Yeah I know, it was a joke.

Quote from: BalbinusThe parties employer, particularly if he happens to be referred to as a Mr Johnson, has deliberately held back vital information and intends to double cross the party.

I mean, seriously, how do these guys ever get anyone to work for them?

I particularly agree with your point 2 by the way, all of it.  Larry Niven did it well, but he's a talented writer.  Otherwise, it's pseudoscientific bollocks that is flatly impossible given what we now know.  Quatermass and the Pit is indeed excellent, and I cannot really recommend it too highly.

Good taste in movies Nox

Thanks re the movie bit.

As to how bad employers get peeps to work for them, maybe if none of their previous hires survive to tell what dicks they are no one knows....

Quote from: SettembriniWow, DomNox.

My hugely successful Megatraveller Campaign fielded nearly all those elements you named. Even a psychohistorian conspiracy.


I´m definitely against your approach.

Maybe the players in your "hugely successful megatraveller campaign" were dull little twits easily amused by tired old chiches?

I'm sick of these cliches both in role-playing games and genre television (ADDED: and movies and comics and so on):

Anything with vampires.  I'm sick of them.  I was sick of them before the RPG was released.  I'm especially sick of vampires that make it cool, fun, and romantic to be a vampire and, worse, cheesy excuses to ignore all the penalties so it's nothing but better to be one.  No thanks.  The only thing that might be worse are supernaturally powerful vampire slayers.  

Speaking of supernaturally powerful vampire slayers, I'm fairly sick of the 90-pound girls who look like waifs but kick butt like Mike Tyson.  Turn them into 90-pound boys with a similar physique and people would laugh, and they should.  At least a Lucy Lawless or (yes) Grace Jones or (yes) Brigitte Nielson had the stature to be a plausible as a warrior woman.  I don't mind warrior women but why do they have to look like little girls?  Try warrior women.  The little girl fixation gets creepy after a while.

Roswell, Area 51, and UFO.  Conspiracy theory nonsense in general.  I watched too much In Search of... as a kid.  It's been overdone.

Anime chic.  Leave the anime and magna to the Japanese.  Please.  Americans doing anime and manga is like the Japanese doing Country or Rap music and making pizza (look for ads for Japanese pizza on Google).

Quote from: Hastur T. FannonConspiracy theories.  Any and all of them

Can't stand them, don't use them

I'd say it depends on the RPG.  Certainly there's not much point to using conspiracy theories in a fantasy setting.  OTOH if you're running an espionage game. . .

Funny thing about conspiracy theories, it's all in the presentation.  If you get the right GM talking about a conspiracy they can convince the players that the CIA (SPECTRE or whatever the game is using) used LSD on the astronauts to get them to believe they were in space, thus making faking the Moon Landings simple.  On the otherhand, you get the wrong person talking about a subject, and they'll have you wondering if water really is wet.

Quote from: jrientsI've never met a cliche I didn't like.

ALL HAIL RISUS!!

:emot-rock:

Quote from: kregmosiernothing.  
none of them.
nada...

a good GM might avoid these so-called "tired cliched ideas"....
a great GM will make them entertaining and surprising regardless.

In-freaking-deed, my dog-faced brutha.  O'Borg, KrakaJak and Jeff get it, too.

Cliches get that way for a reason -- they're damned handy.  They're springboards for adventure, and they invite modification -- and they provide inspiration when you turn 'em around in the light so you can see different edges.

My wife and I were talking about that in bed one night.  Take the classic "tavern or inn run by a former adventurer".  Yeah, been there.  Right?

Now.  Extrapolate.  

Who was he?  Why is he no longer adventuring?  What does he know?  What did he keep?  Can he send your PCs on an adventure -- act as a patron?  A source of info?  What class (or whatever) was he?  She?  

It?

Next thing you know we're talking about a middle-aged wizard who runs an inn and keeps it clean with the help of air elementals, which are kept bound to the property by a crystal in his chambers.  The crystal, by the way, is a portal to the Elemental Plane of Air.  Innocuous, but in the wrong hands...

You're welcome.

Quote from: James McMurrayNiven originated on Earth and then seeded elsewhere?

Rishathra, it turns out, is easier and more fun than previously thought.  Plus -- alien chicks dig beards and glasses!

While it's a bit over the top at times, I think this essay is worth reading, particularly with respect to what it says about genre and cliche about 3/4ths of the way down the page in section 5.

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!My wife and I were talking about that in bed one night.  Take the classic "tavern or inn run by a former adventurer".  Yeah, been there.  Right?

Now.  Extrapolate.  

Last lengthy campaign that I ran, the PCs were the "former" adventurers running the inn.

Jive-talking wizards.

Just about anything else I can stand, but the "You are not yet ready to know this knowledge... I'll tell you in two levels, after the mini-boss" shit really annoys the fuck out of me.

Running a game with alien xenomorphs of the acid blood dripping face hugging variety.Especially when everybody in the group has seen the damned films two thousand nine hundred times!

A bad game will be full of old material that's rehashed and unoriginal.

A mediocre game will be full of original material that doesn't connect to anyone.

A great game will be full of old material that looks new and original.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditA great game will be full of old material that looks new and original.

My problem with that (speaking for what I see myself) is that attempts to make old material look new and original can often create it's own kind of cliche -- the anti-cliche, where the author takes some identifiable components and changes them into their opposites.  That's not a problem with your statement so much as a problem with what people do trying to achieve it.

Making old material look new and original often works better when it's not done as the primary focus but rather happens by accident or a side effect.  Deliberate attempts to be "new and original" are often neither.  So by all means, borrow from cliches.  They are a great source of ideas and inspiration.  But use them as themes and ideas, not holy writ, unless you are really going for a cliched feel on purpose.