it is has departed from that assumption, I don't know when it did.   Even in my own game, I'm still probably overcharging the PC's for low level spells on an economic cost basis alone.  The opportunity cost of a spellcaster casting a single spell is fairly low, yet I have them charging rates amounting to multiples of the daily wage of a master craftsman.


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## Zhaleskra (Nov 17, 2014)

I think I'm complaining about the idea that some people on message boards have that a peasant would get raised from the dead. Most likely not. On the other hand, the clergy might like casting "Cure Disease" spells to promote their religion. Perhaps I'm also blaming the concept of magic shops, which aren't always out of place, but again at least on message boards, some players take as "if it has a price, it can be bought, when I want it, with no trouble." Maybe this is because I prefer playing and running games that are "believable within their own rules".


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 17, 2014)

> ...if it has a price, it can be bought, when I want it, with no trouble.




Yeah...those people need a refresher on economics, because that ain't true of ANYTHING.  The last 2 parts there?  Unrealistic to the nth degree.


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## Derren (Nov 18, 2014)

Cliches that need to die (in my opinion):

Scottish, drunken dwarfs.
The "lets pretend to be medieval, renaissance settings with modern economy/production/food/etc."
Kitchen sink settings with knights next to barbarians, next to patricians, next to ancient egypts.
Pirates (pretty much their whole "romantic/cinematic" representation).
Light armor is as good as heavy armor
The lightly defended dungeons just a few days from civilization everyone knows about yet are still filled with treasure
Thieves guilds
The PCs being exempt from all laws except when they are an adventure hook and being allowed to carry everything and walk everywhere
Widely varying technological levels in order to conform to tropes (e.g. "No guns in the setting. But there are cannons because pirates need cannons. But they are magical cannons because I do not want gunpowder in the setting").
Pretty much all wildlife being aggressive towards humans because they are in the MM and the DM doesn't again, want to spawn some bandits out of nowhere


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## Celebrim (Nov 18, 2014)

Derren said:


> Cliches that need to die (in my opinion):
> 
> Scottish, drunken dwarfs.
> The "lets pretend to be medieval, renaissance settings with modern economy/production/food/etc."
> Kitchen sink settings with knights next to barbarians, next to patricians, next to ancient egypts.




If we could just get rid of the Forgotten Realms, we could take care of half of this at a stroke.



> Pirates (pretty much their whole "romantic/cinematic" representation).




Ok, what do you have against pirates?  Edward Teach?  Stede Bonnet?  Henry Morgan? Bartholomew Roberts?  Edward Low? Calico Jack?  Henry Every?  Or for that matter John Paul Jones, Cheung Po Tsai, and Francis Drake.

I don't think you have to choose between no pirates and Captain Jack Sparrow.  There are plenty of believable characters available of a piratical bent, and lets not forget that for most of human history, pirating was considered good business and backed officially by a great many nations of every sort.  



> Light armor is as good as heavy armor




On my list as well.



> The lightly defended dungeons just a few days from civilization everyone knows about yet are still filled with treasure




Oh absolutely.  Worse, lightly defended dungeons just a few hours from civilization that everyone knows about yet are still filled with treasure despite the fact that every shop keeper and city guard is higher level than the starting PC's to dissuade the PC's from trying to rob the shopkeepers instead of stocking up at Treasure Mart (aka, the Dungeon).



> Thieves guilds




Not a fan of The Mafia?  I admit that thieves guilds can be romanticized, but have you read Oliver Twist?  Prince and the Pauper?  Both have thieves guilds and neither is ultimately that romantic.  I think it's possible to do criminal organizations well, and appropriate the 'guild' concept.


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## Emirikol (Nov 19, 2014)

Derren said:


> Cliches that need to die (in my opinion):
> Scottish, drunken dwarfs.
> Pretty much all wildlife being aggressive towards humans because they are in the MM and the DM doesn't again, want to spawn some bandits out of nowhere









This has to die in movies first   Arent dwarfs a Norse legend?


As for wildlife, yep...it's a variant of bandit encounter just to fill time.


jh


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## Zhaleskra (Nov 19, 2014)

Derren said:


> Cliches that need to die (in my opinion):
> 
> Kitchen sink settings with knights next to barbarians, next to patricians, next to ancient egypts.
> Pirates (pretty much their whole "romantic/cinematic" representation).






Celebrim said:


> If we could just get rid of the Forgotten Realms, we could take care of half of this at a stroke.




You'd need to get rid of Planescape, Ravenloft, and Spelljammer too. I think that covers the kitchen sinks.


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## Celebrim (Nov 19, 2014)

Zhaleskra said:


> You'd need to get rid of Planescape, Ravenloft, and Spelljammer too. I think that covers the kitchen sinks.




Well, Ravenloft didn't start out as a kitchen sink.  If you confine yourself to the original gothic scope and ignore some of the material that doesn't make as much sense in the setting, you should be fine.  There is a core idea that is high quality.   I don't even give the Forgotten Realms that much.  What the Forgotten Realms self-evidently is, is some high school kid's completely average unremarkable homebrew filled with every generic idea you'd expect such homebrews to have.  It's the sort of setting you'd expect every early beer and pretzels game to have if it was organically created through the process of play.  Heck, Grayhawk shows some of the same problems around the edges - TSR published 2 modules early on based on Alice in Wonderland after all.  

But the problem with the FR is unlike average evolved beer and pretzels games it got itself published and locked into its fundamentally flawed structure and fleshed out.  The a not great but above average writer novelized a part of the setting and popularized it.  After that, it was too late.  It frankly should have never been published in the first place.  I don't know how that happened.  If you held a competition to get a setting published these days, it wouldn't even have made the first cut.   I feel great for Ed getting his setting published, but if I was Ed I'd probably be a little embarrassed by what it has become and be inclined to deny I had any involvement in it.

Planescape and Spelljammer, oddballs that they are, would be fine if you just focused on the unique alien setting and ignored the idea that each setting is a sort of meta-kitchen sink that contains all the other kitchen sinks.   Each could be done well, though in Spelljammer's case, that would take a lot of work.

Ultimately, there is nothing wrong with a 'kitchen sink' setting provided you are careful in crafting it.  As a default setting, 'kitchen sinks' work better than trope worlds - the kind you normally see in sci-fi for example, Dune the Desert Plant, Hoth the Ice World, etc.   There isn't anything wrong with trope worlds like Krynn or Athas, but they really exist only to support a single campaign.


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## Zhaleskra (Nov 19, 2014)

Especially when one meta-kitchen sink contains the other meta-kitchen sink. Be sure to be specific when you're ordering squid in the side comments of a Planescape book.

As a GM, I went with inclusive with Planescape. Ultimately, I found it worked better if they were all planar characters or all material characters from the same material world.

Desert and Ice planets . . . the only single biome planets that make an ounce of sense. Then you get into the weird stuff when you combine them. Wasn't the first one of a PS elemental monster originally from Athas?


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## Mark CMG (Nov 19, 2014)

Henry said:


> I've only known one person who made a career out of the National Guard, and he didn't stay in it but about 1 or two terms before calling it quits.





FWIW, Luke Gygax has made his career in the California Army National Guard, promoted to Major last year. 

Remember this?

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?277672-Luke-Gygax-Deployed-(and-Gaming-)-in-Iraq


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## Zhaleskra (Nov 20, 2014)

From what I understand, Ravenloft started as an adventure that wasn't a demiplane before it became a setting. Once the Dark Powers' rules for drawing someone to the Domains of Dread were drawn out, it was guaranteed to become a kitchen sink.


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## Celebrim (Nov 20, 2014)

Zhaleskra said:


> From what I understand, Ravenloft started as an adventure that wasn't a demiplane before it became a setting. Once the Dark Powers' rules for drawing someone to the Domains of Dread were drawn out, it was guaranteed to become a kitchen sink.




Not really.  Once the writers began lazily drawing in iconic characters from other previously published settings, at that point it became a guaranteed kitchen sink.  But the vast majority of Strahd's new counterparts initially were original material drawn from no specific D&D world and much of it was on the whole rather well done and carefully crafted to fit the mood and expand on the atmosphere created by the original module.  It was only when Lord Soth and such like started showing up in a setting where they really just didn't fit, that Ravenloft's theoretical ability to contain everything became an actual problem.

The temptation to be too overtly derivative is always the real danger in a kitchen sink style setting.   Even if you initially avoid being lame, the need to create more and more content eventually exhausts the creativity.  At which point you start releasing lame sequels and derivatives of your earlier work.  It happens to the best of us - see for example Pixar.


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## Jhaelen (Nov 20, 2014)

Eberron is also a kitchen sink setting. But in contrast to Forgotten Realms, it's well done and manages to maintain its specific flair. It contains everything, but with a special Eberronic twist. It's also a great example of mechanics being influenced by or emerging from the setting.


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## jhingelshod (Nov 20, 2014)

This thread has now been going for 11 years(!) and must therefore have achieved cliché status in and of itself.


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## Zhaleskra (Nov 20, 2014)

Jhaelen said:


> Eberron is also a kitchen sink setting.




Kitchen? Yes. Meta-sink? No.


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## Hussar (Nov 22, 2014)

Celebrim said:


> I don't think that's a cliché of D&D generally.
> 
> Certainly it's the opposite of the way Gygax promotes handling NPC spellcasters.  If you look at what Gygax suggests circa 1e that NPC's will attempt to extort from PC's before they are willing to cast a spell, it's pretty much ridiculous in the other direction.  Gygax basically requires the PC's to promise their first born child or bring back the toenail of a red dragon, before NPC's will even agree to allow the PC's to pay the equivalent of a year's salary for casting a low level spell.
> 
> He may have experienced players arguing that NPCs would freely cast spells for the PCs, but his guidelines suggest squashing that to almost an unbelievable degree.  If it is has departed from that assumption, I don't know when it did.   Even in my own game, I'm still probably overcharging the PC's for low level spells on an economic cost basis alone.  The opportunity cost of a spellcaster casting a single spell is fairly low, yet I have them charging rates amounting to multiples of the daily wage of a master craftsman.




Been a while since  I read the 1e DMG, but, as I recall, they had a price list right there for how much it should cost to cast spells.  Considering that 1e characters were generally swimming in gold, it wasn't that difficult.


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## Celebrim (Nov 22, 2014)

Hussar said:


> Been a while since  I read the 1e DMG, but, as I recall, they had a price list right there for how much it should cost to cast spells.  Considering that 1e characters were generally swimming in gold, it wasn't that difficult.




Well, I guess that depends on your definition of 'swimming in gold'.

Some examples:

Augury: 300 g.p.
Continual Light: 500 g.p.
Commune: 1000 g.p. + 500 g.p per question
Cure Light Wounds: 100 g.p.
Cure Disease: 1000 g.p.
Detect Magic: 100 g.p.
Divination: 1000 g.p.
Earthquake: 10,000 g.p.
Exorcise: 1000 g.p/level of caster
Heal: 200 g.p./hit point healed
Regenerate: 15,000 g.p.
Remove Curse: 500 g.p./level of caster

And so forth.   Additionally note, "Price can be adjusted for faithful, lower level characters.  Likewise, they can be upped a bit for those who are not regular attendees of services.  If the caster is expected to travel any distance, but not at risk, factors will be as much as doubled.  If at any risk, the cleric is likely to refuse or charge 5 or more times the rates shown."  And there is a bunch more like that, which goes on to note at length that it doesn't matter how much the cause of good (or evil) is furthered by the spell, the prices won't come down and in general will only go up because the above assumes the party has similar goals, beliefs, religions, and so forth as the caster - this is already as it were at a discount.  Also, if the party finds the rates reasonable, so that they become return customers, then the cleric will raise the rates in order to deter future interruptions.

Now note, by way of comparison, unskilled labor requires a fee of 1 s.p. per working day in 1e D&D, and so the above fees are vastly more than a year's wages for a normal laborer even for something like cure light wounds that costs the cleric only a fraction of a days labor and with low opportunity cost.  A cleric with just one customer a year is doing pretty well for himself at those rates.

Suppose the caster wishes to simply learn the spell from an NPC.  Well...

"Non-player character hirelings and henchmen will ABSOLUTELY REFUSE to co-operate freely with player characters, even their own masters or mistresses...As a general rule, they will require value plus a bonus when dealing with their liege.  If they will deal with other PCs (or NPCs) at all, they will require double value plus a considerable bonus.  For example, Thigru Thorkisen, Magician for hire of Olaf Blue Cheeks, a 10th level Lord, knows the spell suggestion, and Olaf's associate, Halfdan the Necromancer, requests that he be allowed to copy this spell into his book of 3rd level spells.  If Olaf is willing, Halfdan can approach Thigru.  If Halfdan has been at least civil to the magician, Thigru will ask nothing more than a third level spell in return, plus some other spell, plus some minor magic item such as a set of three potions, a scroll of three spells, or perhaps a ring of invisibility.   If Halfdan had formerly insulted the magician, then the price would be more dear; but supposing the necromancer had actually saved Thigru's life at one time, the cost would be reduced to but a spell exchange and a single potion or scroll of one spell." - all caps are in the original

In the very best possible case, if you want to get an NPC whose is the sworn servant and employee of your close friend and whose life you have saved to teach you a new spell to put into your spellbook, why he'll only demand equal payment plus an additional fee of a magic item.


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## Hussar (Nov 22, 2014)

By "swimming in gold" I mean, playing 1e D&D as written.  I mean, typically, about 2/3rds of your xp came from gold, so, by 6th level or so, you had thousands and thousands of GP floating around.  Note, in your own quote, a "ring of invisibility" is a minor magic item, something later editions would increase the value of dramatically.  Three potions=1 ring of invisibility.  

Raise Dead, AIR, was 5000 gp, so, that hasn't really changed at all.  

I always found that list really amusing since it never, ever worked the other way.  No one ever approached my cleric to cast a spell.  Funny that.  You'd think that a decent level spell caster could make a pretty comfortable living without lifting a finger, just casting a spell or two a day.


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## Bedrockgames (Nov 23, 2014)

Hussar said:


> I always found that list really amusing since it never, ever worked the other way.  No one ever approached my cleric to cast a spell.  Funny that.  You'd think that a decent level spell caster could make a pretty comfortable living without lifting a finger, just casting a spell or two a day.




This did come up in games I played in, but generally only when you had a party that liked to do things like set up shop in town. It can be a great way to raise both wealth and political power. I've even been in groups where people essentially started a mafia style racket, where they'd unleash some Gnolls on a village, then come in later to offer their healing services.


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## Bedrockgames (Nov 23, 2014)

Zhaleskra said:


> You'd need to get rid of Planescape, Ravenloft, and Spelljammer too. I think that covers the kitchen sinks.




I don't know that would be a good idea. I think the kitchen sink exists in D&D and Pathfinder for good reason: it is very friendly to developing adventures. I've played in plenty of kitchen sink and non kitchen sink settings. They all have their strengths. But D&D really seems to work well with a bit of everything thrown in. What I think they could do is also offer up a line of more focused settings on top of places like Ravenloft, Forgotten Realms, etc. They sort of did that with Dark Sun. That is a pretty tight setting and also works well for adventures. 

I love gritty historical stuff personally, but I also have come to realize I am very much in the minority. Over time I have had to adjust the way I develop campaigns to the fact that most players I meet do want a bit of kitchen sink and they don't really want a history lesson.


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## Puxido (Nov 25, 2014)

shadow said:


> We all love D&D (we wouldn't be posting here if we didn't), but let's face it- there are some things about the game that we really don't like.
> 
> 2. The prevalence of "raise dead spells": Any mid-to-high level cleric can raise the dead.  Again, this makes sense from a game perspective, but this really puts a cramp in the internal consistency of most campaign worlds.  Why should anyone fear death if they can just be raised later?  Although the family of Joe Peasant couldn't afford to have him raised, kings and people in power have little to fear of death creating a powerful dynasty.  Assassinations become much harder (since the person can just be raised as long as the body is intact).




In my campaigns, I don't allow players to be able to raise the dead.  Death is permenant, only exceptions are through deities, which is rare.


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