Tropes that need to die

[JacktheRabbit]

There are lots of tropes, or accepted oddities in the DnD world that when thought about just make very little to no sense to me. I started this thread so we can list some of them and consider how they can be revised, or just straight removed, to make our game worlds feel more logical or at the least slightly more plausible.

Here are a few that come to my mind.

1. Cemeteries - In the average fantasy world there are dozens of ways that corpses can come back to life, reanimate, or shed their body to become evil spirits that then prey on the living. This does not even take onto the various evil experiments performed by mad wizards.

So why are there cemeteries? I am in the process of creating a small town as a campaign starting point and one item I added was the pier of mourning. This is a seaside community and they have one stone pier jutting out into the bay used for funerals. The bodies of dead townspeople are wrapped in cloth, piled with wood, and burned in a pyre the day of the their or the immediate following day. The ashes are then allowed to blow into the sea. No dead bodies left around means less chance of the dead coming back. Really the idea of burying bodies when it takes a low level spell to animate them just sounds silly when you think of it.

2. The Court Wizard - Look at the wizard spell list, now look at the cleric spell list. Hmmm, throwing Fireballs and Lightning Bolts or Heal spells and Neutralize Poison. I know as a powerful king I want both guys working for me, but in reality I want the court cleric at my side 24/7. He can check my food for poison, remove any pesky diseases, and in the event of an attack heal me while my guards kill the assassin(s). But because of Merlin we have court wizards and the nearest cleric who can save the kings life is down the street in the cathedral. Well no more.

3. The Party A$$hole - Not sure how to explain this one. The best is by example. Anyone who has ever read Band of Brothers ask yourself this question. How long would Lt. Sobel have lasted in Easy Company if it had not en egalitarian group of men working together instead of a military unit? Not long at all. The unmasked hatred Winter and others felt for him would have meant Sobel would have been killed or at the least abandoned at the first opportunity. So why are we to assume that the NE Rogue prick that annoys everyone, tries to steal when no one is looking, and is a general pain in the butt to the rest of the party is allowed to stick around? The dynamic of DnD party creation means extremely strange parties are often grouped together when there is no chance they would ever form in any sort of reality.

The answer? I am not sure. Some players just revel in playing the NE jerk because it lets them do all the things they cannot do in real life. To me at least that can be very annoying.


What illogical items exist in your campaign or in most campaigns that you have played in?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

2. The Court Wizard - Look at the wizard spell list, now look at the cleric spell list. Hmmm, throwing Fireballs and Lightning Bolts or Heal spells and Neutralize Poison. I know as a powerful king I want both guys working for me, but in reality I want the court cleric at my side 24/7. He can check my food for poison, remove any pesky diseases, and in the event of an attack heal me while my guards kill the assassin(s). But because of Merlin we have court wizards and the nearest cleric who can save the kings life is down the street in the cathedral. Well no more.

Well, most castles had some form of worship space & clergy within their walls- few nobles wanted to go pray with the commoners, so the nearest priest is probably just as close as the court wizard.

 

[olshanski]

I'd actually say that none of those tropes need to die:

Cemetaries:

Cemetaries are often literally "hallowed ground", and are thus immune having corpses rise from the dead or being haunted by undead. If you've got a cemetary that isn't hallowed, then some cleric is not doing their job. You bury someone because if you need to, it is easier to ressurect a corpse than true ressurect the ashes long since blown away.
If your campaign has townsfolk burying people in non-hallowed ground, they deserve to be overrun by undead.

Court Wizard:
You've got a point about clerics being more useful in court than wizards, but wizards also have scry and teleport and contingency... and some people believe that the best defense is a good offense. Frankly, they are both useful for a king, and the term "court wizard" doesn't come from D&D, but from fantasy literature, where the idea of a "court cleric" would sound rather foolish.

Jerk in the party:
I don't know where you think this is a trope, but if a player is a jerk, you boot them. If a character is a jerk but the player isn't, then presumably you are not bothered by the jerk in the party, or if you are, then you ask the player to retire the character and make a new one.

I'd say that D&D tropes are more often the following:

1) Undead wizard creates a trap-filled crypt
2) Mad wizard is trying to open a gate to the lower planes
3) An ancient evil has awakened, and you need to put together an artiact from X pieces in order to defeat the ancient evil.
4) The person who hired the party to recover a magic item is really the bad guy that intends to steal the item once the party recovers it.

There are a ton of other tropes, I don't know that they need to die. My sons ages 5 and 7 are just starting to play, and it will be fun to see how they react to these tropes, as it will be their first time encountering them.

 

[Zhaleskra]

4. Robe and Wizard Hat. - Yeah, okay it spells "this guy's the wizard". Quite frankly, that is exactly the problem. It makes it far too easy for the "target the caster" tactic to be applied because of the freaking clothes you're wearing.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Yes there are many tropes that exist in DM plot devices. As it was once explained they only make sense if you assume evil=batcrap insane.

Look through most published modules. Tell me how many graveyards dont have at least a few undead wandering in them. Technically they should be hallowed ground but they never are. The resurrection arguement may work for important people but 99% of the "occupants" of a graveyard are Bob the peasant or Fred the blacksmith. No one is ever going to raise them from the dead.

Hallowed ground also does nothing to stop corpses from being removed from a graveyard then animated.

I stick with what I said. They make no sense in a world filled with the undead. Ravenloft is of course the biggest culprit. Only a complete buffoon would have a cemetary in their town in any realm of Ravenloft. At least this can be explained away as acts of the Dark Powers.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

4. Robe and Wizard Hat. - Yeah, okay it spells "this guy's the wizard". Quite frankly, that is exactly the problem. It makes it far too easy for the "target the caster" tactic to be applied because of the freaking clothes you're wearing.

Hey, my wizards love this trope. It allows them to use their hat of disguise to look like they are wearing full plate armor and feel quite safe from targetting right up until they start chucking fireballs around.

 

[AllisterH]

Keep in mind that pre 3e, RAISE DEAD wasn't exactly a sure thing any wizard would want.

Indeed, pre 3e, yu have to remember that both magic items and magical spells are rare to the extent that even the players an not count on having access to them.

 

[lin_fusan]

1. Cemeteries - In the average fantasy world there are dozens of ways that corpses can come back to life, reanimate, or shed their body to become evil spirits that then prey on the living. This does not even take onto the various evil experiments performed by mad wizards.

This might not prevent a ghost from rising from the dead, so an additional consecration might be in practice. I can also imagine that burial rituals would be more elaborate in areas of constant undead attack and more simple away from that. People, rituals, and culture change according to the situation. (You could even have a scenario where a necromancer would move to a far away town that never had an undead attack and still bury their dead.)

In addition, constant undead attacks might change a town's relationship to clerics. An unscrupulous religion might establish a base there by feeding off the town's fear. A religion of death might form simply because of constant undead attacks.

I can even see a town that creates their own undead to defend the town. (Paizo's Savage Tide Adventure Path had the Aztec-like natives ritually create undead of their ancestors to protect their villages. The party cleric wanted to create a skeletal army. The other PCs were horrified, but then the village elders were "we already do that! Here's my uncle! Say "brains" uncle!")

But your towns might still have markers or icons of their loved ones, with or without the ashes. Not specifically a graveyard (as in a yard of graves, but still a place to honor the dead).

2. The Court Wizard - Look at the wizard spell list, now look at the cleric spell list. Hmmm, throwing Fireballs and Lightning Bolts or Heal spells and Neutralize Poison. I know as a powerful king I want both guys working for me, but in reality I want the court cleric at my side 24/7.

While you have a point, royalty traditionally has a love/hate relationship with religion. A wizard is like a contractor. You pay him to provide security and magical services, while a cleric has his/her own agenda, which might not coincide with the kings. A king with a powerful court cleric might find himself constantly performing tasks more for their god than for their kingdom, but that would add an interesting political angle to a court.

3. The Party A$ - Some players just revel in playing the NE jerk because it lets them do all the things they cannot do in real life. To me at least that can be very annoying.

Obviously, this is less a logical inconsistency in the game world than a problem with a player.

 

[Umbran]

Look through most published modules. Tell me how many graveyards dont have at least a few undead wandering in them.

Selection bias - modules don't tend to detail that which isn't tactically interesting or plot-related. Tell me how many outhouses do you see in modules that don't have treasure or an otyugh or other monster in the muck?

 

[JacktheRabbit]

This might not prevent a ghost from rising from the dead, so an additional consecration might be in practice. I can also imagine that burial rituals would be more elaborate in areas of constant undead attack and more simple away from that. People, rituals, and culture change according to the situation. (You could even have a scenario where a necromancer would move to a far away town that never had an undead attack and still bury their dead.)

In addition, constant undead attacks might change a town's relationship to clerics. An unscrupulous religion might establish a base there by feeding off the town's fear. A religion of death might form simply because of constant undead attacks.

I can even see a town that creates their own undead to defend the town. (Paizo's Savage Tide Adventure Path had the Aztec-like natives ritually create undead of their ancestors to protect their villages. The party cleric wanted to create a skeletal army. The other PCs were horrified, but then the village elders were "we already do that! Here's my uncle! Say "brains" uncle!")

But your towns might still have markers or icons of their loved ones, with or without the ashes. Not specifically a graveyard (as in a yard of graves, but still a place to honor the dead).



While you have a point, royalty traditionally has a love/hate relationship with religion. A wizard is like a contractor. You pay him to provide security and magical services, while a cleric has his/her own agenda, which might not coincide with the kings. A king with a powerful court cleric might find himself constantly performing tasks more for their god than for their kingdom, but that would add an interesting political angle to a court.



Obviously, this is less a logical inconsistency in the game world than a problem with a player.

Your comment on cemeteries and fequency of undead rising is a good point, the assumption though is that cemeteries are the standard all societies follow given the choice.

Royalty has a problem with religion in a Christian dominated Medieval Europe. In the average DnD society the same tension is much less likely where one annoying church can just be replaced with another one that worships a more accomidating deity.

Annoying party members is really a trope like you said, it just seems to be a very common and accepted illogical point. I know if I was a member of an actual party of adventurers I certainly would not accept some of the characters other players create. Its like a military until but with more surprises, every member is absolutely putting their lives in the hands of their companions.