Classic D&D tropes you've never mastered

[Treebore]

OF the ones listed the only one that gives me any problems is puzzles. It seems to take the right kind of players to not only solve puzzles, but to enjoy doing so, so I rarely use them.

 

[Vegepygmy]

Yes, which gets back to my statement that villains threatening a character's parents et al is rather hackneyed.

Certainly. But this is a thread about "classic D&D tropes," you know.

 

[Griego]

Certainly. But this is a thread about "classic D&D tropes," you know.

A bit of a side track, but not really worth forking the thread at this point.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Conan never had that as his motivation, that I can recall. To name one prominent example. Anyway, it's been done in too many campaigns not to elicit groans at the table if I try to use it.

You're being too literal. If your players can't be motivated by "[PERSON, PLACE OR THING THEY CARE ABOUT] is in jeopardy from [PERSON, PLACE OR THING THEY'D HAPPILY SEE PUT TO THE SWORD]," it's not a DMing failure, it's a player failure.

Your job is not to come up with increasingly baroque reasons for them to give a crap about the adventure you've prepared: It's to run adventures for mutual fun.

 

[Iron Sky]

Lawful Evil. To me there's no such thing. But I'd like to be able to create a Devil who is to me as interesting, as dangerous, as vicious and malicious, and as outright scary as a Demon. But the lawful part makes them seem like Gentlemen pansy-demons. It's like they're all Victorian era ring-boxers instead of vicious street fighters who will pull a shank and kidney spike ya with it. I don't really play alignment, and don't want to, but I like the concept of Lawful evil in theory, especially as a motivation for a monster like a Devil. But the lawful part of evil strikes me as impossible. It's like a governor you put on Evil.

The Giants - I've designed and played some good Giant adventures. But I don't think I've ever really used their true potential. They have a lot of potential. In my setting there is a half-giant race the players can use a character. That's has gone very well. But giants as a culture and a race, I just haven't nailed that. A friend of mine did - he made giants an alien race that had crash landed on an island in his world and couldn't escape and so had slowly converted their technology into a culture different from the rest of his world - but I didn't wnana just copy his approach.

Most smart evil things are essentially lawful evil in my games. Just think of an evil army (say, the Imperials in Star Wars). If they weren't lawful, they wouldn't be able to have any structure and would be more like a horde of orcs.

Or, imagine an evil bureaucrat/politician. They use the lawful system in place for their own ends while doing lip-service to their duty.

I'm with you on giants though, I've pretty much never used anything larger than an ogre. For me, it's mostly a combat imagery issue - I keep getting images of people running around stabbing them in the ankles that doesn't seem especially heroic. If it's a big non-humanoid, no problem, but giants, bleh.

The biggest issue I have is high level spellcasters in particular and high level npcs in general (I've heard it called the Eliminster Issue). I have it with Gods as well, which is why they only rarely factor at all in my games. If the Mega Artifact of World Destroying/Saving can be found by a group of 16th (or 26th level) PCs, why wouldn't an NPC have already done it and done it a hundred years ago?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The biggest issue I have is high level spellcasters in particular and high level npcs in general (I've heard it called the Eliminster Issue). I have it with Gods as well, which is why they only rarely factor at all in my games. If the Mega Artifact of World Destroying/Saving can be found by a group of 16th (or 26th level) PCs, why wouldn't an NPC have already done it and done it a hundred years ago?

The Elminster Issue is counterbalanced by the Pokemon Effect.

Which is to say that there are few high level PCs, relatively speaking, and a fairly large number of artifacts and/or machinations for them to contend with- too many for them to "get 'em all."

 

[Wiseblood]

I'm not entirely sure I've mastered any tropes. I have pulled a lot of them off very well ...at least once.

 

[Black Omega]

Lawful Evil. To me there's no such thing. But I'd like to be able to create a Devil who is to me as interesting, as dangerous, as vicious and malicious, and as outright scary as a Demon. But the lawful part makes them seem like Gentlemen pansy-demons. It's like they're all Victorian era ring-boxers instead of vicious street fighters who will pull a shank and kidney spike ya with it. I don't really play alignment, and don't want to, but I like the concept of Lawful evil in theory, especially as a motivation for a monster like a Devil. But the lawful part of evil strikes me as impossible. It's like a governor you put on Evil.

I have to disagree on this. Chaotic evil is the barbarian warband massacring a village for no reason. Lawful Evil is crucifying thousands of people along the Appian way to show the power and authority of Rome and what happens then that is challenged. It's a very purposeful evil.

 

[Eric Tolle]

What's your secret to running and especially improvising death traps? Don't make me suck it out of your brain cause...er, my brain sucker death trap sucks. I mean it doesn't. *sob*

One thing I really liked about the Dramatic Editing system from "Adventure!" is that I could create death traps without coming up with a solution for them. I could let the players spend Inspiration and tell me what the weakness of the death trap is or what brilliant action they take to survive.

One could probably do the same without a dramatic editing system, by asking players exactly what they're looking for, and then agreeing with whatever they describe. For additional tension, you can make it a "yes, but..." response.

"Do the eyes in the lion mask look like they move?"
"Why yes, they do look like they can be pushed inward, BUT, they're across the rising lava* from you."

*(Always use lava instead of acid pools in death traps. If you use acid, I guarantee the PCs will spend more time during to bottle the acid for their use, than they will trying to escape.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I have to disagree on this. Chaotic evil is the barbarian warband massacring a village for no reason. Lawful Evil is crucifying thousands of people along the Appian way to show the power and authority of Rome and what happens then that is challenged. It's a very purposeful evil.

Yeah, history is full of Lawful Evil.