RPG Cliches

RPG Cliches



1. Any character that you want to die, never will, but the one character you actually like, will.
2. Any character that you actually like, will eventually leave the party at the most crucial and unconventional time.
3. Any character that is moody and the resident anti-hero, will ALWAYS become good in the end, and despite being able to obtain everything they ever wanted from the bad guy, will always turn it down to help the good guys because of some kind of sappy friendship or love thing.
4. Any character you like who betrays the party that you actually like, won’t ever return and will die in the fight against you (Thank you Tales series... I’ll miss you Leon and Zelos...)
5. Any character that you initially liked that leaves the party, will always return low level and unusually sucky compared to how they were. (CURSE YOU KRATOS!)
6. Any character that has the capacity to be on par with the bad guy, will either sacrifice themselves for the wimpy up and coming hero, or will die trying to save the townspeople/orphans/cuddly forest animals BEFORE they even THINK of just blowing up the bad guy before he could do anything.
7. Any ultimate weapon is either a holy weapon you can’t use until you prove yourself, or is hidden under some old man’s bed that you have to trade about 200 crappy items for to get, and then do said old mans laundry and shopping list before he’ll give it to you. In three days time.
8. Any Gods in the story who actually care what’s going on, are conveniently tied up or can’t do anything due to some kind of magical barrier or low power or circumstance. (Haha... I totally did that.)
9. Opposites will always attract in the game world. Be they the White Knight falling for the Rogue who’s bitter and mean, but he insists is good at heart, or the Super good and holy guys falling for the evil, treacherous and all powerful women.
10. Any said all powerful women, will fall for the super good guys, and then loose all will to be evil and treacherous, coincidentally losing all their sweet powers and becoming wimpy and weak as the princesses they despise.
11. Any great female character who’s strong and tough as nails, is never shown to have any inclination for a family life, or if they do, they never want to fight again.
12. Prejudice only occurs as a plot device.
13. Mummies will always be present in catacombs and come to life to fight you
14. Skeletons will always come to life and fight you, despite that they shouldn’t be able to hold themselves together.
15. Any evil bad guy that comes into the party, does so because he’s either fallen in love with a main character and loses all interest in evil, or reforms his ways because an even more evil person shows up.
16. There will almost ALWAYS be an encounter with a supposed main bad guy, who turns out to be a pawn for the REAL bad guy, who’s bigger, badder, and uglier then the first.
17. Any evil, or almost evil bad guys, have a mommy complex. (I’m looking at YOU Sephiroth...)
18. Dragons and amnesia are plot devices
19. Any character who has amnesia is almost always cured by the love of the one who likes them the most.
20. Any character who is prophesied to be of an awesome warrior class, is really of a crappy warrior class.
21. Any main characters next party member of the opposite gender will almost always hook up with them.
22. Dragons are either evil, or cannot be used in the main quest for battle where they would most definitely excel. And if, somehow, you CAN use them, they’re nowhere near as awesome as they should be.
23. Nobody ever tries to recruit demons for any good cause, even though some demons are not entirely evil.
24. Any anti-hero will ultimately be tested of whether or they are evil or not
25. Any strong female who declares she doesn’t need anyone, will almost always fall in love with the resident good guy.
26. All final enemies are ugly.
27. There is no such thing as a directly helpful God.
28. Anyone who offers you something for free, will eventually get something out of you.
29. The good guys are never questioned about anything against the law (Like murder and theft) unless they are framed by an evil guy and then it’s added to their list of atrocities.
30. Good guys being in trouble for bad acts is a plot device
31. The game will always give you the best items when you no longer need them, or have completely beaten the game and there’s no longer a reason to need it anymore.
32. You will always run out of things to buy, or the one item you want is too expensive for thirty+ hours, or when you finally CAN buy it, you don’t need it anymore.
33. Any cute and cuddly character will either die, or be an utter nuisance.
34. There is no such thing as having a cute and cuddly all powerful familiar.
35. There is no such thing as having a demonic all powerful familiar for a member in YOUR party.
36. Any all powerful character that actually decides to join you, will ALWAYS suffer decreased power, despite they should be omnipotent.
37. Your home town will either always accept you, or oust you for supposed acts of treason, in which you can never come back until you prove yourself/kill the man who ousted you in the first place.
38. No matter how annoying the NPC is, you can never kill them.
39. No matter how many times you beat a character, if the game doesn’t think it’s time for them to die, they will always get away.
40. No matter how many times you are slashed/impaled/poisoned/petrified/eaten you will never suffer permanent damage or show any signs of bodily harm. You’ll just kneel down when you’re close to death.
41. Death is never permanent unless there is a cut scene.
42. Revenge can never be gotten quickly. It has to take several hours to really get going and then one hour to actually get the job done.
43. You will always be forced to do menial labor for somebody, no matter how bad ass or high ranked you think you are.
44. If the princess isn’t in love with you or hates you, she’s in your party.
45. If the princess is in your party, she is infatuated with one of the party members.
46. The princess will remain infatuated with that one character, and you will never see it resolved, even if that character loves somebody else in the party.
47. A summon will never require you to move out of the way. You will either fade, or it will miss you entirely.
48. You can never hit a party member and do damage. Unless of course, your thumb slips.
49. Any time you CAN hit a party member, there is never circumstance to do so. Because even if it DOES cure confusion, it will probably be your most powerful character who hits the mage and kills her.
50. Mages never try and become physically stronger or more resistant to anything. Even if they have the time and all the reason in the world to do so.
51. All younger children will be annoying or cute, and if they’re obnoxious no one will ever try and discipline them.
52. You will always be the monarchy’s bitch.
53. A character who dies, will either be referenced for the rest of the game, or forgotten until the end of the game for a split second reminisce.
54. Just because a character is dead, doesn’t mean they won’t still talk to you in cut scenes.
55. You can slaughter all enemies in one blow, but you STILL have to fight the boss three times before you can win, and even then it’s usually a circumstance that kills him, not you.
56. The bad guy will always have a long monologue that the main character will fiercely deny, but later will make him question his motives/beliefs/power.
57. The bad guy may be stabbed through the heart, strangled, and set on fire, but they will still manage to stay alive long enough to make a last ditch effort to kill you. Even if you throw them into a black hole.
58. The bad guy will always use those last five minutes of life after being stabbed repeatedly to have a monologue about his motives or about how he should have been good.
59. The bad guy will always never believe he’s been beaten up until the second he explodes.
60. Famous last words: NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!
61. You have to beat a boss so far before they automatically win anyways, but if you fall before that, it’s game over.
62. There is no such thing as an honorable bad guy, and if there is, they either die, or stop being evil and join you and loose any sort of awesomeness they had.
63. If you start out the game with awesome equipment, you will either get to use it for two minutes, or never, and then it will be taken from you. There is absolutely nothing you can do to stop it like, say... ATTACKING THE ENEMY! (Alucard I find you guilty of this.)
64. If a character returns in a sequel, they will conveniently forget all special/ultimate moves and loose all of the best armor and equipment they had in the first game. Even if they got it a cut scene in the first game.
65. Furry party members never get fleas. If they scratch, it is out of boredom.
66. The party can travel into volcanoes and it will look like a dungeon, even though volcanoes have boiling lava. There can be seven layers to the volcano dungeon, but each level has a floor of lava that somehow doesn’t affect the lower floor.
67. The party can go into volcanoes and not need to change there clothes at all and not be burnt to a crisp.
68. The party can go into the freezing cold, and the scantily dressed females never need to put on extra clothing or suffer frostbite.
69. No matter how many atrocities the good guy does, everyone will always accept him in the end.
70. The bad guy will always have to do a BIG act of evil to prove he’s evil (Like blowing up a planet or killing a party member or subordinate) but never seems to commit petty crimes. Like holding up the local item shop or kicking a puppy.
71. Female characters are always weaker then their male counterparts.
72. Every female seems to be capable of healing magic in a party, but men only seem how to know how to smite things, or have minor healing spells. (Thank you Angelo for being so different)
73. The party must have one of each: Intrepid young male hero who’s slightly clueless, a fellow clueless female who falls hopelessly in love with the main hero and is a healer, a lovable character who acts as thief, an annoying character you want to die but never does, a character you like who probably WILL die, and one anti-hero or reformed evil agent. Each must be from a different race or class or region, yet all will perfectly understand each other and get along just fine. Unless the plot calls for prejudice.
74. If you fight a party member turned evil, even if you never gave them new equipment and they are still level one, they will automatically have five times more HP then you and know ultimate techniques.
75. The main character will be conveniently oblivious to several female characters he sees EVERYDAY being in love with him
76. On the off chance he DOES know, he will ignore it and it won’t be addressed until the very end and even then won’t ever really be resolved.
77. If the main character likes another character and is open about it,  they will probably have absolutely no interest in them at all and ignore their existence.
78. If two females like the main hero, the first one to appear will always get him. The second will pine after him for the rest of the game, never noticing that another guy in the party is totally in love with them and willing to do anything for them. When this other party member eventually does do so, said female STILL won’t get the hint.
79. Even if the floor is covered in gold, you can’t pick it up. It is apparently permanently fixed to the floor.
80. If you can’t open the chest because for once, a person won’t let you, you DEFINITELY want what’s in that chest.
81. Money and experience are the two things you will always want more of. ALWAYS.
82. You can kill as many soldiers and ultimate monsters as you want. But unless they drop it or you steal it while they live, you cannot pilfer their corpse.
83. When a party member leaves, they can travel the entire world ahead of you and prevent disaster anywhere else, but they never go up a SINGLE EXP.
84. When a member leaves, they never tell you anything about their leaving if they are going to show up later and save you. If they tell you, you end up saving THEM.
85. You never find out anything else of what the character did when they left. Just why, and then what they did right before you found them. They may have found the holy grail, but they won’t tell you it happened.
86. A character who leaves, never upgrades their equipment.
87. Anything important, is hell to get or gotten through a cut scene. But if it’s an ultimate weapon or armor, you don’t even get a new chime to celebrate.
88. Wolves are always evil and attack you, even though you’d think they’d try not to in packs of two or three. You would think they would attack in packs of ten to a hundred.
89. Clothing never gets tattered. Unless it’s in a cut scene.
90. No character is ever naked at any point in the game. Unless it’s a plot device.
91. Just because you’re thrown in a dungeon and have all your equipment taken, doesn’t mean you can’t get out. Even if it’s the azkaban of dungeon, you WILL get out.
92. Even if you have beaten the crap out of the same mid-boss a billion times, they will ALWAYS show up again later for a rematch.
93. When it’s finally time for the mid-boss to die, someone evil usually kills him because he’s useless. You, evidently, don’t deserve the privilege.
94. Shopkeepers will always have a chest that you can never get into no matter how much you try.
95. RPG heros will never realize that they have the capacity to jump unless it’s a cut scene, or a novelty thing that you really can’t use for anything important.
96. Not even the fabled weapon of ancient legends can get you over a shopkeeper’s counter, and into the chest right next to them.
97. Deep emotional attachment/commitments can keep very powerful characters from using their full abilities. Even if it’s for something so trivial as, oh, you know... SAVING THE WORLD (damn you Regal...)
98. You can be level 100, and level 1 monsters will still insist upon fighting you if you’re in the area.
99. If elves are in the game, they’re usually an archer. If they’re not archers, they usually suck.
100. Ninjas have to wait their turn just like everyone else, even if they ARE wicked awesome.
101. Pirates in your party always suck even though they’re also wicked awesome.
102. Heros grow insanely huge as soon as they step on the world map. However they never seem to notice, nor use this to their advantage.
103. True Love is a plot device.
104. Truly kick ass females are few and far between, and often, never stay in your party no matter how much you want them too.
105. The princess is in another dungeon. XD
106.    The cake LIES!!!! (By undergroundwasteland)
107:    Mini-games are always insanely easy if their completion is necessary for the progression of the plot, but insanely hard if you're just using them as a way to get items (KOTOR). (Added by Arnorath)