D&D 5E Which played-out D&D trope needs to die?

[Yora]

If you just kill the evil leader, the whole conflict consuming the kingdom or the continent will immediately solve itself.

 

[iserith]

My family was killed and I was powerless to stop it. Now I'm an angsty loner with no feelings and an unquenchable desire to kill everything I encounter. Even though I'm a loner, I'm going to hang out with this group of random people. I say offensive things because that's what I, the character, would do.

Lean into that trope and play it ironically, especially with a name like xDarkHeart69x and it's fantastic.

 

[MGibster]

Seriously, are there no quest-givers with rats in their attic??

Those are minimum 5th level quests up there.

I think rather than avoiding tropes or trying to reinvent the wheel, often the best thing to do is lean into them hard and make fun of them in clever ways.

It's not the size of the trope it's how you use it. At least that's what I keep hearing. Though I understand why someone might be sick of a particular trope, for the most part I don't see them as good or bad. It's how you use them that makes things interesting. Even a rescue the princess adventure can be fun.

If you just kill the evil leader, the whole conflict consuming the kingdom or the continent will immediately solve itself.

Let's be fair. We're playing out an adolescent power fantasy here. I don't know if I really need to get into the complexities of factions, goals, and the loss of leadership.

 

[Kurotowa]

There's no such thing as a useless trope. Story beats only become tropes when they're powerful enough to become fixed in the audience's imagination. What's bad is lazily executed tropes where they're thrown in without proper setup and context, or are an amateurish imitation of the surface details without any understanding of the meaning or intent behind them.

Any trope* can be good if used with proper thought on the implications and how it impacts the specific characters of the story and what unique new resolutions that creates. Any trope will be tired if used by blind route and jammed in headless of the rest of the story.

*Exceptions exist for the "aged poorly" principle, which is less about a trope being played out and more about social standards having shifted over time.

 

[Yora]

Let's be fair. We're playing out an adolescent power fantasy here. I don't know if I really need to get into the complexities of factions, goals, and the loss of leadership.

If we're using that bar, then everything in this thread can easily jump over it.

 

[tetrasodium]

• "[my hyperoptimized]fighters are useless outside of combat"
• "Wizards are overpowered [based on this sorlock/hexadin analysis & extreme whiteroom scenario]"

 

[Ibrandul]

"Nobody wants to play the cleric."

 

[eyeheartawk]

People making characters that are Drizzt knockoffs. The whole we were bad but I'm the rebel for being good and I have a tortured inner life.

Makes my eyes roll out of my head.

 

[Yora]

More than five options for character races is too much for any setting.

 

[Bill Zebub]

If you just kill the evil leader, the whole conflict consuming the kingdom or the continent will immediately solve itself.

Is that like “if you just vote this person out of office, the complex issues dividing our society will magically resolve themselves”?