What traditional fantasy conventions are you tired of?

[Ibram]

I'm always anoyed by the lack of gunpowder in settings with knights in heavy plate mail... it just rubs against my sense of history.

 

[Merlion]

Clerics: I never understood why the majority of priests and men of the cloth take up arms and go around on adventures. Do all the gods demand that their followers be adventurers and mercenaries? For that matter, where do all the spellcasting priests fit into traditional fantasy fiction? It seems that in most D&D settings every ordained clergy can cast miraculous spells. Most D&D campaigns seem to try to shoehorn the cleric class into the setting.

Amen!

And thats not even addressing the whole fact of the class as written being unbalanced.

Polytheism: Why do all D&D campaigns feature the same spiritual assumption? Moreover, most campaigns seem only to feature gods that would appeal to adventurers: the god of war, the god of fortune, the god of adventurers, but no gods of fertility, or gods of the home. Let's have a little variety in religion. Why not monotheism like medieval Europe? Why not animism? Why not pantheism?

Why not being able to have people who have issues of faith? This is currently impossible because there is concrete proof of the existence of each deity.

And yes in the PH pretty much all the gods are strongly tailored towards adventurers...now in the rest of the Greyhawk pantheon and the pantheons of various other settings there usualy is a little more variety...but generally they go out of their way to posit reasons for why clerics of the harvest deities or whatever would adventure.

The old Greyhawk pantheon has several deities that it makes no sense at all to have armor proficiency--

I agree...but all Clerics still have that proficiency, regardless of religion.

Just like Clerics of Pelor can cast darkness-creating spells, and Clerics of Nerull can cast Daylight, bizzare as that is.

Others have little reason to adventure--Lydia, IIRC their clerics mainly teach basic reading and writing

But its not just about wether or not they adventure. Its about the fact that all Clerics have that capacity, and that every deity has a (comparitively) extensive priesthood who are all capable of performing "miracles". And who are all also pretty deccent fighters. Its just weird. The Cleric is trying to embody too many archtypes at once.

As for it not being in fantasy fiction, what does that have to do with anything?

It has a great deal to do with this thread which is about fantasy and D&D conventions that people are tired of.

Also, many of us see the game as a way of representing our favorite things/concepts/worlds from fantasy fiction and mythology.

The Cleric is a pure D&Dism. There are, in many stories, healer-characters, and characters that could be considered priests, and characters who draw their abilities from higher powers, but few of them even resemble the armor wearing, weapon swinging, spell flinging class that is the Cleric. The idea that priest/god magic equates to healing/defense magic is largely a D&Dism.


In fact the massively huge and obnoxious role that always-polytheistic religion plays in D&D is somewhat of a D&Dism too. In a lot of fantasy, there is no religion, or its in the background. Or its in the forefront, but not armor wearing servants of the gods whom the gods grant a strange mix of spells...its usualy the gods themselves, and/or a handful of extremely powerful usualy immortal servants (such as in the Belgariad.)

 

[Desdichado]

For our campaigns, evolution has eliminated the following conventions:
Encumberance - too much detail, keep it high level and free flowing

That's not a fantasy convention, that's a D&D rule...

Psionics - we'll think about adding this as soon as we get magic balanced...

Neither is that.

Gunpowder - Yuck! Never mixed well with magic. Why bother?

Because you're tired of the convention that fantasy has to be pre-gunpowder? I don't think that's a real common fantasy convention either.

Low-level - my group has no real interest in the game below about 3rd level

?! That's not a fantasy convention either; that's a meta-game construct. Unless you're reading Rose Estes, of course, but that's never recommended.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

OK, I did toss a lot of "conventions"...

A GP is a GP, no matter where it was minted, or when...

We use moneychangers, since a Von-Lon Imperial Hook (A PP) is worth 14 GP according to Novak-Eck Standard Weight.

An ancient coin from a dragon's lair might be worth as much as 100 gp to a collector.

Elves are happy-dappy dancing in the woods good-guys, noble and fair...

BUZZ! Elves are conniving sneaky enivornmental terrorists who have taken thier superiority to a hideous hieght. The racial alignment is Lawful Evil.

Orcs are evil and stupid and live in hovels.

BUZZ! The society is Lawful Evil, based more on Soviet Russia with a healthy dose of Czarism and European fuedalism. Orcs are honorable, disciplined, hard fighters, but everything is for The Empire, not the individual.

Yes, I had a golden age, and it came to an end. The cities were destroyed by the long wars that followed, but honestly, the magic items from back then are low powered and crude at best.

Psionics are just as well integrated as magic, and just as common. That means psionic guilds, etc.

No economic platform.

That seems to be standard. Little to no trade, no advancement in technology or society, etc. It drives me crazy.

No magic used in the ways that humans would, to advance society, technology, etc.

Nobody has any brains...
From city guard to rulers, everyone seems to be brainless twits.

I guess I back away from the "minimalist" approach to magic and psionics that seems so prevalent. I like high magic, and rulers do talk to one another, and generals, via crystal balls. Magically "locked" teleport areas provide goods transports across vast distances.

BUT, this also leads to the battlecry of "KILL THE WIZARD!"

 

[Sir Elton]

This is rude, and socially unacceptable.

It also is so funny, it made me laugh out loud at work.

Stop it!

It wasn't from my perspective. A woman's breasts are proud badges of Motherhood!

Psionics - we'll think about adding this as soon as we get magic balanced...
Neither is that.

Psionics is actually a convention of Fantasy. Don't you ever read X-Men?

 

[kirinke]

I guess I back away from the "minimalist" approach to magic and psionics that seems so prevalent. I like high magic, and rulers do talk to one another, and generals, via crystal balls. Magically "locked" teleport areas provide goods transports across vast distances.

BUT, this also leads to the battlecry of "KILL THE WIZARD!"

Which is followed by "KILL THE CLERIC", and "KILL ANYTHING THAT IS WEARING ROBES AND MUMBLING/HAND WAVING!"

The D&D convention I hate most:
BLOODY POINT BUY!
I always did enjoy rolling up characters with a mix of abilities and then having the joy of one who has an 18 or 20 something in a stat... (I loved the 4d6 rule )

and now with point buy, those days are over. gah.

For me, the heroes should have something a bit out of the ordinary for them, because well jeeze. They took up adventuring for some bleeding reason right?

lol.
in all seriousness, i am doing point buy with a bit of grumbling and am having a fair blast playing both characters that have used point buy. The conventions in of themselves are not bad per say. It's how they're played that makes them bad or good.

If you're tired of a convention, tweak it. Make it fit for your game. Or not use it. plain and simple.
****
Now.
ONWARD FELLOW DIRE-BUNNY RIDING GNOMES! SHOW THEM YOUR TRUE METTLE! I MEAN SHARP POINTY OUCHIES!

 

[DragonLancer]

I have to agree, I dislike the point buy system even though most gamers seem to want this style of character generation these days.

Not every character is meant to be equal to every other. PB systems tend to lead towards clone gaming, where every other character is an almost identical replica of the one that went before.

 

[kirinke]

I have to agree, I dislike the point buy system even though most gamers seem to want this style of character generation these days.

Not every character is meant to be equal to every other. PB systems tend to lead towards clone gaming, where every other character is an almost identical replica of the one that went before.

I agree. Mostly. PB do tend to bring out the meta-gamer in people, but it also eliminates the 'cheat' potential. I know the pro's and cons, especially when dealing with a pbp game, in which seeing the player roll up the character is nigh unto impossible. But still.... I do so miss the rattle and roll of the d6's as they flick up that one, golden stat that makes you *drool*

 

[ssampier]

A few of my favorite things...

I am tired of...

Racial stereotypes: The dwarf is from a mountain kingdom, the elf is either a chaotic degenerate or arrogant and strange, the gnome is well, a gnome (aka useless).

Happy Go lucky Adventures: If adventurers are so common and adventures profitable, why doesn't everyone do it?

Stable Nations: It seems every nation is stable and has been for centuries. Its borders do not change, nor does its populace.

What I like:

Dungeon Ho: I still like exploring strange, lost kingdoms in search of treasure, magic, and secrets.

Classes: Sure it's hokey that every rogue and paladins have the same abilities, but it's nice shortcut. It's heck of a lot easier than saying, "My character has x feats, y skills, and z abilities."

Magic: Fire and forget is annoying, but far easier than anything I could invent

 

[DragonLancer]

Happy Go lucky Adventures: If adventurers are so common and adventures profitable, why doesn't everyone do it?

For the simple reason that most folks are not brave enough to take up the mantle of adventurer. Your typical citydweller or farmer hasn't got the stones to face down a dragon or enter the lair of a medusa. That takes a special sort of person.

Magic: Fire and forget is annoying, but far easier than anything I could invent

Why is it annoying? Personnally I like the system.