Tropes that need to die

[Cerebral Paladin]

The funny thing is that even when you consider the full varieties that a fantasy world allows it still does make the most sense that most Kings are fighters.

I'm curious why you think so--I tend to think that fighters are among the weakest classes/archetypes for monarchs. They're probably quite common among 1st generation monarchs, but for hereditary monarchs, there are many other classes/archetypes that seem stronger to me.

When I think about the tasks that a monarch needs to do to rule well, my conclusion is that overwhelmingly the tasks are tasks of judgment, politics, social interaction, and policy. In D&D terms, they're tasks that call on Charisma, Wisdom, to a lesser degree Intelligence, and the associated skills (Diplomacy, Bluff, Insight/Sense Motive, Knowledge skills or the equivalent). So that suggests that strong ruler classes include bards, clerics, warlords in 4e (or marshals in 3), and the like. (It's not coincidental that the 4e classes that are well-suited to be monarchs tend to fill the Leader role.) They have the right skill lists, the right attributes, and so forth.

When I compare them to fighters, fighters have a few advantages--they're harder to assassinate (although typically more vulnerable to mind control/suggestion/etc.), they can do some of the athlete style impressing people by winning tournaments and the like (Henry VIII was a major participant in jousting tournaments, and his prowess apparently added to his stature as a prince and later king), and in a war they're well suited to wading into the front of the combat and fighting people hand-to-hand. But... even in the case of a war, it's much more important that the king be good at strategy (i.e. Int-based stuff) and at motivating, leading, and securing the loyalty of his nobles, allies, and followers (i.e. Cha-based stuff), than it is that the King get in the thick of it. And it's not like the other classes (or the fantasy archetypes that they're based on) are worthless in battles. Even within the family of fighter-types, paladins and rangers probably both make better kings: they have many of the advantages that fighters bring, but they tend to be better at the non-combat roles of a king than fighters.

I'm not saying that fighter should be a rare class among rulers. It's perfectly reasonable to believe that many prospective monarchs would be raised to be fighters, especially if you assume that first-generation monarchs (and hence the parents, grandparents, etc. of later generation monarchs) are disproportionately fighters. And certainly a monarch can be both a fighter and a great monarch, especially with exceptionally good ability scores overall. I'm just saying that as I think about it, the best (i.e. most effective) monarchs are probably disproportionately not fighters.

 

[Thasmodious]

The trope I want to die... the adventurer. [snip]

why can't a game focus on making characters have some kind of purpose, even if it's just being famous or accumulating wealth in an RP sense?

Some games do. D&D doesn't. The adventurer, even today, exists, freelance mercenaries, ocean treasure hunters, archaelogists (not the Indy variety, but field archaeology has parallels to the D&D adventurer, and with less Umber Hulks). Pirates, criminals, special forces, etc., its the lure of fast riches and exciting lives that still drive people to these dangerous activities. People still plumb the depths of cave systems and ancient sites to uncover their mysteries. "Adventuring" is still alive and well.

 

[Sunseeker]

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.

Agreed. But lets face it, the experiences of adventurer's and the experiences of townsfolk are two entirely different things. Sure, you may run into a lot of zombies as an adventurer, but how many times does this happen in the same town? At best, maybe once. That zombie infestation is probably the first one the town has ever had since the town was founded.

Certainly people would be aware of other dead-raising events, but news travels slowly, perhaps the entire kingdom has only had one instance of dead-raising. And the event was minor, perhaps it happened a hundred years ago.

Of course, depending on the power level of whatever is raising the dead, even cremation may not be enough. EX: in the MTG books, the dark god Yawgmoth is so powerful, he can recontitutue the dead matter in swamps into ooze-like monstrosities. Of course, this is a near-god doing this, but on a much smaller scale, the concept remains the same.

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.

in theory, the "court wizard" also had many of those cleric-like powers too. They were familiar with the smells and tastes of poison, they knew how to cure what ails you, and their fireball was generally enough to toast anyone in range. I'll take the hybrid cleric-wizard plz.

3. The Party A$ - 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.

Generally, the jerk is tolerated because they must be. Their quality as a fighter overcomes their lack of quality as a person. Sometimes they're roped into things and have a quite reasonable desire to NOT want to be involved, but for some reason, are stuck with it. Generally it comes down to the fact that the rest of the party is too good-natured to do anything about it, and the jerk holds their own well enough to not make an issue out of it. Of course, the jerk is often dealt with by the "postal worker" of the group, who one day happens to be influenced a little by evil and blows the jerk's head clean off his shoulders.

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

Helpless women, is a big one. I get that we're taking a medieval social standard for most games, but lets face it, we're in a fantasy world with all kinds of crazy stuff. While yes, most women are going to be fairly helpless, so are most men. However, there are still going to be a fair assortment of women who can kick butt.

Likewise, amazons. Anyone to really take the stance that the other sex is entirely unnecessary to life is in for a big surprise once they find their numbers dwindling. Sure sure, there's immortality and godly reproduction, magical reproduction, ect... Or they could use the "club and cave" method, but seriously, any society that is as educated and egalitarian as amazons are put forth to be, is not going to have a raging sexist streak.

 

[rogueattorney]

Character Trope - The Uncompromising Gish

I wanna be an awesome caster! But I also wanna be a strong warrior! Why can't I be both? The system doesn't support by concept!

Because characters are supposed to have limitations, you dolt. Now stop trying to be uber, build a character with some real flaws (Oh, jeez. That's "flaws" not "Flaws". No, you can't get a permanent AC bonus for agreeing to always smell bad), and develop some dimension to your roleplaying.

"I wanna cast spells."
"The magic-user is class for you."

"But I wanna wear armor."
"Oh, then you should be a cleric."

"But I want to use a sword."
"You can be an elf fighter-mage."

"But level limits suck."
"You can be an elf thief-mage."

"Thieves suck."
"You can dual class."

"The dual class rules suck."
"You suck."
"This game sucks."

...and thus 3e was born.

 

[The Shaman]

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.

Of course some religions teach that a burned corpse condemns the dead soul to some particularly nasty part of the Abyss or the Nine Hells, and there's the chance that a burned corpse may rise as a fire-wight or an ash-wraith, plus fire elementals may use the pyre as a portal to enter the Prime Material Plane, and there was that time an entire village was killed when a passing evil wizard cast pytrotechnics on the pyre . . .

D&D tropes are only as illogical as you allow them to be.

 

[Set]

I can even see a town that creates their own undead to defend the town.

Or one that uses animate dead, to prevent the dead from rising as something worse than skeletons/zombies, in an area where 'spontaneous' arisings as wights, ghouls, etc. is a possibility (say, areas that are infused with negative energy, or accursed, or in Ravenloft).

A subterranean chamber filled with mindless skeletons and zombies, only accessible through a hatch that leads to a smooth shaft that drops 20 ft, could represent the 'graveyard' of a community in such a place, as they'd rather have a chamber full of mindless shamblers under their community than have to worry about spontaneous outbreaks of ghouls or wights in the area.

The only reason why a culture would do this, rather than just burn their dead, would be if they have problems with some underground residents tunneling up and causing problems. The local meenlocks may stop digging new tunnels up into the community if they have to fight a bunch of skeletons and zombies before they get to the good stuff.

Plus it's an adventure seed waiting to happen.

"The earthquake opened a fissue into the catacombs! I just saw George Romero with a camera! Run for your lives!"

 

[The Shaman]

why can't a game focus on making characters have some kind of purpose, even if it's just being famous or accumulating wealth in an RP sense?

Nothing's ever stopped me from pursuing goals like these in any game I've played.

 

[Sunseeker]

A subterranean chamber filled with mindless skeletons and zombies, only accessible through a hatch that leads to a smooth shaft that drops 20 ft, could represent the 'graveyard' of a community in such a place, as they'd rather have a chamber full of mindless shamblers under their community than have to worry about spontaneous outbreaks of ghouls or wights in the area.

At least, we hope they're all mindless. Otherwise those oppressed proletarian zombies could have a communist uprising and destroy the bourgiouse living!

 

[Raven Crowking]

From a folkloric point of view, the most common cause of spontaneously-formed undead should be improper burial. As a result, a town would probably prefer to limit its undead potential by ensuring that proper burial is an option.

All those undead in modules? The results of improper burial. The ghouls were not buried in the graveyard; they came to ther graveyard from elsewhere to feast on the corpses. But if those same corpses had not been buried properly, there would have been a veritable army of ghouls roaming the streets.

Likewise, folkloric undead have a real thing for targetting their families and close associates first -- you know, the people who should have seen to it that they can rest in peace! Thus, the adventurers who callously leave the thief's remains in the trap that killed him may well discover that there is a reason to not simply take his stuff and press on.

Strangely, ghosts who want vengeance on their slayers are far rarer in actual folklore than undead who target their families and close associates.

That is a strong motive for proper burial -- for the average inhabitant of the fantasy world, mom and dad are potentially more dangerous than some ghoul who happens to be rooting around mom and dad's graves.

The gods may also demand particular burial practices. Where this is the case, you have to ask yourself if you are more afraid of a random encounter with a ghoul if you enter the graveyard at night, or of Pelor's divine wrath? The truth is, you can usually avoid the ghoul by staying out of the graveyard at night.

Proper burial appeases the dead, and appeases the gods.

Good luck to you if you fail to do either.



RC

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Of course some religions teach that a burned corpse condemns the dead soul to some particularly nasty part of the Abyss or the Nine Hells, and there's the chance that a burned corpse may rise as a fire-wight or an ash-wraith, plus fire elementals may use the pyre as a portal to enter the Prime Material Plane, and there was that time an entire village was killed when a passing evil wizard cast pytrotechnics on the pyre . . .

D&D tropes are only as illogical as you allow them to be.

You are talking about real world religions that are trying to justify tradition or a new set of rules. One cannot use real world logic when talking about fantasy worlds because in DnD the Gods really do tell you what they do and dont like.

The graveyard trope is just illogical. In a world where the undead exist it makes no sense that graveyards ever came into being. To make things worse not only are there graveyards but they are often right in town.

It makes more sense in a world with undead that graveyards were never ever created and the very concept would sound pointlessly dangerous. Also it would make sense that clerics who worship gods that fight undead would very much be against any sort of graveyard. They are risk that does not need to be taken.