Quote from: noisms;281424Elves.

At least you can (and you have) done interesting things with elves fairly easily, versus the Orlando Bloom type.

Beyond the metaphorical "Apophis" take on a single dragon, which is sort of a funny once joke, I scarcely see a take on dragons that does not boil down to another nauseating variant of a fat guy in a "Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup" t-shirt. Ah, the "Power and Majesty of Dragons" as WOTC likes to say. I think the best take on a dragon in D&D, at least, as been, was the smallish guy you could subdue in B5 "Horror on the Hill."

Quote from: RPGPundit;281379So, name one thing in a setting (be it fantasy, sci-fi, or other) that you've seen so many times that you'd rather gouge your eyes out than have to see it once more.

Ancient progenitors who have conveniently vanished but left ruins everywhere.

CHEERS bars are done to death. You know? The place where characters can have a respite and do their roleplaying without action? Wouldn't all the evil base investors just team up and nuke all these establishments?



Skills - Too much detail and not enough putting it under a hood where it belongs.

Sex - Its either too much or too little and never something clever, subtle and well generally appealing. (Don't get me started on gender abuse! )

Fictional brands - Games that have different models of robot and they're just cut and paste erased and altered in spots and you have to figure if any of this BS is worth thinking about at all.

Unscientific magic - It works and its measured. Why not? ITS SCIENCE!

Misunderstood monsters - "We have families as well. We call ourselves the Orcatatatatiii...." NOW YOU CAN PLAY ONE AS WELL!!!! "I'm making an Orcatatatatiii Poembringer!" This seeming unlimited mentality is just so narrowminded and it just keeps perpetuating. Monsters were probably better off not having a reproductive cycle at all.

Good guys who are *really* bad guys.

Bad guys who are *really* good guys.

Quote from: Gene Weigel;281467Misunderstood monsters - "We have families as well. We call ourselves the Orcatatatatiii...." NOW YOU CAN PLAY ONE AS WELL!!!! "I'm making an Orcatatatatiii Poembringer!" This seeming unlimited mentality is just so narrowminded and it just keeps perpetuating. Monsters were probably better off not having a reproductive cycle at all.

Mind you, orcs in Warhammer are spore based fungal clusters that come up from the ground and they're still more sympathetic than the humans...

Quote from: David Johansen;281512Mind you, orcs in Warhammer are spore based fungal clusters that come up from the ground and they're still more sympathetic than the humans...

I meant created by magic so they could not have any culture of their own and therefore no cheesy race role classes.

Thats a lot of "culture"...LITERALLY!

Quote from: hgjs;281458Ancient progenitors who have conveniently vanished but left ruins everywhere.

Done a lot, yes, but still possible to do well.

Quote from: The Shaman;281517Done a lot, yes, but still possible to do well.

Sure, but it's so done to death that I'm unlikely to appreciate it.  (Just like I'm unlikely to appreciate yet another Lord of the Rings knockoff, even if it is rather well constructed.)

A fantasy setting that turns out to be post apocalyptic.

Kidding aside, the only fantasy/scifi element that's been done to death IMO is the Vampire. Everything else I can get behind in some manner, shape or form.

Not sure if this counts, but fighters who basically go "I'm dumb. I drink. I smash!" In some cases it's because of their race being all stereotyped. In others it's just the way the GM or another player plays the character. There's one(as an NPC thankfully) in the campaign I'm in now, and the GM wonders why I didn't find him as memorable as the other players.

Quote from: Cole;281448At least you can (and you have) done interesting things with elves fairly easily, versus the Orlando Bloom type.

Beyond the metaphorical "Apophis" take on a single dragon, which is sort of a funny once joke, I scarcely see a take on dragons that does not boil down to another nauseating variant of a fat guy in a "Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup" t-shirt. Ah, the "Power and Majesty of Dragons" as WOTC likes to say. I think the best take on a dragon in D&D, at least, as been, was the smallish guy you could subdue in B5 "Horror on the Hill."

I'm an advocate of the dragon as a sort of embodiment of a particular sin. Thus you have the slothful dragon, the lustful dragon, the wrathful dragon, the gluttonous dragon...

I also like the traditional god-like dragons of Europe, like Jormungandr, who wraps himself around the world, or Sugaar the Basque dragon who lives in storms.

EDIT: Thanks for reading the blog, by the way.

Quote from: hgjs;281533Sure, but it's so done to death that I'm unlikely to appreciate it.

See, I like settings with history, and the remnants of ancient societies are part of that for me.

When I was running a (sadly short-lived) Traveller game a couple of years ago, this was a feature on which I really enjoyed building. It was not however the titular Ancients of the Traveller universe, however. I used the old Judges Guild sectors as my setting, so this is a part of the Imperium settled something like six thousand years before the game began - that's a lot of time for cultures to rise and fall, which they did, and inevitably the crash leaves behind lots of detritus, from lost space stations to failed colonies.

Quote from: hgjs(Just like I'm unlikely to appreciate yet another Lord of the Rings knockoff, even if it is rather well constructed.)

I never actually read the setting book itself, but Midnight sounded pretty cool when it was discussed.

* Vanilla fantasy worlds with the exact same mix of elves, dwarves, orcs, and dragons as every other damn generic fantasy world.

* The smuggler / merchant sci-fi game (like the de facto Traveller style or the way WEG kept trying to make Star Wars boring).

* Anything with Lovecraftian type horrors from beyond.

* Anything with vampires that tries to add a new or different mythology for them.

* Any super hero game/setting that tries to present a more "realistic" version of super heroes under the mistaken belief it comes off as more "mature".

* Generic rules systems "useful for playing any setting" (bonus hate for the ones with stupid-sounding acronym names).

Quote from: noisms;281541I'm an advocate of the dragon as a sort of embodiment of a particular sin. Thus you have the slothful dragon, the lustful dragon, the wrathful dragon, the gluttonous dragon...
EDIT: Thanks for reading the blog, by the way.

Something in the style of Fafnir, the human (technically a dwarf) transformed into a monstrous form by greed, that's not bad. Of course, he is basically sitting around on his money waiting to be killed, rather than the sort of omnicient mastermind that became popular...in the mid 1980s perhaps?

Boris the dragon of Dark Sun gets a pass on a similar line of thought.

A friend of mine played in a campaign where they slew a once-human dragon, of whom it was reputed "the fearful shall me made small before the greatness of Bui." This resulted in an actual reduction in d20 size category as a result of dragon fear. It came as some surprise, I am to understand.