RPG Cliches

[Calintz]

i laughed when i found the list. here are a couple RPG cliches! add more if you have them!

My Beloved Village:
at some point in the game, your main character's home village is ripped to shreds.

Thinking With the Wrong Head:
your main character is all for fighting to the death for any pretty NPC he met three seconds ago.

Single Parent:
every protagonist seems to have either a father or a mother; never both.

George Lucas Rule:
all of the worlds most prominent technology seems to be in the hands of evil.

Garrett Rule:
for whatever strange reason, as a protagonist; you have the unique ability to enter any person(s) home whom you do not know and take whatever you want from their house, and then proceed to chew the fat like nothing ever happened. worst part is...they're all for it.

Selective Paralysis:
your player seem to have their feet glued to the ground when traversing the world by foot, not being able to climb rocks or jump from cliffs, but that doesn't stop him from jumping from the party's airship just before it is blown out of the sky, and then slide down a wired cable, safely landing right where the next mission is.

[winkio]

I agree that these are unoriginal ideas (both your post and mine), but disagree that they are all cliches and must be avoided.

That being said:

Wonderkids:
The protagonists are all teenagers who are suspiciously well equipped to become legendary warriors.

Destiny's Prophet:
Apparently, everyone can tell the future except for you.  NPCs/antagonists reference folklore or some hidden source for knowledge of the future.

Best Job Ever:
You make more money cutting down bushes and killing giant spiders that NPCs do making an honest living as salesmen, soldiers, etc.

[Calintz]

you're right. saying one should avoid them may have been hasty! here are a few more that caught my eye.

Fantasy Meets the Real World:
mommy, why didn't they just use a phoenix down on aerith?
honey, you can't expect battle physics to apply in the real world!...
why not use it from the menu then?...

Law of Travel:
it appears as though no matter how complex the nature of that beastly new vehicle you've recently acquired is, you can pilot it.

Law of Traps:
no matter how obvious the trap; the storyline does not progress until you fall for it.

The Invisible Bureaucracy:
it seems as though no matter how massive and influential the government is in your world, the only staff you can find are either guards or kitchen staff.

[Heretic86]

Complex games would end up being a combination of each of these cliche's.  Pick and choose.  Star Wars for example incorporates Invisible Beauracracy, Technology and the Destined cliche's.  Maybe instead of thinking them as cliche's, try to imagine that each cliche is a Color as opposed to just something that has been done before.  Every painting on the planet will inevitably use colors that we have all seen before in a pattern that we have not seen yet.  Some may be very similar, some may appear completely different, although they may use the exact same percentages of red paint, green paint, and blue paint.  Mix and match.  Realize that the arrangement of each color is more important than the color itself, and you will see that it is not the world itself that bends to your logic, but you that is doing the bending to the story you create.  There is no spoon.  Bend yourself to allow the story to breathe and have a life of its own.

[Calintz]

@Herectic:
Matrix reference! Lol. (only realize the truth. there is no spoon)

[Lobstrosity]

One boss is never enough:
There are almost always multiple battles you must face (without breaks in between) to make up the "Final Battle."

Swordsmaster:
Even if the foe has a regular gun or a high-tech laser-gun, your sword is always more powerful.

George Lucas Rule #2:
Very often, you are rebelling against the government from the beginning or your home city was taken over by evil soldiers and you're rebelling against them.

Time Flies:
No matter how much time goes past or how many times you rest in an inn, you will still have enough time to save the world.

Shut Off:
At the beginning of the game you will always have to do something special in order to get to the next city. This includes things like: Finishing quests, getting vehicles that allow you to advance in the story, etc. It's generally impossible to go somewhere before the plot wants you to go there.

Double crossed  :
No matter how INCREDIBLY obvious it is that a character is evil, your party will trust him/her until they reveal them-self as a villain and initiate a boss battle.

[GrimTrigger]

Edumacation
Most, if not all characters in a story appear to have no formal schooling, yet are capable of reading, writing, and complicated monologues about their troubled past.

OTC-rezzing
People are able to be resurrected by inexpensive, over the counter medicine, or by magic.

Bearing Arms
Weapon shops are perfectly ok with the idea of selling large amounts of weapons and armor to anyone willing to pay, even children.

Not-so-secret stash
One can find treasure chests sitting out in the open, often unlocked.

Monster Economy
Enemies, including monsters, seem to carry human currency around, and drop it after you kill them, yet the no one else seems to be cashing in on this. 

Justified
The more evil someone appears to be, the more likely you can kill them and not get so much as a peep from the local guards about it.

Looks Matter
The more attractive the character is, the more likely he/she is important to the story.

Some men just want to watch the world burn
Generic bad guy uses generic powers to destroy the world, (probably due to being too generic.)

Chug a cold one
Ability to drink potions during battle, while wounded, while fighting off the enemy, and not throwing up after 5-6 of them.

Old Man & Mountain
Old men living alone on a mountain always know more than you, always.

Increasing difficulty
Enemies always arrive to face you in order of lowest to highest power level.

[Ryex]

Museum Pieces Kill Better And Stop Nukes
any weapon you find buried five miles underground entombed next to an ancient pharaoh will out class even the highest tech laser sword of the modern age in terms of damage output, and that relic suit of armor you found in the corner of the tomb on the skeleton? just because it's previous owner is dead doesn't mean you can't trust it to stop the most powerful weapon in existence (which your big bad is obviously carrying because his damage out put trumps your's like hand of aces trumps a pair of two's) from blowing a hole in you.

[Calintz]

Big Bad Weapon:
there is always a big bad monster lurking in some cave around the world who is more powerful than the boss of the game. you can rest assured that by defeating him you will obtain one of the most devastating weapons known to man. what's the catch? by the time you're powerful enough to bring this big baddy to his knees, you'll no longer need this weapon to beat the game...

The Flow of Goods:
the strength of a weapon is measured by its distance from the final dungeon...

Apocalypse Anytime:
the absolute best time to do side quests is right after the ten minute cut scene that shows you how close that meteor is to crippling your measly little planet. truth is, your planet deserves to die if these are the heroes trying to save it...

Feena's Rule: << perhaps my favorite
female characters are just as bad ass as their male brethren, in fact, some female characters are even potentially MORE powerful than your male characters and they will hack and cut down some of the most powerful enemies in the game with ease, but don't be fooled; she IS still a woman; if she is grabbed at the most traumatic and paralysis inducing area on her body (her arm) by a villain, she will be rendered useless and need rescuing.

[Heretic86]

Big Bad Weapon:
there is always a big bad monster lurking in some cave around the world who is more powerful than the boss of the game. you can rest assured that by defeating him you will obtain one of the most devastating weapons known to man. what's the catch? by the time you're powerful enough to bring this big baddy to his knees, you'll no longer need this weapon to beat the game...

The Flow of Goods:
the strength of a weapon is measured by its distance from the final dungeon...

Apocalypse Anytime:
the absolute best time to do side quests is right after the ten minute cut scene that shows you how close that meteor is to crippling your measly little planet. truth is, your planet deserves to die if these are the heroes trying to save it...

These just make me laugh because of how pathetically true they ring!

[Calintz]

updated that last post with "Feena's" rule. it is one of my favorites, Lol.

[Blizzard]

I'm pretty sure some of these are already on the list under different names and with slightly different descriptions. Yeah, that list is hilarious. xD

Space Paradox
No matter how big a building looks from the outside, it's always bigger from the inside.

One by One
The villian will never ever send all of his henchmen at once at you. He will always leave only one or two of his minions to deal with you while he leaves of with the rest to finish their evil master plan, thus basically ensuring that it's not too hard for you to stay alive.

Turncoat
There is always a villian with honor and an actually good heart who will betray his master in some way in the end either by joining you or revealing critical information that helps you defeat the villian. Why he was helping the villian in the first place (since he obviously knew how evil the villian actually was) will always remain a mystery.

Flora and Fauna
Everything in the world is out to get you, every single thing from over-sized man-eating plants to huge spiders, insects, critters, demons, ghosts, dragons, etc. Surprisingly people are never concerned that their towns and cities are surrounded by deadly creatures like that.

You name it, you can kill with it
Umbrellas, flowers, harps, blowing horns, brushes. The heroes wear the most ridiculous weapons possible and often the worthless items can do even more damage than a well crafted sword or axe. Conveniently, shops don't sell basic items such as these until later in the game either. Want an umbrella? Oh sorry, they have those only in a city on the other side of the planet.

[Calintz]

i love the space paradox one, because i'm guilty of it also. for the practicality of game creation, there is no reason to avoid it, haha.

[Blizzard]

Yeah, that's true. xD

Little Big Planet
There are no more than a few cities scattered around the whole planet.

[Calintz]

@Blizz:
it's a third world planet, Lol.

Heads I Win, Tails You Lose:
no matter how hard you work to fell the enemy boss, the bigger and badder boss of the game had already considered that outcome, and so he oh so conveniently devised a contingency plan to get his shit accomplished in the event that you were victorius.

Wait? You Don't Take American Express!?:
every city from every continent in the game seems to accept one in the same currency. odd?

[Heretic86]

updated that last post with "Feena's" rule. it is one of my favorites, Lol.

Hmmm, women in video games are way more powerful than expected!  Thankfully, video game creators have foreseen these problems and never include Credit Cards in video games!