So, as the title says, what are the things in Fantasy settings you don't like? I will list mine.

1 - The extremely beautiful, long lived, sage elves. Don't get me wrong, I like this type of elves but they are just "out dated". I liked what The Witcher's writer did. They once were like this, but now they are just a shadow of it. Oh and yes, I love TES elves because they are just the opposite of this type of elves, but I am not a lore sage, so...

2 - The lack of a deep story and cultural aspects of its world. One thing that buggers me a lot.

3 - MAGIC EVERYWHERE! It may seem a little dumb "hey you want to reed/play/watch fantasy stuff but don't want to see a lot of magic?" but truth is, I like when magic is there but not everywhere.

4 - Unrealistic weapons and armor design. I just can't stand that 1,8 meters sword with a edge of 10cm. Or that over sized armor.

these are the things that really buggers me in a Fantasy Setting.

1. Arthurian novels/films that do down Gawaine and Kay. Malory started the trend.

1. Guns

2. Boob Armor

3. Games (and this goes for almost any game) that portray women in a very objectifying manner. I want real Heroines, not the ones that wear scantily clad boob armor and use the daintiest of weapons while performing high kicks while wearing thong armor and a miniskirt.

EDIT: Actually, scratch the first two and here is why:

It's a fantasy setting, therefore a world that plays by different rules than our own. If it's a modern fantasy world, then hell yes there should guns...whether it fires lasers, or bullets, or laser-bullets, or it's an arm-gun, or a leg-gun...or a gunblade...as long as it's consistent with that world, it's fine by me.

As for Boob Armor....at least TRY to make it look somewhat functional, not just armor that can handle a big pair of a boobs and show them off at the same time.

1. Shallow love interests that only exist to be the love interest.

2. A bad guy that is evil because he is evil. What is his motivation? He is evil.

Oozes, slimes and mustard jellies.

I don't like these two in any setting. Admittedly, evil-because-evil is particularly common in fantasy.

that bothers me in any setting.. evil "for the sake of evil" is just bad writing.. give your antagonist goals, feelings, a History, and a purpose to why they became what they are and what they are trying to achieve by doing it..


as for the OPs Question.. I guess unoriginal character or Creature design, I can only see the Generic Dragon, Minotaur, Troll, and Naga designs so many times before they start getting old
(although, I may be somewhat of a Hypocrite because a few of my favorite games heavily use these Generic Designs)

as a big fan of Arthurian Lore, I will be the first to say alot of the Novels and Films feel extremely watered down, and does not do the story justice

Scottish claymores could push a meter and a half, and William Wallace's sword, even if it wasn't actually his, is 163cm long. So the very long sword aren't entirely insane.

Oh I know, thing is, is the edge gigantic as the sword? I know Scottish Claymores and Spanish/Portuguese Montantes are HUGE, but it isn't that absurd thing we see in fantasy.

Heh you're right, the blades they had weren't the foot-wide anime things at least.

Most of the things the OP dislikes about fantasy settings are exactly what I like about them. I agree with #2 though. But, as others have said, that pertains to any story in any setting. Shallow stories and shallow characters are not unique to fantasy settings.

Guys and girls fighting while they have perfectly groomed hair and pearly white straight teeth. I loved how Aragorn was all sweaty in the LOTR movies.

Peeves?

• When everyone's a spell caster.
• When the protagonist is not human. [With rare exceptions.]
• Modern day anachronisms in medieval settings.

Hmmm---I love pretty much all fantasy settings, the only one being "the good guy/guys always wins". Just once let the baddies win control over the realm for once or my favorite let the anti-hero win or that one guy whose neither good or evil but had his own agenda that might clash with others win the day.

Strictly to the fantasy genre, elves that are basically insanely good-looking humans with pointy ears. I'm okay with it in Tolkien, since he pretty much spearheaded that in the first place, but I've never found them interesting otherwise. That's why I love Elder Scrolls elves so much, they actually look like a different species.

Also, generic orc or orc-like chaotic evil hoard bad guys. I'm looking at you, Dragon Age: Origins.

Insisting on sticking to Medieval-esque Europe for inspiration for the setting.

Good always triumphs over evil...just once I want the badass overlord to wipe the destined hero off his boot.

And this:

I can't stand that every movie has a damn love interest in it now, especially those where it's not needed nor wanted. They only work when it feels natural and fits into a small piece of the story to add depth to characters but annoy me when they're completely out of place and add nothing but filling time with crap *cough* Hobbit *cough*.

But it was so cute,needless and pointless elf and dwarf relationship .

One thing I did find out that I think was interesting is that the elf Tauriel might have also been in Fellowship of the Ring. Maybe not the same actress but in a scene where Boromir, Legalas and Gimli where arriving in Rivendell, when Legalas rides in you can see a red headed possibly female elf dismounting their horse in the background.

The whole world being locked in some sort of technological freeze. I swear every fantasy thing I've played or read had some super ancient race with incredible technology, but suddenly disappeared. Then of course, even being surrounded by the relics, the current civilizations can't seem to push much past a medieval level of development. Actually, I think I just named 4 things I don't like.

1) No technological advancement for hundreds of years

2) Some ancient and extremely powerful civilization that just vanished or was vaguely destroyed, leaving ruins and relics everywhere (Dwemer, LotR Elven Kingdom*, etc)

3) Even with all those relics and ruins, the current races are still basically primitive (it is apparently impossible to learn anything from those before)

4) The trope I hate the most of all...humans are the dikes and we should all feel sorry for the elves. Yes, ha ha, we svck...I get it. Can you please stop making humans these boring Roman/British invader knockoffs? (The Empire in TES**, Kingdom of Amalur, etc)

*I know little about LotR, but Shadow of Mordor paints them as once having this super massive kingdom with tonnes of power.

**Before Skyrim, the Empire was (and I guess still is) very imperialistic with roman-inspired...well...armor, naming, architecture, etc.

Also this in general.

This, oh, so bad. Along with that, main character that has no actual reason to put himself through a chain of [censored]storms that he usually does. Kinda like TES. Imagine Oblivion. You are let out of the prison with insanely valuable artifact that you could sell and live happily ever after. But our character decides to trade that, and instead goes off to visit hell, fight hordes of demons, repeat it 60-ish times, mess with psychopathic guild of people who want hell and mortal word united, work for those demons which includes willingly being killed, mutilating yourself to get attention, cleaning vampire lairs, and generally doing tons of other suicidal crap.