The Daily Grind: What stock fantasy tropes bore you to death?

Dragons.
That is all.

Elves - always elves.

Elves. Just Elves. They are always cliche.
The only Elves that I found mildly interesting in the last few years were the Elves from Dragon Age because they were more similar to gipsies than to the near-immortal, all knowing race in decline from most settings.

On the opposite side though I just can't get tired of Dwarves and Warhammer Dwarves are the most awesome Dwarves in any fantasy setting. They defeated the High Elves in Open war and have mohawk-wearing-naked-berserk-suicidal Dwarves as a troop option. It doesn't get any better.

It's almost always set right AFTER the "golden age". Be it civil war, gods leaving, apocalypse, etc. etc. etc.

For once, just once, I want to play a game in the worlds "Heyday".

Putting random gibberish into English sentences to make elves sound elvish. Loras'maral, make it stop!

For me it's not really any set of character types or races, or settings...for me the most tired fantasy cliche is how some fans receive it. I'm sure I'm not the only one that has seen certain stories or ideas made fun of because they didn't fit into the rules of "high fantasy" or something else. It's odd ...it's as though some people would rather a story fit into some kind of box for them to enjoy it more.

Other than that, elves are dumb. They're like Superman -- practically invincible. That makes for lazy storytelling.

Beau

two things:

1) Chainmail bikini's. Girls can look sexy in proper armour. It is just such a let down to see yet another MMO's art department revert to the "dur, more skin makes us more better" school of art design. I'm so tired of getting another piece of gear and it covers even less than the last one... it's overdone and as predictable as the rising of the sun

If you can't make full plate both FULL plate and attractive, you may need to review your art skills.

2) jokes about Elven sexuality. Seriously guys, it wasn't funny in the 90s.

None of them. How they're used bores me to death.

The appearance and *practical* implementation of lore is what helps temper the same-old-cliche trap in fantasy MMOGs, IMHO. IOW, making the gameplay such that the differences (which are usually in the lore) have an impact.

Everyone is talking about Elves so I'll try to use that as an example... In WoW, Elves bore me to death. Not because they're Elves (most other races do, too), but because there's no life behind them that one experiences. It's the same everywhere; static. Houses look different, NPCs talk a little different, but it's the same general gameplay. The implementation, the gameplay, is what makes it boring.

In EQ, you have three different races of Elves: High, Dark and Wood (Tier', Fier' and Koada'Dal, IIRC). They all talk differently, like WoW, and their architecture differs, like WoW (though more extremely), but gameplay-wise they generally serve opposing deities, making in-game use of them different and important, which helps keep it interesting.

Elves of another race (or perhaps the same race in certain circumstances) may kill you on sight. Sullon Zek server (IIRC) was a deity-based PvP server, which was interesting to play. I actually got my Dark Elf to the point where he could wander around Felwithe without worry of being attacked, except by the High Elf king, but I digress...

Wizard robes. Why do you have to where a dress to chuck a friggin fireball?

Elves can work as long as they aren't taken too seriously.

"My hotel's as clean as an elven arse."