RPG Clichés

List RPG clichés that you know about!

RPG characters are young. Very young. The average age seems to be 15, unless the character is a decorated and battle-hardened soldier, in which case he might even be as old as 18. Such teenagers often have skills with multiple weapons and magic, years of experience, and never ever worry about their parents telling them to come home from adventuring before bedtime. By contrast, characters more than twenty-two years old will cheerfully refer to themselves as washed-up old fogies and be eager to make room for the younger generation.

1) Villain is horribly incompetant, yet somehow still a threat.

2) Linear Path. Often there is only one way to reach the ending. Sometimes there are variances (Morrowind), yet the ending remains the same regardless.

3) Baseline Humans are not "Baseline".

4) Sword > Gun, somehow. Be it due to Cliche #3, Cliche #1, or some other method (Like the fact that any weapon beyond pellet-gun scale rounds is loaded with Blanks), a Swordsman will be better than an Infantryman. The exception to this is anyone with a gun inside your own party, who will proceed to do damage orders of magnitude greater than an opponnent with a similar (or better) weapon.

5) Airships are common, yet you cannot master the simple design of a Maxim Gun. Trains? No problem. Any form of Long-Range Artillery? HA HA HA, you're kidding, right?

Some characters come to you with amnesia and you have to help them find their lost memories. (except in KOTOR where you are the one with amnesia)

I'm too lazy to list 'em.

Go here!

1. No matter how big the armies of both sides are, the final battle always inevitably comes down to a few chosen heroes versus a big bad evil monster. Particularly ridiculous in Suikoden.

2. RPG characters never seem to need to eat. (exceptions: Wild Arms and Earthbound) This may explain Brave Fencer Musashi's appearance.

3. Towns are always completely safe -- those wandering monsters just don't feel like coming inside for some reason.

The most powerful (non-special) weapons are red (Morrowind, Oblivion, RuneScape, and Duamutef's VRPG are the ones I can think of)

Just as (nearly) no character needs to eat, the same applies to sleep, rest, etc. The only occurances of such tend to be for the passing of plot.

Someone will be using a huge sword.

Dragons, mimics, too many women with not enough clothing.

(nothing wrong with the latter, though)

The most powerful weapon is a sword. (most Final Fantasy)

The main character is often a noble warrior.

A moral is revealed just before fighting the Final Boss.

The main character has no sense of humor.

Haar wrote:

I'm too lazy to list 'em.

Go here!

i cant believe i read all of that

If one of the dungeons is actually the innards of a gigantic being that decided to vore you [One of many reasons why Final Fantasy and Legend of Zelda rocks], you somehow manage to survive, despite the lack of oxygen and the fact that EVERYTHING in the body is trying to kill you, from acids to blood cells.

If your name is Link, and there is a whale somewhere in the land that you inhabit, chances are you are going to get eaten.

Oddly enough, a wooden sword can do things like pierce the exoskeleton of a gigantic spider, thus allowing one to practically tear it apart. On that same note, a sword made out of a powerful alloy will fails to behead something like 'Black Hen', ESPECIALLY if it is found in the final dungeon.

(Pokemon related) Yes, the idiots you have to fight to become champion instantly forget who you are upon winning said title. Yes, they have serious memory problems. What are you going to do about it?

Butterflies can, and WILL kill you if given the chance.

Haar wrote:

I'm too lazy to list 'em.

Go here!

hahaha so true

Haar wrote:

I'm too lazy to list 'em.

Go here!

That pretty much sums up everything, sad that no RPG can exist without at least a couple of these clichés.

Armor is worthless. Or, more precisely, full-body armor. If wearing full body armor, odds are any attack will punch through like tinfoil. However, if wearing only a single piece (Such as a pauldron), all incoming attacks will both hit and be deflected off such armor.

That ultra powerful armor your wearing that can keep a god from annihilating you still leaves you slightly vulnerable to even the weakest of creatures

All characters will make usually no attempt to avoid being hit, and will only avoid damage when the opposition has such bad hand-eye coordination they cant it the monster as big as a house.
Explanation: May be because of your character carrying a vault of equipment at all times.

You can kill the monster that effortlessly destroys entire castles, but busting open a locked door is out of the question.

Shopkeepers have a seemingly limitless amount of gold, unless you want to sell them your legendary item, in which case they can offer you only 1 coin.

The sword wielder in your party can cast magic with almost the same effectiveness as the caster of your party, but the reverse does not apply

Stop or sleep magic can not be used to take advantage of attractive characters.

The main female protagonist will play a signifigant part in some prophecy or something.

Okay, I've got one I like to call the Pandora's Temple Rule. (particularly severe in God of War)

You may have had to face demons, traps and puzzles to get to the point in the dungeon where you are, heck you may have had to preform quests of destiny and superhuman feats to even enter the dungeon. But somehow, there's the freshly killed corpse of a low level soldier right next to every trap, even ones that will do minor damage to the main character.