Viewpoint What Roleplaying Clichés Need to die out?

[Crayons]

Actually just experienced that when I ran a D&D campaign (Godsfall) with some friends a few months ago. The twins in question were the potential future goddesses of war and peace, and the remainder of our party was composed of a capitalist (war is profitable), a pillaging sky pirate, and a literal welsh corgi. Having a dog didn't exactly do much to stop the other three of us from attacking and smashing absolutely everything unprovoked. "Peace was never an option" very quickly became the motto of the game.

Cut to the final battle. Every single attempt Peace-Twin made to negotiate with the enemy has failed to that point either due to bad rolls, inability to understand, or all of us just straight up refusing to let it happen. Tired of trying to babysit all of us she slipped away with the dog, stole Sky Pirate's airship (which included a giant gold statue of himself for reasons as well as his entire crew who were apparently the only successful negotiation roll for that entire campaign - go figure), and abandoned the group. Capitalist ends up dead. War-Twin and Sky Pirate survive but are now trapped at the top of a tower with various floors of nasty automatons between them and the exit.

I love it when karma comes around in hilarious ways. All that to say, yeah, if you're going to do twins I would say it's almost required to have two separate people playing them just for the sake of planning and surprises. At least if you want to give them both the weight and impact of a main character. Trying to play both I feel just dooms you to having two incomplete halves of a single character rather than two compelling ones.

It's fine to have one person play both if they are two separate characters with two distinct personalities. It's the lumping them together into one homogenous entity that I have a problem with.

 

[Onmyoji]

I must admit, I had a picture in my head of the conjoined twins for a moment XD

And that DnD story was wild lol

 

[rae2nerdy]

I do the twin thing but I just treat it the same as playing two point of view characters. Usually I just alternate which twins point of view it is based on who is present.

 

[Crayons]

I must admit, I had a picture in my head of the conjoined twins for a moment XD

And that DnD story was wild lol

If those two were conjoined twins and one ran off with the dog that would be no end of hilarity. XD

 

[SP3CT3R]

I haven't mentioned it in this thread yet, so in case anyone is wondering, I still hate faceclaims and rules about everyone having one superpower.

 

[Delinquent]

People playing twins as one character. "My character is Sarah and Mary Goatsnatch the twins."

Just please stop this, please.

I'd prefer if people stopped playing twin characters altogether, tbh.

9 times out of 10 they read like the author hasn't actually met any twins.

 

[SP3CT3R]

I'd prefer if people stopped playing twin characters altogether, tbh.

9 times out of 10 they read like the author hasn't actually met any twins.

And anything they don't have in common is always a theatric yin-yang polar opposite, so in cases where they're not a single entity, they're perfect foils instead.

I've been close friends with a pair of identical twins for several years, and while they share a lot of hobbies and interests, they have a ton of subtle differences and I can tell them apart just fine. It's the subtle details that make characters feel real.

 

[BakaTheIdiot]

Not all twins can be like Lockne and Målingen from Death Stranding, if any twins at all. God I get sick of that trope...

 

[GreedyBoy]

i hate hate hate this with a passion. it’s oddly specific but i see it a lot.
i hate it when roleplayers have MASSIVE twists that just throw off the whole story. obviously i’m not opposed to big twists altogether if done well but some just come off as pretentious, for lack of a better word.
say for example, i was doing a roleplay where i was a demon and has sent to earth to cause chaos yadda yadda. the person i was roleplaying with was playing a girl. a normal HUMAN girl. this was established in the plotting beforehand and was even established in her character sheet. however not long into the roleplay, all of a sudden this girl. is a fallen angel who had her memory wiped and is really powerful and is more powerful than the demon. this completely killed my interest since it was done so early and was too much too soon. i wouldn’t have been opposed to it if
a) the person had told me beforehand
or
b) they had dropped little hints throughout the roleplay so i could also play into it (e.g the demon sensing something off about her)

it just annoys me to no end. period.​

 

[rae2nerdy]

GreedyBoy I don't see that as a twist so much as trying to steal the spotlight. It has nothing to do with the plot after all and everything to do with the other person ensuring their character is the most special/powerful person in the room.