RPG CLICHES

2. Ha ha, yeah, that pretty much what happens in The Clan of Magnalada.

Yeah most of them obviously work in the game I'm making.

(The spunky princess who is rebelling against her royal parent and is in love with the hero).

Yes but replace hero with heroine. lesbians. But they aren't hinted, even so they nor,
named lesbians, just lovers. I swear.

Well maybe there's some people who haven't discussed this to death already. I remember a time (ten years ago, maybe more) when I was actively participating in discussions about cliches and finding out about those lists and laughing at how true they were.

And if you are one of those people don't be afraid to comment and laugh and don't feel awkward just because us old fogies look at you weirdly.

Meh, my beef with that list was all of the items where it says "You will see <insert number here> of the following", followed by a list of items so long or broad that it's inevitable that you'd encounter several. (The "Hey, I know You" ones (#15-17) aren't that bad, though). If there were one that I'd like to see at least a few games avert, it would be #28, because I'm a sucker for more games involving resource management.

I recall a forum discussion I found years ago (Saved to my computer somewhere, maybe I'll look for it again) where somebody was going through and commenting on how to "improve" them, with most of the "improvements" just being "Well, I think this is overdone, so just don't do it". There were a few that had suggestions on how to take the "cliche" and be more innovative with it, though.

I don't make console or commercial games, but god DAMN did I come across a lot that I've done.
All girl characters loving hero(JailBreakOut)
Robots(any game with Sonic or a fan character in it)
Something falling from the sky("Sonic"...I don't remember the exact name of the game, but GOD it was fail)
Those are the ones that I can remember off the top of my head...so...yeah.
There's also some where they actually made direct reference and examples to games I've played, like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy(I've only played the originals, and yet, sadly to say, I was overwhelmed by the beginning cutscene of some of them from the SNES Final Fantasies and the amount of stuff they put on a map...yeah...)

Also, my favorite out of all is the Ominous Ring of Land one, I should do that in a game of mine, sure it's cliche'd, BUT IT SOUNDS SO FUN TO **** PEOPLE OVER!!! LOL
Besides, I could do something with every cliche here, turn them to it's opposite to where the game is anti-cliche, and really see how I break the 'rules'!!!
Really, none of these I actually hated, and I found some that even fit in with games that AREN'T RPGs! Like Sonic 3 and Knuckles. Really, these were just a good laugh, and there were some weird ones, but I can't really remember, I guess the one about the villain becoming a poet or philosopher before the end of the game or that falling off a bridge can actually heal most characters. Those were the ones that made me feel like, "What?", and who can forget the one where you die in the middle of your sleep? But yeah, these were a good read and though a lot of people don't like them, I thoroughly enjoy hearing that others have found these and wrote a fun list of them. That's my thought.
Yeah. I'm making a game where I will not use any cliche on the list, in doing so hopefully starting the biggest cliche of all...whatever it will be. I will have to download RPG maker again, though.

I like the article you linked to DBAce9Aura; one can say that originality isn't so much about the story itself, but how it is told.

I mean, it's not actually all that difficult to come up with a completely original story; it just won't make any sense to humans. For example.

Bob woke up, floating in a room of vitreous humour. Swimming downstairs, he noticed his roommate shaving a train. Bob started openly weeping. His friend asked him what was wrong. Bob exploded.

Quite a twist huh? That made absolutely no sense, because there is nothing in our culture that it references. We don't know WHY the things in the story were there, or why Bob exploded at the end. Sure, an alien might get it, but not a human.

Now consider this story:

"Careful honey, it's loaded," he said, re-entering the bedroom. Her back rested against the headboard.
"This for your wife'"
"No! Too risky. I'm hiring a professional."
"How about me'"
He grinned. "Cute. But who would be dumb enough to hire a lady hit man?"
She wet her lips, sighting along the barrel. "Your wife."

Wasn't that great? It's by Jeffery Whitmore, and in only a few words its meaning registers with us, because the talented writer knew exactly how to connect with our social consciousness to craft a story about sex, betrayal and murder. We don't even need to know the end, because we already understand the building blocks of the story so well. An alien might not get it, but a human would.

I'll stop there so as not to turn this post into an essay. Basically, using cliches is an important part of language and story telling, and they are the foundation on which human stories can be told. It is not the completely original an audience craves, but rather a story that they can relate to with new characters, events and drama.

A pet peeve of mine is teenagers who, despite being untrained and carefree, are somehow superior to all the adults at magic, sword fighting and whatever other combat abilities exist in the game world, just by virtue of their being the protagonists.

I also hate how virtually every organized religion in JRPGs is basically a thoroughly evil caricature of the Catholic Church, led by an evil Pope, and planning to resurrect some dark God/Goddess. I couldn't believe Final Fantasy XIII recycled that one.

author=iddalai
Also, you can use established cliches to guide the player into thinking your doing one and then surprise the player with something unexpected.

You have to be careful with this, or the player will get sick of the cliches before they get flipped upside-down. For example, in my RM2K3 game, I include an evil empire with an evil emperor. Halfway through the game, the evil emperor joins the party, and the main character permanently leaves and becomes a major villain. But that happens a good ten hours into the game. Most people I've talked to have quit by then, bored with the obnoxious cliche plot! You should probably start spinning things around much sooner than I did, lest your game suffer the same fate.

I have a working theory regarding cliches. We think of cliches as things that are used too commonly in stories, but I propose that's not actually correct. Cliches are actually in the middle range of common-ness. Things that are extremely common are fine, and in fact the story would often feel incomplete or wrong without them. Things that are extremely uncommon are also fine, and add uniqueness to the story. Somewhere in the middle is the "cliche range" where we consider things distasteful.

I have created a diagram to explain this.

nope, a cliche is just an idea that's overused to the point of predictability. that's all it is.