Hi friends! Baby DM here. I've DMed for a one-shot and a shorter campaign before but this is my first time DMing something bigger, and I'm wondering what sort of cliches to avoid especially in regards to story. Most of my players are first timers too & I really want to give them a unique & fun experience & leave a good impression of the game. General DMing advice also welcome. :)
I think that the type of setting you're running will play the biggest part in terms of what kinds of cliches you're most likely to run into, so any information you have to share on the world you're going to be dropping them into would be something to think about. Mind you, most cliches exist for good reason. They tend to work well for getting games going, which would be helpful for you and your players if you're all new to the game.
The biggest cliche is probably starting in a tavern. Taverns tend to be good places for new adventurers to meet and get offered quests from hooded strangers, but if you tell them all that they're going to be starting the adventure and meeting somewhere else (while they're still coming up with their characters and backstories), that should help a lot. Less common cliches might be starting off as prisoners, or shipwreck survivors.
As far as your story goes, try to get a good idea on who your main 'antagonists' are, what their motivations might be, and how they're going to go about their schemes. That'll be helpful framework in placing the structure of your world, and avoiding the fallback on more predictable plotlines which they might expect. I quite like subterfuge as a plot element, as my players get excited when they realise things were not as they might have first been told, though I'd use that sparingly.
It's a complicated question you've asked though, and just been mindful that just because its a cliche doesn't make it bad. If its something people can understand, and it makes sense, that is going to get you on the right path to good world building.
Also, just because it may be a cliche to one group of people, may not make it one to another group. New D&D players haven't seen the things that vet players may roll their eyes at.... Or think is just old hat.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
One thing that helps me relax about this is the quote, "There's nothing new under the sun."
It's okay if what you do has been done before--you can find a way to make it your own. That said, the "your family/village/people were brutally murdered" is one I usually skip. Oh, and being a "chosen one." I prefer the "ordinary person does the extraordinary" route.
But that's just my preference in playing. Anything can be good when you add your personal touch. After all, Harry Potter was a "chosen orphan," and the books were masterful.
Starting off in a little catamaran exploring islands could be fun (gap year trip that turns to heroism).
The only cliches to avoid are the ones you don’t like. If you approach the story in a serious way, and do something you love, it might be bad or it might be good, but it can’t be corny or cliche because that wasn’t in you when you wrote it.
My standard general GMing advice is to make a list of spare names for NPCs. When players ask what someone’s name is and the person doesn’t know, it always feels awkward.
IMHO, the biggest cliches to avoid involve the way NPCs are portrayed. Much has been said over the years about players and their PCs "playing against trope". Meaning, just because you're a rogue doesn't mean you necessarily HAVE to be a CN kleptomaniac, just because you're a warlock doesn't mean you have to be a goth edgelord, etc. It's always nice to make an effort to step outside the generic expectation. I think the same should apply to the creation of NPCs.
It gets tiring, as a player, when every blacksmith is a surly dwarf with a Scottish accent, every wizard is aloof and condescending, and every town guard is a suspicious human male. Yes, it means a lot more work for the DM to make so many NPCs more 3-dimensional, but it'll make the game feel so much more immersive. Simply make a few lists, 20 items each. Maybe one for race, one for a physical characteristic, and one for a personality characteristic. When the players encounter an NPC who you think or know that they will be dealing with again, make a few quick rolls to give the NPC a bit more of a randomized persona.
Or maybe spend a short time on a day off and just make a list of these, and make just one role to plug that NPC into whatever role you need in the moment. Or just have an NPC generator open on another tab while you're playing, and let do the work.
Just my two c.p.
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Tayn of Darkwood. Lvl 10 human Life Cleric of Lathander. Retired.
Ikram Sahir ibn Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad, Second Son of the House of Ra'ad, Defender of the Burning Sands. Lvl 9 Brass Dragonborn Sorcerer + Greater Fire Elemental Devil.
Viktor Gavriil. Lvl 20 White Dragonborn Grave Cleric, of Kurgan the God of Death.
One thing I always cringe at is when a story involves someone from the "real" world trapped in a fantasy world. I get the appeal and I've seen it done well, but overall I think it's best just to avoid it. Besides, your players will inevitably make fourth wall jokes or references anyway, regardless on whether it completely makes sense in-character.
Hero-ressurecting gods, quest-giving kings, powerful wizard mentors, a huge quest given to Level 1 scrubs, an arch-villain who teleports away at the last second...these are all cool in books and shows, but they key to D&D is making the players feel like the heroes. As a result, there shouldn't be anyone around so powerful that they feel useless. Most players I know (including me, even though I usually DM) would rather fail heroically than have a Deus Ex Machina resolve the story and make them feel like chumps. Plopping us in the middle of a giant world-saving quest early on can make us feel helpless—give us smaller objectives we can take on one by one, like a local orc raid or the mayor's stolen chalice. (Then tie it together later with a kingdom-threatening villain if you want, but wait until everyone is high level.) Focus on making players feel like the most important people in the story, the heroes, and you'll be great!
That aside, there are a lot of tropes that aren't automatically bad. Orcs or dragons have taken over an ancient dwarven mine? Most players won't go "oh, boring, it's like Lord of the Rings." They'll go "whoa, cool, it's like Lord of the Rings!" because things like Lord of the Rings are why a lot of people love D&D. They love classic fantasy stories and wish they could be a part of them.
For first timers, yourself included, using cliches and copying the crap out of anything ever isn't a bad thing and in my opinion is a great way to learn. Cliches are cliche for a reason, they work and they resonate. So I'm going to be the person here to tell you, that cliches are ok and don't worry about it, it all comes down to execution really. There is no guarantee that something that isn't a cliche will be more or less interesting than something that is. Just go watch netflix, "everything" is cliche.
This is just me venting I suppose, but in this day and age originality is incredibly hard to come by. With 8 billion people connected worldwide via the internet, everything creative is over saturated. What "originality" has become is basically taking something else that came before you and adding to it or twisting it in your own way, and if by chance you happen to create something that you believe to be truly original, then fantastic. But I can tell you mostly everything has been done before and there is nothing wrong with that.
I think as a first time Dm, and with some first time players, you might actually want to lean into the cliches. It can help the players if some elements are more familiar, and it can help you if you use some well-trod elements to free up mental space for designing some more interesting parts. Maybe all of your inkeepers are chubby and jovial, because you want to really spend time on making some other NPCs more interesting. And I can just about guarantee you you will not have enough time to do everything you want.
As far as general DM tips. If everyone is having fun, you're doing it right.
Players will not do what you expect them to do.
Don't be afraid to make up a rule on the fly if you don't know, then make a note to come back to it later -- no one wants to spend a half hour flipping through books.
End the session with asking them what they expect to do next time, so you only have to design one session. If you give them a big choice part way through, you end up with a mess of branching paths.
Some cliches can be great story elements if transplanted into another genre. For example, Star Wars. Luke being the chosen one is a basic fantasy cliche, but in a sci-fi story its a novel character trait that makes the story one of the best of all time.
For first-time players, there's no need to avoid cliches.
Cliches are annoying because they're overdone. The fifth time you start a campaign with "OK, so you're gonna meet in a tavern because you're responding to a sign requesting adventurers" might be tedious! But for your first game? It's not overdone. Because you haven't done any games yet, so the cliches haven't gotten stale. So feel free to cliche away.
Starting in a tavern might be cliche, but it gets used because it makes sense- where else would half a dozen strangers meet each other in a small town?
The real cliches to avoid are going to be more plot-related, like rescuing kidnapped princesses or having quests that boil down to "go to some generic hole in the ground, kill the stuff that lives there, get rewarded." Don't do things that make them seem like the radiant quests in Fallout 4.
Aww, I love a good Scottish Dwarf. Although I have to admit... despite making the first several dwarves my party has interacted with aggressively scottish (somewhere between Shrek and The Scotsman from Samurai Jack), I've kind of gone out of my way to make sure any other dwarves my party have met have been deliberately avoiding that stereotype. Still... I think it's totally valid to have a dwarf who sounds like Fat Bastard from Austin Powers, but I think it's too easy to get into the habit of just giving that voice to every single Dwarf the party stumbles across.
Hi friends! Baby DM here. I've DMed for a one-shot and a shorter campaign before but this is my first time DMing something bigger, and I'm wondering what sort of cliches to avoid especially in regards to story. Most of my players are first timers too & I really want to give them a unique & fun experience & leave a good impression of the game. General DMing advice also welcome. :)
ETA: It's a homebrew world & story.
I think that the type of setting you're running will play the biggest part in terms of what kinds of cliches you're most likely to run into, so any information you have to share on the world you're going to be dropping them into would be something to think about. Mind you, most cliches exist for good reason. They tend to work well for getting games going, which would be helpful for you and your players if you're all new to the game.
The biggest cliche is probably starting in a tavern. Taverns tend to be good places for new adventurers to meet and get offered quests from hooded strangers, but if you tell them all that they're going to be starting the adventure and meeting somewhere else (while they're still coming up with their characters and backstories), that should help a lot. Less common cliches might be starting off as prisoners, or shipwreck survivors.
As far as your story goes, try to get a good idea on who your main 'antagonists' are, what their motivations might be, and how they're going to go about their schemes. That'll be helpful framework in placing the structure of your world, and avoiding the fallback on more predictable plotlines which they might expect. I quite like subterfuge as a plot element, as my players get excited when they realise things were not as they might have first been told, though I'd use that sparingly.
It's a complicated question you've asked though, and just been mindful that just because its a cliche doesn't make it bad. If its something people can understand, and it makes sense, that is going to get you on the right path to good world building.
Also, just because it may be a cliche to one group of people, may not make it one to another group. New D&D players haven't seen the things that vet players may roll their eyes at.... Or think is just old hat.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
One thing that helps me relax about this is the quote, "There's nothing new under the sun."
It's okay if what you do has been done before--you can find a way to make it your own. That said, the "your family/village/people were brutally murdered" is one I usually skip. Oh, and being a "chosen one." I prefer the "ordinary person does the extraordinary" route.
But that's just my preference in playing. Anything can be good when you add your personal touch. After all, Harry Potter was a "chosen orphan," and the books were masterful.
Starting off in a little catamaran exploring islands could be fun (gap year trip that turns to heroism).
The only cliches to avoid are the ones you don’t like. If you approach the story in a serious way, and do something you love, it might be bad or it might be good, but it can’t be corny or cliche because that wasn’t in you when you wrote it.
My standard general GMing advice is to make a list of spare names for NPCs. When players ask what someone’s name is and the person doesn’t know, it always feels awkward.
IMHO, the biggest cliches to avoid involve the way NPCs are portrayed. Much has been said over the years about players and their PCs "playing against trope". Meaning, just because you're a rogue doesn't mean you necessarily HAVE to be a CN kleptomaniac, just because you're a warlock doesn't mean you have to be a goth edgelord, etc. It's always nice to make an effort to step outside the generic expectation. I think the same should apply to the creation of NPCs.
It gets tiring, as a player, when every blacksmith is a surly dwarf with a Scottish accent, every wizard is aloof and condescending, and every town guard is a suspicious human male. Yes, it means a lot more work for the DM to make so many NPCs more 3-dimensional, but it'll make the game feel so much more immersive. Simply make a few lists, 20 items each. Maybe one for race, one for a physical characteristic, and one for a personality characteristic. When the players encounter an NPC who you think or know that they will be dealing with again, make a few quick rolls to give the NPC a bit more of a randomized persona.
Or maybe spend a short time on a day off and just make a list of these, and make just one role to plug that NPC into whatever role you need in the moment. Or just have an NPC generator open on another tab while you're playing, and let do the work.
Just my two c.p.
Tayn of Darkwood. Lvl 10 human Life Cleric of Lathander. Retired.
Ikram Sahir ibn Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad, Second Son of the House of Ra'ad, Defender of the Burning Sands. Lvl 9 Brass Dragonborn Sorcerer + Greater Fire Elemental Devil.
Viktor Gavriil. Lvl 20 White Dragonborn Grave Cleric, of Kurgan the God of Death.
Anzio Faro. Lvl 5 Prot. Aasimar Light Cleric.
Just confirming what's already been said.
There is no such thing as a bad cliché, just a badly implemented cliché.
One thing I always cringe at is when a story involves someone from the "real" world trapped in a fantasy world. I get the appeal and I've seen it done well, but overall I think it's best just to avoid it. Besides, your players will inevitably make fourth wall jokes or references anyway, regardless on whether it completely makes sense in-character.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
Hero-ressurecting gods, quest-giving kings, powerful wizard mentors, a huge quest given to Level 1 scrubs, an arch-villain who teleports away at the last second...these are all cool in books and shows, but they key to D&D is making the players feel like the heroes. As a result, there shouldn't be anyone around so powerful that they feel useless. Most players I know (including me, even though I usually DM) would rather fail heroically than have a Deus Ex Machina resolve the story and make them feel like chumps. Plopping us in the middle of a giant world-saving quest early on can make us feel helpless—give us smaller objectives we can take on one by one, like a local orc raid or the mayor's stolen chalice. (Then tie it together later with a kingdom-threatening villain if you want, but wait until everyone is high level.) Focus on making players feel like the most important people in the story, the heroes, and you'll be great!
That aside, there are a lot of tropes that aren't automatically bad. Orcs or dragons have taken over an ancient dwarven mine? Most players won't go "oh, boring, it's like Lord of the Rings." They'll go "whoa, cool, it's like Lord of the Rings!" because things like Lord of the Rings are why a lot of people love D&D. They love classic fantasy stories and wish they could be a part of them.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
Avoid RPing Dwarves with Scottish accents. :)
For first timers, yourself included, using cliches and copying the crap out of anything ever isn't a bad thing and in my opinion is a great way to learn. Cliches are cliche for a reason, they work and they resonate. So I'm going to be the person here to tell you, that cliches are ok and don't worry about it, it all comes down to execution really. There is no guarantee that something that isn't a cliche will be more or less interesting than something that is. Just go watch netflix, "everything" is cliche.
This is just me venting I suppose, but in this day and age originality is incredibly hard to come by. With 8 billion people connected worldwide via the internet, everything creative is over saturated. What "originality" has become is basically taking something else that came before you and adding to it or twisting it in your own way, and if by chance you happen to create something that you believe to be truly original, then fantastic. But I can tell you mostly everything has been done before and there is nothing wrong with that.
I think as a first time Dm, and with some first time players, you might actually want to lean into the cliches. It can help the players if some elements are more familiar, and it can help you if you use some well-trod elements to free up mental space for designing some more interesting parts. Maybe all of your inkeepers are chubby and jovial, because you want to really spend time on making some other NPCs more interesting. And I can just about guarantee you you will not have enough time to do everything you want.
As far as general DM tips. If everyone is having fun, you're doing it right.
Players will not do what you expect them to do.
Don't be afraid to make up a rule on the fly if you don't know, then make a note to come back to it later -- no one wants to spend a half hour flipping through books.
End the session with asking them what they expect to do next time, so you only have to design one session. If you give them a big choice part way through, you end up with a mess of branching paths.
Have a session 0.
Some cliches can be great story elements if transplanted into another genre. For example, Star Wars. Luke being the chosen one is a basic fantasy cliche, but in a sci-fi story its a novel character trait that makes the story one of the best of all time.
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For first-time players, there's no need to avoid cliches.
Cliches are annoying because they're overdone. The fifth time you start a campaign with "OK, so you're gonna meet in a tavern because you're responding to a sign requesting adventurers" might be tedious! But for your first game? It's not overdone. Because you haven't done any games yet, so the cliches haven't gotten stale. So feel free to cliche away.
Starting in a tavern might be cliche, but it gets used because it makes sense- where else would half a dozen strangers meet each other in a small town?
The real cliches to avoid are going to be more plot-related, like rescuing kidnapped princesses or having quests that boil down to "go to some generic hole in the ground, kill the stuff that lives there, get rewarded." Don't do things that make them seem like the radiant quests in Fallout 4.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Aww, I love a good Scottish Dwarf. Although I have to admit... despite making the first several dwarves my party has interacted with aggressively scottish (somewhere between Shrek and The Scotsman from Samurai Jack), I've kind of gone out of my way to make sure any other dwarves my party have met have been deliberately avoiding that stereotype. Still... I think it's totally valid to have a dwarf who sounds like Fat Bastard from Austin Powers, but I think it's too easy to get into the habit of just giving that voice to every single Dwarf the party stumbles across.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
There is nothing wrong with cliches in dungeons and dragons IMO.
"Life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced"- Soren Kierkgaard
Start small, avoid lore dump.