Chatty’s Monthly Tips : Intro to Tropes

I have a monthly column on Johnn Four’s Roleplaying tips newsletter.

This month, I adapted the material I wrote in our Gen Con 2008 GM-FU seminar to introduce his readers to the concept of tropes.  Long time readers will notice that its a re-edition of some of my earlier posts.

I’m re-posting it here because I have been asked a few times by recent readers to define tropes and how they apply to RPGs, plus I’d like to allow comments on the article.

Do subscribe to Johnn’s Newsletter, it’s by far the best free RPG newsletter I’ve found on the net so far.

Enjoy!

Understanding, Using And Subverting Tropes In RPGs

Roleplaying adventures are a form of narrative entertainment. As such, they share common elements with movies and TV shows, as well as graphic and classic novels. Some elements are obvious, like characters, background, plots, and action scenes.

There is also a lesser-known type of element common to these forms of stories. These are tropes, and learning to use them (or subvert them) can make writing an otherwise-ordinary adventure stand out and become a very satisfying experience.

What is a Trope?

A trope is a narrative “figure of speech,” shorthand for some concept the audience will recognize and understand instantly. Above all, a trope is a convention. It can be a plot trick, a setup, a narrative structure, a character type, a linguistic idiom. It’s like leadership (or porn): hard to define yet you know it when you see it.

There are a lot of tropes out there, many of which you probably already know about without knowing about it.

For example, in a fantasy story, there often is a Dark Lord (trope) amassing an army of Evil Monsters (trope) to take over the world (again). There’s also often a clueless ‘chosen one’ (trope) surrounded by a band of Heroes (trope) who end up defeating the Dark Lord.

What’s a Cliche?

A cliche is an overused trope that ends up becoming intrusive or too obvious. It distracts the audience rather than serving as shorthand.

When the audience groans, the trope has become a cliche.

Examples of cliches in fiction:

• “Nooooooooooooooo!”
• The evil laugh
• Fruit carts and panes of glass in chase scenes
• “Luke, I am your father.”
• The ethnic comic relief
• “It’s quiet…too quiet.”

Tropes in RPGs

Tropes work just as well (if not better) in RPGs, because the audience controls the main protagonists. Since tropes are shortcuts, this can allow a GM to elicit a reaction from players while spending limited effort.

Cliches also have their use in RPGs; they aren’t inherently bad. They can be a useful tool for introducing new players to the game, as they bring familiar territory into an otherwise unfamiliar game, facilitating participation.

All adventures (published or homemade) already use tropes liberally because writers steal/borrow ideas all the time, consciously or not. It’s the careful and conscious choosing of tropes to elicit an emotional response from players that add value to your adventure.

The Two Fundamental Rules of RPGs

The Rule of Fun:

Games must be fun to play. Sure, we like pretty graphics and a good plot, but the fun’s the main thing. If they’re fun, a lot of incongruities can be forgiven. Go ahead, try to explain why the yellow circle loves dots and why the ghosts are out to get him, or why the frog needs to get across the road. You can’t. Doesn’t matter.

Just replace “pretty graphics” by “cool mechanics” and the definition applies perfectly to tabletop RPGs

A lot of shortcuts are made in the mechanics and premises of an RPG to make it fun. The Rule of Fun should also be applied by GMs to everything in the game, from choice of game to character generation, the color of dice, the miniatures players choose, the adventure used, etc.

With regards to adventure preparation, I suggest you apply the Rule of Fun whenever you think of adding a challenge (a fight, a trap, or a skill roll) by asking yourself, “Will playing this out be fun?”

If the answer is no or “probably not, but it’s logical” you need to rethink your design choice. Rolling a climb check to climb a tree to see the advancing enemy troops 50 miles away is not all that fun. Climbing it to avoid a horde of berserking goblins has a better chance of hitting the fun mark

Try to apply the Rule of Fun to any instance of travel, investigations, or NPC interactions. It will make a game session better. (Hint: random encounters, unless everyone wants them, are not usually fun.)

The Rule of Cool:

The limit of the Willing Suspension Of Disbelief for a given element is directly proportional to its degree of coolness. Stated another way, all but the most pedantic of viewers will forgive liberties with reality so long as the result is wicked sweet and/or awesome. This applies to the audience in general, as there will naturally be a different threshold for each individual in the group.

To transpose to RPG terms: your players will put up with almost any illogical or wobbly plot devices or encounters as long as things get cool enough for them.

A GM’s efforts should be not so much on far-reaching world building and tight, nitpicking-proof plot lines. They should go all out for encounters and roleplaying that will swamp players in coolness.

For example, think about combat on ice bridges, negotiating the release of prisoners in a flooding underground prison, or hopping from floating islands to pieces of flying ruins to catch the thieves of the Star Jewel of Radnia.

Adapting Tropes to RPGs

With the Rules of Fun and Cool in mind, the idea in creating adventures or campaigns is not to copy a whole movie or novel in game form. The trick is to extract the tropes you found cool and engaging and import them into your game.

Since tropes are easily recognized, players will pick up on them and start building expectations. A useful technique then is subverting the trope by having it go in the opposite direction of what players expect. If you mix and match straight and subverted tropes, you will be able to elicit stronger reactions from player which will lead to more satisfactory involvement in the adventure.

For example, if you want to recreate some of the feeling of the Star Wars movies in your games, you can deconstruct the series in the tropes you liked best (this is my personal list):

• Dark Tower (Death Star)
• Power Glows: Lightsabers
• Mystic Ninja: Jedi
• Badass Villain: Darths
• Face Heel Turn: Darth Vader
• Empire vs. Rebels
• The Chosen One: Anakin/Luke
• Kung Fu geezer: Yoda
• I am your father: Cliche!

The idea is to borrow a few tropes and build an adventure around them.

You could build a world where an Evil Empire threatens a small coalition of planets/states (rebel equivalent). Players are young Spiritual Knights (Jedis) in a monastery, being trained by an irascible old Crone (Subverted Geezer) who looks to be a few hours shy of croaking.

The Empire has an order of evil Hell-knights (Subverted Jedi) powered by pure hatred and led by an ancient pupil of the Crone (Badass Villain). They trash the monastery and kidnap the crone. The party finds a prophecy that talks of the Five Nascent Stars (The Chosen Ones) chasing away the darkness and guess that it’s them.

They track the Hell-knights back to their “Invincible” Citadel of Woe (Dark Tower). They infiltrate it and battle through mooks and a few Hell-knights. As they enter the cell compound, they come face to face with Granny Sensei kicking Hell-knight butt saying, “What took you so long?”

Then the Badass appears, gets a tongue lashing by the Crone; he goes mad and says, “shut up mom” (Subverted “I am your father”) and the final fight starts. Near death, the Badass implores his mother and she turns against the PCs (Subverted Heel Face turn).

It’s as simple as that.

References

• The Tropes Wiki – Contains description on thousands of tropes covering all forms of narratives, including RPGs and video games:
• Chatty DM’s “Mining Tropes for RPG nuggets” series