Brian Kurtz I have an answer and a speculation!

First answer is: an RPG devoid of tropes looks like D&D. D&D made no meaningful effort to emulate “stories like Lord of the Rings” or “stories like Robert Howard wrote.” Is a fighter or a magic-user a trope? I…don’t think so. The same way that a a little square token representing a tank on a hex map isn’t shorthand for “a band of brothers working through their interpersonal issues while they face a common enemy.” 

And my speculation is this: maybe a game built entirely out of emotional triggers: events or descriptions or economies that evoke outrage, or fear, or love, or melancholy. I think this is the ground that bleeding edge larp is fertilizing right now, much like larp fertilized the ground with tropes a couple decades ago.