To use tropes or not to use tropes in your game...

[Mordridakon]

I posted a meme in the meme thread that went something to the effect of "This has been in every JRPG since the dawn of the genre, but I'm going to make it a point to criticize it in your game." And it started a little discussion that I'd like to continue here.
As I continue to get feedback, a common theme is emerging, "Don't do the tried and true, be unique in your game." In my experience, I can tell you being unique is A) almost impossible, and B ) Ill advised for newbies. Years ago, I first published a set of book written in a unique style where I broke every trope and writing convention, and they were terrible and poorly received. So then I went back and wrote conventionally, and those books were decent and better received. While I've moved on from fiction, the lesson still remains.

I don't really see the problem with doing the tried and true. If it works, who cares if its been done before. If its been done before, its been done before because it works. Convention is convention because it works. If you're advanced in your craft and can be sure you are putting in unique things well, go do it. If you're not, like me, stick with easy and tried.

So no, I'm not going to put in an original battle system and skill system using 350 plug-ins. I'm going to work on doing the best job implementing the normal, and then maybe in a few games, I'll do something unique.

So I guess my point is this: Stick with the tried and true if you're not a craft master, and even then doing unique well is hard to do.
These are my thoughts anyway, what are yours?

 

[Lornsteyn]

Thats how I work at my projects.
I want them to be like the traditional RPGs everyone knows, nothing wrong with that.
I add the stuff I think works good and dont put stuff in it to look special.
Its not a bad thing to try new stuff, but some people just overthink it too much.
Many RPGs annoy me with to much nonsense in their battlesystem nowadays.
On the other side, if everyone tries to be unique, you stick out with an old school game, I guess.

 

[Countyoungblood]

The happy middle ground is to create inbetween the known and unknown. Inovate in little ways building off of a proven model.

 

[Sword_of_Dusk]

It's not often I actually find myself quoting TV Tropes, but here we are:

Tropes are not the same thing as cliches. They may be brand new but seem trite and hackneyed; they may be thousands of years old but seem fresh and new. They are not bad, they are not good; tropes are tools that the creator of a work of art uses to express their ideas to the audience. It's pretty much impossible to create a story without tropes.

 

[Mystic_Enigma]

If you ask me, if you work on a game, Tropes WILL happen, wether you intended them or not. It more matters on HOW you use 'em to get where you need to go.

I pay little attention to Tropes. If they're noticed, alright then, but I'm not one to nitpick unless they're morally questionable. Or something is there solely for the purpose of having a unique Trope...I want to make my projects my own way, not be restricted to a list of trends that happen to be there.

 

[Grunwave]

Here are some of the tropes I really like:

-Elemental Magic system -- Brandon Sanderson prides himself on creating new magic systems in each of his books. It seems a lot of people enjoy this. I simply do not. This system is based on the real world and ancient philosophies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_element

-Unwinnable Plot fights -- When the heroes encounter the Big Boss before the end of the game, losing to him makes sense. I enjoy seeing seeing how powerful he is early on, it invest me with a desire to overcome him. This is an inversion of a newer trope where you start with all of your abilities, but lose them after the first stage and then spend the game re-collecting them.

-Equipment Upgrades (non-magical) -- When each successive town sells better equipment. Great mechanically. Completely illogical thematically. I have made a point of explaining this via story elements within my own game.

-Saving the World -- Should the plot of every RPG be an end of world disaster? Yes. A good D&D campaign will start with weak characters, who eventually become local then regional heroes. After this acclaim and maxing out your level, there are only so many Dragons or Giants you can kill before it becomes trite. At some point the world itself must be saved. If not, what is the point?

-Grinding -- Have you ever played an Eastern MMO? Asian players love grinding. I can recall a quest in Silk Road where I was asked to kill 1,000 tigers. I logged out of the game and uninstalled it immediately. But I do believe that a small level of grinding can be fun. In Final Fantasy 1, you should really get your characters to level 2 before going into the first dungeon. Fighting a couple small fights allows you to acclimate yourself to the game. Later, before the swamp cave, you need to grind from level 4-7. The most efficient way to do this is to find the area that spawns fights against ogres and kill a score of them. Figuring out this efficiency is part of the beauty of the Grind.
In my own game, I have put a very small amount of grinding. I genuinely dislike when you level-up multiple times, just while traversing a dungeon. That type of leveling feels very unearned and leaves me feeling uninvested in the game/characters.

Dislike:

-Heavy Prologue -- Give me Final Fantasy 1. Let me jump right into the game. I can handle maybe 10 minutes of backstory before getting the controls, but anymore and... That said, do not give me the controls then immediately take them away again just to tell me more dumb **** about your universe. And this is coming from a guy who reads fantasy books.

-Looting houses in towns -- This is a staple of the industry. Developers want to reward players for exploring their towns. But why is there a treasure chest down at the beach? Why doesn't the villager stop me from taking his money and potions? Find another way to induce players to explore your towns. Personally, I put a puzzle into each town in my game, forcing you to explore and solve the puzzle before you can progress in the story.

-Possessing a ship/Sea Battles -- Fighting sharks and other aquatic creatures from the boat you stole from pirates makes no sense. The ability to travel the world in a different fashion has been overdone so much, that it is probably un-enjoyable for most RPG players.

-Airship -- Final Fantasy explains this very well within its lore. An airship in your game is unoriginal and we all know it. No offense, but you might as well put a Chocobo mount in your game.

-Amnesia -- ...

-Elemental Dungeons -- Surely have one or a couple of these in your game. They make for solid gameplay. But if the focus of you game is traveling to elemental dungeons to fix the world: you are regurgitating.

 

[RCXDan]

The best method I follow is to build a foundation first and then worry about being original or unique later (or maybe even never!), which often requires using tropes, twisting them and adding depth to them.

If I had to throw a really wild guess, what gets people saying "you have to be more unique" is actually more "please add depth to this, because it's bare bones right now".

Like let's be real: what matters to me is not whether your story/game/whatever is original or has a bunch of features that sound like what I enjoy, it's whether what you are doing is competently executed.

For example, let's take @Grunwave disliking elemental dungeons: yeah, if you use bare-standard elemental dungeons like ice cave or volcano, it tends to leave a bad taste in peoples' mouths because they're not just something we've seen before, but they also lack their own identities.

Due to that, it's kind of a foregone conclusion that there won't be anything interesting inside them.

It's a different story altogether if you build on it: let's turn the volcano into an ancient underground magma factory used to create superweapons and you have to fight failed prototype robots with differing powers, battle roles and lore attached to them, often in the form of logs regarding what each robot was originally intended for... and that's only one part of the dungeon, not even counting what it means to the people that live near it.

I built on what I had, made it a real place in the world instead of a copy-paste surface trope, and so on.

Regarding characters and plot, it helps taking inspiration from real life to see how other people act. Me personally I like to keep my characters grounded like if they were real people even if the world around them is all sorts of wacky anime nonsense, generally keeping tabs on how different characters react so they're consistent with future interactions.

 

[Chocopyro]

I always preferred the "Yes, AND" approach when it comes to tropes. Make them similar enough to what you'd expect, but with subtle twists. Their trope, your way.

"Why yes, the orcs are chaotic evil savages, but they were also abandoned by their god recently, and rather than throw themselves to their eminent extinction, they have opted instead to make themselves useful to the races that they have always harassed in the past, because they believe the Foster god might accept them the same way he did the humans and elves." Just works better for making orcs interesting than "Well, actually, they aren't green, and they have a highly sophisticated and orderly society." or "They green, drink mrogg, and their diet consists of something dead and a cookie."

 

[rue669]

I totally agree with @Chocopyro. Take lessons from improv and Yes AND a trope.

Tropes are great. Novelist use them relentlessly. Fantasy readers love dragons in their novels and writers know that. So...put a dragon in!

But I totally think that it's about taking those tropes and adding your own unique twist to it. Give them something they know, but only different.

 

[CraneSoft]

Short Answer: Yes.

The gaming industry has always been following what works with a little spice thrown in here and there to differentiate it from the others, instead of trying to be special which more often than not is going to fail miserably. We all know how Death Stranding turned out when you try too hard to be unique and original.

 

[Mordridakon]

Possessing a ship/Sea Battles -- Fighting sharks and other aquatic creatures from the boat you stole from pirates makes no sense. The ability to travel the world in a different fashion has been overdone so much, that it is probably un-enjoyable for most RPG players.

This and airships are a result of a trope that I just find weird, JRPG over worlds are almost always designed to lock you off from other sections, so you get weirdly shaped continents and such. The ship/airship is designed to be a fast travel system later in the game.
This is why in my stuff, you can wander around the whole map, you just can't get in places until they get unlocked. Its equally as artificial, but less strange than continents which are like 90% conveniently shaped mountain ranges.

 

[MushroomCake28]

It's not a black and white question. Both sides have advantages and disadvantages:

• Following traditions: It's a well established model for a reason: it works. This is also highly advantageous because players are used to it and know how the logic works. No need to explain anything, they'll know how to play your game intuitively.
• Creating something new: this has the advantage of being unique, which makes it a lot easier to stand out from the crowd. It can however backfire if people don't like your new ways.

It's not about which one you pick, but rather how much of each. It's all about balancing both sides for your particular needs. Some people want to be more creative and will tend more toward the innovation side, but they won't abandon all pre-existing systems.

 

[trouble time]

Put simply...yes its literally impossible not to since trope is just a recognizeable pattern in media. You won't be able to write a story without them. Even stream of consiouness writing has tropes. If you mean shoukd you jump on a fad then the answer is maybe.

Whether something is done often or not, the actual question to ask is can you do it well. If you do something unique poorly then you end up with a poor product, same as if you tred the established paths and did it poorly.

New =/= good

 

[Tai_MT]

I posted a meme in the meme thread that went something to the effect of "This has been in every JRPG since the dawn of the genre, but I'm going to make it a point to criticize it in your game." And it started a little discussion that I'd like to continue here.

There is nothing wrong with tropes. What tends to get the criticism is when people don't know how to execute tropes well, don't know why the trope exists in the first place, and fail to make the trope compelling at all.

For example: "money is evil" or "business is evil" or whatever the specific name for the trope is. It's been around forever. But, let's use some examples.

Bioshock - The trope is executed well and is interesting for a few reasons. Primarily, it begins with a premise of unbridled capitalism with no rules or regulations in a place where nobody can interfere. People go from their usual rules into this new society and some have issues adjusting. Others, take to it like a fish to water and begin immediately using capitalism to amass power and sew discontent. It's a world where being underhanded has become common. The end results of that are the game you are playing. It's a logical and believable progression rooted in the real world.

The Outer Worlds - The trope is executed extremely poorly. All companies and corporations are just generally evil primarily out of so much braindead stupidity that it's a wonder people even remember to keep breathing. It is so illogical and backwards and nonsensical that the writing directly suffers as a result. So much of the game is "for the evulz" and not for any real tangible payoff. The game itself has companies actively shooting their own profit margins in the face for no good reason, other than the writers wanted to paint corporations as the badguys. Even if one were to try to use the excuse that "It's a parody" and "it's a joke", it falls pretty flat as both as well. This is because the trope is executed very poorly with no thought what-so-ever put into how any of this even affects the world.

As I continue to get feedback, a common theme is emerging, "Don't do the tried and true, be unique in your game." In my experience, I can tell you being unique is A) almost impossible, and B ) Ill advised for newbies. Years ago, I first published a set of book written in a unique style where I broke every trope and writing convention, and they were terrible and poorly received. So then I went back and wrote conventionally, and those books were decent and better received. While I've moved on from fiction, the lesson still remains.

I think, as a fellow writer... you've learned the wrong lesson. Being unique is fairly easy with enough imagination and a willingness to actually try new things. I've modeled nearly everything I do creatively on doing things nobody else has ever done. Taking leaps everyone else refuses to take. Throwing myself into risks everyone else is unwilling to have.

It isn't difficult to be "truly unique". I've even thrown this silly notion back into the faces of many people who thought that. All you need is an idea nobody has used before. There are plenty of those about.

The difference between improvement and innovation is that innovators have new ideas or new applications of old ideas. People who improve things just take what already exists and slot it into something more palatable than the current iteration.

It is the difference between people who create entire living universes and those who just create a single story.

My personal guess is that you did not understand the purpose and use of tropes and so in removing them all, you gave yourself a massive incoherent wreck of a book that only existed for the purpose of not using tropes in it.

When you write, if your goal is not "to tell a good story with characters an audience cares about", that work is inevitably doomed to fail, no matter what you put into it.

Your other attempt was likely more well received because you had decided to just write a good story and not care about the tropes present. You put the goal of writing a good story first and foremost, rather than the goal of "do not use tropes". There was probably a huge difference in the final product as a result of the shifted priorities.

I don't really see the problem with doing the tried and true. If it works, who cares if its been done before. If its been done before, its been done before because it works. Convention is convention because it works. If you're advanced in your craft and can be sure you are putting in unique things well, go do it. If you're not, like me, stick with easy and tried.

There's nothing wrong with doing things that work. Not everyone is a savant. Not everyone is an innovator. Those people are insanely rare and often are borderline insane as a result.

I'm up for a good story no matter what. As long as it's put together competently, I'm in. It doesn't have to be amazing. It doesn't have to blow my socks off.

I think most people are like that. They're just looking for a good time. They're not looking for genius or thought-provoking material. They're not really looking for something "unique" either.

So no, I'm not going to put in an original battle system and skill system using 350 plug-ins. I'm going to work on doing the best job implementing the normal, and then maybe in a few games, I'll do something unique.

So I guess my point is this: Stick with the tried and true if you're not a craft master, and even then doing unique well is hard to do.
These are my thoughts anyway, what are yours?

My point is that tropes exist for a reason. Criticism of tropes exists for a reason. Knowing how to use tropes and use them well is part of the curve of writing anything decent.

Doing unique things isn't too hard to do so long as you're willing to just look at what has never been done and make it work. It isn't impossible. Not everything has been done before. Not ever story has been told before. Not every idea has been conveyed before.

It's just that there's a lot of people who are unable to forge their own paths and their creativity extends to what they already know and can emulate.

 

[Mordridakon]

Your other attempt was likely more well received because you had decided to just write a good story and not care about the tropes present. You put the goal of writing a good story first and foremost, rather than the goal of "do not use tropes". There was probably a huge difference in the final product as a result of the shifted priorities.

You're pretty much correct here, except for the fact you seemed to think I stopped being original. Said plot of well-received book was about gangster parrots who hold a technological dystopia hostage in order gain citizenship in said dystopia and the private detectives who stop them(including the dragon in my profile pic). I've created multiple complete universes I could write-in if I felt like flushing money down the toilet, including one revolving around "space accountants"(which I could actually turn into a JRPG easily with the right battle system: Debit Fire Damage Credit hit points!).
So no, I learned the right lesson, to write conventionally and tell a good story instead of being edgy.

 

[Tai_MT]

You're pretty much correct here, except for the fact you seemed to think I stopped being original.

I never said you stopped being original, nor did I imply it. I'm disagreeing with your blanket assessment of "always do the conventional because doing something unique is almost impossible and something newbies should never attempt".

What I said is that it's the wrong lesson to learn. The lesson you should have learned is that you should just focus on telling a good story with characters an audience cares about. It doesn't have to be unique. It doesn't have to be anything except entertaining. The premise of writing a story should always be to tell a good story. It shouldn't ever be to "write a story in which you break all the tropes and usual conventions". I mean, you can do that, but it should happen in the course of writing a good story and not be the goal of writing the story.

If you find it very difficult to write something compelling that is also "unique", then that's not even a slight against you. That's just the usual way of things. Only someone very skilled in the craft could likely pull it off. I attempt it frequently with my writing and fall short. I have unique ideas, and fun characters, but writing a compelling story for both is where I end up losing ground. It's why I got into Video Game storytelling instead. It's a medium in which the player is partially telling the story with you. My particular talents are also why I make fantastic Tabletop settings and worlds for my players to interact with, complete with compelling hooks and satisfying payoffs.

But, the minutiae in between? Not my forte.

There is no harm trying to grasp beyond our reach. There is only harm in believing you can never grasp beyond your reach, and people should never try.

All an audience wants from a creator is an entertaining time. It doesn't have to be 3,000 page epic. It doesn't have to be thought-provoking. It doesn't have to be literature that changes the face of the world. It just has to be fun. It doesn't have to be unique, just fun. It doesn't have to do new things, it just has to be fun.

Tropes or no tropes. It just has to be fun.

Personally, I prefer using tropes. Though, admittedly... nearly everything you could ever write is a trope. There's probably 40 tropes just in this post alone. I just prefer to "play" with the tropes and do interesting things with them.

 

[Ksi]

I have always said and will always stand by this thought: The details are what matter most.
Make your game about four elemental crystals and four warriors of light trying to save them from the forces of darkness before it's too late. What matters is how the story is told and the details that make up the story.

Sure, from afar it looks generic but maybe the heroes of light are bored and don't want to do this particular job. They're just doing it because the king threatened them with jail (again) if they don't. Maybe the crystals aren't hidden away in some esoteric temples but freely wander the world and the heroes have to find them so it's now a race against the enemies, who actually have good reason to want the crystals, it turns out.

Or maybe it's one hero of light who had strange dreams and is sure that peace is about to end but has a hard time rallying the others to come to his side and help him fight against an unknown darkness that he has no proof of even existing. When they visit the crystals, they're fine, but suddenly the king is killed and the heroes were there at the time and now have to prove themselves whilst evil lurks and attempts to steal the power of the crystals without actually stealing the crystals themselves.

It's how you tell the story, the details that make it up and the way you tell it that matters, not where the ideas came from. You can have the most generic story or gameplay in the world to begin with but what you add to it, what you take from it and how you use it is what makes or breaks a game.

So, instead of worrying whether you should, think about how to make it work for you and how to use it in an interesting way.

 

[Ailius]

Here are some of the tropes I really like:

-Elemental Magic system -- Brandon Sanderson prides himself on creating new magic systems in each of his books. It seems a lot of people enjoy this. I simply do not. This system is based on the real world and ancient philosophies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_element

-Unwinnable Plot fights -- When the heroes encounter the Big Boss before the end of the game, losing to him makes sense. I enjoy seeing seeing how powerful he is early on, it invest me with a desire to overcome him. This is an inversion of a newer trope where you start with all of your abilities, but lose them after the first stage and then spend the game re-collecting them.

-Equipment Upgrades (non-magical) -- When each successive town sells better equipment. Great mechanically. Completely illogical thematically. I have made a point of explaining this via story elements within my own game.

-Saving the World -- Should the plot of every RPG be an end of world disaster? Yes. A good D&D campaign will start with weak characters, who eventually become local then regional heroes. After this acclaim and maxing out your level, there are only so many Dragons or Giants you can kill before it becomes trite. At some point the world itself must be saved. If not, what is the point?

-Grinding -- Have you ever played an Eastern MMO? Asian players love grinding. I can recall a quest in Silk Road where I was asked to kill 1,000 tigers. I logged out of the game and uninstalled it immediately. But I do believe that a small level of grinding can be fun. In Final Fantasy 1, you should really get your characters to level 2 before going into the first dungeon. Fighting a couple small fights allows you to acclimate yourself to the game. Later, before the swamp cave, you need to grind from level 4-7. The most efficient way to do this is to find the area that spawns fights against ogres and kill a score of them. Figuring out this efficiency is part of the beauty of the Grind.
In my own game, I have put a very small amount of grinding. I genuinely dislike when you level-up multiple times, just while traversing a dungeon. That type of leveling feels very unearned and leaves me feeling uninvested in the game/characters.

Dislike:

-Heavy Prologue -- Give me Final Fantasy 1. Let me jump right into the game. I can handle maybe 10 minutes of backstory before getting the controls, but anymore and... That said, do not give me the controls then immediately take them away again just to tell me more dumb sheep about your universe. And this is coming from a guy who reads fantasy books.

-Looting houses in towns -- This is a staple of the industry. Developers want to reward players for exploring their towns. But why is there a treasure chest down at the beach? Why doesn't the villager stop me from taking his money and potions? Find another way to induce players to explore your towns. Personally, I put a puzzle into each town in my game, forcing you to explore and solve the puzzle before you can progress in the story.

-Possessing a ship/Sea Battles -- Fighting sharks and other aquatic creatures from the boat you stole from pirates makes no sense. The ability to travel the world in a different fashion has been overdone so much, that it is probably un-enjoyable for most RPG players.

-Airship -- Final Fantasy explains this very well within its lore. An airship in your game is unoriginal and we all know it. No offense, but you might as well put a Chocobo mount in your game.

-Amnesia -- ...

-Elemental Dungeons -- Surely have one or a couple of these in your game. They make for solid gameplay. But if the focus of you game is traveling to elemental dungeons to fix the world: you are regurgitating.

We're like totally 180 degrees from each other.

You're a monster!

 

[Milennin]

Make the game you want, that's the entire point of RPG Maker. Tropes or no tropes, what matters is what you want for your own game, yourself.

Secondarily, there exist no bad tropes. Only bad execution. You can make any trope work, as long as it's done well enough.

 

[Mrs_Allykat]

I agree with @Milennin

How many sitcoms, movies, comics, soap operas have a trope of a villain with the curly mustache? A quick to anger read-head? It's all in the execution, presentation, and storytelling. I'm not going to pretend that I don't still have a lot to learn, but tropes can be found anywhere.

It seems that a trope is like any other stock resource, a tool in the game-maker's toolbox.