TheRPGSite

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. :)

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 (http://www.barbariankeep.com/ctbds.html) 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.