But, I LIKE this Cliché!

[Earthmonger]

You left out:
- Our town guards have no weapons, and our blacksmith was slain in a bar fight. Could you make us some, find a new smith, or secure us a cache of weapons?
- A clan of Yetis in the nearby mountains has been terrorizing the town.
- The wood nymphs in the surrounding forest have gone crazy, slaying travelers for no apparent reason.


And of course, the fact that your nemesis always escapes the first and second battle, to make a final stand elsewhere, but this time he transforms into some impossibly freakish demonoid bossmob.

 

[quantum mechanic]

I like how the villain almost always encounters you when you're too weak to do anything to him/her/it, but for some totally inexplicable reason decides not to just shoot/stab you in the face. Saren, I'm looking at you. Multiple opportunities for easy, straightforward PC murder, and all you can do is have odd conversations.

Also, the mentor that dies or turns evil is a fun cliche, although the BioWare connection is a little off because of David Anderson. The ambassador's annoying whining made up for the lack of betrayal, though.

 

[cainx10a]

"Enchantment!"

ENCHANTMENT!

Sandal could get a whole DLC just for himself. I mean, the man is Chuck Norris in disguise. Did you see how he was standing all by himself, bloodied and surrounded by darkspawn during the final hours of DA:O in that Fortress.

ENCHANTMENT!!!!!!

 

[ffs-dontcare]

Dark elves being evil.

Caucasian elves being forest-dwelling archery un-charismatic pansies.

Dwarves.

Fucking dwarves.

But then, I hate these cliches. Can't think of a cliche I actually like, but I guess it boils down to two categories:
- Cliches I hate.
- Cliches I don't mind.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Everquest had a bunch of these weird ones.

The Snake kicks you for 1 point of damage.

You search the body of the snake. You find two snake heads, one snake tail and 4 gold pieces.

But isn't this just an excuse to pull up TVTropes again?

 

[Flying Dagger]

No, you seem to have misheard me, I don't want to buy your inn, I would like to stay one fucking night in it.

Selling infinite arrows, one gold each.

DIY limb re-attachment in the form of a potion.

not all rpgs do it but how can an inn stay in business charging the equivilent of 500 arrows?

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Speaking of Balders Gate

A great anti-cliche:

"Aw, look, it's a Kobold Dungeon. Ikkle 1/2HD critters...

Thunk Thunk Thunk Thunk Thunk.

MOTHER OF GOD, BREAK OUT THE FIREBALLS!"

 

[hittite]

Why is my character so willing to exchange the trusty sword that he probably received as a gift from his parents when he graduated from adventuring school and his well-worn suit of armor that fits him perfectly after all these years for some bigger-looking sword and thicker-looking armor that a random bandit leader was using before you stuck him full of arrows? Doesn't anything have sentimental value anymore?

In Neverwinter Nights: Kingmaker you get a magic sword at the beginning that levels up and gets new bonuses when you do.

 

[hittite]

Spoiler

Just remembered this one. Yeah, I always wondered about this.

 

[bobisimo]

I remember the one in KOTOR, which pissed me off to no end because the entire quest was a dark side trap. There was literally no way to finish that quest without getting dark side points. I was playing as a light side character for my first playthrough and I had to waste multiple hours trying to finish it in EVERY. POSSIBLE. BLOODY. WAY. After I discovered it was a dark side trap, I had to revert back to a DAYS old savegame. That still pisses me off to this day.

Heh. You're right. I think there were a few situations in the game where you could incur small hits for the light/darkside, which kept you from "perfection". But the designers would tell you to suck it and then they'd tell you that sometimes life is about choosing the best of the available possibilities. Or something. Haha.

 

[Valiance]

Mages wearing dresses...i mean robes...

Had to link it.

Anyway, I think Fallout 1 did a good job with the time-limit thing. But that's the only game I can think of that did it alright. I mean, you could even do some sidequests to extend the amount of time you have.

 

[Calatar]

2. In mere minutes, you become so skilled at magic/combat that you can stand toe-to-toe with battle-hardened mercenaries, often owning them gloriously.

Or perhaps you or a comrade are battle-hardened war veterans yourself, yet you find that you increase in power DRAMATICALLY after fighting a few enemies because despite being war veterans you started out at level 1.

 

[JesterRaiin]

"Lookatyou. Though you lived 20-30 years and wasn't able to reach even 1st level of any profession, now, after only 2 weeks of adventuring you're 40th lev assasin-mage-cleric."

 

[Namewithheld]

I *love* heroic speeches. The speech that Alistair gave in Dragon Age...and the speech the Salarians (sp) gave in Mass Effect...

Bioware does epic speeches well.

 

[Aesir23]

Dark elves being evil.

That is one cliche I definitely love.

 

[Namewithheld]

Why? Because dark elves are sexy. And evil is sexy. Therefor, evil dark elves are double sexy.

Now, I'm playing Dragon Age, and they actually just inverted the "you fought your way through my dungeon, killed all my men, and evaded my traps, now I will kill you weakling!"

And they do it a few more times throughout the game. The werewolves do it ("Why would we ambush you? You've already slaughtered your way into our lair, we don't want to anger you any more!"). The slavers in the alienage do it (heck, he tries to wriggle his way out of getting a sword jammed down his throat no less than THREE TIMES).

The only people who don't try and surrender/talk their way out of you killing them at the end of their dungeon are either overconfident assholes (Like Jarvia) or religious zealots (like the Cult in Haven).

 

[Optimystic]

Dear Shamus:

These things you have pointed out are tropes, not cliches! A trope is a frequently-used device, whereas a cliche is an OVERused one.

-Opt

 

[level250geek]

2. In mere minutes, you become so skilled at magic/combat that you can stand toe-to-toe with battle-hardened mercenaries, often owning them gloriously.

Or perhaps you or a comrade are battle-hardened war veterans yourself, yet you find that you increase in power DRAMATICALLY after fighting a few enemies because despite being war veterans you started out at level 1.

Yet another variation: you were once a battle-hardened vet, but you've forgotten everything you knew and must re-learn it. You've also thrown away your really awesome weapons and armor, so you start with a wooden sword and a pillow strapped around your body.

The ONLY games to ever get this set-up right is Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Alucard was weak physically, but had awesome gear that was stolen by Death and scattered around the mansion) and the first Assassin's Creed (it was tied into Altair being disgraced in front of his brother Assassins).

 

[Mordwyl]

For some odd reason ancient civilisations happen to be far more advanced than the present, to the point where they appear unbelievably futuristic. What, I thought old stuff would be, you know, old.

I remember seeing this trope first in the Shining Force games on the Megadrive where the ancients used said technology, in a fantasy world no less, to seal off the big bad in the first game and the Nazca bird [http://www.onagocag.com/nazbird.jpg] be a gigantic aerial transport in the second, among other things such as robotic enemies/allies, laser weapons and teleporters described as "ancient" despite the games being set in a fantasy world.

 

[Fensfield]

One word: Grandia. Maybe my favourite RPG of all time, and a veritable cliché storm. And I love it for just that reason. It took goodness knows how many much-loved clichés and deployed them unashamedly and playfully, from the kid hero runaway, to multiple spirit-s, to the (physical) End of the World, to the ancient, lost, but highly advanced civilisation.

What made Grandia good was it set out with a story to tell and characters present, seemed to have fun doing so, and didn't care what clichés it flagged up so long as they keeping things fun. In my opinion that game is the standing example of why a well-deployed cliché is never a bad thing no matter how often used it may be.