Tired Tropes of Site-Based Adventures (and how to improve them)

[Retreater]

I've been giving some thought about where adventures take place, and I've seen many repeated locations over the years that have started to grow redundant.

Where are some places you think have been "done to death?" Is there a way to salvage them to make them more interesting?

I'll start with one that just came to mind from the Waterdeep adventure I'm running:

Sewers
Clichés: a favorite hideout of thieves' guilds, the home of rat encounters, jump and balance checks to avoid falling in sewage.
New Spin: the sewers cut through older levels of the town history, including catacombs. The sewers have actually been abandoned, left over from a time when the city was better run - now citizens just throw waste on the street to be collected by wagons.

 

[GMMichael]

Sewers
Clichés: a favorite hideout of thieves' guilds, the home of rat encounters, jump and balance checks to avoid falling in sewage.
New Spin: the sewers cut through older levels of the town history, including catacombs. The sewers have actually been abandoned, left over from a time when the city was better run - now citizens just throw waste on the street to be collected by wagons.

So the sewer encounter means characters walk along the gutters by the roadside?

Cliche': Graveyard encounter in which zombies claw their way out of the ground to attack PCs.
New Spin: The graveyard is filled with mourners who get exceptionally upset at PCs walking across the graves of their loved ones. Mourners "attack" with fists and clods of dirt, and while the undertaker might like to see PCs get some kills, the lord of the land would be highly upset.

 

[Eltab]

Cliche:
Long-abandoned wizard's towers that are in perfect shape with no maintenance or repairs.

Better:
Describe thick layer of dust inside, and other 'atmospherics'.
Part of the building has deteriorated, part is OK.
While inside, see the messed-up structure where the roof leaked.
The PCs are called because a section of the walls / roof just collapsed and something dangerous from inside got out !
PCs see a ruined collapsed tower in the distance, on the way somewhere else.
PCs are asked to hang around while old tower is demolished and the rubble is carted away ... just in case