Ok, simple idea for a thread here: Let's list some tired cliches that have long white beards and should really not be used in game settings because thney're older than dirt and generally less interesting.

Ready?

Go!

1. Atlantis anything. Please, people, the atlantis storyline has been done so many times it's virtually a parody. I've gotten to where I actually groan when I hear that name anymore, ules it's used in a joke.

2. Anything involving humans originating on a planet besides earth. OK, niven did a good story called "Protector" in which he managed to use this storyline in an effective way by having remote human ancestors come from another world, but he really had to go way back in time to do it and, by and large, the fossile record along with molecular biology pretty much proves that humans evolved along with most other lifeforms on earth from a common biochemical origin. So please, no bits about humans being the descendants of aliens. (But having ancient aliens manipulating human evolution is still okidoki, if done right. There was a great movie in the 60's called "Quatermass and the pit" that touched on this most excellently. See it if you haven't.)

3. Adolph Hitler was a demon, alien or manipulated by some unearthly force. Ok, I'll cop to this one myself, I recently used the idea in a SF setting I was working on for a game company that went more for "GOSH! WOW!" type stuff that hard science of serious drama. The idea was that an ancient alien race had the powet to manipulate spcies to their will, and a single one of these ancient "dark overlords" could eventually control an entire race.

Except one.

Humans had been interfered with early in their development by a race opposing the dark overlords (Like I said, it was GOSH! WOW! level stuff...) and made to be extremely chaotic and variable in outlook and attitude as a side effect of making them resistant to the dark overlords control.

The overlords tried an experiment and invested some of their power in a human to see if their power could control a large enough segment of this abberant species to let them assume total control. Guess who?

Those plotlines are pretty old and lame, and need to be retired for a good long time. Hitler was the biggest scumbag in history, but he was all too human, and you can't go blaiming him on something else no matter how much you want to.

What plotlines have you seen enough of and would like to recommend for retirement?

Quote from: Dominus NoxThe overlords tried an experiment and invested some of their power in a human to see if their power could control a large enough segment of this abberant species to let them assume total control. Guess who?

Jesus?

The 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

Conspiracy theories.  Any and all of them

Can't stand them, don't use them

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

Can't stand them, don't use them

Personally I quite like conspiracies, if they are smaller scale or human essentially.  What I can't stand is uber conspiracies who run everything or who hold some huge secret, but yet who manipulate everything so we don't find out.

Mostly I dislike that because it's bollocks, governments are routinely caught out on things they would much rather keep secret, anything truly huge like the presence of aliens or secret vampires would eventually leak.

A conspiracy though of say a small group of politicians and industrialists with limited though extensive resources for a specific end, that can be quite fun, and has the benefit of being defeatable too.

Wow, DomNox.

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


I´m definitely against your approach.

(Without reading DoNox's post)
 
A good enough GM / writer can take any tired, cliched story and make it cool.
They have to, there are only so many original storylines in existance (IIRC either 5 or 7) : everything else is an extrapolation or combination thereof.

I've never met a cliche I didn't like.

If I never meet up with a mysterious old man in an inn again, it will be too soon. :sleeping:

nothing.  
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.

I mean seriously, what's more cliched than a disparate group of individuals teamed up to go on an adventure??

Quote from: O'Borg(Without reading DoNox's post)
 
A good enough GM / writer can take any tired, cliched story and make it cool.
They have to, there are only so many original storylines in existance (IIRC either 5 or 7) : everything else is an extrapolation or combination thereof.

Got to agree with this. The only cliche that comes close to needing to be done away with is the D&D you all meet in a bar/tavern. That used to be a staple for an old GM I played with. :muttering:

I dig cliche's myself too. If the players know what's going on the can play along. It's not about the cliche' it's about the Twist!

One man's cliche is another man's "indispensible setting convention".

Quote from: SettembriniMy hugely successful Megatraveller Campaign fielded nearly all those elements you named. Even a psychohistorian conspiracy.

Well, MT at least has the virtue of reversing the Niven idea so that it's biochemically plausible. (All humans originated on Earth, but were seeded elsewhere.)

Then again, so did Niven, after a fashion.

Niven originated on Earth and then seeded elsewhere?

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

Niven made a biologically plausible backstory for "seeded worlds".

The pak thing -- that proposes humans are mutated children of a very different alien species.

But known space also had numerous biologically compatible worlds. Reason being that they evolved from yeast used by an ancient race called Slavers for food.