You Would Not Want to Live In Dex

Because there are so many types of Dystopian settings, a Super-Trope index was needed.

This is intended to cover both those settings where virtually any honest, decent, rational people wouldn't want to live if they had a better choice, and those that while some people REALLY wouldn't want to live here, others would find them to be a paradise or at least acceptable. To each his own.

For settings that are Dystopias for those who hate regional or National Stereotypes, please see the Hollywood Atlas. When the oppressed fight back, see Civil Unrest Tropes.

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It might look a warm and cozy place to spend the night, but most guests are going to be gravely disappointed.


 * Bedlam House
 * Boarding School of Horrors
 * Circus of Fear
 * Amusement Park of Doom
 * Damn Nature You Scary
 * Hell Hotel
 * Inn of No Return
 * Old Dark House
 * Haunted House
 * Orphanage of Fear
 * Prison (especially The Alcatraz and Tailor-Made Prison)
 * Locked in The Dungeon
 * Town With a Dark Secret
 * Uberwald

see Apocalyptic Index.

It's High Octane Nightmare Fuel and doesn't bother to hide it.


 * Bad Future: A future Dystopia.
 * Campbell Country
 * Childless Dystopia: No children, no hope.
 * City Noir, if it's as mean and depressing as it seems.
 * Dark World
 * Death World: The laws of physics and the very landscape hate you.
 * Dystopia
 * Dystopia Is Hard: Even the triumph of evil decays over time.
 * Dystopia Justifies the Means: Someone goes out of their way to make everything as crapsack as possible.
 * Eldritch Location
 * Forbidden Zone: It's forbidden for a reason.
 * Gaia's Lament
 * Garden of Evil: Mother Nature has decided her purpose in life is to kill you.
 * Grim Up North
 * Hell: See Infernal Tropes.
 * I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: this one even warns you.
 * Lady Land: It sucks to be a guy here.
 * Lovecraft Country
 * Mordor
 * Walk Into Mordor: one does not simply do it (read: these places are really hard to get into).
 * Nightmarish Factory
 * No Woman's Land: You really don't want to be a woman here.
 * People's Republic of Tyranny
 * Place Worse Than Death
 * Police State
 * Polluted Wasteland
 * The Savage South


 * Just like a Utopia...Until you scratch the surface.
 * Crap Saccharine World
 * Stepford Suburbia
 * Uncanny Village
 * World of Silence

Possibly a good place to hide from authorities, if you can keep from being victimized yourself.


 * Cloudcuckooland
 * Crapsack World: Anything and everything that can go wrong will go wrong, in the worst possible way.
 * It Is Beyond Saving: A place so messed up that people are arguing for either abandoning it, actively destroying it, or BOTH. (Though whether it belongs here or in Not So Bad is up for interpretation.)
 * Outlaw Town: By criminals, for criminals.
 * Quirky Town: only trouble for those who value sanity. (otherwise, probably Not So Bad.)
 * The Savage South
 * Soiled City On a Hill
 * Vice City: Crime rates are so high, it's a wonder people still live there.
 * World of Badass: Everyone is a Badass... even that innocent little Heartwarming Orphan.
 * World of Woobie: Everyone here needs a hug, except the people who made it this way. Maybe.
 * Wretched Hive ...of scum and villainy, of course.

A bit smelly, a bit sour, but it's ours.


 * Advert Overloaded Future
 * A World Half Full
 * The Dark Ages
 * Doomed Hometown
 * Egopolis
 * Hated Hometown
 * Industrial Ghetto
 * It Is Beyond Saving: Those who disagree will likely consider it more along the lines of this. Again, whether it belongs here or "there ain't no justice" is up for interpretation.
 * Lost World
 * Quirky Town: Those that don't have a dark secret can actually be pretty nice when you get used to them... or at least get used to not being able to get used to them.
 * Scavenger World
 * Throwaway Country
 * Used Future: In Rust We Trust!