What traditional fantasy conventions are you tired of?

[Ace]

I found it easier to ban cliches i dodn't like than to grouse abou them

I dropped Alignment (normal people do not have an alignment-- only outsiders, Paladins and the like do)

Non Human races -- I just generally don't like Non Human PC's -- I have exempted Half Elves, Dwarves and Fae Blooded -- these don't bug me too much. Halflings, Gnomes and the various wierds races don't exist

The rest of the tropes are generally OK

 

[Quasqueton]

The one and only D&D convention that really bothers me: In all the D&D universe, only humans and halflings have "normal vision." Normal animals, all of them, have low-light vision. Even plant creatures have low-light vision. Most things dangerous in the D&D universe have darkvision. Humans are nearly blind in comparison.

And this is not a D&D3 convention only. Earlier editions of the game gave everyone and everything infravision, except humans.

This really bothers me to the point of distraction. And I'm surprised that it doesn't seem to bother anyone else.

Quasqueton

 

[Brennin Magalus]

• Polytheism--I have never liked this assumption
• Feudalism--My game is pseudo-Roman
• Gnomes & Halflings--Why won't they go away?
• The Great Wheel--Interesting, but doesn't work for me
• Elves as wizards--Before the introduction of sorcerers it was okay, but inexcusable afterward
• Too many humanoids--another case of less is more

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

Personally I am tired of:

- Excessive number of races, in particular elves & small folk (Btw, I've introduced armoured & chivalrous Centaurs, like out of shining force)
- Related to the above is the endless list of monsters existing with no reason other than to die and spawn treasure
- All the really powerful beings are Mages
- In D&D at least, this artificial (imv) insertion of 21st century morals & laws into what is a byzantine era marked by figures & creatures oozing raw power
- Polytheism within any and all kingdoms

That's off the top of my head...

 

[Sir Elton]

I know you were holding your breath there, waiting for that...

Sigh!

Everybody has been identifying all my other problems with D&D. I just said that the one thing that bothers me about D&D. The Economics of the Game. So far, no body has mentioned it. So I thought I will.

 

[Incenjucar]

I don't really have time to go through all of this right now, but a) this is a myth (counter-examples? of living cultures where the women are burly and warriors while the men do as you described?) and b) you are setting up a false dichotomy to demean the role of women in traditional Western society - it is your assertion, not mine, that if you are not out fighting then you are staying at home to gab, gossip, and gather roots, in that order. This part of the post is off-topic, however, so let's stick to whether or not women in D&D should have, say, a -2 to Strength.

Myth my arse. They were showing video of the tribe on Discovery like two years ago. Don't call me a liar because you don't watch enough educational television.

And laddy-buck, hate to break it to you, but my statements were parroting what they said on the show. I'm a fricking feminist, I know full well that women are not so narrowly defined on average as you may seem to want them to be in your games. However, in the show, they described the men as sitting around talking about who was sleeping with who (basically, Sex in the African Savannah-style), while the women made things die. Tribal cultures fairly often have women with great power (like women being the only ones allowed to own property, which the men get to use only if they keep in favor, etc), and more equal roles. Because of the child birth issue, women in most cultures do tend to stay closer to home, but it's a tendancy that many cultures ignore outright.

 

[Incenjucar]

Sigh!

Everybody has been identifying all my other problems with D&D. I just said that the one thing that bothers me about D&D. The Economics of the Game. So far, no body has mentioned it. So I thought I will.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, whoever finally finds a way to make D&D economics work will sell a heck of a lot of books.

Heck, even Diaglo might nod his head in approval, then demand a Chainmail version.

 

[Sir Elton]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, whoever finally finds a way to make D&D economics work will sell a heck of a lot of books.

Heck, even Diaglo might nod his head in approval, then demand a Chainmail version.

Well, I'm not an economist, but I can safely say D&D economics does not work in any medieval world. From what I can understand is that there isn't enough gold in the Real World to support D&D economics. Around 5th level, the PCs are already rich enough to live like kings (or as nearly as they can get). However, in the Middle Ages, your kingdoms' economies should have enough money to support it's people to live comfortably; or as near as comfortably as they can get.

In history, Banking came out of several contributing factors. A few included:

1. The Temple of Isis. The clerics of the Temple of Isis grew so rich for selling their bodies that they started the first banking system. They would make loans and charge interest. They were probably on the verge of creating an echequer system when Rome fell and the Dark Ages began.

2. The Jews recreated the banking system in the west, and created a voucher system (if Ivanhoe is correct) in which the Jews can loan money and call in debts.

3. The Arabs then created the echequer system, using checks and banknotes backed by real gold (and thus any Arabian world would be handled by the Purchase DC system).

The other major problem with D&D economics is the ammount of gold a kingdom actually has. Spain, at the hieght of it's empire, had several hundred thousand gold coins and about 1,000,000 minted silver coins. That was the total coins in circulation. If a "Lord" (20th level) D&D character has around 200,000 gp in wealth, how much does the average Duke have?

If the average D&D player character isn't in the nobility and he has this much wealth, then the low nobility should have at least ten times as much. Where is all the gold coming from?

As the more wealth the PCs have, the more serious it can become. As far as I can tell, D&D economics is very ugly when you consider these ramifications.

 

[Alan Shutko]

The other major problem with D&D economics is the ammount of gold a kingdom actually has. Spain, at the hieght of it's empire, had several hundred thousand gold coins and about 1,000,000 minted silver coins.

Is that so significant? A person's wealth shouldn't be entirely (or even significantly) in cash, and neither would a nation's. I don't know what the total worth of Spain would have been (counting fortifications, ships, etc).

 

[MDSnowman]

Only one fantasy convetion bug me enough where I need to bring it up...

The Saintly Female Healer

Wether she's a cleric, a druid, some core class you picked up in a random book, or a character in a video game RPG she's equally flat!

I know the role of the healer will always be needed, but seriously does she need to be the same cookie cutter archetype every time?!? These characters just get on my nerves always just being so good... more so than you'd expect any paladin to be.

I once saw a twist on this that I liked however, a happy bubbly and downright perky healer who healed wounds by sticking her hand in them, closing them up from the inside and working from there... of course she was always drenched in dried blood up to her elbows and had a somewhat morbid sense of humor. Here you've still got your dedicated healer and now she doesn't grate on everyone by being so holier than thou that you can't call her on it.