Bluhman's guide to Cliches

[Bluhman]

Magical Inequality Theorem
In the course of your travels you may find useful-sounding spells such as Petrify, Silence, and Instant Death. However, you will end up never using these spells in combat because a) all ordinary enemies can be killed with a few normal attacks, making fancy attacks unneccessary, b) all bosses and other stronger-than-average monsters are immune to those effects so there's no point in using them for long fights where they'd actually come in handy, and c) the spells usually don't work anyway.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: No. If a boss was not immune to such effects, it would just take away it's purpose.

Magical Inequality Corollary
When the enemy uses Petrify, Silence, Instant Death, et cetera spells on you, they will be effective 100% of the time.

Avoidable: Usually, you just avoid this one automatically.

Pretty Line Syndrome (or, Crash Bandicoot: The RPG)
Seen in most modern RPGs. The key to completing your quest is to walk forward in a straight line for fifty hours, stopping along the way to look at, kill, and/or have meaningful conversations with various pretty things.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. What that cliche just explained is probabily dungeon siege, which is the most pointless thing I've played.

Xenobiology Rule
The predatory species of the world will include representatives of all of the following: giant spiders, giant scorpions, giant snakes, giant beetles, wolves, squid, fish that float in midair, gargoyles, golems, carnivorous plants, chimeras, griffons, cockatrices, hydras, minotaurs, burrowing things with big claws, things that can paralyse you, things that can put you to sleep, things that can petrify you, at least twenty different creatures with poisonous tentacles, and dragons. Always dragons.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Not really. It would take forever to make a completley origional set of creatures to inhabit your world. This is why I take my hat off to Morrowind.

Friendly Fire Principle (or, Final Fantasy Tactics Rule)
Any attack that can target both allies and enemies will hit half of your allies and none of your enemies.

Avoidable: Yes.
Reccommeded: Yeah. The effort to put into making a move that does that is just unneccesary.

Dungeon Design 101
There's always goodies hidden behind the waterfall.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommeded: Not really. Though you might want to try and mess with this one further.

Dungeon Design 102
When you are confronted by two doors, the closer one will be locked and its key will be hidden behind the farther-away one.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommeded: Yes. Make more than two doors.

Dungeon Design 103 (or, Wallpaper Warning)
Your progress through a dungeon will be indicated by a sudden change in decor: different wall color, different torches on the wall, et cetera.

Avoidable: Automatically. Your pallette of chips on a chipset it too limited to do that (Unless using the RTP).

Dungeon Design 201 (or, The Interior Decorators Anticipated Your Out-Of-Body Experience)
Most dungeons will include "hidden" passages which are nearly impossible to see from a bird's-eye view, yet would be blaringly obvious from the party's perspective.

Avoidable: No. You can't make a First person RPG in RM2k.

Dungeon Design 301
All "puzzles" in RPG dungeons can be sorted into one of the following types:
finding some small item and sticking it into a slot;
pushing blocks (rocks, statues) onto switches;
pulling switches or levers to open and close doors;
learning the correct order/position of a group of objects;
entering a certain combination of doors;
something involving a clock or elevator;
something that is unsolvable because a vital clue in the dialogue was mistranslated out of Japanese.

Avoidable: No. A true dungeon really requires at least one of these things.

Wait! That Was A Load-Bearing Boss!
Defeating a dungeon's boss creature will frequently cause the dungeon to collapse, which is nonsensical but does make for thrilling escape scenes.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommeded: Yes. AT LEAST TRY AND MAKE A LOGICAL REASON FOR THE COLLAPSATION OF THE DUNGEON!!!

Supply and Demand Axiom
Killing a powerful enemy will usually yield an item or weapon that would've been extremely useful if you had gotten it before killing that enemy.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Make the boss drop a randomly generated piece of trash... or a weapon for the enemies further into the game.

Edison's Lament
No switch is ever in the right position.

Avoidable: No. If there was in the right position, then why would it be there other than to
1. look nice
or
2. signify that a villan was recently here?

(Actually 2 is a nice twist on this cliche.)

Well, That About Wraps It Up For God
All major deities, assuming they actually exist and weren't just made up by the Church to delude its followers, are in reality malevolent and will have to be destroyed. The only exception to this rule is the four nature spirits who have preserved the land since time immemorial, but now due to the folly of mankind have lost virtually all of their power and need you to accomplish some ludicrous task to save them.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Definetley! It'd be nice to see an RPG involving a more god/church religion than this elemental religion. Really it was games like that that appealed to me, and rather why I like games more based on true midevial stuff instead of Japanese influinced midevial things.

Guy in the Street Rule
No matter how fast you travel, rumors of world events always travel faster. When you get to anywhere, the people on the street are already talking about where you've been. The stories of your past experiences will spread even if no witnesses were around to see them.

Avoidable: No, unless you made a type of timer.

Wherever You Go, There They Are
Wherever the characters go, the villains can always find them. Chances are they're asking the guy in the street (see above). But don't worry -- despite being able to find the characters with ease anytime they want to, the bad guys never get rid of them by simply blowing up the tent or hotel they're spending the night in. (Just think of it: the screen dims, the peaceful going-to-sleep-now music plays, then BOOM! Game Over!)

That last line seems to bring a bit of inspiration... heh

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommeded: Not quite. Unless you have side quests, then theres not much a reason to have a town without importance in the plot.

Figurehead Rule
Whenever someone asks you a question to decide what to do, it's just to be polite. He or she will ask the question again and again until you answer "correctly."

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommeded: Yes. Maybe if the player asked wrongly, then something horrible would happen and then they'd die!

Puddin' Tame Rule
The average passer-by will always say the same thing no matter how many times you talk to them, and they certainly won't clarify any of the vaguely worded warnings or cryptic half-sentences they threw at you the previous time.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommeded: Yes. Make a randomly generated number in a variable that determines what they say.

Franklin Covey Was Wrong, Wrong, Wrong
Sticking to the task at hand and going directly from place to place and goal to goal is always a bad idea, and may even prevent you from being able to finish the game. It's by dawdling around, completing side quests and giving money to derelicts that you come into your real power.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommend: Yes. Y'know, it'd be nice if there was a game where you could finish, THEN do the sidequests, kinda like morrowind or GTA...

Selective Invulnerability Principle
RPG characters are immune from such mundane hazards as intense heat, freezing cold, or poison gas... except when they're suddenly not. Surprise!

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommend: Yes. If you have a scene where there is a gigantic attack of doom that you thought you'd make the main character survive, then try and make a plot twist... make the character DIE! I'll let you try and figure out the other things on that pointer.

I'm the NRA (Billy Lee Black Rule)
Opposition to gun control is probably the only thing you could get all RPG characters to agree upon. Even deep religious faith and heartfelt pacifism can't compete with the allure of guns.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommend: In the right setting, yes. This setting would be any one that is before the creation of gunpowder.

Three Females Rule
There will always be either one or three female characters in the hero's party, no matter how many male characters there are.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommend: Yes. Make there be less or more than 3, or make the female characters outnumber the male ones!

Experience Not Required
When the main character is forced to do some complex or dangerous task for the first time, even though he has never done it before he will still always be better than the oldest veteran.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommend: Yes! Please put logic into the situation.

Law of Reverse Evolution (Zeboim Principle)
Any ancient civilizations are inexplicably much more advanced than the current one.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommend: Yes. Once again, logic.

Then again, Greeks and Romans were more advanced than midevial english... Try working on something like that.

Science-Magic Equivalence (Citan Rule)
Although mages' specialty is magic and scientists' specialty is technology, these skills are completely interchangeable.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommend: Yes. Please... Logic. Magic is definetley not scientific in any way.

I might be back for 101-125...

[Bluhman]

Law of Productive Gullibility (Ruby Rule)
Whenever anybody comes up to you with a patently ludicrous claim (such as, "I'm not a cat, I'm really an ancient Red Dragon") there's an at least two-thirds chance they're telling the truth. Therefore, it pays to humor everyone you meet; odds are you'll be glad you did later on.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommend: Yes. A man comes up to you and says:

"I'm actually the hero of eternity!"
Hero: "Really?"

Man: "No."

Think about it...

Perversity Principle
If you're unsure about what to do next, ask all the townspeople nearby. They will either all strongly urge you to do something, in which case you must immediately go out and do that thing, or else they will all strongly warn you against doing something, in which case you must immediately go out and do that thing.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommend: Unless your game has sidequests, then this one can be a bit hard to reccommend.

Near-Death Epiphany (Fei Rule)
If the party is not dealing damage to a boss character, then there's a better-than-even chance that someone in the party will suddenly become enlightened and instantly acquire the offensive skill that can blow the creature away in a matter of seconds.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommend: Not really. How else would you introduce a powerful technique that demonstrates exactly how much power it has?

Wutai Rule
Most RPGs, no matter what their mythology, include a land based on ancient Japan. Full of pagodas, shrines, shoguns, kitsune, and sushi, this completely anachronistic place is the source of the entire world's supply of ninja and samurai characters.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommend: KINDA. Try and make an area Pseudo based on aincient japan.

Law of Mooks
Soldiers and guards working for the Evil Empire are, as a rule, sloppy, cowardly and incompetent. Members of the heroic Resistance Faction are, as a rule, dreadfully weak and undertrained and will be wiped out to the last man the moment they come in contact with the enemy.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommend: Yes. Like real people, try and vary how the guards preform, just follow the above as a VERY BASIC and easily deniable guideline.

Law of Traps
No matter how obvious the trap, you can't complete the game unless you fall into it.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommend: Yes. Make the trap so that it simply obscures your progress.

Arbor Day Rule
At some point, you're going to have to talk to a tree and do what it says.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommend: Yes. Once again, how many talking trees are there? Why not try... a talking rose or something?

You Do Not Talk About Fight Club
Any fighting tournament or contest of skill you hear about, you will eventually be forced to enter and win.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommend: Yes. Make it a sidequest.

Invisible Bureaucracy Rule
Other than the royal family, its shifty advisor, and the odd mad scientist, the only government employees you will ever encounter in the course of your adventure are either guards or kitchen staff.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommend: Yes. Make butlers or maids. Those charsets are there for a reason in the RTP.

The Miracle of Automation
Similarily, any factory, power plant, or other facility that you visit during the course of the game will be devoid of any human life except for the occasional guards. There will not be a single line worker or maintenance person in sight.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommend: Yes. There are many things you can do to counteract this one; make a dungeon out of it where you fight factory workers, make a minigame where you work on the production line, I don't know, just don't make them deserted!

Principle of Archaeological Convenience
Every ancient machine you find will work perfectly the first time you try to use it and every time thereafter. Even if its city got blasted into ruins and the machine was then sunk to the bottom of the sea and buried in mud for ten thousand years, it'll still work fine. The unfortunate corollary to this rule is that ancient guardian creatures will also turn out to be working perfectly when you try to filch their stuff.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommend: Yes. Just make it so that you have to repair the machine.

They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To (Cid Rule)
Modern-day machinery, by contrast, will always break down at the worst possible moment (for example, when you only need one more shot from the giant cannon to defeat the final boss.)

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommend: No. Not doing something like this would make the game too easy.

Place Transvestite Joke Here (Miss Cloud Rule)
If the male lead is required to dress up like a girl for any reason, he will be regarded by everyone as much more attractive than any "real" girl. If the female lead cross-dresses as a man, she will be immediately recognized as who she is by everyone except the male lead and the main villain.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommend: Yes. Mix up the above concept!

Make Room! Make Room!
There are always more people in a town or village than there are houses for them to live in. Most of the village is made up of shops, temples, bars, secret passages, inns, and the mansion that belongs to the richest man in town.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommend: Yes, though it will take some effort.

Law of Scientific Gratification
If the hero needs a new invention to progress, he will find out that somewhere in the world someone has spent his or her entire life perfecting this invention, and usually just needs one more key item located in a monster-infested dungeon before it is completed.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommend: Yes. At least make it retrieved in a different fashion!

You Always Travel In The Right Circles
Whenever you meet a villager or other such incidental character who promises to give you some great piece of needed knowledge or a required object in exchange for a seemingly simple item, such as a bar of soap or a nice straw mat, be prepared to spend at least an hour chasing around the world exchanging useless innocuous item after item with bizarre strangers until you can get that elusive first item you were asked for.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommend: Yes. DON'T DO IT. PLEASE.

Talk Is Cheap Rule
Nothing is ever solved by diplomacy or politics in the world of RPGs. Any declarations of peace, summits and treaty negotiations are traps to fool the ever so gullible Good Guys into thinking the war is over, or to brainwash the remaining leaders of the world.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommend: Yes, of course the game would be a bit boring, so try and make some other incedent happen...

Stop Your Life (Setzer Rule)
No matter what kind of exciting, dynamic life a character was leading before joining your party, once there they will be perfectly content to sit and wait on the airship until you choose to use them.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommend: Yes. Really, it'd be interesting to have such a character sometimes just wander off at the worst times in order to adventure...

Don't Stand Out
Any townsperson who is dressed oddly or otherwise doesn't fit in with the rest of the townsfolk will either:
Join your party after you complete some task,
Be in the employ of your enemy, or
Befriend any female member of the party, and then be immediately captured and held hostage by the villains.

Avoidable: No. If you did, then people would have no idea who to exactly talk to.

Little Nemo Law
If any sleeping character has a dream, that dream will be either a 100% accurate memory of the past, a 100% accurate psychic sending from the present, a 100% accurate prophetic vision of the future, or a combination of two or all three of these.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommend: Unless you plan to have a very comedic game, then I'd suggest you don't do this.

Child Protection Act (Rydia Rule)
Children 12 and under are exempt from death. They will emerge alive from cataclysms that slaughter hundreds of sturdily-built adults, often with barely a scratch. Further protection is afforded if the catastrophe will orphan the child.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommend: If your game has a more "T-M" Rating, then go ahead.

Missing Master Hypothesis
Almost every strong physical fighter learned everything he/she knows from some old master or friend. Invariably, the master or friend has since turned evil, been killed, or disappeared without a trace.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommend: Yes. Either don't make this person, or just don't make it such a humongous hassle just to find the person.

Missing Master Corollary (Sabin Rule)
If a fighter's master merely disappeared, you will undoubtedly find him/her at some point in your travels. The master will challenge the student to a duel, after which the student will be taught one final skill that the master had been holding back for years.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommend: Yes. Don't make the silly duel, or look above.

Gojira Axiom
Giant monsters capable of leveling cities all have the following traits:
Low intelligence
Enormous strength
Projectile attacks
Gigantic teeth and claws, designed, presumably, to eat other giant monsters
Vulnerable to weapons 1/10,000th its size
Ecologically sensitive

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. The enormous strength thing isn't dodgeable, but it'd be very interesting to meet a giant monster that was super intellegent, looked like a big human, and didn't care anything for any ecological things.

"You Couldn't Get To Sleep Either, Huh?"
If any character in the game ever meets any other character standing alone at night looking at the moon, those two will eventually fall in love.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. I'm actually REALLY thinking about doing this with two male characters in my game... Don't thing anything naughty please, they are both very normal people.

I'll be back... WITH 126-150!!!

[Drighton]

Holy crap this is basically listing any plot or story line used in ANY RPG game EVER made. You might as well just type in big letters

  BE FRIGGIN ORIGINAL!!!

and be done with it.

Luckily only one of these so far applied to the story (I should say backstory) of my game

so Nya! :p

EDIT: Okay, maybe 2 of them... actually, I'm not sure if this applies at all because all I have is history and backstory. Anywho.

[Bluhman]

Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely (Althena Rule)
If a good guy is manipulated to the side of evil, they will suddenly find a new inner strength that will enable them to wipe out your whole party with a wave of their hand.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. It's no fun to have a battle that the opponent always wins.

All Is Forgiven (Nash Rule)
However, when the trusted member of your party turns against you, do not give it a second thought. They will return to your side after they're done with their amnesia/mind control/hidden noble goal that caused them to give away all your omnipotent mystical artifacts

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Try and do something different with this. When their Mind control or something is done, try something else... I don't know, just get out of the box!

First Law of Fashion
All characters wear a single costume which does not change over the course of the game. The only exception is when characters dress up in enemy uniforms to infiltrate their base.

Avoidable: No. There's very little reason for this one.

Second Law of Fashion
Any character's costume, no matter how skimpy, complicated, or simply outlandish, is always completely suitable to wear when climbing around in caves, hiking across the desert, and slogging through the sewers. It will continue to be completely suitable right afterwards when said character goes to meet the King.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Try and not make skimpy outfits. I hate them. The other two are ok, but NPCs should reply to fashion statements like that in different ways than normal.

Third Law of Fashion
In any futuristic setting, the standard uniform for female soldiers and special agents will include a miniskirt and thigh-high stockings. The standard uniform for all male characters, military or not, will include an extraordinarily silly and enormous hat.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Try and come up with something more conventional; try and base it off of other sci fi games- not just RPGS.

First Rule of Politics (Chancellor's Axiom)
Any advisor of a major ruler has been scheming after his throne for quite a while. Thanks to the miracle of timing, you will arrive at the king's inner sanctum just in time for the coup.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: No. If you show up at the castles inner sanctum 15 days before the coup, then what's the fun in that? Games are supposed to be fun, not tedious. Remember that.

Second Rule of Politics (Scapegoat's Axiom)
If the advisor works for an evil ruler, the advisor is as bad or even worse, and there's a good chance he's the final villain. (See Fake Ending Rule.) If the advisor works for a good ruler, he usually has the good of the kingdom at heart; not that that helps, because your party will invariably be made the scapegoat for all that's wrong with the nation and immediately thrown in the dungeon.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Try and mess with this concept.

Last Rule of Politics
Kingdoms are good. Empires are evil.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes, in fact, Empires could actually be less evil than Kingdoms. Kingdoms are ruled by a king, who has complete and utter control over all of those in the kingdom, whilst Empires are ruled by emperors. Whilst they also have very large ammounts of imbalance, they have a bit more; Greece was an empire, and Greece was very well the birthplace of the republic, a system where equality of people existed.

Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics (Ramus Rule)
Twenty-three generations may pass, but any person's direct descendant will still look and act just like him.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Try and make descendents look and act like completley different characters. Just try.

Pinch Hitter Rule
Whenever a member of the hero's team is killed or retires, no matter how unique or special he or she was there is a good chance someone will show up to replace them that has exactly the same abilities and can use the same weapons with the same proficiency.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Just make a bit of a gap, and have the character replaced with a completley different archetype of character.

Dealing With Beautiful Women, Part 1 (Yuffie Rule)
All good-looking young females are there to help you. This rule holds even when the girl in question is annoying, useless, or clearly evil.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Try and make a pretty, female main villan. I haven't seen a game do that yet...

Dealing With Beautiful Women, Part 2 (Rouge Rule)
All good-looking middle-aged females are out to kill you. This rule holds even when the woman in question has attained your unwavering trust and respect.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Think out of the box.

Well, So Much For That
After you have completed your mighty quest to find the object that will save the known universe, it will either a) get lost, b) get stolen, or c) not work.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Depends; if you feel you could drag the game along a bit further, use this one. Otherwise, don't bother and forget trying to use it.

The Ominous Ring of Land
The classic Ominous Ring of Land is a popular terrain feature that frequently doesn't show up on your world map. Just when you think things are going really well and you've got the Forces of Evil on the run, monsters, demons and mad gods will pour out of the center of the ring and the situation will get ten times worse. The main villain also usually hangs out in one of these after attaining godhood. If there are several Ominous Rings of Land or the entire world map is one big ring, you are just screwed.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Try and do some other kind of thing than a ring. Maybe a square? Maybe a ray of light? Maybe even a toaster?!

Law of NPC Relativity (Magus Rule)
Characters can accomplish superhuman physical feats, defeat enemies with one hand tied behind their back and use incredible abilities -- until they join your party and you can control them. Then these wonderful powers all vanish, along with most of their hit points.

Avoidable: No. The limit to a characters HP is approxametley -1000/-10000 of a monsters, thus rendering a perfect transition from enemy to ally impossible.

Guards! Guards! (or, Lindblum Full Employment Act)
Everything will be guarded and gated (elevators, docks, old rickety bridges, random stretches of roadway deep in the forest) except for the stuff that actually needs to be.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Put some logic into your NPC placement.

Thank You For Pressing The Self-Destruct Button
All enemy installations and city-sized military vehicles will be equipped with a conveniently located, easy-to-operate self-destruct mechanism.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Again, logic; WHY do they have a self-destruct button?

Falling Rule
An RPG character can fall any distance onto anything without suffering anything worse than brief unconsciousness. In fact, falling a huge distance is an excellent cure for otherwise fatal wounds -- anyone who you see shot, stabbed, or mangled and then tossed off a cliff is guaranteed to return later in the game with barely a scratch.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. It could be a way for a character to die!

Materials Science 101
Gold, silver, and other precious metals make excellent weapons and armor even though in the real world they are too soft and heavy to use for that purpose. In fact, they work so well that nobody ever melts their solid gold suit of armor down into bullion, sells it, and retires to a tropical isle on the proceeds.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Don't make those weapons/armor, and use commone sense.

Materials Science 201
Everyone you meet will talk enthusiastically about how some fantastically rare metal (iron, say) would make the best possible armor and weapons. Oh, if only you could get your hands on some! However, once you actually obtain iron -- at great personal risk, of course -- everyone will dismiss it as yesterday's news and instead start talking about some even more fantastically rare metal, such as gold. Repeat until you get to the metal after "mythril" (see The Ultimate Rule.)

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Again, metal ain't a fad. Use even more sense.

Seventh Inning Stretch (Elc Rule)
At some point in the game the main hero will receive a deadly story-driven injury and will be put in a hospital instead of having a mage heal him. This will leave him out of commission for at least the length of two sidequests; the female lead will also be temporarily out of commission as she steadfastly refuses to leave the hero's side. Ultimately a simple vision quest is all that will be required to bring the hero back to normal.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes, but this one you could be cornered on. Try and manipulate this idea; try and make the wound a disease instead.

Vivi's Spellbook Principle
Over the course of the game, you will spend countless hours learning between twenty and one hundred skills and/or spells, approximately three of which will still be useful by the end of the game.

Avoidable: No. It's impossible to have the spell "Tickle" useful by the end of the game... Hmm... ... ...

Gender Equality, Part 1 (Feena Rule)
Your average female RPG character carries a variety of deadly weapons and can effortlessly hack or magic her way through armies of monsters, killer cyborgs, and mutated boss creatures without breaking a sweat. She may be an accomplished ninja, a superpowered secret agent, or the world's greatest adventurer. However, if one of the game's villains manages to sneak up and grab her by the Standard Female Character Grab Area (her upper arm) she will be rendered utterly helpless until rescued by the hero.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. More sense. If you must do this one, try and make a good reason.

Gender Equality, Part 2 (Tifa Rule)
If any female character, in a burst of anger or enthusiasm, decides to go off and accomplish something on her own without the hero, she will fail miserably and again have to be rescued.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Use reason here; Why would she go off? What caused the zeal or anger? Why did she fail? All things you should take into account. If you can't fit 2 and 2 together in this equation, then don't use this cliche.

Gender Equality, Part 3 (Luna Rule)
All of the effort you put into maxing out the female lead's statistics and special abilities will turn out to be for naught when she spends the final confrontation with the villain dead, ensorcelled, or held hostage.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. I believe that, by the end of the game, every character you spent a ton of time on should be accessable for the final battle.

Stay tuned, as I go on the final strech... of  151-192!!!!!!!

[Grandy]

 Basic Rule To Mansions
 Every mansion needs at least one secret passgeway, often located behind a mirror, picture or clock. If its behind a wall, you'll need to push an statue's head to open it.

 Avoidable: Yes.
 Recommended: Yes. If you want a secret passageway, think in a better place to put it.

 Bond, James Bond (Cait Sith Rule)
 You won't ever find a spy. If theres a spy in your party, he will tell you personaly. If theres a spy in the enemy's army, he will be found and killed, unless the hero rescue him or the hero is the spy himself.

 Avoidable: Yes.
 Recommended: Yes. Try to make some signals that the spy is a spy, and maybe some variable, if the number of times you saw the spy doing something suspicios is X or more, you find him, if no, he tells you and run aways with your money.

[SangeYasha]

The Cold Mercenary Cliche

At some point of the game, that mercenary that was in your party will left out for later come test you strenght / fight with you at the enemy's side.

Avoidable: Yes.
Recommended: If you have a Cold Mercenary in you party, make him quit because the main character couldn't pay him more or the evil villain paid him more than you. And if he comes battle with you try to offer money for he doesn't fight you.

The Pure Evil Villain Cliche

No matter how was is infancy was disturberd, no matter how many motives the villain had, he always will get killed and he was always evil and the teenager hero was always good. And he never get arrested and then becomes good after some time. He always die.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccomended: This is one of the most cliche things on RPGs -__-, try to make you villain has motives for what he is doing, and try to make him as a normal person as well your hero (no always evil villain and always good hero).

[Bluhman]

Gender Equality Addendum (Rynn Rule)
In the unlikely event that the main character of the game is female, she will not be involved in any romantic subplot whatsoever beyond getting hit on by shopkeepers.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes!!! This one really seems to tick me off. If so many games with male main characters have romance stories, why can't one with a woman... It's so perplexing.

Stealing The Spotlight (Edea Rule)
The characters who join your party only briefly tend to be much cooler than your regular party members.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Really, avoiding this cliche is a cliche in itself. Having an incompetent doof join you for something is probabily worse than doing this cliche, so I'd say No to avoiding this one.

"Mommy, why didn't they just use a Phoenix Down on Aeris?"
Don't expect battle mechanics to carry over into the "real world."

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: No. It's losses like this that add dramatism to the game. However, many people with losses like these have to keep the following in mind if they want their scheme to work:
1. Name the "Dead" Status aliment "Unconcious"
2. Make this aliment end after battle, meaning they'll be revived with 1 hitpoint.
Therefore, a character won't be truly dead until all of his comrades are dead, or s/he is killed in the storyline.

Gold Saucer Rule
The strongest weapons/items/spells in the entire game can only be found by doing things like racing birds.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. If you do wan't to apply this one though, make the relation indirect. For example, by gambling very well, you'll earn yourself a name, catching attention of the mafia. The godfather asks you to come to his office, where he offers you a trade in of all the casino chips you got for a key to his arsenal, where many powerful things are kept locked up. Of course that's a really bad example, but then again, I don't know what would of been better.

Evil May Live Forever, But It Doesn't Age Well
Even though it took the greatest armies in the world and all of the world's greatest magicians to seal away an ancient evil in an apocalyptic war, once said ancient evil breaks free three fairly inexperienced warriors can destroy it.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Maybe. If you do avoid this, take extensive care to making the main characters become more heroic as the game goes on. This also means that the game will be much longer than a normal one. If you're not up to this task, then either make a final boss that is not the appidomy of pain with 2 hitpoints, or just give up and don't avoid doing this cliche.

Sephiroth Memorial Escape Clause
Any misdeed up to and including multiple genocide is forgiveable if you're cool enough.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes, obviously because the same doesn't transfer over to real life.

Doomed Utopia Theorem (Law of Zeal)
All seemingly ideal, utopian societies are powered by some dark force and are therefore doomed to swift, flashy destruction.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Not really. If there was a utopia, then you'd need a good reason for it to be there, and if that reason is positive, it almost seems like the entire game is idealistic. You have to keep in mind that life it'self is very unidealistic, so the thought of an unscathed utopia is a bit weird. Either don't have this utopia, or don't avoid this cliche.

Party Guidance Rule
Somewhere in the last third of the story, the hero will make a stupid decision and the rest of the party must remind him of all that they have learned from being with him in order to return the hero to normal.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Either have each of the characters apply what they know to cure what happened to the hero, or just don't make this happen.

Bad Is Good, Baby!
The heroes can always count on the support of good-hearted vampires, dragons, thieves, demons, and chainsaw murderers in their quest to save the world from evil. And on the other hand...

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. It'd be interesting to see a deceptive vampire or chainsaw murderer...

Good Is Bad, Baby!
Watch out for generous priests, loyal military officers, and basically anyone in a position of authority who agrees to help you out, especially if they save your life and prove their sincerity innumerable times -- they're usually plotting your demise in secret (at least when they can fit it into their busy schedule of betraying their country, sponsoring international terrorism, and stealing candy from small children) and will stab you in the back at the most inconvenient moment, unless they fall under...

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes, but remember, if you DO apply this cliche to your game, give the authoritic person a reason to stab you in the back.

General Leo's Exception
Honorable and sympathetic people who work for the Other Side are always the genuine article. Of course they'll be busily stabbing you in the front, so either way you lose. Eventually though, they'll fall prey to...

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. The same of what I said above applies here.

The Ineffectual Ex-Villain Theorem (Col. Mullen Rule)
No matter how tough and bad-*** one of the Other Side's henchmen is, if he bails to the side of Good he'll turn out to be not quite tough and bad-*** enough. The main villain will defeat him easily. But don't weep -- usually he'll manage to escape just in time, leaving you to deal with the fate that was meant for him.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Not quite. Having the henchman just defeat the main villan is no fun! Once again, games are about fun, not watching someone cooler than you kill a baddie.

All The Time In The World (Rinoa Rule)
Unless there's a running countdown clock right there on the screen, you have as long as you want to complete any task -- such as, say, rescuing a friend who's hanging by one hand from a slippery cliff edge thousands of feet in the air -- no matter how incredibly urgent it is. Dawdle or hurry as you will, you'll always make it just in the nick of time.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Just put a timer in.

Ladies First (Belleza Rule)
When things really start falling apart, the villain's attractive female henchman will be the first to jump ship and switch to the side of Good. Sadly, she still won't survive until the end credits, because later she will sacrifice her life out of unrequited love for the villain.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Either try and twist one or two of these atributes of the cliche, or don't make this happen.

Trial By Fire (Cecil Rule)
Any dark and brooding main characters will ultimately be redeemed by a long, ardous, quasi-spiritual quest that seems difficult at the time, but in the great scheme of things just wasn't that big of a deal after all.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Really, the main character would probabily just get redeemed for just killing the villan.

Key Item Rule
Never discard, sell, or otherwise remove permamently from your possession any items you begin the game with or acquire within the first town. This is especially true for items that seem to have no practical use, because of...

Avoidable: No. If the player DID sell the posession, then the game would be unpassable.

The Law of Inverse Practicality (Key Item Corollary)
Any item that you can acquire will have some sort of purpose. Those that seem to be useless and have no practical value at all, always tend to have great power later on. The earlier you get the item, the later in the game it will be used. The longer the span of time between acquisition and use, the more powerful the item is.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Instead, base it off of what it is, and what it relates to.

Way To Go, Serge
It will eventually turn out that, for a minimum of the first sixty percent of the game, you were actually being manipulated by the forces of evil into doing their sinister bidding for them. In extreme cases this may go as high as 90%. The clear implication is that it would have been better to not get involved in the first place.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. If you do use this one, then remember that the main character needs to REALLY wan't to do it, or has to be forced into doing it.

Gilligan's Prescription
Any character who has amnesia will be cured before the end of the game. They usually won't like what they find out about themselves, though.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Sometimes not. See, having a character who doesn't remember a thing in the intro will actually form a "hook" for the game, pulling the player in further to actually play the game instead of stating that the game sucks and turning it off before the first cutscene is done.

Luke, I Am Your Tedious, Overused Plot Device (Lynx Rule)
If there is any chance whatsoever that major villain X could be the male lead's father, then it will turn out that major villain X is the male lead's father.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Think about it:

Man: Hey, it might turn out that EVIL MON is actually the father of a blue haired person!
Blue haired hero: That's great.

Later...

EVIL MON: HA HA HA HA!!! I HAVE THOROUGHLY KILLED YOU!!!
Blue haired hero: Why father!? Why!?!?!?
EVIL MON: I'm not your father.  

World of Mild Inconvenience
The devastating plague, noxious gas, planet-obliterating meteor or other large-scale disaster that led to the death of millions will affect your party (and your party's friends and family members) in no way whatsoever, save that a few party members may become lost and you can find them later.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Some losses must be made, have a character or two die in such an event.

Golden Chocobo Principle
There will be at least one supremely ultimate improvement for your weapon or some way to make your trusted steed capable of going anywhere and doing anything, requiring hours and hours of hard work to acquire. Once you do achieve this, you will use it once, and it will be completely useless for the rest of the game.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Once again, a game is about fun and not tedium. Try and make the obtaination of the item easy if it's only used once.

Golden Chocobo Corollary
The magic formula for acquiring this supreme upgrade will be only vaguely alluded to in the game itself. Ideally, you're supposed to shell out $19.95 for the strategy guide instead.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Make there be some sort of puzzle you have to put togther with what different people said.

Flow of Goods Rule
The quality of goods in the world is dependent upon the shop's distance from the final dungeon. It doesn't matter if the town you start in has a huge thriving economy and is the center of world trade, it will always have the game's worst equipment; and even if that village near the end is isolated and has only three people in it, it will have the game's best equipment.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. You have to apply logic! In other places where it's more linear, it might have to be so...

Master Key Rule
Any and all locked doors that the characters encounter will be unlocked by the end of the game.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. D'ya know how many locked houses I have in my game with no keys!? Actually that's due to lazyness and non-wanting to make the insides of the said houses.

"Evil will always triumph, because Good is dumb!"
If the villain needs all ten legendary medallions to attain world domination and you have nine of them, everybody in your party still thinks it is neccessary to bring the nine to the villain's castle and get the final one, instead of hiding the ones they've already got and spoiling his plans that way. After you foolishly bring the legendary medallions to the villain's hideout, he will kidnap one of your companions (usually the main love interest) and you will trade the world away to rescue your friend.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Once again, common sense must be applied to people in the game.

Dark Helmet's Corollary
After you give up the medallions to save your friend/parent/lover/other miscellaneous party member, don't expect to actually get that person back. Sucker!

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. The villan really should have a good sense of honor in my opinion.

It's Not My Department, Says Wernher Von Braun
All space stations, flying cities, floating continents and so forth will without exception either be blown up or crash violently to earth before the end of the game.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Either don't make it crash, or don't make it exist.

The Best-Laid Schemes
The final villain's grand scheme will have involved the deaths of thousands or even millions of innocent people, the clever manipulation of governments, armies, and entire populations, and will have taken anywhere from five to five thousand years to come to fruition. The hero will come up with a method of undoing this plan forever in less than five minutes.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. If done correctly, you can make your game much more believeable. For example, the villan came up with an idea to rebuild the world into kill the king and take place on his throne. That's it. No death of innocents, no ripping down of cities, just the claiming of the throne. After he succeeds, the main character doesn't know what to do and nearly gives up, making a small side-part of the story.

Pyrrhic Victory
By the time you've gotten it in gear, dealt with your miscellaneous personal crises and are finally ready to go Save the World once and for all, nine-tenths of it will already have been destroyed. Still, you've got to give your all to save the remaining one-tenth.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Really try and make your game on a smaller scale than the whole world.

Poetic Villain Principle (Kefka Rule)
All villains will suddenly become poets, philisophers, and/or dramatic actors when a) they first meet the hero, b) they are about to win or their evil plan is finally ready, c) some major event in the game is about to begin, d) right before the final battle, and e) right before they die, when they will frequently be feeling generous enough to reward you with some homespun wisdom about making the most of life while you have it.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. If they're going to suddenly rhyme in a place, then why!? Are they completley poetic or completley crazy? Much like a character, you have to make the villan believeable as well.

Compression of Time
As you approach the final confrontation with the villain, events will become increasingly awkward, contrived and disconnected from one another -- almost as if some cosmic Author was running up against a deadline and had to slap together the ending at the last minute.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Really, you should pay as much attention to the end of the game as the beginning, seeing as you have no deadline...

Adam Smith's Revenge
By the end of the game you are renowned everywhere as the Legendary Heroes, every surviving government and authority figure has rallied behind you, the fate of the world is obviously hanging in the balance, and out of nowhere random passers-by give you a pat on the back and heartfelt good luck wishes. However, shopkeepers won't even give you a discount, much less free supplies for the final battle with evil.

Avoidable: No. You can't make discounts in RM2k without a custom shop system.

Adam Smith's Corollary
No matter how thoroughly devastated the continent/planet/universe is, there's always some shopkeeper who survived the end of the world and sits outside the gates of the villain's castle, selling the most powerful equipment in the game, like nothing ever happened.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. You have to make a reason of why he's there.

The Long Arm of the Plot
Any bad guys, no matter how far they run, will always end up in one of two ways by the end of the game: obviously dead, or on your side. There is no in-between.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Make an inbetween. Have them restore the world to its former state before he dies, or make him escape to another world or something...

Apocalypse Any Time Now
The best time to do side quests is while the huge meteor hovers in the sky above the planet, waiting to fall and destroy the world.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. If you're going to have sidequests, they should be accessable at any time.

"So, Andross, you reveal your true form!"
You will have to kill the evil villain at least twice at the end of the game. First the villain will look like a person or some creature and be rather easy to kill. Then he will grow to about 50 times the hero's size and be much harder to kill.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Don't make him become 50 times larger, make him grow to like 16 feet, or don't grow at all...

In Your Face, Jesus!
Even if you manage to deal with him that time, you're not done -- the villain will then transform into his final form, which is always an angelic winged figure with background music remixed for ecstatic chorus and pipe organ.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Too many a final boss either a demon or angel. Do somewhere inbetween...

The Moral Of The Story (Ghaleon Rule)
Every problem in the universe can be solved by finding the right long-haired prettyboy and beating the crap out of him.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Design the villan better, don't make him a longhaired wimp.

Weapon Rule
There's always a hidden creature who is much harder to defeat than even the ultimate bad guy's final, world-annihilating form. It's lucky for all concerned that this hidden creature prefers to stay hidden rather than trying to take over the world himself, because he'd probably win. As a corollary, whatever reward you get for killing the hidden creature is basically worthless because by the time you're powerful enough to defeat him, you don't need it any more.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Try and make rewards REWARDING...

The Ultimate Rule
Anything called "Ultima (whatever)" or "Ultimate (whatever)" isn't. There's always at least one thing somewhere in the world which is even more.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. If you name something ultimate sword, then make something called poo cleaver that does twice as much damage, then what's the point of the ultimate sword being ultimate? If you make the ultimate weapon, try and make it stay true to it's name.

Know Your Audience (Vyse Rule)
Every woman in the game will find the male lead incredibly attractive.

Avoidable: Yes
Reccommended: Yes. Boy you wish it was true in real life, eh?

And so there you have it;  192 cliches , 192 awnsers to how to avoid them all. It was tough. Very. But still, I probabily didn't need to do this. All you need to remember is  Get inspired, know what you're doing, use logic, have time, and most importantly, said by Drighton,  BE FRIGGIN ORIGINAL!!!

[Moosetroop11]

 The random battle rule #1

In your hometown, monsters are weak. As you progress through the game, they get stronger and stronger. If the main character just happened to be born in a town near to the final dungeon, they wouldn't have even been able to walk outside, as they would have been killed in one hit 0_o

Avoidable: No, I'm afraid.


 The random battle rule #2

No matter how strong the random monsters, the merchant/hiker that happens to be standing by the side of the road won't be harmed, even if they've clearly never fought a battle in their lives.

Avoidable: Yes! Maybe have a merchant with a weapon, or bodyguards?

Nice list, by the way.

[Drighton]

But still, I probabily didn't need to do this. All you need to remember is Get inspired, know what you're doing, use logic, have time, and most importantly, said by Drighton, BE FRIGGIN ORIGINAL!!!

I like this thread

I'm very tempted to spill my story before I'm even halfway done with the game... nah. nevermind.  :p

[Drighton]

I have something to add to this:

Magic stones/gems/jewels/crystals. Don't use them.

Final Fantasy has clearly overused this, what makes you think you can get away with it? :p

[Solstacefaerie]

Some of the things that annoy the crap out of me...

They were sealed away a thousand years ago......but are still there

The ten mystic medalions, the four elemental stones, or the magical pendant that is key to the planet's survival, is still conveniantly in the dungeon it was placed a thousand years ago.

Avoidable: Heck yeah. Make a few of them missing, one or two destroyed/needing to be fixed, or have a few theives plunder them, just to be killed by the villian and have them stolen from them! BE ORIGINAL PEOPLE!!!

A spooky cave littered with bones.........let's go check it out!!!

All of the companions, especially the female ones, never object to the hero's actions, even if you KNOW that it's going to end very badly.

Avoidible: Well...kinda. Have a character say something like "Are you nuts?! I ain't goin' in there!" and have them stay behind, or through much persuation, reluctantly come along.
   
Okay, my rant is done   .

[WarxePB]

"Mercenary? What's that...?" (Kratos rule)

Any self-proclaimed neutral character will be either: a)working for the order of angelic beings that rule the planet, b)working for the Bad Guys, or c)both.

Avoidable: Yeah.
Recommended: Yeah. Maybe the person could just be someone hired by the party.


"Uh... um... I inherited it?"

Whether it's underground, in the air, on a different planet or not even in the same period of time, every bad guy has a castle.

Avoidable: ...Maybe.
Recommended: If you wanted to be original, you could put the villian in a cave or something, but it's kind of tough to work around it.

[WarxePB]

This, along with Rune's Story tutorial, is a good tool for making stories. Stickied - if anyone disagrees, please say so.

[Bluhman]

BOO-YAH!!!  

[Archem]

Wow. This means that (when I finally get around to working on it again) my ABS game is almost completely uncliche'd! And now my not-at-all-even-slightly-serious game has so many cliches that exist that will be pointed out in-game. All according to plan as well! That naked bad grammared poor pronunciationed guy in my game will have one hell of a workout now!!! (Don't ask)