Mercurius
Legend
What D&D tropes, ideas, memes are you sick of? What have you written out of your campaign?
(A quick disclaimer and request: This thread is not meant to rile feathers or instigate edition skirmishing; please don't say "I'm sick of 4th editionisms" or something similar; I'm talking mainly about cross-edition memes, thus mainly fluff, although I suppose some mechanical elements could be included. Also, if you find that you're very sensitive to what you like, maybe you shouldn't read further. Thanks!)
I'll start with...
Drow. They were very cool (or should I say, kewl) when I was 10 and I first encountered Vault of the Drow. They were still pretty cool when I was 14 and Drizzt made his first appearance in The Crystal Shard. My like of the Drow lingered on a few years after that, but decades later the over-saturation point has gone well past critical. I'm just sick of them - they're so overused and, quite frankly, have lost all appeal to me. So I've written them out of my under-construction campaign world and replaced them with a subrace of albino sorcerers inspired by Elric of Melnibone and the Others of A Game of Thrones.
Gynormous Weapons (especially Fullblades). OK, I briefly played a fullblade-wielding Deva Avenger and it was a lot of fun, but I couldn't do it without reskinning it to be a slightly bigger bastard sword. Weapons should not be larger than the wielders, at least not swords and axes. Lances, spears and polearms, have at it. But swords? Come, now. I know, I know, there's the zweihander and no-dachi, but neither ever surpassed six feet in length or about seven pounds, except for ceremonial weapons. I credit this influence to Exalted and anime and its got to go.
Compound Words (or the excessive use of). Moderation is a good thing but this got out of hand, culminating with perhaps the biggest doozy of them all: the Shardmind Battlemind.
I'm sure there are more but I'll leave some for y'all.
(A quick disclaimer and request: This thread is not meant to rile feathers or instigate edition skirmishing; please don't say "I'm sick of 4th editionisms" or something similar; I'm talking mainly about cross-edition memes, thus mainly fluff, although I suppose some mechanical elements could be included. Also, if you find that you're very sensitive to what you like, maybe you shouldn't read further. Thanks!)
I'll start with...
Drow. They were very cool (or should I say, kewl) when I was 10 and I first encountered Vault of the Drow. They were still pretty cool when I was 14 and Drizzt made his first appearance in The Crystal Shard. My like of the Drow lingered on a few years after that, but decades later the over-saturation point has gone well past critical. I'm just sick of them - they're so overused and, quite frankly, have lost all appeal to me. So I've written them out of my under-construction campaign world and replaced them with a subrace of albino sorcerers inspired by Elric of Melnibone and the Others of A Game of Thrones.
Gynormous Weapons (especially Fullblades). OK, I briefly played a fullblade-wielding Deva Avenger and it was a lot of fun, but I couldn't do it without reskinning it to be a slightly bigger bastard sword. Weapons should not be larger than the wielders, at least not swords and axes. Lances, spears and polearms, have at it. But swords? Come, now. I know, I know, there's the zweihander and no-dachi, but neither ever surpassed six feet in length or about seven pounds, except for ceremonial weapons. I credit this influence to Exalted and anime and its got to go.
Compound Words (or the excessive use of). Moderation is a good thing but this got out of hand, culminating with perhaps the biggest doozy of them all: the Shardmind Battlemind.
I'm sure there are more but I'll leave some for y'all.
) Just thinking about a cleric of a magic diety makes my head hurt! Why do they need to multiclass? Isn't their diety supposed to be giving them their spells? So why aren't they giving them Wizard spells when they're the diety of frikkin magic? And if the clerics can shoot lightning bolts, which at least some sould, then the wizards should be able to heal, at least to some extent.
