Avoiding the Unavoiadable

[Lighting Half Dozen]

I recently read Bluhman's guide to fixing cliches, and found a number of unavoidables that can be avoided. Mustly some that he recommended leaving in, others that would take code masters to fix. so i bring you the first few Cliches, avoidable ands till making a great game.

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The Compulsories
There's always a fire dungeon, an ice dungeon, a sewer maze, a misty forest, a derelict ghost ship, a mine, a glowing crystal maze, an ancient temple full of traps, a magic floating castle, and a technological dungeon.

What Bluhman Said: Avoidable: No. I'm sorry, but if you were to somehow dodge this, then you obviously are insane. See, an RPG NEEDS this stuff to go on and be good! It's things like this that would make the game just fall short if they weren't included.

What L6 Said: Avoidable: If you want to. To avoid these dungeon clichés and still have a good game, give the player more vivid dungeons to go through. Here is the list of dungeons and a way to avoid them, keeping up with game quality.

The Fire and Ice Dungeons: Why must one always struggle through a volcano, or an icy mountain path? Simply create dungeons set in other natural areas that USED to resemble these. For example, there used to be a volcano, but its not active anymore, so it is now a mountain cave with fresh plants surrounding it. As for the ice dungeon, lets say an iceberg or a glacier washed up on a shore so north/south that it is able to stay cold allowing you to exit some port side city and still dig up things in the ice with a pick axe, awaiting the yeti on the other side.

A Sewer Maze: Honestly, it is disgusting for a villain to escape into the place where our waste travels, so why would the heroes chase after him. There can be more original underground areas for villains to escape to.

The Ghost Ship: Ghosts are always in the most unoriginal spots. What prevents a ghost from haunting a restaurant? Just cause they can’t swallow doesn’t mean they can’t antagonize the heroes on their break.

A Mine: Leave it. It’s in so many storylines that it’s a must no matter what. If you really must change it, there should still be workers EVERYWHERE. That’s all I’m willing to butcher.

A Glowing Crystal Maze: I must say I don’t get the reference. Never seen this in a game, keep it.

Ancient Temple: Why must it be ancient? Have the villains invade a temple while its still being guarded and trapped. This allows characters, good or bad, to fall into unfinished traps.

Misty Forest: It was cool, but it never made sense why I keep going left and still appear on the southern entrence of the woods. Mist or no mist. Just make it hard to see in a normal map, instead of all the confusion.

Floating Castle: This is also a keeper, but why must they float in the air. Consider space, or the sea.

Technological dungeon: Another that I don’t get, but they’re still fun to keep in games.

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

What Bluhman Said: Avoidable: No. You'd need a special inn system. Even then, this is just something essential to RPGs.

What L6 Said: Avoidable, almost yes. Just change the name from ‘Death’ or ‘Dead’ to “Inactive” or something not so deadly. And maybe they have nurses working at the inn?

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

What Bluhman Said: Avoidable: No. Really, who would want to sit through 200 text boxes of writing in a book!?

What L6 Said: Avoidable, yes. Just draw shelves with a few books here and there and count the books you place. Make each shelf look different too. Also, adding foreign languages to books make certain shelves easy to avoid much work after saying that “These letters don’t make any sense”

Thats all for now. Rateings and acceptence will dicide if i should do more.

[Seth Mitchell]

Sammy Hagar says  Woo Woo

This actully was  a nice improvment keep it up;)

[DragonBlaze]

I just have some comments on the dungeons First off, let me say this, dungeons have to fit with the story, so sometimes it wouldn't make sence to change the dungeon from something that would be 'cliche' to non cliche. Its better for something to make sence and be practical than to be non-cliche. I'll take your ancient temple example, if you're looking for an ancient object, an ancient temple would be the place to go rather than a newly build temple. However, if the dungeon simply serves as a place inbetween point A and point B, then most of the time you can change it to be non-cliche and still make sence. Don't get me wrong, you can do this all the time, just SOMETIMES, it won't make sence.  

 

A Sewer Maze: Honestly, it is disgusting for a villain to escape into the place where our waste travels, so why would the heroes chase after him. There can be more original underground areas for villains to escape to.

I'd hope a game has more of a plot than just chasing the bad guy around everywhere. A sewer would be a great place for a dungeon if you need to sneek out of or into a town. Example, all the entrinces/exits are being blocked by guards, and since you don't want to be seen, you sneek into or out of the town through the sewers.

The Ghost Ship: Ghosts are always in the most unoriginal spots. What prevents a ghost from haunting a restaurant? Just cause they can’t swallow doesn’t mean they can’t antagonize the heroes on their break.

I agree that ghost ships are unoriginal, but it makes sence. Ghosts usually haunt the places where they died, a ship crashed in the ocean or something so now ghosts haunt it, that makes sence. A bunch of people died at a resturaunt because the food was really bad, so now they haunt it, well I guess it could work...

Ancient Temple: Why must it be ancient? Have the villains invade a temple while its still being guarded and trapped. This allows characters, good or bad, to fall into unfinished traps.

Ancient Temples and such hold artifacts, most of the time when a game has someone go to a temple, its because they're looking for something ancient or important. A temple that is currently being built would usually ruin the whole effect. Though you could always have the temple being built ontop of a buiried ancent temple, so you have to sneek through the new one to get to the old one.

[Meiscool-2]

^^ Agreed, though some of those wouldn't make an rpg very rpgish, it's still workable.

[Bluhman]

That, was a long time ago.

And now, I shall kill you all. Mwahahaha.

Eh, Always open to improvements. Move on, Thunderstrike of six.

[Lighting Half Dozen]

Thanks to all, and i may get to work on taking my own tutorials into action.

Btw, as far as the "Move on, Thunderstrike of six." comment goes. Due to the typo i made creating this account, I have changed the story of my "charecter" to a bunch spheres that magicaly provide light for a dark room.

[Desimodontidae]

Definatly gives you something to think about. Some are obvious, and some aren't so obvious. Overall, good advice.

[DarkFlood2]

You cold avoid the Inn heals death cliche by making hospitals.. Eartbound did it... I think...

[WarxePB]

This could just go in the original thread, but meh.

[MrMister]

Originally posted by DarkFlood2
You cold avoid the Inn heals death cliche by making hospitals.. Eartbound did it... I think...

Earthbound destroyed cliches..

Well this tutorial is okay, but it doesn't help me in any way.


If a temple was new, how would everybody know about it's secret treasure?

[Zerlina]

Has anyone else found that a lot of "cliches" (not all) are actually elements from the typical western myth?