I was introduced to this particular website about six months ago. A wikipedia of tv tropes and cliches? Oh man, this site is like Wikipedia in the sense that it sucks you in and claim your soul for eternity. However, when I accidentally ran into this grand list of (Japanese) console role-playing game cliches . . . I decided that I had to share the ones that struck out the most to me!

5. Logan’s Run Rule: RPG characters are young. Very young. The average age seems to be 15, unless the character is a decorated and battle-hardened soldier, in which case he might even be as old as 18. Such teenagers often have skills with multiple weapons and magic, years of experience, and never ever worry about their parents telling them to come home from adventuring before bedtime. By contrast, characters more than twenty-two years old will cheerfully refer to themselves as washed-up old fogies and be eager to make room for the younger generation.

14. Garrett’s Principle: Let’s not mince words: you’re a thief. You can walk into just about anybody’s house like the door wasn’t even locked. You just barge right in and start looking for stuff. Anything you can find that’s not nailed down is yours to keep. You will often walk into perfect strangers’ houses, lift their precious artefacts, and then chat with them like you were old neighbours as you head back out with their family heirlooms under your arm. Unfortunately, this never works in stores.

I wished this principle worked in stores!

31. Bed Bed Bed: A good night’s sleep will cure all wounds, diseases, and disabilities, up to and including death in battle.

What can I say? Sleep is apparently even better for one’s soul in the RPG world.

50. Short Attention Span Principle: All bookshelves contain exactly one book, which only has enough text on it to fill up half a page.

52. Insomnia Rule: A “free stay at the inn” is never really free. Expect to be woken up in the middle of the night for a mandatory plot event.

57. Natural Monopoly Rule: No city will have more than two shops, unless it is crucial to the story that there be a hundred vendors which you must visit in order . . . [a]ll of these shops will sell the same goods for the same price.

58. But They Don’t Take American Express: Every merchant in the world — even those living in far-off villages or hidden floating cities cut off from the outside world for centuries, even those who speak different languages or are of an entirely different species — accepts the same currency.

71. Seventh Law of Travel: When on a voyage to another continent, the journey will last only as long as it takes you to talk to all the other passengers and the captain.

This is definitely true. Too bad travel doesn’t happen like that in real world

76. 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 unnecessary, 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.

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

Regarding 76 and 77 . . . SO TRUE. I never liked those spells since they never worked for me! But my enemies are able to do those horrible status attacks on me! No fair!

87. 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.

AMEN. That always ticks me off when it happens to me.