Tabletop Gaming Tropes

Basic Information

These tropes and terms are commonly found in tabletop RPGs (and, to a lesser extent, wargames and minatures games). Most have to do with game mechanics, but some are about setting details, or the personalities of gamers. The items marked with an ' * ' are additions to the outline found at the TV Tropes Wiki.

List of Tabletop Game tropes

• Adventuring Party*
• An Adventurer Is You
• AKA47
• Beware of Python*
• Bitz Box
• Campaign Settings* — specific gameworlds from published games
• Character Alignment
• Character Class*
• Character Levels*
• Character Tiers
• Chunky Salsa Rule
• Combat Role
• Comedy Damage*
• Convenient Questing
• Conversions
• Critical Success/Failure*
• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul
• Diceless RPG*
• Experience Points*
• Exploding Roll*
• Failed A Spot Check
• Feat or Edge*
• Fighter Mage Thief
• Five Races
• Game Master
  • Dungeon Master*
• Game System
• GMPC
• Gunfondler*
• Hit Points
• Honest Rolls Character
• House Rules
• In And Out Of Character
• Killer Game Master
• LARP
• Lawful Stupid Chaotic Stupid
• Levels*
• Linear Warriors Quadratic Wizards
• NPC
• Magic Ampersand
• Magic Knight
• Magic Wand
• Master Of None
• Merit or Advantage*
• Metaplot
• Min Maxing
• Monty Haul
• Munchkin
• Murderhobo*
• Nerf
• No Cure For Evil
• Off The Rails
• Open Roleplaying Decay
• Path Of Inspiration
• Play By Post Games
• Player Archetypes
  • The Real Man
  • The Roleplayer
  • The Loonie
• Playing in the Sandbox*
• Player Character
• Player Party
• Polydice*
• Prestige Class
• PVP Balanced
• Railroading
• Random Number God
• Rocks Fall Everyone Dies
• Roleplaying Game Terms
• Role Playing Game Verse
• RPG Abbreviations
• Rules Lawyer
• Sandbox Campaign
• Schrodinger's Gun
• Settings
• Solo Game*
• Sourcebook
• Special Ability*
• Splat
• Squishy Wizard
• Stop Having Fun Guys
• Total Party Kill
• Urban Fantasy
• Vancian Magic
• Wandering Monster*
• We Help The Helpless
• What You See Is What You Get
• You All Meet In An Inn

See Also

• Self Improvement the RPG way

Sources

Bibliography

1. TV Tropes Wiki entry

Game and Story Use

• The negative ones here can be basically impossible to avoid (or are so intrinsic that it wouldn't be the same), but be aware of them and prepared to deal with any trouble they cause. You will run into a few of them.