Fantasy Tropes/Cliches that Annoy You

[ross]

I can't tell if youre for or not for this.
But to go along with this, i do it and I prefer to do it for immersion.

My cliche that I hate:
Because of peter pan I think pixies and sprites are looked at as always shy, polite, cute, introverted. They can be evil, they're very sneaky and quiet i think they would excel at it. I'm tired of the cute blushing pixie that spies on you throughout the forest. Instead of spying try one that is eyeing your loot and plans to steal some of it. Put those sneaky properties they all have to good use.

Another thing about fey is pixie dust always makes people float for some reason. Again, probably peter pan.

pixies devour you in your sleep, feet first

the dust keeps you from waking up until they're like halfway up your torso

[CharonsHelper]

Another thing about fey is pixie dust always makes people float for some reason. Again, probably peter pan.

I don't think I've ever even seen that one outside of Peter Pan.

[Xuc Xac]

Fixed. You made a typo when spelling "sick".

and I care about the heroes, so you're wrong. Because Screw villains, because playing one just feels wrong to me.

Corrected your spelling again. I'm sorry. Do you need a dictionary? I'd be happy to bring up the spelling if you're somehow incapable of looking it up yourself.

What are you talking about? I'm helping you. What kind of person are you, to refuse help?

That's quite a load of stones for someone in a glass house.

[Lord Raziere]

That's quite a load of stones for someone in a glass house.

I don't actually care, they annoyed me by saying who cares about heroes and used slang, so I just annoyed them back by making fun of their slang.

[Florian]

The problem with this explanation is that in most settings magic is stagnant (or even regressive) too. You can find copies of all the most current spells and magic items laying around in ancient tombs. Sometimes you even can find better ones than what is cureently available.

If technological advancememt was simply left behind in order to advance magic instead than the world should move towards something like the Eldar Empire

Some while ago, I ran a Splittermond-based in a home-brew setting where "magic" was the ultimate expression of technology. The whole planet is saturated with swarms of nano particles able to store and release huge amount of energy, with the user interface being keyed to verbal and somatic commands. The only drawback being that "casting spells" deplete the stored energy for a while and each environment, room, building and so on only holding a limited amount of "juice" before running dry.

That had some interesting impacts:
- Compressed nano swarms served as "coins" as well as batteries.
- People need plain older tech as backup when the juice runs dry
- Smaller settlements and a reason for the classic "Wizards Tower", as larger population centers tend to drain to much energy.

Edit: The precursor race that settled that planet as a bio-weapon manufacturing plant for an insane civil war naturally build the user interface towards their native language and body shape. As they died out in said war, it´s guessing time and hard research to find out what works to trigger an effect.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

It's not specifically a fantasy thing, more a general action and horror thing, but my most hated trope is probably the worse than wasted sacrifice.

It's when the characters are being chased while racing towards some goal, and one of them says "I'll hold them off!" or something to that respect. In some cases the character has just been bitten by a vampire and has about 3 minutes to live or had their back broken and can't move their legs, which would make racing kind of hard. But in many cases they're actually just kind of fine, or no worse off than a week before when they were in about the same situation. The holding off thing is kind of nonsensical, they have much more to contribute if they keep going.

But that's not the part I hate yet. What I hate is that all the characters will spend a full two minutes arguing about it and showing what an emotional moment this is, then everyone except sacrifice guy leaves as the bad guys are already rounding the corner, and then the great martyr gets shot down and overrun in about 20 seconds (or in some cases even miraculously escapes, but you won't know that until after all danger has past and they never interfered with anything again, even though this was a thing they were willing to die for), so the whole action cost the group not just a member (and a weapon and a bunch of gear), but also about a hundred seconds worth of time, which was in such a short supply already that (I'm starting to repeat myself here) people were willing to die for it.

The only thing it adds to the story is that the writer think the first part is better with more characters and the last part with less. If that's the case, just drop a giant monster on the dude or something. Either that or make the moment make some sort of sense. Good reason to stay, short farewell, enemies actually short on their heels before this point, extended winning of time. Like show just a few close up shots of dead person firing their gun/bow/dwarf launcher throughout the next 3 minutes or something.

[Bohandas]

This one's more perplexing than annoying, but what the heck is up with all the evil triangle gods?

I can think of three, all from completely different franchises, and of those three only one of them makes any sense.

Out of Trigon the Terrible (whose name literally means "triangle"), Apomps (whose rites and symbols are all inexplicably triangle themed), and Bill Cipher (who is shaped like the triangle symbol above the pyramid on the dollar bill) only Bill Cipher makes any sense.

What the heck is up with the other two; how did triangles become linked with evil fantasy deities?

[2D8HP]

I don't actually care, they annoyed me by...

.
I had the same reaction, then I re-discovered the "Ignore" feature of the Forum.

Works well!

[PhoenixPhyre]

This one's more perplexing than annoying, but what the heck is up with all the evil triangle gods?

I can think of three, all from completely different franchises, and of those three only one of them makes any sense.

Out of Trigon the Terrible (whose name literally means "triangle"), Apomps (whose rites and symbols are all inexplicably triangle themed), and Bill Cipher (who is shaped like the triangle symbol above the pyramid on the dollar bill) only Bill Cipher makes any sense.

What the heck is up with the other two; how did triangles become linked with evil fantasy deities?

Possibly by way of the Illuminati (who for whatever reason are associated with pyramids, which look like triangles)? Dunno, really.

[Honest Tiefling]

This one's more perplexing than annoying, but what the heck is up with all the evil triangle gods?

I could see triangles being easy to draw and design and not connected with any major religion that most people don't want to offend (at least that I am aware of). Three is also associated with magic and the occult and whatnot so BAM! Triangle.

[Tiadoppler]

One of my biggest pet peeves.
Evenly Divisible Base 10 Numbers and Societal Constructs as Cosmic Time Limits: The artifact works for 1 hour. The prophecy will be fulfilled in one thousand years. The portal activates for one week, every fifty years.

When's the last time you saw characters go to a 'midnight' ritual, and have to wait around for half an hour (or miss it entirely) because they're at the edge of their time zone?
When's the last time you saw a hero with a single day to complete a task run out of time with the timer at 23:56.04?

I appreciated Stargate's convention that the portals would stay open for... well, a bit more than 38 minutes, because the culture that made them didn't use minutes, dammit.

[Deepbluediver]

One of my biggest pet peeves.
Evenly Divisible Base 10 Numbers and Societal Constructs as Cosmic Time Limits: The artifact works for 1 hour. The prophecy will be fulfilled in one thousand years. The portal activates for one week, every fifty years.

To be fair, things like day, month, and year can all have very definite non-arbitrary time periods. And some of the other stuff, like missing the ritual because of day-light savings time is the kind of thing I wouldn't expect to show up in a story unless it's a comedy.

But I do get your point, and I'd love to pull something like this on a group. Have a full moon only happen every 6 months or conversely have it happen every 6 days, or have prophecies demarcated in other counting systems.

[Xuc Xac]

What the heck is up with the other two; how did triangles become linked with evil fantasy deities?

Just a guess: The creators wanted to use pentagrams, but didn't want to deal with "Satanic Panic" backlash. You can't just add a point, because that's the Star of David. If you subtract a point, it's just a square. So they subtract two and get a triangle, which had many mystical (but non-Satanic) associations already. Adding two points to get a septagram is more trouble than it's worth, but triangles are easy to draw.

[Bohandas]

Possibly by way of the Illuminati (who for whatever reason are associated with pyramids, which look like triangles)? Dunno, really.

Like I said, that's clearly the case with Bill Cipher, but almost equally clearly not the case with the other two

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I could see triangles being easy to draw and design and not connected with any major religion that most people don't want to offend (at least that I am aware of). Three is also associated with magic and the occult and whatnot so BAM! Triangle.

Just a guess: The creators wanted to use pentagrams, but didn't want to deal with "Satanic Panic" backlash. You can't just add a point, because that's the Star of David. If you subtract a point, it's just a square. So they subtract two and get a triangle, which had many mystical (but non-Satanic) associations already. Adding two points to get a septagram is more trouble than it's worth, but triangles are easy to draw.

Jup, this makes sense to me as well. It has to be iconic, super recognizable, easy to draw yet not too symplistic, not seem farfetched or weird (if they weren't real life things a cross or a moon might already feel a bit "not basic enough", hammer and sickle (I know, not religious, but for comparisons sake) would be right out.) And it must not be taken. Variations on a triangle fit this pretty well. It's also much edgier than a circle. ;)

I bet if you look for fake nazi parties you'll also find a bunch of really similar designs.

[Tiadoppler]

To be fair, things like day, month, and year can all have very definite non-arbitrary time periods. And some of the other stuff, like missing the ritual because of day-light savings time is the kind of thing I wouldn't expect to show up in a story unless it's a comedy.

Well, I prefer comedies, and I see your point.

A day on earth is 23 hours, 56-and-a-bit minutes.
A calendar month on earth is... well... 30 days + or - a few days. There is usually one full moon per calendar month.
A lunar month on earth is 29 days, 12 hours and 44-and-a-bit minutes. There is always one full moon per lunar month.

*Note: the word Month derives from the same source as Moon. If there's a full moon every 6 months, it means that that moon is drifting away from the planet, and is taking six times as long to orbit as it used to.

A year is 365.24 days.

I have no problems at all with fantasy planets that are created by gods with perfectly even orbits and easily divisible numbers of days.
I have no problems with fantasy 'planes' where the world has no time zones and the sun deity has to shake the sun awake every morning.
Edit: I also have no problems with worlds that have units of time defined by the actual planetary motion. i.e. a Qonos day might be 25 Qonos-hours. A Qonos-hour is defined precisely by the length of the day.


I do have a problem with "at midnight on the thirteenth night, witches around the Earth will simultaneously complete their rituals, freeing Big'Badgai from the prison he was cast into precisely one thousand years ago. By prophecy."

[Max_Killjoy]

A day on earth is 23 hours, 56-and-a-bit minutes.

Don't forget the difference between a solar day and a stellar day.

[Tiadoppler]

Don't forget the difference between a solar day and a stellar day.

Yeah!

I'd love to use precise day/month lengths dramatically. It seems like perfect 'deal with the devil-use exact language' fodder. Either a clever protagonist tricking a devil into losing a bet, or vice versa.

"Mua-ha-ha-ha-haa! Your time is up, Kingly McFarmboy!"
"Check yer cell phone, Nasty Von Evilgoatee. In this county... we don't cotton to no daylight saving time conventions!"
"No! Curse you, McFarmboy! Curse you!! Arghhhh..."

[Malimar]

Edit: I also have no problems with worlds that have units of time defined by the actual planetary motion. i.e. a Qonos day might be 25 Qonos-hours. A Qonos-hour is defined precisely by the length of the day.

Deep Space 9 operates on the Bajoran day, which is 26 hours long. But those hours were conveniently Earth hours, as far as I recall. So, trope half averted.

[rs2excelsior]

Deep Space 9 operates on the Bajoran day, which is 26 hours long. But those hours were conveniently Earth hours, as far as I recall. So, trope half averted.

I mean, that more or less makes sense. Humans showing up on an alien planet will define that planet's day by existing time-units. (Unless the native Bajorans also used the hour... one could argue that their own time units were translated into English, but that starts to stretch it.)

The "hour" isn't really based on an astronomical phenomenon, like the year, month, and day are, as far as I know. It's just a convenient dividing up of the day. The Romans divided the day (sunrise-sunset) into twelve hours, and the night into four watches. Which meant the length of an hour varied as the year went on. (as far as I can recall--it's been a long time since Latin class where we went over Roman timekeeping)

[ross]

I don't actually care, they annoyed me by saying who cares about heroes and used slang, so I just annoyed them back by making fun of their slang.

slang is good and heroes don't matter :^)

[ross]

Some while ago, I ran a Splittermond-based in a home-brew setting where "magic" was the ultimate expression of technology. The whole planet is saturated with swarms of nano particles able to store and release huge amount of energy, with the user interface being keyed to verbal and somatic commands. The only drawback being that "casting spells" deplete the stored energy for a while and each environment, room, building and so on only holding a limited amount of "juice" before running dry.

That had some interesting impacts:
- Compressed nano swarms served as "coins" as well as batteries.
- People need plain older tech as backup when the juice runs dry
- Smaller settlements and a reason for the classic "Wizards Tower", as larger population centers tend to drain to much energy.

Edit: The precursor race that settled that planet as a bio-weapon manufacturing plant for an insane civil war naturally build the user interface towards their native language and body shape. As they died out in said war, it´s guessing time and hard research to find out what works to trigger an effect.

So I realize that all energy ultimately either comes from the sun or nuclear fuel, just curious what the nanobots are doing when they recharge? do they use bio matter, direct solar, nuclear, fossil, temp diff, something else?

[Bohandas]

This is more of a sci-fi thing than a fantasy thing, but all the gaps in the Star Trek universe's technology are a little jarring. There are some of them I can understand, where there's obviously no way that the writers could have anticipated some particular piece of tech. It's less excusible when they don't have access to technologies that were already a couple decades old even way back in 1964. The Voyager apparently doesn't have a heart-lung machine and can't rig one up (instead having to rely on overengineered holograpbic lungs that, despite the lack of tubes, actually seem more invasive and are not a thing that is in common use in the Star Trek Universe either). This is a piece of technology that didn't even need to be anticipated because hospitals had been using it for ten years before even TOS premiered, and had been around in experimental forms since Gene Roddenberry was five. What gives?

[Honest Tiefling]

As much as I hate to be fair to Voyager, there are some factors:

1) They weren't sent out for a long-term mission, so there may BE some, just no one thought that they might need one. I mean, Maqui aren't known for lung removal and most things that would take out a lung probably aren't going to leave much of a corpse.
2) Neelix is an alien, so I am not 100% sure you can just hook him up to whatever. But since this would have killed Neelix, they should have tried.
3) I think in Caretaker the sick bay got hit hard, which is why they keep relying on the EMH despite Janeway's repeated messing around with him and treating him like a dog rubbing his butt on the carpet.

I think the last one would be an excellent explanation for much of sci-fi, because at some point your engineer is likely to start looting the med bay for anything to keep the place going. So I'll be remembering that as an excuse not to have some tech for a plot I had in mind for a Space Opera.

[Malimar]

1) They weren't sent out for a long-term mission, so there may BE some, just no one thought that they might need one. I mean, Maqui aren't known for lung removal and most things that would take out a lung probably aren't going to leave much of a corpse.

This would be a good explanation, except most supplies like that are kept in the form of replicator blueprints and only replicated when they're needed. They could have suffered some loss of computer data that would explain this...

But if they could rig up holographic lungs, they probably should have been able to rig up replicated ones. (I don't remember that episode, so I don't know what the actual solution was.)

[Honest Tiefling]

This would be a good explanation, except most supplies like that are kept in the form of replicator blueprints and only replicated when they're needed. They could have suffered some loss of computer data that would explain this...

Extreme replicator rations. I think Janeway's descent into evil was perpetuated by a lack of coffee, personally. Through if a DM was doing a Star Trek game, I think corruption of the files or damage to their physical storage might be excellent ways around this problem to avoid weird tech levels in a game.

But if they could rig up holographic lungs, they probably should have been able to rig up replicated ones. (I don't remember that episode, so I don't know what the actual solution was.)

Neelix wouldn't have a blueprint in the library, since he's an alien. No one except THE ONLY NURSE ON BOARD could have donated lungs. Does raise the question of how easy it is to scan someone into the replicator, or how easy it is to make a clone of someone with the transporter and to kill one clone.

Then again, eating Neelix might have been a better solution since he was so dang useless.

[Bohandas]

But if they could rig up holographic lungs, they probably should have been able to rig up replicated ones.

Indeed, especially since holo tech was explicitly an offshoot of replicator tech (I think this was covered in either the first or the second episode of TNG)

or how easy it is to make a clone of someone with the transporter and to kill one clone.

Again TNG provides an answer, both to the plausibility and the ethicality of this (yes to both, theoretically). In Lonely Among Us they are able to replicate Capt.Picard from the pattern buffer BUT they have to first recover what is implied to be his soul to do it, implying that not only can they replicate someone but ALSO that without putting some sort of soul or energy pattern or spirit into it the replicated body would be inert, (and thus ok to cut up)

[Kitten Champion]

Trek also has utilized transporters to essentially physically reboot characters who've been artificially aged - old and young - by using their stored patterns. Not to mention create a duplicate of a man and have them exist simultaneously, or somehow merge two distinct lifeforms into a singular hybrid being. Then there was Scotty who survived decades as an energy pattern on a shuttle's transporter.

They probably should be able to synthesize complex life-forms wholesale from replicators and no one should truly *die* die with their technology - though they would lose whatever memories they had between their last scan and time of death - but it would undermine almost all dramatic tension. I have seen the immortal-through-data-back-up concept used in various SF stories - including an interesting one where a man solves his own murders repeatedly - but it would ruin the Star Trek universe if we could actually accept it as a thing and not a lame get-out-jail-free plot device that we should swiftly forget was a thing as much as transwarp beaming and magic revival blood would.

Though, regarding this subject, I do like that Roddenberry did put some consideration for how chronology would be different in the 23rd century relative to our own. I don't really know how Stardates work - and I don't care - but it's a thing to express being part of this next level of civilization. Also they use metric, very progressive.

[Gideon Falcon]

Dang, now I read the article, a sexagesimal system can actually be really useful... I myself, if I were to design an Ancients/Forerunners/Precursors/Builders style ancient high-tech alien society, I'd base their time/space measurements off of Planck values. That makes a lot of sense once they get to a certain point, since (for those unfamiliar with quantum mechanics) those are the absolute shortest length of space or time that meaningfully exist, and everything else is a multiple of it. Just have their basic operational unit be a nice round order of magnitude in their number system of the Planck value, and you have a metric that works on any scale with minimal complex conversion ratios- especially if you do similar things with mass and energy based on the minimal values there (I'm pretty sure we have at least good estimates of those), and then most of the math gets easier at the arithmetic level for most things I can think of, since they should eventually all reduce to multiples of those basic numbers. It's just geometry that starts bringing in irrational numbers, then.

[Bohandas]

When a villain monologue causes one of the good guys to abruptly join the villain. This twist could potentially be done well, but most of the time it comes off as random. I've seen this in Revenge of the Sith, Watchmen, and The Dark Knight and the only one where it almost makes sense is The Dark Knight, and even then the length and scope of the violeny outburst that the Joker provokes in Harvey seems a bit ridiculous