Subverting Tropes

Context: Tropes Aren't Bad, Overuse Is

This video is a follow-up to Tim's earlier video on overused tropes. Viewers pointed out that Tim himself had used many of the tropes he criticized. He acknowledges this freely — his approach has shifted over decades, and he regrets some earlier choices. His stance isn't anti-trope; he gives everyone "one use" of any trope. The danger is thinking you can reuse them repeatedly without being a master of the craft.

Tim's core frustration with tropes is repetition. It's the same reason he dislikes making sequels — he's already explored that setting and those mechanics, so why do it again?

What "Subverting" Means

Subverting a trope means doing the opposite of what the player expects once they detect the trope or predict where the game is heading. Tim finds this genuinely fun — both as a designer and a player.

Examples from Tim's Games

Fallout: The Master's Unity

The super mutants seem like straightforward bad guys — killing and kidnapping people. But as you investigate, patterns emerge: they're only kidnapping people with low radiation exposure. The Brotherhood of Steel scientists fill in more pieces. When you finally confront the Master, he genuinely believes his Unity is a good thing. You can point out the flaws in his plan, and if your Speech skill is high enough, the Master kills himself, admitting he was wrong.

Tim loves that the game never calls the player an idiot for not seeing it sooner. It reveals information gradually and lets the player act on it.

Arcanum: Subversions Within Subversions

When designing Arcanum, the team deliberately set out to subvert the "Chosen One" trope. At the start, Virgil tells you you're the reincarnation of Nasrudin. The subversions stack:

• Nasrudin is actually still alive
• The supposed villain Arronax had been bad but switched sides
• The real villain is Kerghan, not who you expected
• The ring you're given isn't a Ring of Power — it's just a symbol that Gilbert Bates will recognize
• The "boy" you're seeking isn't a boy at all, because dwarves live a long time

Tim describes this as "subversions within subversions within subversions" — things are never what you think they are, and the game rewards paying attention.

Vampire: Bloodlines — You're Not Special

You're turned into a vampire in the opening, but you're the lowest of the low — they almost kill you. The game keeps undermining your sense of supernatural power:

• You don't believe in ghosts despite being a vampire, and NPCs call you out on it
• You're "not even at the top of the supernatural list" — foreshadowing the werewolf encounter that completely destroys you

Tim also highlights Fat Larry as a favorite character. Larry pre-empts any judgment: "People call me Fat Larry because I am fat. I don't care." No shame, no irony, just a man completely comfortable with himself. Tim didn't write Fat Larry but loves the character's straightforward self-acceptance.

The Outer Worlds: Parvati's Genuine Kindness

Tim hates sarcastic, mean-spirited companion characters. Parvati is the antithesis — she's genuinely nice, and it's not a facade or a trick. She's nice the whole game. The design challenge was figuring out how she'd react to the player doing terrible things, because her niceness is real and consistent. Tim sees this as subverting the expectation that kind characters must secretly be hiding something.

The Unreleased Fantasy Game

Tim's most elaborate subversion example comes from an old design document (the one Fallout was originally going to be based on). In this fantasy world, everything is inverted:

• Princesses are terrifying marauders. Before they settle down and marry a prince, they go on a violent "spring break" — like a fantasy version of Amish Rumspringa. A dragon comes to you for help because a princess is hunting him down and he's terrified she'll kill him.
• Wizards live in towers not for dark magic, but for protection. They were born with magical ability and were abused for it as children — forced to use their powers until they harmed themselves. Isolation was their only escape.
• The final boss can save and reload just like the player. When you kill him, the game reloads with him alive. The player's most fundamental power — save games — is neutralized.

The Golden Rule of Subversion

Tim's strongest opinion: never make the player feel stupid. The worst version of a subversion is a character revealing "I was the villain all along and you never knew, you idiot!" — when the game gave the player zero tools to figure it out. That's not clever writing; that's lazy design punishing the player for the designer's failure.

If a character is secretly evil, the game must provide ways for an attentive player to discover and act on it. Otherwise, the designer is the stupid one.

Is Subverting Tropes Itself a Trope?

Tim acknowledges the meta-problem: yes, subverting tropes is itself a trope. You can spiral endlessly — is avoiding tropes a trope? Is going against a trope a trope? The answer is always yes. But the point isn't novelty for its own sake.

The Real Advice: Find Something Uniquely Yours

Tim closes with a provocation: in the era of cancel culture, could you make a game where the player is the villain trying to atone? Where the character did genuinely terrible things, admits it, and is trying to be better — and the game asks whether forgiveness is possible? That's the kind of question that could make players rethink their core beliefs.

The final message: there are more games, shows, and movies than ever, making true originality harder. But every designer has something unique to say. Find that thing. Say it. That's what makes your game matter.

References

• Tim Cain. YouTube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlPhIfr-JgM