History CreatorsPet / TabletopGames

Gods, I wanted to smack some of my fellow writers upside the head on some Vampire projects when they burbled on about the cool things they'd have Hardestadt do, or whoever. What were the '''[=PCs=]''' supposed to do?''\\

* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}''. In a game whose premise is "Near-perfect demigods tragically cursed to bring about their own downfall," the Infernals stand out as being the writer's darlings. Given the nature of the charms, the amount of printed material given to them and their prevalence in the MetaPlot compared to the Abyssals, Fairfolk, which are the other two playable "antagonist", which had both been around since first edition.

:: This quote sums up why this trope happens in tabletop [=RPGs=] -- it's easy for writers of "official" game fiction to forget that even the most interesting [=NPCs=] they're writing about are only the ''supporting cast'' meant to help player characters said writers will never even hear about shine. It's the main fallacy of writing for a game line with an evolving metaplot. You can't necessarily predict what player characters will do in a given adventure to push the plot in your desired direction, so you rely on [=NPCs=] to do the heavy lifting for you; of course, since they have all the agency, the party tends to play second fiddle. ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'' seems to have better luck at this sort of thing, as they've had more practice and they tend to leave their plot advancements in sourcebooks and leave their adventures as standalone, rather than mixing metaplot into adventures where the party may not want to play by the script.

*** Many fans feel Blue in general sometimes gets preferential treatment from the game designers. When Snapcaster Mage was printed, he was all the daily articles would talk about for several days in a row, and later articles would regularly bring up how great he was. Later, Snapcaster Mage's impact on the game was so profound that the next few expansion sets required several graveyard-hosers to counteract his power.
*** While there was little question before, since the ''Hour of Devastation'' set Nicol Bolas is unarguably this. He's an odd duck in that, unlike Jace, he's not ''technically'' a modern-day character (he was originally one of the five Elder Dragons from ''Legends'', but like his fellow Elders was completely devoid of personality or story relevance) but was reinvented as one to provide the ''Magic'' universe with a new BigBad after they killed off Yawgmoth. Since that time Bolas has been on a trip, from [[MakeWayForTheNewVillains defeating classic evil planeswalker Leshrac]] to [[EvilerThanThou effortlessly one-upping]] his would-be TheStarscream Tezzeret. But what made Bolas fall squarely into this was ''Devastation'', where not only was a plane ruled by him shown as being [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?printed=true&multiverseid=426766 so perfect even the heroes had to acknowledge it]] (although their admiration turns to horror and disgust the more they learn and he later destroys it for fun) but in the climax, he easily defeats [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=430702 all]] [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=430812 five]] [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=430757 members]] [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=430775 of]] [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=430727 the]] Gatewatch (including the other Creator's Pet Jace). The resulting CurbstompBattle is seen mostly from his perspective and played almost entirely for laughs. It's as if the only solution the ''Magic'' creative team could come up with for the constant accusations of the Gatewatch team getting too much focus was to make them suffer a humiliating defeat at the hands (claws?) of an even more egregious example. [[spoiler:Thankfully, in ''War of the Spark'' he finally gets his comeuppance, being stripped of his planeswalker spark and sealed away for good.]]

** ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragonsFifthEdition'' has the Wizard class, a class very heavily focused on the developers. Wizard's get the most amount of spells of any class, get several subclasses that are all, at worst, okay, and often end up being among the best builds in the edition. That itself wouldn't be enough to be a CreatorsPet, but where it becomes clear it is loved by the developers is how often the class gets new stuff; just about every single module, book, or Unearthed Arcana gives a bunch of new spells, magic items meant for them, or new subclasses that blow the others away by comparison. Worse, a number of the subclasses outright feel like the developers trying to take the main features of other classes to give to the Wizard, like the unreleased Theurgist Wizard being almost a straight up better Cleric, or the (also) unreleased Lore Master Wizard, which would have destroyed Sorcerers from being viable. The community tends to be very negative about this as a result, to the point that many potential subclasses from Unearthed Arcana have never been officially released, solely because of how clear it is the devs favor the Wizard over other classes (especially the Sorcerer), and the negative feedback given for doing so.

** 2nd Edition's ''Complete Book of Elves'' caused some fan backlash over the text praising elves extensively, giving them superior knowledge of almost everything, moral sanction for everything (even for the grey elves, who keep slaves of other "lesser" elven races who are always inexplicably happy in slavery), the text outright insulting other races, and ignoring elven hypocrisy - this last one most evident in the sea elves, who go on great hunts that can depopulate a region of sharks but are given a pass on disrupting the ecosystem [[CantArgueWithElves Because They're Elves]], [[ProtagonistCenteredMorality so it's okay]]. [[ItsAllAboutMe Somehow]]. [[NeverMyFault For some reason]]. The author eventually apologized for the [[PrestigeClass Blade Dancer]], a fighter/mage kit that gives lots of mechanical bonuses, with drawbacks that amount to "things a PlayerCharacter would do anyway" (such as a tendency to being [[IWorkAlone a badass loner]] who had spent years of TrainingFromHell before the campaign began, a tendency to rush off into an adventure if it seems that another elf is threatened, and focusing their skill on a single type of weapon), with implicit permission to derail the story by getting to determine for themselves whether a situation is even covered by their code of conduct. ''VideoGame/TormentTidesOfNumenera'''s Website/{{Kickstarter}} even made one of its stretch goal rewards [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wwDWx1cAqP4 a videotaped apology]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoi1tvqzMaI from the book's author]].

*** Just for comparison, the Tier List for the game has six classes at the top: the wizard, the cleric, the druid, the archivist (who is basically a cleric with a wizard's way of selecting spells), the artificer (whose main trick is abusing magic items to induce spell-like effects), and the Spell to Power erudite (which can learn spells ''and'' PsychicPowers). Of the six, five of them are casters, and the sixth is functionally a caster anyway. The next-highest level consists of the sorcerer and the favored soul, who are severely gimped in comparison to their counterparts (the wizard and cleric, respectively) but still considered far more powerful than other classes. Even the adept, an ''NPC class'', [[LethalJokeCharacter is placed in the middle-tier]]. Meanwhile, the bottom two tiers contain, out of sixteen classes (including the fighter), ''one'' casting-focused class - and it's [[CripplingOverspecialization the healer!]]

* In ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'', there is a bet every new set: "Which new strategy will be so imbalanced that players will [[{{scrub}} complain about how unfair it is]]?" In the case of infect, Rosewater took blame because he loved poison counters so much.

*** Many fans feel Blue in general sometimes gets preferential treatment from the game designers; when Snapcaster Mage was printed, he was all the daily articles would talk about for several days in a row, and later articles would regularly bring up how great he was. Later, Snapcaster Mage's impact on the game was so profound that every expansion since has required several graveyard-hosers to counteract his power while he remains a creature that is seen in every format of play. The card's ability was originally printed on a Red card (Recoup), too, gaining some resentment from Red fans. Not helping matters is that, for whatever reason, most of ''Magic's'' villain characters over the years have been Blue ([[ManipulativeBastard Laquatus]] from the ''Odyssey'' block, [[TragicVillain Ixidor]] from the ''Onslaught'' block, [[AGodAmI Memnarch]] from the ''Mirrodin'' block, [[TricksterGod Mochi]] from the ''Kamigawa'' block, etc).

* Can happen (on a smaller scale) in {{Tabletop RPG}}s in general if the GameMaster grows too fond of some of his or her own self-created {{NPC}}s. This is one of the primary reasons why the {{GMPC}} concept enjoys a mixed reputation at best among many groups.

** The [[SkeleBot9000 Necrons]] have proven problematic for some fans. When the army got its proper launch during 3rd Edition, with a codex positing that the Necrons' [[EldritchAbomination undying C'tan masters]] were the prime source of all evil in the universe, secretly worshiped by a pivotal faction of the Imperium, ''and'' responsible for the rise of [[UltimateEvil Chaos]], many fans complained that these Franchise/{{Terminator}} knock-offs had usurped Chaos as the setting's BigBad. The 5th Edition codex attempted to rectify this by drastically reducing the C'tan's presence, specifically with a {{retcon}} describing how they were [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters betrayed]] and [[SealedEvilInACan imprisoned]] [[TakeThatScrappy by the Necrons]]. The book also assures readers that many Necron Lords have gone insane over the eons and enjoy delusions of godhood, and points out that what little the Imperium knows about the Necrons [[ArmedWithCanon are mostly half-truths, lies, or flat-out wrong]]. Naturally, [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks some fans are now complaining about the changes]].

* In a {{Meta}} example, the ''ComicStrip/BuckRogers'' content that Creator/{{TSR}} put out in the late 1980s; because her family owned the license to the character, CEO Lorraine Williams pushed the company to focus on ''Rogers'' to the detriment of everything else, which resulted in fan-favorites like ''TabletopGame/{{Spelljammer}}'' getting screwed as well as costing the company a huge amount of money due to forcing them to buy the Buck Rogers game rights at an inflated price in a clear conflict of interest.

* The Classic ''TabletopGame/{{Deadlands}}'' supplement ''Black Circle'' introduced "a major new force in the Weird West: the Cackler". Not only is he a creator's pet, but all that was ever revealed about him is that he's supposedly the most evil BigBad ever to walk the world. Heck, the authors even told you ''not'' to use him in the game because they had huge plans for him. Actual quote: "What you should not do is bring the Cackler into your game yet. He’s coming, and you’ll know it when he does. We’re not ready to say exactly when, but his presence will change the Weird West forever."
** Pinnacle later did a complete 180 on this, saying that it's highly unlikely that The Cackler will ever turn up in a Deadlands rulebook. Shane Lacy Hensley said that perhaps he'd tell the Cackler's story in some other media (probably because the story wouldn't have much to do with a posse), but they never again brought him up in any supplements.

* ''TabletopGame/WarhammerTheEndTimes'' feels at times like it was written by a Skaven fanboy.[[note]]It was written by Joshua Reynolds independently from Game's Workshop, GW did not sponsor or supervise his publications.[[/note]] They [[spoiler:destroy the Lizardmen, the Dwarfs, Bretonnia, Tilea, Estalia and Nuln all on their own, blow up [[DetonationMoon Morslieb]] ''and'' Nagash's Black Pyramid, and outright escape the End of the World everyone ''else'' was experiencing by sinking their lands into the Warp; this effectively makes them the only mortal faction that really ''won'' the End Times. Their God even usurped Slaanesh!]] This goes in defiance of their established military power. Inverted with Teclis, who the writers apparently ''so'' disliked that between undoing multiple past attempts to save the world and [[spoiler:leaving a DoomsdayDevice sitting out in the open for the bad guys to take control of]], he probably did more to bring about the end of the world than Archaon did.

* ''TabletopGame/WarhammerTheEndTimes'' feels at times like it was written by a Skaven fanboy.[[note]]It was written by Joshua Reynolds independently from Game's Workshop, GW did not sponsor or surprise his publications.[[/note]] They [[spoiler:destroy the Lizardmen, the Dwarfs, Bretonnia, Tilea, Estalia and Nuln all on their own, blow up [[DetonationMoon Morslieb]] ''and'' Nagash's Black Pyramid, and outright escape the End of the World everyone ''else'' was experiencing by sinking their lands into the Warp; this effectively makes them the only mortal faction that really ''won'' the End Times. Their God even usurped Slaanesh!]] This goes in defiance of their established military power. Inverted with Teclis, who the writers apparently ''so'' disliked that between undoing multiple past attempts to save the world and [[spoiler:leaving a DoomsdayDevice sitting out in the open for the bad guys to take control of]], he probably did more to bring about the end of the world than Archaon did.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}''[='s=] Aasimar race are often accused of being this; it was bad enough in D&D, what with them having many CommonMarySueTraits inherent to them, but ''Pathfinder'' gave them a massive stat buff that includes numerous benefits with few real drawbacks. Ironically, this is only from a crunch and design standpoint; in terms of fluff, Aasimar are somewhat infamous for constantly getting shafted in favor of their fellow [[HalfHumanHybrid Half-Human Hybrids]], the Tieflings.

* ''TabletopGame/WarhammerTheEndTimes'' feels at times like it was written by a Skaven fanboy. They [[spoiler:destroy the Lizardmen, the Dwarfs, Bretonnia, Tilea, Estalia and Nuln all on their own, blow up [[DetonationMoon Morslieb]] ''and'' Nagash's Black Pyramid, and outright escape the End of the World everyone ''else'' was experiencing by sinking their lands into the Warp; this effectively makes them the only mortal faction that really ''won'' the End Times. Their God even usurped Slaanesh!]] This goes in defiance of their established military power. Inverted with Teclis, who the writers apparently ''so'' disliked that between undoing multiple past attempts to save the world and [[spoiler:leaving a DoomsdayDevice sitting out in the open for the bad guys to take control of]], he probably did more to bring about the end of the world than Archaon did.

* The TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness setting has Samuel Haight. The writers just kept giving him more and more rule-breaking, crossover powers[[note]]Sam was a ghoul, a skin dancer, a true mage who didn't suffer paradox, and the owner of a sword that let him steal even more powers[[/note]] and kept instructing [=GMs=] to ensure he lives for another adventure before they finally clued into the massive {{Hatedom}} he had accumulated and [[AuthorsSavingThrow killed him off]]. (Then, ''in the afterlife,'' he was turned into a (still sentient) ashtray.)

* A long-standing complaint of ''TabletopGame/LegendOfTheFiveRings'' fans, though the Creator's Pet in question changes depending on the creator. Notable pets included=:

*** The Ultramarines are the Space Marines to the Space Marines. This reached its nadir during 5th edition; [[RunningTheAsylum thanks to letting an enormous Ultramarines fanboy do the writing]][[note]]indeed, originally the book was going to be called "Codex: Ultramarines" much like the 2nd edition, and was only changed at the last second[[/note]], the Ultramarines completely dominated. They were constantly harped upon as being the best of the best, with very little of other Chapters being mentioned; when they were, it was for them to praise the Ultramarines and how much they wanted to be like them (thereby ignoring all of their own history and beliefs), or so they could otherwise be shafted into obscurity for their "deviance". The Primarch of the Ultramarines, Roboute Guilliman, was also held up as ''the'' Ultramarine to idolize, infamously because called the "spiritual liege" of every single space marine (a phrase that's used to mock the Ultramarines even now). This was minimised in subsequent codices.

* In ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'', there is a bet every new set: "Which new strategy will be so imbalanced that players will [[{{scrub}} complain about how unfair it is]] and blame [[ScapegoatCreator Mark Rosewater]]?" In the case of infect, Rosewater took blame because he loved poison counters so much.

* In ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'', there is a bet every new set: "Which new strategy will be so imbalanced that players will [[{{scrub}} complain about how unfair it is]] and blame Mark Rosewater?" In the case of infect, Rosewater took blame because he loved poison counters so much.

*** While there was little question before, since the ''Hour of Devastation'' set Nicol Bolas is unarguably this. He's an odd duck in that, unlike Jace, he's not ''technically'' a modern-day character (he was originally one of the five Elder Dragons from ''Legends'', but like his fellow Elders was completely devoid of personality or story relevance) but was reinvented as one to provide the ''Magic'' universe with a new BigBad after they killed off Yawgmoth. Since that time Bolas has been on a trip, from [[MakeWayForTheNewVillains defeating classic evil planeswalker Leshrac]] to [[EvilerThanThou effortlessly one-upping]] his would-be TheStarscream Tezzeret. But what made Bolas fall squarely into this was ''Devastation'', where not only was a plane ruled by him shown as being [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?printed=true&multiverseid=426766 so perfect even the heroes had to acknowledge it]] (although their admiration turns to horror and disgust the more they learn and he later destroys it for fun) but in the climax, he easily defeats [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=430702 all]] [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=430812 five]] [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=430757 members]] [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=430775 of]] [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=430727 the]] Gatewatch ((''including'' Mark Rosewater's Creator's Pet Jace). The resulting CurbstompBattle is seen mostly from his perspective and played almost entirely for laughs. It's as if the only solution the ''Magic'' creative team could come up with for the constant accusations of the Gatewatch team getting too much focus was to make them suffer humiliating defeat at the hands (claws?) of an even more egregious example. [[spoiler:Thankfully, in ''War of the Spark'' he finally gets his comeuppance, being stripped of his planeswalker spark and sealed away for good.]]

Gods, I wanted to smack some of my fellow writers upside the head on some Vampire projects when they burbled on about the cool things they'd have Hardestadt do, or whoever. What were the '''[=PCs=]''' supposed to do?''
*** This quote sums up why this trope happens in tabletop [=RPGs=] -- it's easy for writers of "official" game fiction to forget that even the most interesting [=NPCs=] they're writing about are only the ''supporting cast'' meant to help player characters said writers will never even hear about shine. It's the main fallacy of writing for a game line with an evolving metaplot. You can't necessarily predict what player characters will do in a given adventure to push the plot in your desired direction, so you rely on [=NPCs=] to do the heavy lifting for you; of course, since they have all the agency, the party tends to play second fiddle. [[TabletopGames/Shadowrun Shadowrun]] seems to have better luck at this sort of thing, as they've had more practice and they tend to leave their plot advancements in sourcebooks and leave their adventures as standalone, rather than mixing metaplot into adventures where the party may not want to play by the script.

** ''TabletopGame/{{Dragonlance}}'' has the Kender, the setting's {{Hobbits}}, which both novels and sourcebooks hold up as the purest and most innocent of all races, waxing rhapsodic about how cute and adorable they are despite being -- or ''because'' of being -- impatient thrill-seekers whose limited sense of fear and insatiable curiosity make them both [[FearlessFool prone to charging recklessly into danger]] and compulsive kleptomaniacs. Other official statements include talking about how people who don't like kender don't understand them at best, are pure evil at worst, and are painted as {{jerkass}}es in the medium, how "a crying kender is one of the saddest things in the world", and how Krynn would lose something irreplaceable and priceless if kender vanished. Most of the fandom, especially the greater D&D fandom, [[TheScrappy despises them]]. Complaints range from their lore making them [[IncorruptiblePurePureness obnoxiously perfect]] and/or nonsensical (why are people treated as being bad for disliking the presence of compulsive thieves?), to getting annoyed at the kenders' status as {{hypocrite}}s (they get absolutely ''furious'' when people call them thieves[[note]]Kender were first introduced back in the AD&D days, and due to the way AD&D works, Halflings (and thus Kender, who used Halfling stats with minor changes), are, almost universally, what later editions refer to as Rogues. You know what that class is called in AD&D? '''Thief'''.[[/note]], but obsessively pick pockets and locks in search of fun new things to look at), and the fact that, at the actual tabletop, a race whose fluff ''calls'' for them to be played as a combination of ChaoticStupid and "that jerkass rogue who's always swiping the party's stuff" in order to be played accurately inevitably turns out to be disruptive and frustrating.

*** This quote sums up why this trope happens in tabletop [=RPGs=] -- it's easy for writers of "official" game fiction to forget that even the most interesting [=NPCs=] they're writing about are only the ''supporting cast'' meant to help player characters said writers will never even hear about shine.

*** The Ultramarines are the Space Marines to the Space Marines. This reached its nadir during 5th edition; [[RunningTheAsylum thanks to letting an enormous Ultramarines fanboy do the writing]][[note]]indeed, originally the book was going to be called "Codex: Ultramarines" much like the 2nd edition, and was only changed at the last second[[/note]], the Ultramarines completely dominated. They were constantly harped upon as being the best of the best, with very little of other Chapters being mentioned; when they were, it was for them to praise the Ultramarines and how much they wanted to be like them (thereby ignoring all of their own history and beliefs), or so they could otherwise be shafted into obscurity for their "deviance". This was minimised in subsequent codices.

* In ''TabletopGame/BleakWorld'' the Princess class is an obvious favorite of the creator, to the point they seem to show up in every single backstory of every other class. While fans views on the Princesses are mixed, it is clear that the author has nothing but love for his girls and presents them in a way that simply screams IncorruptiblePurePureness. Issue has also been taken with whether or not magical princesses belong in a Horror/Action RPG.
* In a {{Meta}} example, the ''ComicStrip/BuckRogers'' content that Creator/{{TSR}} in the late 1980s was this; because her family owned the license to the character, CEO Lorraine Williams pushed the company to focus on ''Rogers'' to the detriment of everything else, which resulted in fan-favorites like ''TabletopGame/{{Spelljammer}}'' getting screwed as well as costing the company a huge amount of money due to forcing them to buy the Buck Rogers game rights at an inflated price in a clear conflict of interest.

* The Classic ''TabletopGame/{{Deadlands}}'' supplement ''Black Circle'' introduced "a major new force in the Weird West: the Cackler". Not only was he a creator's pet, but all that was ever revealed about him was that he was supposedly the most evil BigBad ever to walk the world. Heck, the authors even told you ''not'' to use him in the game because they had huge plans for him. Actual quote: "What you should not do is bring the Cackler into your game yet. He’s coming, and you’ll know it when he does. We’re not ready to say exactly when, but his presence will change the Weird West forever."
** For what it's worth, Pinnacle has since done a complete 180 on this, saying that it's highly unlikely that The Cackler will ever turn up again in a Deadlands rulebook. Shane Lacy Hensley has said that perhaps he'll tell the Cackler's story in some other media (probably because the story wouldn't have much to do with a posse), but it's clear that they won't bring him up in a future supplement.
** To a lesser extent, the Four Servitors were Creator's pets as well, given how much was written about them and how far the authors went to make sure they were overly powerful and unkillable. Heck, a few scenarios involved the heroes unwittingly making those characters even more powerful (sometimes without them even knowing it)! By the time that ''Deadlands Reloaded'' came around, the authors generally relegated them to the background and commissioned a comic series where each of their backstories (which again, had little to do with a posse) could be properly explored.

** 2nd Edition's ''Complete Book of Elves''. This book caused some fan backlash over the text praising elves extensively, giving them superior knowledge of pretty much everything, moral sanction for everything (even for the arguably fascist grey elves, who kept slaves of other "lesser" elven races who were always inexplicably happy in slavery), the text outright insulting other races, and ignoring elven hypocrisy - this last one most evident in the sea elves, who went on great hunts that could depopulate a region of sharks but were given a pass on disrupting the ecosystem pretty much [[CantArgueWithElves Because They Were Elves]], [[ProtagonistCenteredMorality so it was okay]]. [[ItsAllAboutMe Somehow.]] [[NeverMyFault For some reason.]] Even the author eventually apologized for the [[PrestigeClass Blade Dancer]], a fighter/mage kit that gave lots of mechanical bonuses, with drawbacks that amounted to "things a PlayerCharacter was going to do anyway" (such as a tendency to being [[IWorkAlone a badass loner]] who has spent years of TrainingFromHell before the campaign began, a tendency to rush off into an adventure if it seems that another elf is threatened, and focusing their skill in a single type of weapon), with apparent permission to derail the story by getting to determine for themselves whether a situation was even covered by their code of conduct.
*** ''VideoGame/TormentTidesOfNumenera'''s Website/{{Kickstarter}} actually made one of its stretch goal rewards [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wwDWx1cAqP4 a videotaped apology]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoi1tvqzMaI from the book's author]].
** 3rd Edition and 3.5 (essentially, 3rd Edition Revised) had Spellcasters, an outgrowth of the LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards aspect [[FranchiseOriginalSin that had been part of the game since earlier editions]]. One of the core rules' main designers was not subtle in his love for wizards, and hearsay claims he thought fighters needed to be nerfed (despite being one of the least optimal classes to take). More generally, spellcasting in 3.x is a versatile pool of abilities for almost any niche, and new spells in every book expanded caster options faster than anyone else. Wizards, clerics, and druids especially benefited - wizards just had to find or research a spell and spend a pittance to add it to their spellbooks, while clerics and druids automatically have access to all spells on their classes' spell lists. In the latter case this lead to the infamous "[[FanNickname CoDzilla]]" ('''C'''leric '''o'''r '''D'''ruid + God'''zilla''') whose abilities and versatile spell selection made them very easy to [[{{Munchkin}} twink out]] - though wizards still tended to get more spells written for them in absolute terms. [[MasterOfAll These classes had spells]] that let them be more stealthy that your rogue [[note]]Unlocking an average lock had a DC of 25, so a 3rd level Rogue with a dexterity of 20 (the highest that stat can be at this level), max ranks in Open Lock, and masterwork tools only had a 45% of succeeding, while a 3rd level wizard can just cast ''knock'', which not only opens the most complex and/or magical of locks, it also can remove a deadbolt or anything else keeping said door from opening; the rouge need to make both Hide AND Move Silently checks to be stealthy (which was weird, as practically no class that had one lacked the other), meanwhile a wizard can just cast ''invisibility'' as a 2nd level spell. What makes this especially irritating is that to be even somewhat effective in this requires a Rogue to have a natural 18 in Dexterity (or spend 18 points in a [[PointBuySystem point-buy]]), be a Dex-boosting race, and invest a lot of money and resources into just this one job. A wizard just needs 12 Intelligence (or 4 points on a point-buy) to cast ''knock'' or ''invisibility''. Heck, you can get to the world-shattering power of 9th level spells (assuming standard wealth-by-level to get stat-boosting items that everyone was going to get anyway) with a 13/5 in a point buy! And that's assuming a non-Int boosting race. If you chose a race with a bonus to Intelligence, like some of the Elven and Gnomish races, then you get by with an 11/3 in a point buy. Fun fact: Unless the GM changes the default character generation rules, you are guaranteed to get at least one 11, and can put it in any stat, as you are entitled to a reroll if you ever get stats that low.[[/note]], better at combat than the fighter[[note]] Who cares if you're a sickly bookworm when you can turn into a T-Rex whenever you want? Also, several monsters have abilities that the players aren't supposed to get, or at levels far earlier than what non-mages get them.[[/note]], and have easy access to wand and scrolls to get spells that they wouldn't normally get. Said designer ''also'' hated the sorcerer class ([[NoTrueScotsman despite its extreme mechanical similarity to the wizard]]) and openly sabotaged it in every way he could.
*** Just for comparison, the Tier List for the game has six classes at the top: the wizard, the cleric, the druid, the archivist (who is basically just a cleric with a wizard's way of selecting spells), the artificer (whose main trick is abusing magic items to basically use spells), and the Spell to Power erudite (which can learn spells ''and'' PsychicPowers). Of the six, five of them are casters, and the sixth is functionally a caster anyway. The next-highest level is mainly comprised of the sorcerer and the favored soul, who are ''horribly'' gimped in comparison to their counterparts (the wizard and cleric, respectively) but still considered far more powerful than other classes. Even the adept, an ''NPC class'', [[LethalJokeCharacter is placed in the middle-tier]]. Meanwhile, the bottom two tiers contain, out of sixteen classes (including the oh-so-overpowered fighter), ''one'' casting-focused class - and it's [[CripplingOverspecialization the healer!]]
** ''TabletopGame/{{Dragonlance}}'' has the Kender, the setting's {{Hobbits}}, whom both novels and sourcebooks hold up as the purest and most innocent of all races, waxing rhapsodic about how cute and adorable they are despite being -- or even because of being! -- impatient thrill-seekers whose limited sense of fear and insatiable curiosity made them both [[FearlessFool prone to charging recklessly into danger]] and compulsive kleptomaniacs. Other official statements include talking about how people who don't like kender don't understand them at best, are pure evil at worst, and are absolute {{jerkass}}es in the medium, how "a crying kender is one of the saddest things in the world", and how Krynn would lose something irreplaceable and priceless if kender vanished. Most of the fandom, especially the greater D&D fandom, [[TheScrappy absolutely]] '''[[TheScrappy despises them]]'''. Complaints range from their lore making them a race of {{Purity Sue}}s and/or just being nonsensical (for example: why are people treated as being bad for disliking the presence of compulsive thieves?), to getting annoyed at the kender status as {{hypocrite}}s (they get absolutely ''furious'' when people call them thieves[[note]]Kender were first introduced back in the AD&D days, and due to the way AD&D worked, Halflings (and thus Kender, who used Halfling stats with minor changes), were, almost universally, what later editions referred to as Rogues. You know what that class was called in AD&D? '''Thief'''.[[/note]], but obsessively pick pockets and locks in search of fun new things to look at), and the fact that, at the actual tabletop, a race whose fluff ''calls'' for them to be played as a combination of ChaoticStupid and "that jerkass rogue who's always swiping the party's stuff" in order to be played accurately inevitably turns out to be disruptive and frustrating.
** Elminster from ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms''. For the crowd that is not into roleplaying: Think about what would happen if Gandalf was the main character of ''Lord of the Rings'' and the story consisted of him beating up anything that is a bother and boning the goddess of magic whose boobs are totally big and rad to the max.
*** Part of the problem is that Mystra in turn comes across as very much Ed Greenwood's pet ''goddess'', so much more powerful than any of the other gods (the introduction to ''Shadows of Doom'' comes right out and says so) that she basically ''has'' to deposit parts of her own godly power in her mortal Chosen. Like Elminster becomes at the end of ''The Making of a Mage''. So Elminster's problem is, in part, that while all the other famous Forgotten Realms characters may be people your {{player character}}s can look up to, try to emulate, and maybe one day catch up with... unless you can somehow talk your [[GameMaster Dungeon Master]] into allowing your character to enjoy a similarly "friendly" relationship with Mystra, El is always going to be Better Than You because the Realms' own canon Says So. (And during fourth edition, that option didn't even really exist anymore because, well, Mystra died. Thankfully, this has been undone, [[ResetButton along with]] almost all of the disastrous changes to the setting in 4E.)
* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'': The Aasimar race are often accused of being this; it was bad enough in D&D, what with them having a lot of CommonMarySueTraits inherently built into them, but ''Pathfinder'' gave them a massive stat buff that included numerous benefits with few real drawbacks. Ironically, this is only from a crunch and design standpoint; in terms of fluff, Aasimar are somewhat infamous for constantly getting shafted in favor of their fellow [[HalfHumanHybrid Half-Human Hybrids]], the Tieflings.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}''. In a game whose premise is "Godlike almost perfect demigods tragically cursed to bring about their own downfall," the Infernals stand out as being the writer's darlings. Given the nature of the charms, the amount of printed material given to them and their prevalence in the MetaPlot compared to the Abyssals, Fairfolk, which are the other two playable "antagonist", which had both been around since first edition.
* A long-standing complaint of ''TabletopGame/LegendOfTheFiveRings'' fans, though the Creator's Pet in question changes depending on the creator. Notable pets included:
** Toturi. His faction got the story prize for the first arc despite another faction winning the tournament.
** The Crane Clan, who got to avoid TheCorruption running rampant during the second arc, to the point that a [[BloodMagic Bloodspeaker]] from a Crane family was printed as unaligned when every other faction got one.

** Akodo Kaneka. Dear Fortunes, Akodo Kaneka.
** Daigotsu's killed two emperors, effortlessly showed up TheDreaded Iuchiban, blackmailed and betrayed the Empress, and then rewrote the cosmology of the entire setting to his liking. Twice. To the Spider Clan, he's a hero. To everyone else, he's a tiresome character that just won't go away.

** The RPG brought us the Kolat, a CaptainErsatz of the Illuminati who were a GreaterScopeVillain to the players, quietly working to undermine the entire empire. So far, so good -- it's a great way to bring a party together across clan lines. When they became big players in the card game, however, they became a GenericDoomsdayVillain with no coherent goal or method, and which the players were implicitly beyond the players' ability to oppose, since it was rare to have story tournaments involving them more than once every five years or so. Even then, it was rare for these setbacks to stick -- the Unicorn, previously riddled with Kolat agents, won a tournament to purge the Kolat from their ranks... a victory which [[WordOfGod the story team said]] caused sweeping changes, but which never had a single line of story or flavor text acknowledging the Unicorn's vengeance on their most hated foes.
* In the ''Living Death'' campaign the character of Jason Lindaman was supposed to be a super-intelligent, CrazyPrepared investigator who was taken out by the enemy before the [=PCs=] arrived. Because the [=PCs=]' only real interaction with him was after something heinous that took all four to six of them to handle had physically or emotionally crippled him, many players considered him a joke and/or incompetent to the point that they wished for his death.

** A single character who demonstrates shades of this is [[PsychicPowers Jace]] [[MindManipulation Beleren]]. In each story expansion, he's given more weight and his importance is emphasised. He's gone from being just one of the several new planeswalkers in the Lorwyn/Shadowmoor block to being so important as to being the primary focus of the Shadows Over Innistrad block, despite the fact that pretty much all he did was steal Tamiyo's notes[[note]]As in, there is literally a a card in this set that is her [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=410032 journal]].[[/note]] (another planeswalker who was introduced in the original Innistrad block) and steal the spotlight.
*** Many fans feel Blue in general sometimes gets preferential treatment from the game designers; when Snapcaster Mage was printed, he was all the daily articles would talk about for several days in a row, and later articles would regularly bring up how great he was. Later, Snapcaster Mage's impact on the game was so profound that every expansion since has required several graveyard-hosers to counteract his power while he remains a creature that is seen in every format of play. Also, the card's ability was originally printed on a Red card, Recoup, gaining some resentment from Red fans. It bears noting, too, that for whatever reason most of ''Magic's'' villain characters over the years have been Blue ([[ManipulativeBastard Laquatus]] from the ''Odyssey'' block, [[TragicVillain Ixidor]] from the ''Onslaught'' block, [[AGodAmI Memnarch]] from the ''Mirrodin'' block, [[TricksterGod Mochi]] from the ''Kamigawa'' block, etc).
*** While there was little question before, since the ''Hour of Devastation'' set Nicol Bolas is unarguably this. He's an odd duck in that, unlike Jace, he's not ''technically'' a modern-day character (he was originally one of the five Elder Dragons from ''Legends'', but like his fellow Elders was completely devoid of personality or story relevance) but was reinvented as one to provide the ''Magic'' universe with a new BigBad after they killed off Yawgmoth. Since that time Bolas has been on a trip, from [[MakeWayForTheNewVillains defeating classic evil planeswalker Leshrac]] to [[EvilerThanThou effortlessly one-upping his would-be]] TheStarscream [[EvilerThanThou Tezzeret]]. But what made Bolas finally fall squarely into this was ''Devastation'', where not only was a plane ruled by him shown as being [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?printed=true&multiverseid=426766 so perfect even the heroes had to acknowledge it]] (although their admiration turns to horror and disgust the more they learn and he later destrys it for fun) but in the climax, he easily defeated [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=430702 all]] [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=430812 five]] [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=430757 members]] [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=430775 of]] [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=430727 the]] Gatewatch ((''including'' Mark Rosewater's Creator's Pet Jace detailed above). The resulting CurbstompBattle was seen mostly from his perspective and played almost entirely for laughs. It's as if the only solution the ''Magic'' creative team could come up with for the constant accusations of the Gatewatch team being this was to make them suffer humiliating defeat at the hands (claws?) of an even more egregious example. [[spoiler:Thankfully, in ''War of the Spark'' he finally got his comeuppance, being stripped of his planeswalker spark and sealed away for good.]]
* The TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness setting had Samuel Haight. The writers just kept giving him more and more rule-breaking, crossover powers[[note]]Sam was a ghoul, a skin dancer, a true mage who didn't suffer paradox, and the owner of a sword that let him steal even more powers[[/note]] and kept instructing [=GMs=] to ensure he lives for another adventure before they finally clued into the massive {{Hatedom}} he had accumulated and [[AuthorsSavingThrow killed him off brutally]]. (Then, ''in the afterlife,'' he was turned into a (still sentient) ashtray.)

Gods, I wanted to smack some of my fellow writers upside the head on some Vampire projects when they burbled on about the cool things they'd have Hardestadt do, or whoever. What were the *[=PCs=]* supposed to do?''
*** This quote kind of sums up why this trope happens in tabletop [=RPGs=] in a nutshell -- it's easy at times for writers of "official" game fiction to forget that even the most interesting [=NPCs=] they're writing about are technically only the ''supporting cast'' meant to help player characters said writers will never even hear about shine.
** Both old and new World of Darkness can get into rather crippling "arms races" between creators and their pets. Every line has them, and the line developers will often slip into treating entire character types as their pets.

* Wargaming: 'Pet Armies' are a ongoing debate. In any period there are armies that people argue are over-powerful in many sets of rules;

** UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar - that is a whole can of worms, because players sometimes take the politics into the game.

* In ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasy'' the Blackorc Warboss Grimgor Ironhide is hated by a large part of the fandom for replacing a black orc considered to be better thought through; the writers likes him enough to let him defeat Archaon, another badass character, and thus save the world by being badass.
* ''TabletopGame/WarhammerTheEndTimes'' feels at times like it was written by a Skaven fanboy. They [[spoiler:destroy the Lizardmen, the Dwarfs, Bretonnia, Tilea, Estalia and Nuln all on their own, and also blow up [[DetonationMoon Morslieb]] ''and'' Nagash's Black Pyramid, and they also outright escape the End of the World everyone ''else'' was experiencing by sinking their lands into the Warp, not to mention their God usurped Slaanesh; this effectively makes them the only mortal faction that really ''won'' the End Times.]] This goes in defiance of all their established military power. Inverted with Teclis, who the writers apparently ''so'' disliked that between undoing multiple past attempts to save the world and [[spoiler:leaving a DoomsdayDevice practically sitting out in the open for the bad guys]], he probably did more to bring about the end of the world than Archaon did.

** ''40k''s oldest Creators' Pets have always been the Space Marines themselves. As ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}''[='s=] mascot characters, the Space Marines get the most exposure and the most updates, while [[PowerCreepPowerSeep Codex Creep]] ensures that they remain a potent force on the tabletop. In the setting's narrative, Space Marines are so awesome that they've been awarded the "moral victory" even when they ''failed'' a campaign's objectives[[note]]this was probably because the Space Marines and Imperial Guard were lumped together (being on the same side and all), and the IG definitely succeeded in their primary objective. For their part, the Space Marines at least achieved their secondary objectives[[/note]]. Roughly half of ''40k'''s armies are some variant of guys in PowerArmor, and Space Marine merchandise sells more than all the other factions ''combined''.
*** The Ultramarines are the Space Marines to the Space Marines, which reached its nadir during the 5th edition. [[RunningTheAsylum Thanks to letting an enormous Ultramarines fanboy do the writing]][[note]]indeed, originally the book was going to be called "Codex: Ultramarines" much like the 2nd edition if only for a last-minute change[[/note]], the Ultramarines completely dominated. The Ultramarines were constantly harped upon as being the best of the best, with very little of other Chapters being mentioned; when they were, it was for them to constantly praise the Ultrmarines and how much they wanted to be like them (thereby ignoring all of their own history and beliefs) or otherwise will be inevitably shafted into obscurity for their "deviance". Mercifully, this was minimised in subsequent codices.

** The [[SkeleBot9000 Necrons]] have proven problematic for some fans. When the army got its proper launch during 3rd Edition, with a codex positing that the Necrons' [[EldritchAbomination undying C'tan masters]] were essentially the prime source of all evil in the universe, secretly worshiped by a pivotal faction of the Imperium, ''and'' responsible for the rise of [[UltimateEvil Chaos]], many fans complained that these Franchise/{{Terminator}} knock-offs had usurped Chaos as the setting's BigBad. The 5th Edition codex has attempted to rectify this by drastically reducing the C'tan's presence in the background, specifically with a {{retcon}} describing how they were [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters betrayed]] and [[SealedEvilInACan imprisoned]] [[TakeThatScrappy by the Necrons]]. The book also assures readers that many Necron Lords have gone insane over the eons and enjoy delusions of godhood, and points out that what little the Imperium knows about the Necrons [[ArmedWithCanon are mostly half-truths, lies, or flat-out wrong]]. Naturally, [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks some fans are now complaining about the changes]].
** The 5th Edition Grey Knights codex - which was incidentally written by the same author as the aforementioned Ultramarine-obsessed codex - introduced [[CanonSue Lord Kaldor Draigo]], who managed to one-up the Ultramarines through the sheer, over-the-top Sueishness of his accomplishments, which includes but it not limited to: surviving an endless walk through Hell, banishing a Daemon Prince in his first combat action, defeating a Daemon Primarch and vandalizing its still-beating heart, killing a Bloodthirster all but bare-handedly before stealing its unholy axe and reforging it into a sword with the power of his mind, and rampaging through the Chaos Gods' private demesnes without consequence. As nicely as possible, most of these feats are '''impossible''' for any Grey Knight to pull off. The 7th Edition Codex was forced to cut all this down a bit (''quite'' a bit). Not that the Knights themselves were spotless: one weapon essentially made the Tau unable to deal damage, the Dreadknight is an impractically stupid-looking vehicle (it's a giant robotic baby carrier, for crying out loud), and fluff-wise, they now cheerfully use daemonic weapons (one of the ''key reasons'' that no Grey Knight has ever fallen to Chaos is because they stay well away from the "fight fire with fire" route some Inquisitors take and inevitably fall)... and of course, the most reviled incident where the Knights were fighting a nanomachine swarm, then noticed the Sisters of Battle's faith made them immune to it. [[WhatTheHellHero So they murdered the Sisters to cover their armor in the blood of the innocent]] as an efficient protection, instead of leaving pious Imperial warriors ''alive''. If you're thinking that sounds like something Chaos would do... [[https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Khornate_Knights you're entirely right.]]
*** One common joke for the Kaldor situation is "because GW wouldn't let Ward bring back Guilliman[[note]]the Primarch of the Ultramarines, essentially a demigod that's been in suspended animation for the past few millenia[[/note]]". In a curious inversion, the latest edition brings back Guilliman from stasis... and the fanbase actually seems to be taking it as a positive development, since Guilliman is not happy with what's been going on in his absence.
** This accusation is sometimes leveled at Eldar as well; Eldar are purportedly a [[GlassCannon glass cannon]] faction with a healthy dose of [[FragileSpeedster Fragile Speedster]]. In practice, they tend to play more like [[LightningBruiser Lightning Bruisers]], with powerful special rules that make their supposedly fragile units very durable, and really brutal firepower. In fact, the only stretch in the game's history where Eldar weren't god-tier or close to it was throughout 5th edition, when their codex was out of date.
** This accusation was eventually leveled at the Crimson Slaughter warband of Chaos Space Marines. Originally having no lore beyond a name and colour scheme, they [[AscendedExtra suddenly became]] one of the two factions in the 6th edition starter set, and then received a dedicated Codex supplement before eight of the nine Traitor Legions, those ones that are instrumental to the setting's history. As of late 7th and 8th edition, they're now [[SpotlightStealingSquad used as the example colour scheme for most Chaos Space Marine plastic kits]].
** In the first year of 8th edition, the focus has been almost entirely on Roboute Guilliman and his army of Primaris Marines (essentially [[SuperiorSuccessor like Space Marines, but more so]]) fighting Chaos. Thanks to the time skip this involved, every alien faction apparently sat on their hands doing nothing of importance for ''centuries''. This is most obvious in terms of models; [[SpaceElves Crafworld Eldar]], [[HordeOfAlienLocusts Tyranids]], and [[SkeleBot9000 Necrons]] ''did'' receive new rules and lore updates, but no new kits. The Primaris also tend to get sidebars talking about them in every available book: for example, Dark Eldar players got to read a sidebar about how the Primaris Marines were the new hotness in Commorragh's arenas and somewhat interesting to the local MadDoctor faction, the Haemonculus Covens, while Chaos Marines got an entry on how much Fabius Bile wanted to get some to mess with... essentially rubbing the new models into the faces of fans who are likely not Space Marine players.
** Black Library, GW's novel publishing house, have exactly the same issue with Imperial focus that GW proper does. Let's put it this way. By late April 2018, the Featured bar on the "New Titles" section of BL's website has eleven 40K works in it (twelve entries, but one appears twice because there's a special edition). Eight of those eleven novels - ''Literature/GauntsGhosts: The Lost'', ''Carcharodons: Outer Dark'', ''Legacy of Dorn'', ''Imperator: Wrath of the Omnissiah'', ''Flayed'', ''Dante'', ''Mercy'' and ''Jaghatai Khan: Warhawk of Chogoris'' - are Imperial-focused. As a percentage, this is actually ''down'' from Black Library circa 2006-2007, which would at times release four 40K books in a given month, all of them would have Imperial main characters, and three of those would be Space Marines.

*** While there was little question before, since the ''Hour of Devastation'' set Nicol Bolas is unarguably this. He's an odd duck in that, unlike Jace, he's not ''technically'' a modern-day character (he was originally one of the five Elder Dragons from ''Legends'', but like his fellow Elders was completely devoid of personality or story relevance) but was reinvented as one to provide the ''Magic'' universe with a new BigBad after they killed off Yawgmoth. Since that time Bolas has been on a trip, from [[MakeWayForTheNewVillains defeating classic evil planeswalker Leshrac]] to [[EvilerThanThou effortlessly one-upping his would-be]] TheStarscream [[EvilerThanThou Tezzeret]]. But what made Bolas finally fall squarely into this was ''Devastation'', where not only was a plane ruled by him shown as being [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?printed=true&multiverseid=426766 so perfect even the heroes had to acknowledge it]] (although their admiration turns to horror and disgust the more they learn and he later destrys it for fun) but in the climax, he easily defeated [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=430702 all]] [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=430812 five]] [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=430757 members]] [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=430775 of]] [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=430727 the]] Gatewatch ((''including'' Mark Rosewater's Creator's Pet Jace detailed above). The resulting CurbstompBattle was seen mostly from his perspective and played almost entirely for laughs. It's as if the only solution the ''Magic'' creative team could come up with for the constant accusations of the Gatewatch team being this was to make them suffer humiliating defeat at the hands (claws?) of an even more egregious example.

*** Part of the problem is that Mystra in turn comes across as very much Ed Greenwood's pet ''goddess'', so much more powerful than any of the other gods (the introduction to ''Shadows of Doom'' comes right out and says so) that she basically ''has'' to deposit parts of her own godly power in her mortal Chosen. Like Elminster becomes at the end of ''The Making of a Mage''. So Elminster's problem is, in part, that while all the other famous Forgotten Realms characters may be people your {{player character}}s can look up to, try to emulate, and maybe one day catch up with... unless you can somehow talk your [[GameMaster Dungeon Master]] into allowing your character to enjoy a similarly "friendly" relationship with Mystra, El is always going to be Better Than You because the Realms' own canon Says So. (And during fourth edition, that option didn't even really exist anymore because, well, Mystra died. Thankfully, this has been undone, [[ResetButton along with]] almost all of the disastrous changes to the setting in 4E.)* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'': The Aasimar race are often accused of being this; it was bad enough in D&D, what with them having a lot of CommonMarySueTraits inherently built into them, but ''Pathfinder'' gave them a massive stat buff that included numerous benefits with few real drawbacks. Ironically, this is only from a crunch and design standpoint; in terms of fluff, Aasimar are somewhat infamous for constantly getting shafted in favor of their fellow [[HalfHumanHybrid Half-Human Hybrids]], the Tieflings.

** ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'': Really all the Harpers, but Elminster in particular stands out. A lot of players were put off when they realized their character's greatest contribution to the setting's history would undoubtedly end up being something along the lines of "that time they held Elminster's beer while he single-handedly saved the world."
* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'': The Aasimar race are often accused of being this; it was bad enough in D&D, what with them having a lot of CommonMarySueTraits inherently built into them, but ''Pathfinder'' gave them a massive stat buff that included numerous benefits with few real drawbacks. Ironically, this is only from a crunch and design standpoint; in terms of fluff, Aasimar are somewhat infamous for constantly getting shafted in favor of their fellow [[HalfHumanHybrid Half-Human Hybrids]], the Tieflings.

* Elminster from ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms''. For the crowd that is not into roleplaying: Think about what would happen if Gandalf was the main character of ''Lord of the Rings'' and the story consisted of him beating up anything that is a bother and boning the goddess of magic whose boobs are totally big and rad to the max.
** Part of the problem is that Mystra in turn comes across as very much Ed Greenwood's pet ''goddess'', so much more powerful than any of the other gods (the introduction to ''Shadows of Doom'' comes right out and says so) that she basically ''has'' to deposit parts of her own godly power in her mortal Chosen. Like Elminster becomes at the end of ''The Making of a Mage''. So Elminster's problem is, in part, that while all the other famous Forgotten Realms characters may be people your {{player character}}s can look up to, try to emulate, and maybe one day catch up with... unless you can somehow talk your [[GameMaster Dungeon Master]] into allowing your character to enjoy a similarly "friendly" relationship with Mystra, El is always going to be Better Than You because the Realms' own canon Says So. (And during fourth edition, that option didn't even really exist anymore because, well, Mystra died. Thankfully, this has been undone, [[ResetButton along with]] almost all of the disastrous changes to the setting in 4E.)

** ''Literature/{{Dragonlance}}'' has the Kender, the setting's {{Hobbits}}, whom both novels and sourcebooks hold up as the purest and most innocent of all races, waxing rhapsodic about how cute and adorable they are despite being -- or even because of being! -- impatient thrill-seekers whose limited sense of fear and insatiable curiosity made them both [[FearlessFool prone to charging recklessly into danger]] and compulsive kleptomaniacs. Other official statements include talking about how people who don't like kender don't understand them at best, are pure evil at worst, and are absolute {{jerkass}}es in the medium, how "a crying kender is one of the saddest things in the world", and how Krynn would lose something irreplaceable and priceless if kender vanished. Most of the fandom, especially the greater D&D fandom, [[TheScrappy absolutely]] '''[[TheScrappy despises them]]'''. Complaints range from their lore making them a race of {{Purity Sue}}s and/or just being nonsensical (for example: why are people treated as being bad for disliking the presence of compulsive thieves?), to getting annoyed at the kender status as {{hypocrite}}s (they get absolutely ''furious'' when people call them thieves[[note]]Kender were first introduced back in the AD&D days, and due to the way AD&D worked, Halflings (and thus Kender, who used Halfling stats with minor changes), were, almost universally, what later editions referred to as Rogues. You know what that class was called in AD&D? '''Thief'''.[[/note]], but obsessively pick pockets and locks in search of fun new things to look at), and the fact that, at the actual tabletop, a race whose fluff ''calls'' for them to be played as a combination of ChaoticStupid and "that jerkass rogue who's always swiping the party's stuff" in order to be played accurately inevitably turns out to be disruptive and frustrating.

** Just for comparison, the Tier List for the game has six classes at the top: the wizard, the cleric, the druid, the archivist (who is basically just a cleric with a wizard's way of selecting spells), the artificer (whose main trick is abusing magic items to basically use spells), and the Spell to Power erudite (which can learn spells ''and'' PsychicPowers). Of the six, five of them are casters, and the sixth is functionally a caster anyway. The next-highest level is mainly comprised of the sorcerer and the favored soul, who are ''horribly'' gimped in comparison to their counterparts (the wizard and cleric, respectively) but still considered far more powerful than other classes. Even the adept, an ''NPC class'', [[LethalJokeCharacter is placed in the middle-tier]]. Meanwhile, the bottom two tiers contain, out of sixteen classes (including the oh-so-overpowered fighter), ''one'' casting-focused class - and it's [[CripplingOverspecialization the healer!]]

* TabletopGame/{{Dungeons And Dragons}}: