Misused (YKTTW name crowner): Heroes Prefer Swords

I agree with ccoa.

I definitively have to agree with ccoa on both her points.

Great. Would you guys mind going over to the YKTTW and helping out with the examples or description? Or just post examples here and I'll add them in.

So.. What about my layout?

It seems pretty similar to what I proposed earlier, minus the Sword As A Weapon Of Choice supertrope and substituting kingly/knightly for heroic.

I was about to YKTTW a Swords Are Balanced trope, and I had a thought: should this instead be about each common weapon and how it fits into the hierarchy? For example:

• Daggers - fast, but short-ranged and low damage
• Swords - the jack
• Axes/Hammers - slow, heavy hitting, inaccurate
• Spear/Lance - slow, longer ranged
• Bow - Very long range, either low damage or user has low defense to compensate
• Guns - Very long range, either low damage or gimicky damage calculation (fixed damage, uses a different stat, etc)
• Knuckles - medium speed, very short range

And anything else I'm missing in this brainstorm. Should we YKTTW that, and then see if any subtropes need spun off?

@Martello - will head over there now.

edited 12th Mar '12 10:05:19 AM by ccoa

Bows in strat games usually will have a min range Dead Zone where they can't fire.

Some axes and hammers have random damage modifiers where they can hit for nothing or do insane damage. (some other weapons can do that too depending on the game.)

I went with Knightly as that is the stereotype and it gets used a lot.

I'm still seeing Swords Are Knightly (or whatever it would be called) and Heroes Prefer Swords as possibly having too much overlap, but I agree with the rest of your setup.

There is a bit of overlap but that is because Knights tend to be the Protag (kings and princes it's a toss up.) they don't have to be at all. Even Secondary Protagonist will get them like FFXII.

Crono in trigger is just a guy still gets a sword Frog is the Knight with a sword.

Heroes Prefer Swords is really a aggregate RPG / Video Game supertrope to all of them.... the reason why the have a sword is well can be all of the above Knightly (if applicable.) Swords Are Balanced etc. Hell this trope was Enforced in XIII-2 they went out of their way to make sure it did happen (by making her weapon transform.)

edited 12th Mar '12 12:46:28 PM by Raso

I think we should ditch Heroes Prefer Swords, myself. It's trying too hard to be too many things, and it misses the reasons behind the trope in favor of merely documenting the pattern.

As to kings/knights being more likely to have swords, I think that's another way of saying Swords Are Heroic. Knights and kings tend to bring to mind images of chivalry and heroism, and swords are associated with both.

You know, Heroes Prefer Swords is a good, clear name. It's misuse is mostly from the fact that it's got a messy definition, but it's got a ton of inbounds and good use on the wiki. I think we can keep the name for the trope about heroes wielding swords.

We just need to split out all the other junk into it's own actual tropes.

I still very much think the aggregate video game trope should be separate of the rest (whatever the title ends up being.) It is a rule the protag / Player Character will use a sword no matter what his role in the story is does not have to be The Hero knightly or anything he is simply the Player Character.

Take Dragon Quest V the hero if the story is not the protag yet they both use swords. The protag uses them because Swords Are Balanced but The Hero uses them because he is The Hero and Only the Chosen May Wield.

edited 12th Mar '12 1:17:43 PM by Raso

I'm on board with Swords Are Balanced. No one's YKTTW'd it yet, right?

No. I had a question earlier about whether we should be making one so narrow. It seems like we should instead make a Weapon Heirarchy In Video Games trope.

The YKTTW is kind of stagnant right now. Does anyone have any more suggestions or want to improve or revise my initial draft?

Bump for doing something here. Are we going to go with the YKTTW I wrote, edit it, add more examples, or what? Also, what happens to Heroes Prefer Swords and how are we going to split it if that's the route we want to go?

Okay, this has been sitting her for ten days. Does anyone want to do anything here? I'm more than willing to launch the YKTTW and start moving examples from Heroes Prefer Swords, but I'd like some kind of consensus or support.

Sorry, Martello. Things have been seriously hectic for me.

I've noticed that with YKTTW, you have to bump your draft to get anywhere. A lot.

Here's my suggestion for the description: Second paragraph about spears being more common sounds more like analysis to me. Fourth paragraph should come it (it's the tropey bit) and third paragraph down.

Could use a line about how sword fights are perceived as more exciting visually than most other weapons, which may be why the antagonist is given one to mirror the hero.

Other than that, it looks good to me.

Now I just need to remember what else we were doing here...

No problem, I didn't mean to sound so demanding - I just want to get this resolved so we can keep moving with repairs and tropes and shops.

I'll do some work on the YKTTW tomorrow, and report back here.

Any progress here?

Not a bit, sorry. I've been so busy with work that all my TV Tropes time is dedicated to 5P stuff only, and I've neglected all my other projects. Once I'm done with this current busy training week and will be traveling less the next few weekends, I'll have some time to get on this.

If I weren't going to be gone most of this upcoming week, I'd offer to take this one off your hands... With your consent, of course.

With Martello gone, we're going to need someone to take over the YKTTW.

By the way, where is that YKTTW? I couldn't find it...

I'll take a stab at it. If it proves too difficult, I'll let someone else take over.

Ok, checked it out. Can I get a clear breakdown of how we're planning to split? I backtracked a little, but I'd like a neat little list.