Ruggs' List o' Character Tropes
I suppose one of my gripes, if I looked at it, are tropes. Tropes pop up often in roleplay and in writing, and what I wanted to do here was just lay out a list of them. It's Ruggs' "List the Tropes" time. Just a few things I need to get off my chest
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As for things I look for--that depends on any number of things.
A gritty one could start with a story about a young boy whose mother was chased from their tribe in the desert. Her eventual children, including him, had no family outside the small group, and no idea of culture aside from their mother, who over the years became quickly beaten by the sun, could tell them. She passed in his teens, and from the wailing of his brothers and sisters, he stood up and took a new role--he gathered them around and invented rites and rituals. He invented stories, and told them their mother would go to live with the spirits, and that they'd see her again one day. Having nothing to base on save the most fragmented of tales, he crafted words of comfort.
In the next few years, he had to repeat these lies several more times as more and more of his siblings succumbed to the heat. He invented small rituals to soothe their psyches, and gradually assumed a sort of command, guiding them where their dead mother couldn't. He continued in the role for years until, by their wandering, they found the edge of an oasis and a small, but permanent encampment there of people who looked vaguely like themselves...
It wouldn't need to be as outlandish as that. There we have the dead parents, sure, but the character's father in this case doesn't matter since he never factored in, and the mother became a source of strength instead of revenge. The concept of him inventing rituals to soothe his brothers and sisters is fun, and might turn him into a priest or a con man down the line, or both.
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