D&D General Flip or Twist A D&D Cliche

[Moonmover]

Humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings all live in scattered tribes on the edge of the Grand Empire, which is a powerful alliance of humanoid nations (orcs, gnolls, ogres, et cetera) that controls most of the world.

The cliche: You fight sewer rats at level 1 and planar beings at level 20.
The twist: You play spellcasters just starting off at magic college. Initially, you fight imps (planar beings) that have broken loose in the college undercroft. By the end, you're dealing with mutant creatures released by your former classmates who got expelled for their unwise experiments, including gigantic, Tarrasque-sized rats.

That's just Strixhaven.

 

[Corinnguard]

Back when I was collecting 3e books, I couldn't help but think that the 3e Hobgoblin was a robust, hirsute elf.

Now that the goblinoids in 5e share the Fey Ancestry trait with the Elves, I am convinced that the former, once upon a time, use to be elves.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Cliche: Humans rule now (or did until recently). Long ago, one or more great empires of elves and/or dwarves ruled, but those empires fell into unexplained decline and left behind lots of treasures.

The twist: Humans are complete newcomers to the continent, having only appeared in the past two human generations (meaning, there are some native humans, but not many.) There has never been a vast or powerful empire in this region before, but several of its current nations are jockeying to be the one that becomes the Empire.

That's just Strixhaven.

In fairness, many cliches have already been subverted at one point or another. We are, after all, approaching the 50th anniversary of D&D. If there weren't some already-made subversions of classic tropes (especially kinda-silly ones like "you always start by killing rats") I would be either surprised or disappointed (which I guess is a bad form of surprise, eh?)

 

[TheSword]

Best twist I’ve seen is Way of the Wicked for Pathfinder 1 (easily converted to 5e) which flips the heroic ideal.

The kingdom is lawful good/neutral, but strictly monotheistic. The party plays wicked LE/NE criminals imprisoned for capital crimes. The campaign involves breaking out of prison and revenging/overthrowing the regime with an Asmodean one.

Highlights include:

The prison break

• Infiltrating and compromising a wall fortress to let an invading army through.
• Fortifying a dungeon complex and defending it for 666 days to summon a daemon lord
• Unleashing a magical plague on the realm
• Allying with a great wyrm to kidnap a princess
• Many more wicked acts

Definitely worth looking at for the right players.

 

[ichabod]

Not exactly cliches, but this got me thinking about the core assumptions from the DMG: gods oversee the world, much of the world is untamed, the world is ancient, conflict shapes the worlds history, and the world is magical.

How do we upend all of that? The gods got sick of everyone and dumped them on a large island/small continent and left. Everyone worked together to build a big city with vertical gardens, but the magic is dying. Some delve in the caverns looking for solutions, others sail out across the sea.

 

[Reynard]

Back when I was collecting 3e books, I couldn't help but think that the 3e Hobgoblin was a robust, hirsute elf.

Now that the goblinoids in 5e share the Fey Ancestry trait with the Elves, I am convinced that the former, once upon a time, use to be elves.

In my last homebrew campaign world, goblins and gnomes were the same species of fey and whether they expressed as goblin or gnome was based on whether they were malevolent or not. If one changed its ways, it could transition to the other form.

 

[Stormonu]

Not exactly cliches, but this got me thinking about the core assumptions from the DMG: gods oversee the world, much of the world is untamed, the world is ancient, conflict shapes the worlds history, and the world is magical.

How do we upend all of that? The gods got sick of everyone and dumped them on a large island/small continent and left. Everyone worked together to build a big city with vertical gardens, but the magic is dying. Some delve in the caverns looking for solutions, others sail out across the sea.

I wrote up a campaign for something similar - the City of Moltaire. Players are characters in an afterlife city built by the gods for their followers - however, the gods have left, the remaining angels are trying to cover their disappearance and demon/devils have seeped into the city, worming their way into control by fostering corruption in the city.

 

[Blue]

I once had a worldbuilding idea in which Druids were not defenders of the natural world. They instead were cunning industrialist using magic to bind, exploit and tame nature for the benefits of the humanoid races.

I forget what edition of D&D it was, but I played for a short time a Halfling Druid that was of the opinion that domesticating animals was the best for them, allowing the civilized races to protect and nurture them. So he was for cattle ranches and pets and all sorts of stuff like that. Look at how well fed they are. Look how many more of the babies survive to grow up. Look how they are cared for during the harsh winters.

 

[Laurefindel]

The final dungeon is a tavern were villains meet

 

[billd91]

This was my approach to 3e's animal companions: Animal companions aren't pets, per se, or even normal animals. They're spirits sent by the forces of nature to serve and protect the druid/ranger and so they are fully expendable resources. And if you replace/upgrade one, you're just changing its form, not its identity.
So, needless to say, I'm liking OneD&D's direction with them in the play test.

And related to that, Druids aren't members of PETA. They're stewards of the natural world and that includes marshaling nature's resources to further its needs and defend it. And that includes tooth and claw, and bone and blood as necessary.