Common fantasy genre assumptions

[jsears2002]

In working on my own campaign setting, and I am trying to come up with some unique twists.

In order to do so, I thought it might be fun to get a list of current assumptions/common occurrances that appear in most fantasy settings.

Let me start with one.

1. Humans tend to be the majority of people.
Many of the settings I have played, video games included, have seen the other races as a minority to other races - especially in PnP RPGs.

So, what do you all think? Can you come up with some for me?

 

[Tonguez]

The good races - elfs, dwarfs, humans etc live in peace (despite underlying rivalries)

 

[JamesonCourage]

Most people are literate.

 

[Piratecat]

It's okay to kill other intelligent races because they're ugly, evil, or predatory.

Adventurers don't pay taxes.

It's okay to openly carry weapons.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

No one bats an eye when...

A group of heavily armed and armored people walk into a small village.

A group of adventurers walks into a small village with more money than the Gross Kingdom Product, and has no trouble spending it all.

A group of adventurers with more money than the GKP walk into a small village. (D&D characters hardly ever buy horses. )

Some adventurer nobody's ever heard of gets resurected, but the king can't be.

Two powerful wizards have a spell duel in the middle of a small village.

 

[MGibster]

Magic is broadly divided between divine and arcane.

A peculiar form of polytheism wherein people behave as monotheist prevails.

There is good versus evil.

Adventurers are always going on quests of one sort or another.

Society & technology seems to be a hyper enlightened mishmash of the middle ages and the early modern period yet there are no guns.

 

[Relique du Madde]

Gun powder doesn't work.

Every store is a magic wallmart.

Heroes hyper-competent... everyone else not so much.

The world goes on pause while the heroes decide to do their own thing.

There is an evil mastermind, but only one group of adventurers in a world filled with many decide to oppose him/her.

Lawful Good can not be oppressive.

 

[Jon_Dahl]

Well maybe my English fails me, but is "assumption" a negative word by default? If not, then why so negative posts?

Magic is clean, environmental, convenient and doesn't have any ramifications (Dark Sun etc. is not common fantasy).

Religion and Theology are not confusing or ambiguous.

Cool is same as effective.

Having your name mentioned almost always radically improves your chances to survive.

No one interrupts you if you really have something important to say.

Wounds don't get infected.

 

[Ramen]

Walking around a city or town in full armor with weapons never raises anyone suspicion or curiosity.

A couple goblins can kill a farmer with enough determination, so farmers ask you to kill them. A single cat can kill the same farmer with one full attack yet peasants are happy to keep them around.

The material components for a fireball are the same as the ones for a black powder bomb, purely coincidental.

Villages are constantly plagued by attacks from goblins, orcs, kobolds, giant spiders, skeletons, and other nasty beasties, yet they don't take precautions like cremating their dead, building walls around the village, or at least building the village in some defensible area.

The evil dragon demands that the lords of the land give them a sacrifice of a virgin every season, yet amazingly they keep finding virgins to sacrifice.

 

[RPG_Tweaker]

The local noble would trust some random band of vagabond drifters to rescue his daughter rather than an entire platoon of his own soldiers.

Elves live for hundreds to thousands of years, but the campaign isn't overrun by high-level elvish characters.

Creatures of *entirely different species* can produce viable offspring.

Undead are repelled by the mere presence of a preist.