IGN - RPG Cliches That Need to Die

what about starting in prison or having amnesia?

we should really start our own cliche thread.

As for family members dying in BG remember your adoptive father gets the axe pretty quick.

another cliche was discovering you're a deity but I believe this is what Bioware was going for: an oldskool RPG in the tradition of RPG's they played in the early '80's. Heck my oldest brother wouldn't even play unless he got to play a demigod.

IWD was the same but they took a different direction. Interplay made their's in a linear fashion the way those old modules were contrived.

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movies and books have been quite successful with the boy meets girl formula for centuries. they tell it in complicated ways is the secret.

with rpg's though it seems to have become terribly obvious. When I ran a Wheel of Time server 9 out of 10 biographies were of children waking up to discover they burned their farmhouse down so they run off to the White or Black Tower before they get lynched. Or their house was burned down by channelers so they run off to join the Whitecloaks so they could lynch a few.

I gave a Biography award to the only player who decided to become a blacksmith.
 
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Funny article, but a bit tedious by end. It's like, "well duh, youre describing common fantasy scenarios". I dont care much about cliches, just make the game around them interesting and fun. And make it look nice too plz
 
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Yeah, we REALLY NEED an "RPG" that starts with the character as the retired uber hero and chronicles his decline into senility and decrepitness, that's be hellafun!

Cohen the Barbarian ? ;)
 
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The cliche I'd like to see die is the one where the game world is always the same, no matter what kind of character you play. An intelligence-18 wizard perceives nothing more than an intelligence-3 dwarf. Street-wise assassins, sharp-eyed rangers and foolhardy barbarians meet the same people and discover the same things everywhere they go. That's a cliche, I think.
 
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humble beginnings

I wonder if they could do that backwards - aka you start as powerful and slowly fade away (slowly though so there would be no imposing time limit) due to a disease or somthing. You must fulfill som mission before you die.

There are som medicenes that could slow down process but the end is inevitable. The game would have no advancement except in purchaced goods. Instead one day you would notice yourself to be too weak to carry a two-handed sword and be forced to switch to a lighter one etc.

You have to choose wisely where to put your strenght and how to hide your diseace from your enemies. Gather allies now so on your weaker days you have somone to shelter you. Or then do your best to find som miracle cure while grinding away everyone on your path.
 
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All real RPG's begin with killing rats and they do not even need to be giant rats.
 
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I wonder if they could do that backwards - aka you start as powerful and slowly fade away (slowly though so there would be no imposing time limit) due to a disease or somthing. You must fulfill som mission before you die.

There are som medicenes that could slow down process but the end is inevitable. The game would have no advancement except in purchaced goods. Instead one day you would notice yourself to be too weak to carry a two-handed sword and be forced to switch to a lighter one etc.

You have to choose wisely where to put your strenght and how to hide your diseace from your enemies. Gather allies now so on your weaker days you have somone to shelter you. Or then do your best to find som miracle cure while grinding away everyone on your path.

damn, how depressing ='.'=
 
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