10 D&D Cliches to Avoid

You may choose to heed this wisdom or ignore it at your peril.

Actually, this is really just a list of my past frustrations about D&D and is a precautionary tool of stuff I will make sure I avoid doing in the future.

1. You meet in a Tavern

Pretty much everyone has experienced starting an adventure in a pub ever since Strider and Frodo hooked up in the Prancing Pony. People meet in all sorts of different ways, and yes, taverns and alehouses are commonly found across fantasy worlds. But please, try something new – maybe meet in a marketplace, on a ship, at a caravanserai, in a prison, or at the bottom of a pit trap in a mountain trail. Somewhere, anywhere, except a pub.

2. “Because he’s Evil, that’s why!”

Dark Lords don’t wake up in the morning and ask themselves “How can I be even more evil today?” Evil is really just an extreme point of view – generally, evil people do things to benefit themselves only, and don’t care about the effects on other creatures around them. The best (e.e. the most fun to play) evil characters are those that believe their view of the world is the right one and anyone who opposes that needs to be either “corrected” or removed. So justifying a character’s actions with “because he (or she) is Evil” is just a cop out.

3. Dwarves live underground

And Elves live in trees. Yeah, we know. What do Dwarves eat? Where do Elves get the grapes for their fabulous wines? They farm. They have orchards and fields, livestock and vineyards, just like humans do… probably using more advanced techniques (another cliche), but they live in farmhouses, tending their herds and crops and providing sustenance for their community. In my fantasy world, the Dwarves mine, sure, but they live in cities, towns, villages and have farmlands just like other races. What makes them different to humans? Well, they’re much shorter, for one thing.

4. Let’s explore the sewer

Ever been in one for real? Fantasy cities always seem to have a network of sewers that are just ripe (hehe) for Cultists and Necromancers to occupy. Even assuming that a sewer system has a convenient pathway running along side it and you don’t have to wade through the effluent, anyone who spends time down there will pick up a certain odour.

5. “Because magic”

Up there with #2 for me. I played in an adventure where we had to sneak into a massive castle perched on a high hilltop. We entered through a vast cave system below it…

Um. I noted that there was a million tons of stone directly above this cave and nothing seems to be supporting it. The DM said it was “magic.” Right. Ok. Kinda killed it for me.

6. The Usurper is Cruel

This one comes from a friend, and I heartily agree with it. Essentially, it’s the “wicked step-mother” from Cinderella & Snow White. Why do usurpers have to be cast as cruel? Why can’t the cruel lord be the rightful heir to the throne, but is just a jerk.

7. The local Lord has a mission for you

Strangers walk into town and within five minutes are handed a quest from the local Lord. Heavily armed strangers. Sure, I’d trust them, wouldn’t you?

8. Collect the shards and reassemble the item of power

This sounds like a Spyro or Crash Bandicoot plot line to me. The idea of widely dispersed fragments of a potent item has been done to death in computer games for the last 30 years, so let’s just leave them alone and go and solve a death-trap puzzle in a tomb somewhere.

9. Death-trap puzzles in a Tomb

How do these things get reset? Is there some service you can hire that goes into tombs and resets the traps for the owners (or their descendants)? I don’t mind the idea of a trapped tomb, but maybe have the first few sprung (possibly with suitably deceased victims) to indicate that the tomb has been visited one or twice in the past.

10. The North is frozen and the South is hot

Sure, half the world might be like that, but there is another half to every world that gets colder the further south you go (unless you’re playing in the Diskworld, which would be pretty cool). For those of you who live in Europe or the US, it might add a point of difference to your world setting. For us Antipodeans, it’s not so weird.