Fantasy Tropes/Cliches that Annoy You

[Segev]

fellow

I'm going to disagree with you on including "Death of the Author" in your list, here. While it is oft misused as a concept to try to say, "Hey, a work means whatever I say it means!" that's not what the concept actually is. The concept behind Death of the Author is that you CAN, PERSONALLY, find meanings the author may not have meant. That you do says far more about you than the author, however. It is a perfectly valid form of literary analysis, in that you can find richness and ideas sparked from it that allow you to better express YOURSELF. The trouble is when people start to say, "Because I found this message, the author's work is sending it and must be treated as a testament to the message I found."

The other way it applies that is useful is in judging "canon" of a fictional work. If the author didn't include it, it isn't canon, even if the author thought it should be true.

Similar to the armor and magic thing, I dislike when magic and technology cancel each other out or are otherwise "opposed". I want muh cyborg wizards dengit!

Really any "science is bad" sentiment.

I also forgot helmetlessness. In part it's because I have a somewhat romanticized notion of facial concealment.

Re: Magic v. technology and anti-technology/anti-science sentiment - Hear here!

Regarding helmets, I wonder how much of helmets disappearing is due to media wanting to show people's faces, and how much is due to too many munchkins trying to get +1 AC from wearing a helmet.

[Honest Tiefling]

I'm personally a bit more iffy on the technology and magic thing. If the setting can provide a decent reason that works and is needed for the balance of the game, I'll take it. Metals interacting oddly with magic is probably the best example I can think of. It's a bit wonky, but it fits various myths and has at least some reason.

The whole idea of magic hating technology? Does this mean my character can't wear polyester or any article of clothing brought to country of origin by technology or produced with factory equipment? Does this mean my character can't eat anything made in a factory? I guess my character is screwed because he can't take vitamins, eat most food that's been processed or imported. And washing is right out due to plumbing and what shampoo is made of.

I take it back. I'll play in a game where magic and technology hate each other if I can play a smelly naked wizard who tries to live off the grid to produce food for himself.

[Satinavian]

The whole idea of magic hating technology? Does this mean my character can't wear polyester or any article of clothing brought to country of origin by technology or produced with factory equipment? Does this mean my character can't eat anything made in a factory? I guess my character is screwed because he can't take vitamins, eat most food that's been processed or imported. And washing is right out due to plumbing and what shampoo is made of.

Oh, i have seen that done in some games. But it was less about "magic hates technology" and more "magic comes with restrictions" leading to anyone wanting to get powerful to need to live a very strict eremitic lifestyle.

[Frozen_Feet]

That's not consistent with the rest of your argument. Now there's still a single message, but it's determined by the text rather than the author, and you have to argue for why your message is better.

The inconsistency is in your head. Your conflating what I'm saying with what other people are saying, as I will prove below.

My position has always been that each piece of intelligible fiction is a message in the most trivial sense of the word. The same goes for all pieces of fiction that are themselves intelligible strings, down to individual sentences or even individual words.

That there is a limited information in each message, and that you can prove this is, is a separate argument.

Why is the interpretation that subraces being biologically different is okay better than the interpretation that it is racism?

I have a better question: why the **** are you asking me?

This is how I can tell you're conflating my argument for someone else's. Because I specifically told you that I neither care about nor am I engaged in that tangent. I haven't been talking of that in pages. My point of limited information is entirely separate.

If you honestly want me to give an answer to that, specify a message - a word, a sentence, a paragraph, a book, a painting, a song, whatever - and I'll give you an analysis of how it can be interpreted.

Why is the only message the one that is decoded by the simplest possible interpretative system? Why are we using "the English language" and not "the English language, plus a belief that rain is a metaphor for grief"?

Parsimony. The simplest interpretation system which leads to an intelligible interpretation is correct, additional interpretation ciphers are deemed false or unnecessary if they lead to no additional provable information.

"English plus belief that rain is metaphor for grief" would be the correct if rain was actually a metaphor and you need this information to decipher the message. In the example, we know this to be false. Using such interpretation would be overanalysis, and though it's not obvious from the example, would lead to incorrect conclusions in the long run.

For example, if players tried to invoke rain by acting sorrowful, they would fail. Or it could rain when the mood of the game is happy. So on and so forth.

Yes, like "literally anything ever at all". The words "it is raining" mean nothing. They only mean things because subjective agents interact with them.

Why do you think this is relevant to my point? There's limited amount of agents with limited number of languages. There is no realistically occurring scenario where "it is raining" could or would be interpreted to mean anything.

[Cosi]

It's not semantic -- the author intentionally including a message to encourage suicide is a very different thing from people reading "commit suicide" into the work. The focus of addressing the problem changes depending on what's going on. It changes whether the author should be held responsible. Etc.

There is literally no other field where saying you didn't mean to absolves you of legal responsibility for harm.

It's a a trait but it's not a message (unless the authir was lying, but that's another issue) nor even necessarily what it's about

Why does this distinction matter?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_world_wonders

I mean, that seems like a pretty perfect example of the fact that there is not a single meaning for a given text.

That there is a limited information in each message, and that you can prove this is, is a separate argument.

No one is interpreting any text as having a message of infinite length. There's a logical disconnect between what you're claiming and what you've proven.

This is how I can tell you're conflating my argument for someone else's. Because I specifically told you that I neither care about nor am I engaged in that tangent. I haven't been talking of that in pages. My point of limited information is entirely separate.

Yes, I know you made a troll thread and thought that absolved you of resolving the issues being discussed. Fun fact: that is not how it works.

Parsimony. The simplest interpretation system which leads to an intelligible interpretation is correct, additional interpretation ciphers are deemed false or unnecessary if they lead to no additional provable information.

Okay, "all messages mean 'I hate postmodernism'" is a simpler system than "the definitions of words in the English language".

"English plus belief that rain is metaphor for grief" would be the correct if rain was actually a metaphor and you need this information to decipher the message. In the example, we know this to be false. Using such interpretation would be overanalysis, and though it's not obvious from the example, would lead to incorrect conclusions in the long run.

Except now your logic is circular. We know rain doesn't mean grief because not assuming that makes our system simpler but equally correct, and we know that our system is correct because rain doesn't mean grief.

Why do you think this is relevant to my point? There's limited amount of agents with limited number of languages. There is no realistically occurring scenario where "it is raining" could or would be interpreted to mean anything.

I don't know, your point is an incoherent babble about how words have objective meanings. You're the one who needs to explain why the definition of things that have been assigned definitions is fixed.

[Honest Tiefling]

Oh, i have seen that done in some games. But it was less about "magic hates technology" and more "magic comes with restrictions" leading to anyone wanting to get powerful to need to live a very strict eremitic lifestyle.

It's not as fun if you're supposed to life a weird lifestyle, dammit.

[Segev]

There is literally no other field where saying you didn't mean to absolves you of legal responsibility for harm.

Well, that and having political connections can get you out of felonies that would have, say, me in prison for life for doing the exact same thing.

But you're wrong anyway - some crimes, you're right, but for many, mens rea is critical. That is, you have to have had intent to cause harm, or depraved indifference to the fact that you likely would.

[Cosi]

But you're wrong anyway - some crimes, you're right, but for many, mens rea is critical. That is, you have to have had intent to cause harm, or depraved indifference to the fact that you likely would.

I doubt "I didn't mean to" would hold up for proof of lack of intent.

Also, I would like to see an example of where lack of intent absolves all harm (particularly for crimes on the order of murder). Manslaughter is a different crime from Murder, but it's still a crime.

[BRC]

I doubt "I didn't mean to" would hold up for proof of lack of intent.

Also, I would like to see an example of where lack of intent absolves all harm (particularly for crimes on the order of murder). Manslaughter is a different crime from Murder, but it's still a crime.

http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=173 is an excellent guide to that particular concept, and provides an example of this exact thing. One Event (A child dies), six different cases, six different crimes (Well, five, the Accidental death wasn't a crime).
Between "I meant to do it" and "I didn't meant to", there are varying degrees of "I could have prevented it, but chose to ignore that fact, and put others at risk while doing so"


Edit: We can apply that same scale to the question of how much is an author responsible for the message of their work.

Accidental: The message is only clear in the context of something the author couldn't have known about when they wrote it. For example, naming a despicable villain "Steve Boberson", and years later somebody named Steve Boberson runs for political office.

Negligent: The author could have seen the message, but they were not careful. Like above, but many Steve Boberson WAS a politician at the time. They may not have expected that people would read their book as an attack on Steve Boberson's campaign, but had they thought about it and checked, they would have known that they were naming their villain after a public figure, but they didn't look into it.

Reckless: The author may not have intended the message, but they must have known it was a possibility. They just named their villain Steve Boberson, after a local politician.

Knowingly: Maybe they read about some accusations against Steve Boberson, and thought that made good fodder for a story. Their goal wasn't to attack Steve Bobberson, but they DID write a story where a character named "Bob Stevenson" did all the things Steve Bobberson was accused of, and more.

Intentional: They set out intending to write a story that would make people hate Steve Boberson.

[Frozen_Feet]

No one is interpreting any text as having a message of infinite length. There's a logical disconnect between what you're claiming and what you've proven.

I'm talking about information, not simple length of text. Length of text is one rough measure of how much information there is in a message, but it's not synonymous. There's no disconnect here, only a possible misunderstanding that's now been clarified.

Yes, I know you made a troll thread and thought that absolved you of resolving the issues being discussed. Fun fact: that is not how it works.

I made a separate thread for a separate discussion. That you describe it as a "troll thread" is an accusation of bad faith. My answer to that is: sit on a stick and spin on it. In any case, that discussion has no bearing on this one.

As for your use of "absolved", I need no absolution because I'm not obliged to discuss this with you, here or anywhere. Again, if you honestly want my opinion, specify a message for me to analyze. If you don't want that, don't bring up the subject.

Okay, "all messages mean 'I hate postmodernism'" is a simpler system than "the definitions of words in the English language".

According to principles already outlined:

1) this would fail to be intelligible in a lot of cases.
2) it would lead to provably false conclusions.

Your argument is based on a misunderstanding of parsimony. Miten on todistettu.

Except now your logic is circular. We know rain doesn't mean grief because not assuming that makes our system simpler but equally correct, and we know that our system is correct because rain doesn't mean grief.

Wrong. There's no circularity. In the example, we know rain is not a metaphor for grief because it is a random encounter. Hence we can show that rain does not consistently have anything to do with grief, hence interpreting it thus is false.

If we had a different example work the situation could be different. Just like if instead of "it is raining" I said "nyt sataa", you would need different decryption key, in this case, a different language.

The principles of parsimony and limited information content stay the same in all examples.

I don't know, your point is an incoherent babble about how words have objective meanings. You're the one who needs to explain why the definition of things that have been assigned definitions is fixed.

1) I haven't said words have objective meanings. That is you, again, conflating my argument with someone else's.
2) why words have meanings they have is a matter of you attending more English lessons than anything I need to do. For the record, semantic drift exists, but that means information can be lost, not that all meanings are valid for any message.

[Satinavian]

I'm talking about information, not simple length of text. Length of text is one rough measure of how much information there is in a message, but it's not synonymous. There's no disconnect here, only a possible misunderstanding that's now been clarified.

Length of text provides an upper bound of the information that can be contained in the message in the text. Usually even a lower upper bound can be given by removing all redundencies in the message.

But the lower bound is always zero. You can make perfectly fine texts out of random noise.

[Segev]

I doubt "I didn't mean to" would hold up for proof of lack of intent.

Also, I would like to see an example of where lack of intent absolves all harm (particularly for crimes on the order of murder). Manslaughter is a different crime from Murder, but it's still a crime.

The example I am thinking of is not one where the authorities who declared lack of intent to absolve of wrongdoing actually legally does absolve, but I cannot really get into more detail without violating forum rules. It's probably more an example of corruption and connections letting somebody be above the law, anyway.

To make a ludicrous / fictional example, Mr. Invisible forgets that he has his superpower on, and crosses the street at a "yield to pedestrians" crosswalk that otherwise lacks a stop sign. Ms. Drie Ver is tooling along at the speed limit, and Mr. Invisible is halfway into her lane before he realizes that she's not slowing down. She doesn't even hit the brakes as his frantic attempt to dive out of the way only leaves him lying on the road. Bump-bump. Mr. Invisible is dead.

Ms. Drie Ver was not being negligent. Mr. Invisible made a mistake, but not a horrific negligent one under most circumstances. Ms. Ver wouldn't be charged with manslaughter. No crime occurred, though it is still tragic.

[Bohandas]

I mean, that seems like a pretty perfect example of the fact that there is not a single meaning for a given text.

I think it's a good example of why you shoukdn't put stiock in interpretations you read into thinbs

[icefractal]

It's funny that rain in LotFP is being used as an example, because that one is hardly an arbitrary decision.
1) LotFP is an OSR game.
2) "Convey the feeling of inhabiting a world that exists independent of the PCs and their particular story" is a design feature of most/all OSR games.
3) "... by the use of random charts" is the most common implementation of that design.

[King of Nowhere]

others already mentioned it, but I'll go with not thinking through the consequences of the setting, and in particular instroducing magic and then not thinking of its consequences.

I just read the stronghold builder's guidebook, and it has practically nothing to say about trying to capture a fortress with magic. It says that the external walls should be far enough that one cannot jump from them to the main fortress. But what if somebody is flying? It says that it would be a good idea to make a watertight roof if you want a submersible fortress. But not just to keep out flying enemies. It has all kinds of teleportaation circles and stuff, and it notes, oh, how useful are those to make a secret room that can be accessed only by teleport! And there is NOT A SINGLE LINE on the fact that also an eenmy could teleport in. You can make prissmatic walls that cost 60k gp per section of wall, but the whole book doesn't have a single way to stop an enemy from teleporting in. Regardless of the fact that by the time you can spend the kind of money needed for a stronghold, you'll have teleport almost at will, and so will any enemy that is capable of challenging you in the first place. I was looking for ideas on how to perfect magic defences, but there's nothing about it. No, the book seems to assume that somebody will make a castle with flaming prismatic walls and a few demons bound to it to defend against a regular medieval army.

But my favourite in this regard is the fluff for an item in baldur's gate 2 that gives poison immunity: "this item was given to the king's taster". Really? Why not give the item to the king so you don't need a taster anymore? Maybe it can only be handled by creatures with the half-moron template? For that matter, what's the point of assassinating the king in a world where literally every temple will selll you a resurrection spell? Oh, the king died of poisoning. Well, let's just bring him back to the temple, they'll fix him straight away. In fact, a resurrection spell costs less than most poisons. Even if your assassination really worked - and it was really idiotic to start with, seeing as how with a simple item the king can be immune to your poison - you spent more money on it than they spent fixing the damage. I don't know, if you have a lot of money to throw away then maybe you can engage in a sort of attrition war. Or maybe assassinating the king is a sort of intimidation; in our world they would set fire to his car, in the forgotten realms they would kill him; the economic damage and time lost are more or less the same.

Really, you can't make magic and have enchanted items in every shop and then sort of forget it for eveyrthing else. It would be like a sci-fi with faster than light travel and massive pervasive robots and then people getting out of the spaceship and using pack animals to carry loads around (yes, star wars, I'm looking at you there. though at least in that case they had some sort of justification for it)

[Honest Tiefling]

Minor nit pick, but that item from Baldur's Gate makes perfect sense. Firstly, if you wanted a way to assassinate the current king (which enunchs are occasionally known to do), slap that on and then poison him. Secondly, even if you didn't want to kill him doesn't mean you wanted to die. Nothing in the item description said that the king gave the item over or had any knowledge of it, and it should be possible to hide amulets easily enough underneath many forms of clothing.

The resurrection thing is really awful, however. You'd think kings would just pay for that in advance or something? Or when the king dies, clerics bursting in through the doors and windows to offer their services to get the credit. Furthermore...Wouldn't kingdoms try to monopolize the sale, export and import of diamonds? You don't want people you don't know about getting resurrected and if you can control the diamond mines you get a bit of a say in the matter.

In the land of people with d8 hitdice, the man with the sparkly rock is king.

[Tinkerer]

The resurrection thing is really awful, however. You'd think kings would just pay for that in advance or something? Or when the king dies, clerics bursting in through the doors and windows to offer their services to get the credit. Furthermore...Wouldn't kingdoms try to monopolize the sale, export and import of diamonds? You don't want people you don't know about getting resurrected and if you can control the diamond mines you get a bit of a say in the matter.

In the land of people with d8 hitdice, the man with the sparkly rock is king.

On a related note... How many diamonds are left in the world? If that many diamonds are getting turned to dust I would imagine they would have to start importing from the elemental plane of Earth, or the quasielemental plane of Mineral. Magic use permanently destroys it's components, considering most fantasy settings have thousands of years of periods with high magic use how much of these rare commodities have been permanently destroyed?

[Honest Tiefling]

On a related note... How many diamonds are left in the world? If that many diamonds are getting turned to dust I would imagine they would have to start importing from the elemental plane of Earth, or the quasielemental plane of Mineral. Magic use permanently destroys it's components, considering most fantasy settings have thousands of years of periods with high magic use how much of these rare commodities have been permanently destroyed?

Diamonds aren't actually rare. Keep in mind, the spell never actually specifies that the gem must be gem-quality. Even then, for gems, diamonds still aren't rare. If people are dying left and right and there's a bunch of high level clerics then we might start having problems, but it'd take a while. Earth elementals or earth magic would also help in getting deposits of diamonds that are too deep, too far underwater or in frigid enviroments, so diamonds would be even less rare before you need to take a field trip to the elemental plane of earth.

Also, in higher tech settings, man-made diamonds are a thing so as long as you have carbon, ta-da!

[Max_Killjoy]

others already mentioned it, but I'll go with not thinking through the consequences of the setting, and in particular instroducing magic and then not thinking of its consequences.

I just read the stronghold builder's guidebook, and it has practically nothing to say about trying to capture a fortress with magic. It says that the external walls should be far enough that one cannot jump from them to the main fortress. But what if somebody is flying? It says that it would be a good idea to make a watertight roof if you want a submersible fortress. But not just to keep out flying enemies. It has all kinds of teleportaation circles and stuff, and it notes, oh, how useful are those to make a secret room that can be accessed only by teleport! And there is NOT A SINGLE LINE on the fact that also an eenmy could teleport in. You can make prissmatic walls that cost 60k gp per section of wall, but the whole book doesn't have a single way to stop an enemy from teleporting in. Regardless of the fact that by the time you can spend the kind of money needed for a stronghold, you'll have teleport almost at will, and so will any enemy that is capable of challenging you in the first place. I was looking for ideas on how to perfect magic defences, but there's nothing about it. No, the book seems to assume that somebody will make a castle with flaming prismatic walls and a few demons bound to it to defend against a regular medieval army.

But my favourite in this regard is the fluff for an item in baldur's gate 2 that gives poison immunity: "this item was given to the king's taster". Really? Why not give the item to the king so you don't need a taster anymore? Maybe it can only be handled by creatures with the half-moron template? For that matter, what's the point of assassinating the king in a world where literally every temple will selll you a resurrection spell? Oh, the king died of poisoning. Well, let's just bring him back to the temple, they'll fix him straight away. In fact, a resurrection spell costs less than most poisons. Even if your assassination really worked - and it was really idiotic to start with, seeing as how with a simple item the king can be immune to your poison - you spent more money on it than they spent fixing the damage. I don't know, if you have a lot of money to throw away then maybe you can engage in a sort of attrition war. Or maybe assassinating the king is a sort of intimidation; in our world they would set fire to his car, in the forgotten realms they would kill him; the economic damage and time lost are more or less the same.

Really, you can't make magic and have enchanted items in every shop and then sort of forget it for eveyrthing else. It would be like a sci-fi with faster than light travel and massive pervasive robots and then people getting out of the spaceship and using pack animals to carry loads around (yes, star wars, I'm looking at you there. though at least in that case they had some sort of justification for it)

There are a lot of worlds, particular in fantasy, that simply fail to follow through with the implications and complications of what we're told about that world -- in the fiction either way, and in the rules of an RPG.

[PhoenixPhyre]

On a related note... How many diamonds are left in the world? If that many diamonds are getting turned to dust I would imagine they would have to start importing from the elemental plane of Earth, or the quasielemental plane of Mineral. Magic use permanently destroys it's components, considering most fantasy settings have thousands of years of periods with high magic use how much of these rare commodities have been permanently destroyed?

I actually made it a setting point that the reason that the Material Plane never seems to run out of minerals (despite having civilized nations for ~20k years) is that it's the job of the Earth Elemental plane and its denizens to fill back in minerals (including in long-abandoned mines). It's a slow process, but given the mortal races' habit of creating earthquakes and volcanoes (and other natural disasters that force mass migrations) it tends to work well enough. I specifically disclaim plate tectonics for my world.

[Honest Tiefling]

I actually made it a setting point that the reason that the Material Plane never seems to run out of minerals (despite having civilized nations for ~20k years) is that it's the job of the Earth Elemental plane and its denizens to fill back in minerals (including in long-abandoned mines). It's a slow process, but given the mortal races' habit of creating earthquakes and volcanoes (and other natural disasters that force mass migrations) it tends to work well enough. I specifically disclaim plate tectonics for my world.

Yeah, you'd kinda think that powerful mages with access to magic could invent new forms of strip mining. And I doubt environmentalism really exists in a world where nature is constantly trying to eat you and you have to hire Murderhobos to get them to stop eating your children.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Yeah, you'd kinda think that powerful mages with access to magic could invent new forms of strip mining. And I doubt environmentalism really exists in a world where nature is constantly trying to eat you and you have to hire Murderhobos to get them to stop eating your children.

Yeah. My world isn't quite a serious take on things--there are lots of tongue-in-cheek call-outs because I find it amusing. And things like having humans descended from goblins. That was mostly decided on the spot to tweak a player playing a traditional high elf (a bit racist). Turned out to work real well once I got it figured out.

That's one trope/cliche/trend I find a bit annoying--when worldbuilders get full of themselves and start taking it too seriously. Not even talking about messages here--it's (one reason) why I found the Star Wars Prequels worse than the first three. The first three were obviously full of people saying "I can't believe we're doing this" and laughing at themselves. The prequels were trying way too hard to be serious and explain everything (midichlorians anyone?).

Remember, "You too are mortal." Learning to laugh at your own silliness is critical to making a good literature product IMO.

[Bohandas]

others already mentioned it, but I'll go with not thinking through the consequences of the setting, and in particular instroducing magic and then not thinking of its consequences.

I just read the stronghold builder's guidebook, and it has practically nothing to say about trying to capture a fortress with magic. It says that the external walls should be far enough that one cannot jump from them to the main fortress. But what if somebody is flying? It says that it would be a good idea to make a watertight roof if you want a submersible fortress. But not just to keep out flying enemies. It has all kinds of teleportaation circles and stuff, and it notes, oh, how useful are those to make a secret room that can be accessed only by teleport! And there is NOT A SINGLE LINE on the fact that also an eenmy could teleport in. You can make prissmatic walls that cost 60k gp per section of wall, but the whole book doesn't have a single way to stop an enemy from teleporting in. Regardless of the fact that by the time you can spend the kind of money needed for a stronghold, you'll have teleport almost at will, and so will any enemy that is capable of challenging you in the first place. I was looking for ideas on how to perfect magic defences, but there's nothing about it. No, the book seems to assume that somebody will make a castle with flaming prismatic walls and a few demons bound to it to defend against a regular medieval army.

To be fair, you have to have seen a place in order to teleport there, so the anti-scrying countermeasures double as anti-teleportation.

[Lord Raziere]

There are a lot of worlds, particular in fantasy, that simply fail to follow through with the implications and complications of what we're told about that world -- in the fiction either way, and in the rules of an RPG.

At the same time, nerds complaining about implications not being followed through has itself become a tiresome cliche, at least to me. The fact that nerds have been complaining about this stuff for how long and people still do the usual "medieval combat is the same in fantasy except for the special ones who turn the tides because thats who the story is about because its more epic that way" thing, just shows that this isn't going away any time soon, and that following through on implications isn't really that important to most people. As many stories have shown, you don't actually NEED to follow through on this to have a good story.

like take The Force. It is apparently some vague energy thing that encompasses and binds all life in Star Wars together or whatever, but no scientist ever sets out to figure out a way to study it without force sensitivity despite their being numerous times where Jedi have been common enough for people to know that the Force exists, and the Force itself is mostly only used fight scenes or for a Jedi showing it off for the audience. And yet, no one really cares, because its still one of the most popular movie franchises of all time. People like their rare special powers to remain rare and special so that they can be used for the awesome things they were meant for-because lets be honest: at the end of the day the Force is a thing made to make Jedi fight scenes look better. rather than extrapolated and used widely and turned into a boring every day thing.

[Bohandas]

At the same time, nerds complaining about implications not being followed through has itself become a tiresome cliche, at least to me. The fact that nerds have been complaining about this stuff for how long and people still do the usual "medieval combat is the same in fantasy except for the special ones who turn the tides because thats who the story is about because its more epic that way" thing, just shows that this isn't going away any time soon, and that following through on implications isn't really that important to most people. As many stories have shown, you don't actually NEED to follow through on this to have a good story.

like take The Force. It is apparently some vague energy thing that encompasses and binds all life in Star Wars together or whatever, but no scientist ever sets out to figure out a way to study it without force sensitivity despite their being numerous times where Jedi have been common enough for people to know that the Force exists, and the Force itself is mostly only used fight scenes or for a Jedi showing it off for the audience. And yet, no one really cares, because its still one of the most popular movie franchises of all time. People like their rare special powers to remain rare and special so that they can be used for the awesome things they were meant for-because lets be honest: at the end of the day the Force is a thing made to make Jedi fight scenes look better. rather than extrapolated and used widely and turned into a boring every day thing.

I think it was studied and developed technologically in some of the old expanded universe novels

[Lord Raziere]

I think it was studied and developed technologically in some of the old expanded universe novels

Exactly my point. After all, expanded universes are hard to get into, full of continuity, are of varying quality and are kind of expensive. Most people don't even bother, so only the people who specifically care about that sort of stuff would make the effort to check them out at all. for most people, the movies are enough.

[Blackhawk748]

I actually made it a setting point that the reason that the Material Plane never seems to run out of minerals (despite having civilized nations for ~20k years) is that it's the job of the Earth Elemental plane and its denizens to fill back in minerals (including in long-abandoned mines). It's a slow process, but given the mortal races' habit of creating earthquakes and volcanoes (and other natural disasters that force mass migrations) it tends to work well enough. I specifically disclaim plate tectonics for my world.

I did something like that. Each mountain rage in a setting i made has whats called a Heart of the Mountain (particularly large ones have multiple). What these do is regenerate the various minerals (the Bones of the Mountain) in the veins over the course of several decades. So the main setting (the Emerald Isles) they just have a number of mines and they do laps around, mining one until its no longer safe and they'd permanently damage the mountain, then they move on.

On another continent, some jerks yanked out a Heart and use it as a massive magical power source and are basically Steampunk Napoleonic Europe.

[8BitNinja]

This is a very, very mild annoyance, but "furry races" kind of annoy me.

Surprisingly, I like reptile races. Probably because I think the "reptilian" conspiracy theories are funny.

[Enixon]

The "Oh those Poor Innocent Orcs" Cliché

"Oh no the orcs/goblins/drow/(insert "bad guy" race of choice here) are just misunderstood, the humans/elves/dwarves/(insert "good guy" race of choice here) are just EVIL RACISTS!"

I've just never seen it done well it always seems to end up going one of two ways either

A. The Orcs (or whatever) still act like well.... standard D&D orcs but we're still supposed to take their side because of something bad that happened a millennium ago gives that gives the current generation a free pass to pillage and murder innocent people that had nothing to do with the event in question.

Or B. The Orcs (or whatever) actually are utterly innocent and pure as the newly driven snow but the mean evil racist humans still treat them like they've been acting like standard D&D orcs because...... reasons...

[King of Nowhere]

At the same time, nerds complaining about implications not being followed through has itself become a tiresome cliche, at least to me. The fact that nerds have been complaining about this stuff for how long and people still do the usual "medieval combat is the same in fantasy except for the special ones who turn the tides because thats who the story is about because its more epic that way" thing, just shows that this isn't going away any time soon, and that following through on implications isn't really that important to most people. As many stories have shown, you don't actually NEED to follow through on this to have a good story.

like take The Force. It is apparently some vague energy thing that encompasses and binds all life in Star Wars together or whatever, but no scientist ever sets out to figure out a way to study it without force sensitivity despite their being numerous times where Jedi have been common enough for people to know that the Force exists, and the Force itself is mostly only used fight scenes or for a Jedi showing it off for the audience. And yet, no one really cares, because its still one of the most popular movie franchises of all time. People like their rare special powers to remain rare and special so that they can be used for the awesome things they were meant for-because lets be honest: at the end of the day the Force is a thing made to make Jedi fight scenes look better. rather than extrapolated and used widely and turned into a boring every day thing.

Different people like different things. I have a strongly logical mind and I like the sense of immersion into a story, so for me following through with implications is natural and woe if they don't make sense. Other people have a much lower investment into a story, they merely wants something that will look cool and entertain them. They don't ask questions and they are bored if you try to show them the answers.
That's why we have niche markets.