Your favorite (and LEAST favorite) RPG Tropes

[aozgolo]

DISCLAIMER: This is purely a subjective thread, don't take it personally if someone hates a trope you use in your game or loves one you hate. This is just a discussion, not meant to be overly critical of others work.

I'll just put this link here for easy referencing: Common Video Game Tropes

So let's begin, what are some of your favorite Tropes in RPGs and why? Conversely what are your least favorite?

I don't want my opinions to dominate the discussion so I'll let others begin

 

[C-C-C-Cashmere (old)]

I don't like that the hero will always be ready to fight to death for the woman he met 3 seconds ago. I don't like when heroes wear a pendant/ring that is obviously the answer to all the secrets. Somehow, in the heat of battle, this little pendant will glow and a wave of light will emanate within the hero's visible radius, and it will powerfully and automatically defeat all evil within the Tristate area. It feels cheap and tacked on and I feel cheated when it happens.


I actually like the trope where there's a missing father and he left you at the beginning of the game but he happens to have all the answers. I mean at least you as the player feel like you have some part of the story figured out that you're not supposed to know, even if the developers obviously put it there as foreshadowing. It still makes me feel smart, OK!?


I like the Nostradamus Rule - that all prophecies will come true, all legends are 100% accurate, and all rumors are 100% factual. That makes it way easier to actually predict the story, which as a player you're always wanting to do (it's a gameplay feature). I like that a good night's sleep will heal all wounds, because it's a convention, and at least I can expect to find healing in a bed. It's a good connotation.

 

[Pern]

I sometimes get lost on the tvtropes site with all the things to look at Don't care for characters/plot points that involve amnesia or having completely forgotten their past. That gets old really fast. There are exceptions of course but normally... Or how everyone is an orphan, but I can understand that one a bit more.

I have a soft spot for mute characters, just because I think it's so silly that someone would go through an entire adventure and never utter a word, that we the player can see at least. Fun to interpret their silent interactions. I also enjoy the few and far between male/female party members or partners that don't have a romantic undertone of any sorts.

I don't mind some of the more common RPG tropes, like the super special magic items that save the day no one knew about before or prophecy tropes. However, I'm really drained of the specialized schools for kids who attend and learn various skills for whatever. Magic, monster hunting, child military academies ect. Pretty exhausted of those.

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

1) Enemies drop money. I just can't get how in the world does monsters drop money.


2) Accessories are always super powerful in video games. Like most state nullifying effects can be found from accessories

 

[Milennin]

Favourite:
-Rest to heal.
-Looting people's houses.
-Main characters hating on the bad guys for doing cruel things when they themselves are wading through hundreds of encounters, slaughtering everything in their way.
-Victory-dance, cheering and happy music after mercilessly beating up a group of random enemies.

Least favourite:
-Silent protagonist (in a story-driven game; I don't mind in an open world game).
-Over-using of blocking passages with cheap excuses until the player has done a certain thing (Plot lock).
-Enemies being common rats that should have no reason to attack you.
-Game forcing the player to pick Yes when it offers a Yes/No choice (choice loops if player picks No).
-When enemies that look the same, but have a different colour scheme have different stats.

 

[whitesphere]

Most Favorite:

- Sleep heals all wounds

Least Favorite:

- Any story trope which is too overused (rescue the princess for example)

- When characters suddenly become unusually powerful in a cutscene, yet the power never shows itself again

- When characters suddenly do extremely stupid things in cutscenes, without good in story justification.  Much as I love Chrono Trigger, it has one part where the party naively believes a villain who just tried to kill them.  Then again, that particular game is also a gentle parody of the RPG genre (a villain hears Chrono's theme music playing shouts "No! That won't do!" his theme starts playing and he said "That's better" then the game resumes)

 

[Deep Thought]

I hate the Logan's Run Rule with a passion, especially if there's an "ordinary high school" involved. The world must really suck if it takes child soldiers to save the day. The Single Parent Rule is a personal sore spot, as my parents had a messy divorce when I was an impressionable teenager, and my mother has been AWOL for years.

I really enjoy improvised weapons, though, so the MacGyver Rule fits me fine. Who walks around with a surfboard-size sword on a regular basis anyway? IDKFA and the Indestructible Weapon Rule are also good for me, if only because programming (and using) limited ammo and breakable weapons is a pain. It's a matter of convenience.

 

[Sharm]

-Game forcing the player to pick Yes when it offers a Yes/No choice (choice loops if player picks No).

This one is my least favorite by far. Especially when paired with a plot where you do the bad guy's work for him. Sometimes I'll just sit there and click the contrary option for while in the vain hope that there's some sort of secret out.

 

[Diretooth]

I really dislike the 'But Thou Must' trope. (Forced to say yes.) However, I could like it if the game allows you to choose no, do things that don't have anything to do with the 'yes' plot, but have something happen that would give the character personal stake in the matter beyond someone saying you're the chosen one. (Overlaps with 'The Call Knows Where You Live')

Enemies dropping gold is somewhat unrealistic, though acceptable. I love to lampshade these, with things such as bounties on monsters or a rich character giving you money for killing and whatnot.

'The Dulcinea Effect', or risking your life to help a girl you barely know and just met. This, to me, just oozes with bad character development. Give the player some time to hang with her, a la Chrono Trigger, or give the character a legitimate reason to help her, such as spiting a rival. Hell, invert the trope and make her help you fight a person who wants to hurt you.

'Shall I Repeat That?' Easily the more annoying trope, especially when the character's as bad as Gaebora Kaepora. I don't really see a way to make this bearable, other than being able to ask the npc what they want you to do.

'Fake Longevity', otherwise known as padding.

'Luck Based Missions', in other words, plot-relevant quests that require a surprisingly large amount of luck to progress, especially without another way past.

 

[Bonkers]

I particularly don't care when women tend to be empty and exist just for the sake of a male lead.  They often do better when they are as fleshed out and have actual dialogue.  Role locking support characters to women.  Forcing casters to use staves and rods.  

Men that don't talk.  That irked me a lot in Chrono Trigger.  The hero always remained silent and the other characters talked for him while he stood there.  Male leads need some degree of personality.  Chrono had nothing going for him other than he was a village boy with a mother and a cat.

My favorite on the other hand is when a developer lamp shades a issue or reference into the plot.  That's often the best humor when the genre admits it's own weakness and goes with it.

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

Silent protagonists are on my least favorite list... Like on the latest game that I played, Ys Seven where whenever there is a part for the protagonist, it's always written in green and is most of the time just "Adol talked about *this experience*". There's no real conversation/speech that includes him...


About staves and rods, I'm still curious as to how staves and rods are linked to magic...

 

[Diretooth]

Well, staves and rods offer a better point in which one focuses magic, though it can be anything, really. (Case in point, Lulu from FFX using dolls). They're typically made lightweight so that the squishy wizards can carry them around. However, some characters, like spellblades or magic gunmen can use other weaponry to focus their magic.

Also, it a lot of stories, the metal and often crystals can help focus the magic into the spell, usually metals and gems relating to a specific element, such as gold and rubies for fire, silver and sapphires for water, wood and emeralds for earth, iron/steel with diamonds for wind, et cetera.

One of my most hated tropes is wangst, (whiny angst). This is when the character constantly broods about something and/or whines about it. Often attributed to Cloud Strife of FFVII fame, though there are some characters from other franchises.

 

[aozgolo]

While generally I dislike silent protagonists, occassionally they are used effectively. Super Mario RPG is a great example where while Mario never really said anything, he pantomimes everything though, and it's carried out perfectly, like when he explains to the Chancellor what happened when he went to rescue the princess. Granted you can't really use that tactic very much in other games, but it was a great exception tot he rule.

I hate the "Load Bearing Boss" trope where somehow a boss's health is inexplicably tied to structural integrity and beating him immediately makes the structure he's in begin to collapse. Cue escape scene.

I hate when games with alignment choices you either have to select the alignment ahead of time or are only given black or white choices. Where's my 50 shades of grey morality?

"Money Spider" Really? Is it so hard to just drop some venom or a carapace that I can then SELL for gold? It makes much more sense and lets you implement other cool features like FF:XII's bazaar system

Thriving Ghost Towns: I hate how the BIG cities in most classic JRPGs are about as big as a SMALL village in reality, I understand the reasoning behind it in a sense, but it still kinda kills me finding 4-6 house villages all over the place that... half of which are shops? That doesn't make any sense! I much prefer when games allude to the fact that "there's more to the town than just what you see on this map, but only this part is relevant to what you're doing.

A few tropes I REALLY like:

All in a row: Where you see all the party members trailing behind you. I hate it in some games where your party members somehow just dissolve into your flesh until the next battle or cutscene.

Kleptomaniac Hero: I hate when there's barrels, crates, dressers, bags, etc. that are just "scenery porn", if I can't loot at least some of them I feel like it's a waste of an easy way to add immersion. I want to be able to take everything I see (not without consequence of course)

Law of Cartographical Elegance: I prefer world maps that do "loop" but if you have the whole world shown want to be able to see an entire landmass not go over the edge

Metal Slime: A hard to kill but extremely rewarding monster

Romance Sidequest: I prefer romance in a game to be optional, but well crafted. I think it really makes it more interesting if you're doing things FOR your party members, not just WITH them.

Take Your Time: As much as some people hate the lack of urgency, I prefer this trope as it allows you to fully enjoy the game at your pace. I tend to avoid standard "save the world" plots to avoid the sense of urgency being at odds with you... say... I don't know... spending 3 weeks gambling.

Turn-based Battles: Preference really but when the rest of the game lacks urgency or action, I don't want my battle system to have it either, I prefer true difficulty in the encounters, not artificial difficulty in timers.

Zip Mode: Even without a lack of urgency I got places to be man and your walking speed is just too slow!

So that's a start from me! Keep it going guys!

 

[Simon D. Aelsi]

Most favorite:
 

Every character is balanced. If he's very fast, he's weaker. If he's very strong, he's slower.  Or, he's even all around.

Sleep heals all wounds.

Reviving does NOT heal all wounds.

Characters' names aren't all Japanese (Unless the game is BASED in Japan)

Multiple endings that aren't all bad.

Fun sidequests.

Least Favorite

Boy's sister is always younger than he is. Gets kidnapped.

Girl's brother is always older than she is and is usually the main antagonist in disguise.

Orphans.

Child heroes that talk to adults like an adult would talk to a child.

"THE CHOSEN ONE"

Silent Protagonists.

Multiple Endings where there's only one true ending and "bad" ends. Overdone IMO.

 

[Diretooth]

Earn Your Good/Bad Ending: When getting either takes a lot of perseverance to get. Not exactly my favorites.

 

[TheRiotInside]

I like the "Good Morning, Crono" trope where you start the game asleep and are woken up by your mother or a friend. I don't know, the idea of waking up on a sunny morning and starting a grand adventure sits well with me, not matter how many times I see it. Also I love "Inexplicable Treasure Chests" too. It makes me giddy finding a shiny, untouched, unlocked treasure chests nestled away in a dingy dungeon because WHY NOT?

I happen to dislike the previously mentioned "Money Spider" trope. I'm limiting money drops to enemies that would be expected to carry around change, while making everything else drop resources that you have to sell. Also "So Long, and Thanks for All the Gear" really bothers me if I don't know it's coming. Having a decked-out party member suddenly break up with you and take all of their equipment is a bummer.

 

[Diretooth]

And now I want to completely avert Money Spider and keep it strictly to realistic drops that you can sell for a bounty.

One of my favorite tropes is the Xanatos Gambit. Essentially, it's a plan that will always benefit the planner in some way.

 

[Simon D. Aelsi]

^I got around the "Money Spider" trope because in my world, currency are small rocks--not metal coins.


Other Tropes I dislike are "Save the girl!" and "The Seven ______".

 

[amerk]

The biggest trope of all?

For every person who complains against a particular trope, you'll find at least a half dozen RM games that include it in their game.

 

[hian]

Don't mind any tropes at all. A trope is just a set-piece really - whether the trope comes off as a "trope" in the sense that all self-proclaimed media-critics use it these days, just boils down to execution.

Are there certain tropes that I have an easier time enjoying regardless of execution? Well, maybe some.

I enjoy in media res on steroids plotlines - that's to say any game that shoots you into a completely confusing and overwhelming world and narrative, while providing almost no explanation or support.

And, I enjoy the humanity under siege trope, where almost all of humanity has been destroyed by an external enemy and you follow a small group of survivors.

Any trope that generally turns me off for purely reactionary emotional reasons? Not that I can think of at the top of my head.