Like the Useless Character contest, this was once a old segment at TheGIA, which you can see here. Anyway, just make a list of all the cliches you can think of from a rpg. May it be the fake king or never closing stores. Just give it some clever names to keep it fresh. I will edit the thread to include more cliches for you to enjoy.
One note, NO STEALING FROM OTHER LISTS! This is a unque list and should be made of copyrighted ideas from other sites.
<center><b>The Cliche List</b>
<B>The 5th Space Dimension Rule :</b> If you have a transformation skill, it doesn’t matter if it helps you morph into a 30 feet tall dragon, you still can use it in a 10 feet tall cave.
<b>1960’s Batman Villain Rule :</b> Whenever the villains set a trap for the hero and they fall into it, they will ALWAYS escape it. But they will NEVER do so while the villain is present (maybe they don’t want to hurt his feelings after he clearly put so much time and effort into these elaborate Rube Goldbergian traps?)
<b>Absolute Uselessness of the Floating Fortress Rule :</b> Point one: Even though the named fortress posses laser guns, cannons, A bombs or the ability to wipe out anything in a 20miles radius with one spell, you can just fly, circle and even paint graffiti on it without disturbing it.
Point two (Correlative with The need for science Rule): Even though the point flying is to be unreachable, that weird scientist can fashion a ship for you that can get you in there for a minute. Especially thanks to the absolute lack of defensive equipment.
<b>Black And White Rule of Villainous Sidekicks :</b> All henchmen/sidekicks of the villain are either horrendously and comically inept and weak OR obscenely superpowerful and dangerous.
<b>Black Box Correlary :</b> Treasure Chests can stand up to any conditions with no deterioration whatsoever. Hot lava? The extreme pressure of the deep sea? The vaccum of outer space? NO PROBLEM!
<b>Die Another Day :</b> Heroes don’t die in regular battles, they only faint. They can only die for sure in a unique fight.
<b>Evil Wizards / Demons Rule :</b> Supervillians never die; they just get sealed away by the previous party of Great Legendary Heroes until your crew comes along to deal with 'em.
<b>The Extremely Driven Salesman Rule :</b> Even in the deepest levels of the darkest dungeons, opposite sides of parallel dimensions, in the middle of barren wastelands on post apocalyptic worlds, there is STILL a shopkeeper hawking weapons, armor, and/or items, apparently on the off chance that a band of heroes might come along some time this millenium.
<b>Fighting Helps Your Mind Unlocking the Secretes Buried in Itself Rule :</b> Player Characters mostly learn magic by winning battles, not studying.
<b>Floating Fortress Rule :</b> It doesn’t matter what world, what age, what enemy, what people or what technology exists, the big bad guy or the big good guy somehow ALWAYS manage to get a 1km X 1km mass of solid rock to float in the sky.
<b>“He’s Not Quite Dead, Sir!” Rule [a.k.a. The Seifer-Gilgamesh Rule] :</b> No matter how many times you beat him up or how severely you do so, you can NEVER kill the main villain’s primary henchman. After the fight, he’ll run away, (even if you won the fight by using some “Banish to another dimension” spell or something. Huh?)
<b>The Helpful Pawn Rule :</b> Generally the party somehow, in some way, ends up accomplishing the task your enemy wants such as breaking the seal on some ancient evil or grabbing the legendary item only to have it taken by them.
<b>The Hero Haircut Rule :</b> Somehow, in the middle ages, centuries before the invention of hair gel, your hero seems to support an eternal, unchanging and gravity ignorant haircut. At the same time, it doesn’t matter if your party gets attacked by a flaming tornado, the cute priestess’s hair is still fine and dandy.
<b>Hidden Character, Crouching Development :</b> If a character is not in play for a while, he/she will be way more powereful when he/she returns.
<b>The Hidden Labyrinth :</b> There will always be a secret passage where you less expect, even in peasant houses.
<b> “How the hell did they get here?” Rule :</b> Even though you had to fight trough underground tunnels, fly on birds and cross the ocean inside a whale, some powerless peasants that you found in that other continent seem to have gotten to the new town before you.
<b>“I didn’t know you could use it to do THAT!” Rule :</b> There’s always at least one character who has made a lethal weapon out of something extremely silly, like a megaphone or a paintbrush or an umbrella.
<b>If Only This Were True In Real Life Rule :</b>
Any problem can be solved by finding the right long-haired pretty boy and kicking the shit out of him. [Ex] Final Fantasy 7
<b>The Ignorance is Bliss Rule :</b> For some reason, noone seems to even NOTICE the yetis, dragons, demons, reformed villians, ect ect in your party, much less panic over them.
<b>Infinite Gold :</b> No matter how poor the store owner is, he always has money enough to buy everything you wanna sell.
Extra: he’ll buy even irrelevant small stuff you might wanna sell him.
<b>The Iron Grip Rule [A.K.A. The Super Adrenaline Rush Rule] [A.K.A. The Rinoa Rule] :</b> Unless you specifically see a timer winding down somewhere on the screen, anyone who is in immediate mortal danger (i.e. hanging onto a cliff with one hand) will be able to “hang on!” for an indefinite ammount of time until the hero arrives for the rescue, no matter how long the hero takes to get there. The hero can take several hours looting the dungeon, levelling up insanely, hunting the super tough optional monster boss, whatever his heart desires. The person in peril can hold on by that one hand / finger / whatever FOREVER.
<b>Lightning Spells Have That Enhancement From Gurps Doesn’t Affect User +20% Rule :</b> If you throw a lightning on someone, you won’t take damage even if it’s underwater or he’s holding you (entangle, etc)n someway.
<b>The Locke Cole Principle :</b> You can always tell if someone is a hero by watching him sneak into a unsuspecting peasant’s home, steal anything of value, and sneak out like a ninja.
<b>The “Logan’s Run” Principle :</b> This heroic band of legendary world savers and demon slayers are always either teenagers or young adults under the age of 30.
<b>Martial Law of Gender Roles :</b> Swords are for boys, Staves/Rods are for girls.
<b>The Mechanic’s Guarantee of Future Business Rule :</b> No matter what vehicle you use, at some point it will crash, requiring you to fix or replace it.
<b>Merchant Invincibility Union Rule :</b> Whenever a town gets attacked, burned, frozen or just wiped out, if there is at least 1 survivor, that guy is a merchant who curiously managed to keep his wares intact.
<b>The Murphy Law of Dungeon Exploring :</b> Whenever you find a split path, the right one is ALWAYS the one with traps, enemies, twists, turns, bottomless pits and the occasional 60 feet tall legendary guardian demon.
<b>The Murphy’s Law of Random Encounters :</b> When you’re trying to fight to level up or get a rare item that a certain monster drops, you’ll hardly ever get into random encounters.
HOWEVER, when you’re trying to get from Point A to Point B as quickly as possible, you’ll get them every other step.
<b>The Need For the Science :</b> Even if the world is predominantly medieval with spells & such, there will always be a scientist (sometimes two) which can come up with a lot of weird machinery.
<b>The Phallic Symbol Rule :</b> You can tell who the main hero is at the start because he [and it’s always a he] ALWAYS uses a sword. You can also usually pick out the main antagonist/villain too, as he’ll [always a he, too] also be armed with a sword. Either nobody else in the game will use swords AT ALL, or those two will be far and away the best at it.
<b>Phallic Symbol Rule, mark 2 :</b> Swords are always the most powerful weapon type. You can always inflict more damage with a sword than with a knife, whip, staff, spear, hand grenade, machine gun, bazooka, Laser Death Ray, et cetera.
<B>The Phyrric Victory Correlary :</b> Status Ailment spells will work in your favor…when you’re so much stronger than the enemy that you can wipe them out in one hit and derive no tactical advantage from casting said Status Ailment spell on the monster.
<b>The “Programmers, Know Thy Target Demographic” Rule :</b> All female characters are irresistably attracted to the male lead and will fall for him by game’s end. This includes other party members and, eventually, major female henchmen on the villain’s side, too.
<b>Questors are Lazy Bums :</b> It’s very common to receive quests from creatures that could snap your neck as easily as they’d breathe. There’s always some obscure reason as to why you’re the only one who can do that.
<b>The Radius of Monster Strength Rule :</b> No matter where you go, you’ll always end up being just strong enough to defeat the monsters there.
<b>The Repelent Fabric :</b> Monsters will never attack the group while the adventurers sleep in a tent.
<b>The Rusty Sword Law :</b> You know that worthless rusty old sword you found in the stone/cavern/whale’s stomach? It’s always just happens to be the legendary sword in disguise.
<b>The Selective Revisionism of Obsolete Science Rule :</b> A.) When dealing with magic spells, Lightning and Ice are two of the four cardinal Elements. Wind and Earth are not. Also, Ice and Water are always separate elements. Always. This makes no sense, really, when you think about it.
B.) However, when time comes to relight the crystals or orbs [to save the world, of course] or whatever symbols for the intrinsic magic of the planet are being used, Earth and Wind are Elements again (and Lightning and Ice are not).
<b>The Selective Toughness Rule :</b> In battle, you’ll be pelted by earthquakes, floods, explosions, hurricanes, meteor showers, black holes, and more. Out of battle, you die from one measly sword or knife through the chest.
<b>The Slime Rule :</b> The weakest monster in the game is almost always some kind of slime.
<b>Status Anomaly Double Standard Rule :</b> Status Ailment Spells [poison, blindness, silence, petrify, sleep, et cetera] virtually ALWAYS work when the enemy casts them. They virtually NEVER work when you cast them.
<b>Tellah’s Exception Correlary :</b> Except for the 1 token old wizard / sage guy, but he usually dies midquest, often sacrificing himself for the good of the others and/or passing the torch of great-hero-ness.
<b>“There’s a Serious Consumer Demand For This?” Rule :</b> Pretty much every weapon shop will carry an infinite supply of weapons-grade paintbrushes, megaphones, etc. to suit this hero’s peculiar needs. Even the…
<b>“Thumbs for Fingers” Rule :</b> Enemies with gun always barely your ear/hand/feet/flying pagoda with their bullets, which explains the pitiful damage.
ADDITION : Guns can kill you in cutscenes
ADDITION 2 : If one of the party members has a gun, the gun will not suck beyond human comprehension
EXCEPTION : Persona 2 : EP, where guns suck no matter if you have the Legendary Gun.
<b>Unibomber Rule :</b> There’s always one super advanced society with a huge technological edge over every other society in the world, and it is always brought to catastrophic ruin before game’s end.
<b>Unique Weapons Are NOT Unique :</b> You’ll find unique weapons by the same name in many different games (I think Masamune is the most common).
<b>Useless Companions Rule :</b> Whenever you are part of a large army or something, EVERYONE else in the group is absolutely useless and usually gets killed.
<b>Violent and Peaceful Magic :</b> 995 of the spells listed as Black Magic are intended to cause direct damage. The ones which arent will mostly be harmfull indirectly. White Magic rarely deals direct damage, except against the undead.
Don’t these guys think of some Smite, Smite Evil, Holy Thunder etc. for White Magic like they did with clerical magic in D&D based games? And polymorph self, stoneskin, fire shield etc… for black magic:?
<b>The Waterfall Rule :</b> There is ALWAYS something behind the waterfall, be it treasure, monsters or some mysterious cavern.
<b>We Don’t Need Any Freaking Oxygen :</b> Ever noticed that the pcs don’t have to breathe? They can walk around on the moon or in underwater cities and be perfectly fine. Who cares if there’s no oxygen- they’ll be fine!
<b>Where There’s Something Big, There’s Always Something Bigger :</b> It’s very usual to meet a villain in the start or middle of the game that looks like he/she’s the final boss. But right at the end of the game, you’ll find out he/she was just under mind control or trying to get enough power to fight the real final boss.
<b>“Who The Hell Left This Here and Why?” Rule :</b> No matter how improbable and illogical the dungeon in question would make it seem, (i.e. a giant volcano, a cavern on the moon, an inter dimensional void), you’ll still manage to find a slough of tidy treasure chests loaded with powerful weapons and other goodies. Who’s running around leaving all this good shit in the middle of a frickin’ Volcano?
<b>You Are Always the Last One to Know :</b> a) Just about everybody in town to whom you talk knows something useful about your quest.
b) When there’s something important to be known, the group characters will always be the last ones to hear the news.
<b>Young Wuss :</b> When a character starts the game as a kid, he will be beaten up by a monster that tends to be the last or next to last boss. [Ex] Breath of Fire 2, Golden Sun
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goes to add the entries
