RPG clichés

[Anonymous]

I think a portion of the lockpicking ability was supposed to represent the fact that you could do it unnoticed. So if you were successful the NPC's wouldn't see you, but if you slipped and hurt yourself the NPC saw that and got pissed.

JJ86

 

[Rosh]

I think a portion of the lockpicking ability was supposed to represent the fact that you could do it unnoticed. So if you were successful the NPC's wouldn't see you, but if you slipped and hurt yourself the NPC saw that and got pissed.

JJ86

You miss his point entirely.

Sure, you can lockpick and not be seen at all.

However, you might leave, come back, etc. and take out items, put more into the container, whatever, and in full daylight. And they don't mind one bit.

You're going to have to try a lot harder to prove that lockpicking would explain why they don't notice you cleaning out the closet or chest.

That's where Sneak/Stealth skills come in.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

However, you might leave, come back, etc. and take out items, put more into the container, whatever, and in full daylight. And they don't mind one bit.

You're going to have to try a lot harder to prove that lockpicking would explain why they don't notice you cleaning out the closet or chest.

Why? Don't you let people walk into your house, use it as a dumping ground for all the shit they've found that they think has a use but aren't sure about that use, so they dump it in the chest in your loungeroom?

Actually, a cliche (pretend I put an accent mark there) thing in every RPG is the chest. Think about it, how much stuff in your house is in a chest on the floor? Instead of being in a drawer, on a table or simply on a shelf?

 

[Insane-Lark]

<It’s so silly to have a large group of people walk into some house all with their weapons at the ready, and asking a poor homeowner for directions and other stupid questions.>

If a heavily armed group of strangers came barging into my home the first thing I would do is panic & think they were either military or a band of robbers. Now lets say I did realize that they were adventurers? Here I am standing in the middle of my livingroom, these folk are not making hostile movments but appear to be eyeing what I own. The leader walks up & asks what is going on in my town. I'd stammer out something, probably not all that informativie or valuable & be praying that my family had run for help from the neighbors or to inform the law.

Now they start going through my stuff & taking anything they are interested in. Am I going to make a big deal out of it? No. I'm going to be pissed but feel pretty powerless, but from my viewpoint if these were good guys they wouldn't be in here menacing me in the first place. if you ask me, by the time an armed party is standing in the middle of my house it's a bit too late to say anything but "Yes Sir" & figure out what to do afterwards.

I guess a good deal of what I'd like to see is more reasonable concquences for your actions in the longterm. Npc's should have some ability to judge the strength of the threat against them & take appropriate action. Towns & cities should become wary if there is a large rash of *robberies* or unexplained murders & impliment more patrols.

I think much of this has been said above & probably fleshed out a a bit better, was really just trying to point out WHY the guy in his house might be inclined to give the PC any information at all or would stand by & do nothing while you robbed him blind.

 

[SexExitium]

 

[Rosh]

It's something I think Gothic did very well in, was getting rid of this common cliché.

For those who haven't played it, if you went into someone's hut and you didn't belong there, they would call the guard and/or attack you after giving you a warning. Stealing, you'd get guard and area notice. I think the guard/civvy relationship and ratio in Gothic's Old Camp was very nicely done....

...and boy did I ever love summoning a shitload of golems to go pound the hell out of anything living in it. :twisted:

Of course, Ultima did this as well, in particular Ultima 7. Ultima IX didn't have it. BUT TI HADD TEH WONNERFUL #D!!!

 

[Azael]

-Grumpy dwarves. I absolutely hate grumpy dwarves. Who the hell decided that all short and fat people in chainmail has to be grumpy fucks?

-Unreasonable quest rewards: "Oh thanks for solving our problems with the evil bankers good Hero, sir. Here's a nice shiny sword for you." The sword then ends up being worth more than what they owed the bankers. Why didn't you just sell the damn sword dipshits?

-Dungeons crawling with traps and monsters. What the hell, don't the monsters ever end up triggering the traps?

-Barrels of gold. How there can be poor people in towns where gold coins can be found in every second barrel is beyond me.

-Powerful wizards helping you out. Why don't you defeat the ancient evil yourself you lazy bum?

 

[HanoverF]

-Grumpy dwarves. I absolutely hate grumpy dwarves. Who the hell decided that all short and fat people in chainmail has to be grumpy fucks?

Well if being short and fat isn't enough to make you grumpy, having to wear chainmail will put you over the top, and you can bet they aren't buying it of the rack neither. I dont think theres a better equation for grumpyness then (short+fat) x Chainmail= Grumpy

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

-Unreasonable quest rewards: "Oh thanks for solving our problems with the evil bankers good Hero, sir. Here's a nice shiny sword for you." The sword then ends up being worth more than what they owed the bankers. Why didn't you just sell the damn sword dipshits?

I agree with this also. You'd think they'd come up with something better, like teaching the player a skill or giving the player information about something that furthers the plot or ends up with a reward like the sword.

For example, "Thanks for the help, Bob. By the way, there's a cave near here that's rumored to have some kind of special item in it. It's too dangerous for me to check out, but perhaps you could handle it."

-Dungeons crawling with traps and monsters. What the hell, don't the monsters ever end up triggering the traps?

Yup, NWN was big on this. Given the fact the dungeons are filled with stupid monsters most of the time, like undead, you'd think that just having hordes of them in there would remove the traps. If the traps are the kind that reload themselves, you'd think there'd be a pile of "dead" undead on the ground around it.

-Barrels of gold. How there can be poor people in towns where gold coins can be found in every second barrel is beyond me.

Another fun issue with NWN. Why the hell would people keep their money in containers outside their house? That's just silly.

-Powerful wizards helping you out. Why don't you defeat the ancient evil yourself you lazy bum?

That's one thing I thought was funny about the Lord of the Rings movie. Up until he destroys the bridge to stop the Balrog, Gandalf was basically just a walking, talking flashlight in the Moria area.

 

[Chadeo]

I HATE the farmer one day, huge powerful hero one month later. Come on, the whole chosen thing is bad enough, but why can't we have more royal heroes?

I hate how for the heroes death mostly does not exist due to healing items or resurrection spells, but the common man is still very bothered by death. Seems to me any large town could have a person around who would just heal or raise anyone. Think magical hospitals with ambulances. This happens with all kinds of magic really, its really common for the hero, yet NO ONE ELSE bothers to take advantage of it.

Random monsters running around all over the place, yet not a mile away is this town full of nice juicy helpless peasants. Hey look, we have some city walls, the monsters never bother us.

The old hero who just is around to train you.

Lack of reaction to time of day. Acranum is the only game I can bring to mind that even tried to deal with this. Some old ultima games might have as well.

Every monster caring around tons of treasure, or tons of treasure just sitting around in dungeons that just happen to be guarded. If the thing is not sentient, what use does it have for piles of gold? If it is sentient, why does it just hoard the stuff?

Magic item shops run by people who can not cast spells. Trust me, this is a +5 sword of death, it just looks like a hoe.

Lack of racism, or racism that is all cute and cuddly. Come on, humans can even get along with other humans, no way to I buy the fact that all these different races get along so well. No, the elf and dwarf who do not get along, but will work together, and end up best friends, does not count.

Everyone always tells the truth, and your information never conflicts. "What’s that, someone stole your gold and you want me to get it back? Why sure I would be happy to do that for you, after all I am a hero." When in reality the peasant, hearing about the new people in town who want to help anyone, just had you rob some innocent person blind and murder them.

 

[Azael]

That's one thing I thought was funny about the Lord of the Rings movie. Up until he destroys the bridge to stop the Balrog, Gandalf was basically just a walking, talking flashlight in the Moria area.

True. It was fleshed out a bit better in the book, and Tolkien actually provided some backstory in some of his other works on why Gandalf wasn't allowed to reveal more of his power, at least not until he came back as the White.

 

[Megatron]

my first post

Healing items - It consists of food and potions (Not including shrines and spells). Why not add leeches, bleeding and all the other old cures they used to have?

High elves - Always snobs. Why not have some dirty, drunken elves?

Arrows - It sometimes takes 10 arrows to kill an unarmoured creature. It might alter game-balance, but an arrow can easily go through a human and a few feet behind him. Mabye make it so it's harder to fire arrows/easier to dodge at short distances. Marksman weapons are always under-powered in dnd games.

Traps in enemy bases. Why would an occupied base of a 'Ancient Evil' have traps? And if the big bad boss is 20 foot tall and has wings, why are the corridors so small? And if it's so powerful why does it have an army guarding it? Common sense would solve all of this.

The general health and homes of a majority of games based in medievil times is laughable. Like the palace of a king would be a few yards from the houses of commoners. And a lot of people around that time lived in huts or all lived in the same house. I doubt everyone had there own house when in the 30's 8 people had to live in 1 house. Also everyone seems to be healthy. Instead of having 1 person living in a stone house, spread out houses a bit and increase the amount of children.

Kids - Always annoying, if included in a game. And they always seem to know the secret passage to some legendary weapon, then tell a smelly guy wielding a bloody sword that just wandered into town

Advancement of charecter- At the end of the game you always seem to defeat an extremely powerful demon/king/dildo and then what? You wander around a bit. How about giving the player the chance to take over the world if you've defeated a lesser being that almost managed to do it, but you managed in the nick of time

Evil+Power - Evil and power. Always the same things. If something evil isn't wanting to take over the world, he wants to destroy it. Can't general evil be happy living behind closed doors in the privacy in peoples homes? how about a greater good planning to take over the world? The master in fallout brushed against this lightly, but a lot of people wouldn't like to be taken over by a good empire.

Empire - The law is always called The Empire or Imperial forces. And they always wear some kind of steel armour.


Um....yeah

 

[Rosh]

Re: my first post

Healing items - It consists of food and potions (Not including shrines and spells). Why not add leeches, bleeding and all the other old cures they used to have?

This has been brought up in another thread. Unfortunately, those cures don't do anything, and still don't absolve the otherwise LONG healing period required for the wounds to heal.

It may be nice to see a setting where that is used, but...then again, combat would either have to be neutered horribly down, or some other setting device would have to be introduced to eliminate either the time required for healing, or the character(s) absence from affecting the story in that long of time.

High elves - Always snobs. Why not have some dirty, drunken elves?

I liked one of the elf races that existed in Dragonlance. A very simple, somewhat nomatic kind of elf. Mostly just simple people who live in quiet harmony with nature, in a sort of South American native sort of survivalist ability.

Arrows - It sometimes takes 10 arrows to kill an unarmoured creature. It might alter game-balance, but an arrow can easily go through a human and a few feet behind him. Mabye make it so it's harder to fire arrows/easier to dodge at short distances. Marksman weapons are always under-powered in dnd games.

This I agree with, since I've hunted with a bow and arrow. Against an unarmored target, hit with arrow = screwed.

Traps in enemy bases. Why would an occupied base of a 'Ancient Evil' have traps?

Made by the forces of good to keep stupid people from accidentally releasing the Ancient Evil? Made by the Ancient Evil to add to some peace and quiet?

And if the big bad boss is 20 foot tall and has wings, why are the corridors so small?

Only if there's one entrance/exit, I understand this point. Otherwise, if they were huge and had a second exit large enough for them, it allows their underlings access while also limiting a large force from being able to breach into the place before some walls could be knocked down.

And if it's so powerful why does it have an army guarding it? Common sense would solve all of this.

Quote simply so that they aren't bothered? Why does anything powerful in a social relation have underlings of some sort? Mainly to keep away minor nuisances while the Big Cheese takes care of the big problems. Sort of a tribe structure.

The general health and homes of a majority of games based in medievil times is laughable. Like the palace of a king would be a few yards from the houses of commoners. And a lot of people around that time lived in huts or all lived in the same house. I doubt everyone had there own house when in the 30's 8 people had to live in 1 house. Also everyone seems to be healthy. Instead of having 1 person living in a stone house, spread out houses a bit and increase the amount of children.

Outstanding point, and I have to append to this a bit. If you've played Ultima 4-7, then you know how fleshed out the world is. Then, take a look at Ultima 9. The population decreased to nearly 1/100 or more of the prior sizes in U7. It's like a few people and houses are supposed to be the population. It doesn't have that "off camera" feel that you could get from The Hub in Fallout, where there was undoubtedly more to the city, but not really necessary of including. Yet to give a good idea of the size of Shady Sands, they have it all inclusive and don't hide anything. End result of that would be a small town setting with children playing in the streets, and a bit more people:building than thought of today, giving an idea of both quaint and a little crowded.

Kids - Always annoying, if included in a game. And they always seem to know the secret passage to some legendary weapon, then tell a smelly guy wielding a bloody sword that just wandered into town

In part, I believe kids should be either fascinated with the hero, or dreadfully afraid of them. Reputation could come into play, and if notorious enough, they could scream as they run away, bringing attention. If you're a hero, you might have to bribe a kid to let go of your leg, so to speak, and might even get a couple of quests if the kids trust you enough. I think Fallout did quests well enough, as did Ultima. Prelude to Darkness seems to have children portrayed fairly well, and no, I've not tried to dice any of them apart yet.

Another factor to think of is that kids are by nature adventurous and curious. So if they see someone wandring around their hick town, it's likely they will follow them around and watch.

Advancement of charecter- At the end of the game you always seem to defeat an extremely powerful demon/king/dildo and then what? You wander around a bit. How about giving the player the chance to take over the world if you've defeated a lesser being that almost managed to do it, but you managed in the nick of time

This would likely fall under some sort of strategy setup. A kind of Avernum 3, like how it has how the cities fall to monsters as time goes by. Now, what about having it so that happens, but if you're the saviour and you try hard enough through force or merit, you might end up taking over the land. Otherwise, you might get retired to some good cabinet position or general.

Evil+Power - Evil and power. Always the same things. If something evil isn't wanting to take over the world, he wants to destroy it. Can't general evil be happy living behind closed doors in the privacy in peoples homes? how about a greater good planning to take over the world? The master in fallout brushed against this lightly, but a lot of people wouldn't like to be taken over by a good empire.

Hmmm, I think another cliché might be the quixotic ambiguity created with some fanatical order. Like the whitecloaks in Robert Jordan's novels. Something that has a rigid set of good ideals, but punishes severely. Just take a look at fanatics in history pursuing their ideals of "good" while wantonly treading upon others.

It hasn't really been overused in a CRPG context, and might be something to explore sometime. I love storylines that tends to blur good and evil, and preset beliefs. While in the same turn, the mafia with how quiet and underground they work, looks outright benevolent in comparison. :D

Empire - The law is always called The Empire or Imperial forces. And they always wear some kind of steel armour.

Well, armor is armor. Agreed about the "Empire" thing being cliché, as it seems a bit of a throwback to mocking real-world empires.

 

[SexExitium]

 

[Azael]

Re: my first post

Arrows - It sometimes takes 10 arrows to kill an unarmoured creature. It might alter game-balance, but an arrow can easily go through a human and a few feet behind him. Mabye make it so it's harder to fire arrows/easier to dodge at short distances. Marksman weapons are always under-powered in dnd games.

This would only work nicely if there were some range modifiers in the game, otherwise bows and crossbows would be seriously overpowered. They are deadly at pretty close range, but in most situation you can't use a bow while in close quarters, unless your name is Legolas. In warfare, bows were mostly used as primite artillery that wounded the enemy so that the infantry would have an easier time taking them out, they weren't exactly precision sniper weapons.

 

[Ibbz]

A sinister force, long thought destroyed, stirs from the black hole that spawned it.  Like an ebony darkness it prowls the land and safety is but an illusion, for it watches from every shadow and ponders possibilities.  What began years ago in the quiet village of Hommlet at last is complete.  Welcome to the Temple of Elemental Evil!  Evil broods and grows beneath these blasted stones.  This is your chance to drive it back and scatter it's forces again.  This supermodule contains 128 pages of raw terror and was published in 1985

Temple of Elemental Evil.

Ancient Evil strikes again :D

 

[Rosh]

Hehe, I'd like to see a high fantasy setting where something went horribly wrong: heaps of societal problems, aggression, racism and corruption - something like the Fallout society in a high fantasy setting. Arcanum offered a tiny bit of this, but mostly used the "good" ole boring fantasy themes. It would definitely add some nice variety, as I think the biggest cliché in CRPGs right now is the setting itself.

That's the problem with high fantasy. Even back to Tolkein, there was essentially NO social factors or social interaction of any real note in high fantasy. Most of it is peachy Candyland shit where the halflings love the elves, who have a bit of distrust of dwards and humans, dwarves were a bit grumpy, orcs and everyone else were the bad guys.

Even human nature would stipulate there's a group or even entire cities where non-humans would be strung up, and there would be more inter-racial problems in Forgotten Realms. The only thing really of note there is OHMYGOD!!!111 A DROW ELF!!! Oh, wait! It is Drizzit, nevermind!!!11

Temple of Elemental Evil.

Ancient Evil strikes again :D

Yet, it isn't as cliché as most around, and it's well written. Could explain why it's one, if not the, most played old campaign around.

 

[Megatron]

Towns are also pretty cliched in rpgs. You usually have the small crappy started town you never visit again, the second town with eastern influences, some kind of orc camp, a big town with not much to do and the last section of the game usually takes place in some dark palace/dungeon.

what the gaming market needs is some of spaceballs take on dnd. Torment is probably the nearest thing to it, but the rpg market is so full of cliches and a good story-teller I think a good company could pull it off even better. Clean-shaven dwarves, sirens that cant sing, mermaids with the fish part on top, dragons that are small lizards that run around marshes, talking swords with a speech impedement etc.

OR set a dnd game in modern times. What happens 500 years or so after the current events in most games? High elves could be lawyers and tax collectors, wood elves are all stoned hippys, dwarfs have turned into a bunch of l33tist dorks who live in basements

blah. I should go work for blackisle with all these excellent ideas :wink: .

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I HATE the farmer one day, huge powerful hero one month later. Come on, the whole chosen thing is bad enough, but why can't we have more royal heroes?

Well, with a Royal situation, you'd have to do something to strip them of using their power and wealth to accomplish things. If you were a baron, and there were problems with bandits in a cave somewhere, you'd most likely just order someone else to take care of it.

I have no problem with starting out as a farmer or some lowly peon, so long as it's presented right. A Farmer background player in Prelude to Darkness, for example, starts off with a pitchfork. Most of your party in that starts off as fairly weak craftsman and tradesman, but it just feels more believable than other games.

Dungeon Siege, for example, you start off as a farmer and you're casting spells and kicking ass before you leave home. There's just not a lot of thought in that. Even a dungeon crawl requires a bit of thinking on the set up and story.

I hate how for the heroes death mostly does not exist due to healing items or resurrection spells, but the common man is still very bothered by death. Seems to me any large town could have a person around who would just heal or raise anyone. Think magical hospitals with ambulances. This happens with all kinds of magic really, its really common for the hero, yet NO ONE ELSE bothers to take advantage of it.

Hah! I've never thought of this from a priest point of view, but from a wizard point of view. Why do people build houses when you've got magic users roaming around that could just magically call up a house from the rocks in the ground? And if they can transmute rock to mud and vice versa, wouldn't that be fantastic for construction?

Why do kings bother with guards when a wizard can just make golems?

Things like that. I agree with you though, especially in a setting like D&D where just any priest can heal quite a bit. Towns with a huge temple and a high level priest shouldn't have to worry about death from anything other than old age.

Random monsters running around all over the place, yet not a mile away is this town full of nice juicy helpless peasants. Hey look, we have some city walls, the monsters never bother us.

Especially if the towns have no noticable guards protecting them from monsters.

However, I'd like to point out that Avernum 3 actually handles this well, since towns are under siege by monsters, and the towns slowly degenerate due to attacks. There are even towns where monsters have gotten in the walls and the guards have to deal with them.

The old hero who just is around to train you.

Old heroes never die, they just train.

Lack of reaction to time of day. Acranum is the only game I can bring to mind that even tried to deal with this. Some old ultima games might have as well.

Gothic and Prelude to Darkness both do this. I agree, it's a nice feature to have, especially when you can watch the change over from day mode to night mode, where everyone scrambles to their homes.

Every monster caring around tons of treasure, or tons of treasure just sitting around in dungeons that just happen to be guarded. If the thing is not sentient, what use does it have for piles of gold? If it is sentient, why does it just hoard the stuff?

Maybe they like it because it's shiny! All monsters are like parrots!

What gets me are games like Diablo and NWN where tiny monsters can drop full sets of platemail when they die.

Magic item shops run by people who can not cast spells. Trust me, this is a +5 sword of death, it just looks like a hoe.

Avernum series tends to do this well also, since most items aren't magic. You can have magic items made in the game, but wizards run those shops typically.

Lack of racism, or racism that is all cute and cuddly. Come on, humans can even get along with other humans, no way to I buy the fact that all these different races get along so well. No, the elf and dwarf who do not get along, but will work together, and end up best friends, does not count.

I agree, especially in the fantasy setting. Aren't dwarves and elves not supposed to like one another? How the hell would a half orc relate to a halfling?

Everyone always tells the truth, and your information never conflicts. "What?s that, someone stole your gold and you want me to get it back? Why sure I would be happy to do that for you, after all I am a hero." When in reality the peasant, hearing about the new people in town who want to help anyone, just had you rob some innocent person blind and murder them.

I also like games that provide a sense of mistrust.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Saint Proverbius wrote:
I agree with this also. You'd think they'd come up with something better, like teaching the player a skill or giving the player information about something that furthers the plot or ends up with a reward like the sword.

For example, "Thanks for the help, Bob. By the way, there's a cave near here that's rumored to have some kind of special item in it. It's too dangerous for me to check out, but perhaps you could handle it."

While this method is better than the “here’s a magic sword +5 for your troubles” deal, it is no less a cliché that SomethingAwful.com covered some time ago, about ungrateful townsfolk referring you to a really dangerous dungeon/island/secluded area as a reward for helping them. Gee, thanks a lot.

Personally, I’d prefer something with a bit of ‘lore’ involved. Pity this sort of thing wouldn’t really go with modern day ‘realistic setting’ games, or D&D in general. Here goes:
“Thanks for defeating the evil bandits, here’s a microchip for a laser gatling gun that my great-grandfather used to have in the Old World, for your troubles. It’s obviously of no use to me since I don’t have a gatling gun of my own or I would have killed those bandits myself, obviously… but maybe you’ll find some use for it.”

That's one thing I thought was funny about the Lord of the Rings movie. Up until he destroys the bridge to stop the Balrog, Gandalf was basically just a walking, talking flashlight in the Moria area.

Don’t forget the part where Arwen destroys ubermonsters and becomes relatively useless later on, aside from being nice to look at. Where’s the consistency?

I HATE the farmer one day, huge powerful hero one month later. Come on, the whole chosen thing is bad enough, but why can't we have more royal heroes?

Come to think of it, I’d love to play a game like that. For once, it’d be nice to play a royal Prince who sets off into the world to bring peace throughout the lands, like those old Grimm’s Fairy Tales. And he doesn’t have to be a Moses character, either.

I’m so sick of Moses characters. Why does the Prince (if the protagonist is one) always have to be an orphan of a deposed Queen, left to be raised by a couple of nice old peasant folk or perhaps an old mage? The story always goes like this:

War rages over the land. The Evil Empire seizes the Good Throne. A Council of Nine Mage Advisors does their best to protect the Queen and her only child when the Good Castle comes under siege. The King dies defending the Queen and her child in battle.

The Council of Nine Mage Advisors defends the Queen and her child to escape. Two of the nine mages die. One mage is a traitor. One of them escorts the Queen and her child to safety. The other 5 survive, but no one knows what happens to them.

Cut to: The Queen is terribly injured from the attack. The Queen asks the wise old mage to take care of her son like it is his own. The mage (Let’s call him Ormus) swears he will, and the queen dies at that moment.

Cut to: Ormus is old as hell now, and the boy prince is in his teenage years (preferably 16-18) and one day the village that they live in is raided by a large horde of Orcs/Orogs/Orks/Ogres/etc and Ormus sends the boy on his way. For the first time, the boy prince sees Ormus casting spells and Ormus says “RUN! RUN! I may not survive this attack! If I can’t help you out, seek out my friends in the Friendly Arm Inn/Dwarven Bread Inn/any other place you can think of.

Ormus manages to slay the initial attackers but is terribly injured by a poison arrow/sword/etc of the BIG BAD GUY, or the BIG BAD GUY’s lieutenant.

The boy runs away to seek out the person Ormus referred to. This person can either be a helpful ranger, two adventurers who promised Ormus to look after the boy, or an old mage (one of the five Mage Advisors who escaped).

*Just supplement Ormus with ‘two old peasant folk’ who die defending the child if you want to. They themselves are quite ignorant and much like Ormus, they never tell the boy his destiny and his real origin.

**Another cliché is that the Evil Traitor Mage takes the boy into his custody and gets him to work for the evil empire. But as the boy grows up he realizes the evil plan of the mage and turns against him, destroying the evil empire from within and killing the evil mage at the very end of the game/story.

***Oh yeah, the evil mage wants to release an ancient evil. ALWAYS. Sometimes he wants the ancient evil to possess him through the use of a magical sword, staff or a spell that requires the sacrifice of a small boy… perhaps even you. Read the list below.

Remind you of anything?

Here’s some:
Arcanum
Diablo
Morrowind
The Wheel of Time
Baldur’s Gate
Some of the Shanarra books by Terry Brooks
Divine Divinity (minus the childhood part)
Star Wars (Ep 4)
Neverwinter Nights
Lord of the Rings
Summoner
Deus Ex (follows the Evil Mage storyline)
Fallout 2

God damn Moses characters.

Fallout is the only game that I can think of that didn’t use all of these fucking clichés.

Everyone always tells the truth, and your information never conflicts. "What’s that, someone stole your gold and you want me to get it back? Why sure I would be happy to do that for you, after all I am a hero." When in reality the peasant, hearing about the new people in town who want to help anyone, just had you rob some innocent person blind and murder them.

As far as I can tell, Divine Divinity is the only game that does this differently. At one point a merchant tells you that his cows are being stolen and wants you to find the culprit. The culprit turns out to be a poor peasant playing Robin Hood. He steals the cows, butchers them and gives their meat to the poor people in the poor section of Rivertown. To find this out you first have to find out where the meat is (in an underground cellar) and confront him with it. You can then choose to keep the information between yourselves or execute him, I think.

I decided to help him out but he got arrested anyway. You can choose to release him from prison later on. Neat eh?

Divine Divinity had shit loads of racism, too. Good way to stray from the norm, that.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

While this method is better than the ?here?s a magic sword +5 for your troubles? deal, it is no less a cliché that SomethingAwful.com covered some time ago, about ungrateful townsfolk referring you to a really dangerous dungeon/island/secluded area as a reward for helping them. Gee, thanks a lot.

Personally, I?d prefer something with a bit of ?lore? involved. Pity this sort of thing wouldn?t really go with modern day ?realistic setting? games, or D&D in general. Here goes:

?Thanks for defeating the evil bandits, here?s a microchip for a laser gatling gun that my great-grandfather used to have in the Old World, for your troubles. It?s obviously of no use to me since I don?t have a gatling gun of my own or I would have killed those bandits myself, obviously? but maybe you?ll find some use for it.?

Doesn't this go back to the +5 Magic Sword thing? Why couldn't he just sell the chip and solve his problems?

Still, I think the information/training thing for a poor farmer type person is a much better route, because it's less of something that they can use for themselves but will help you.

However, the problem lies when you stack combat quests, which is what Something Awful was getting at. The BG games were notorious about stacking combat quests.

Things like, a peasant asks you to get back Holy Artifact #342 from some goblins who stole it. You go to the Goblins, and they tell you they traded it with some orc shaman who live a little to the west and then they attack you. So, you kill them and head west. You find the orc shamans, they attack, you kill them. Holy Artifact #342 isn't on them. Luckily, one of them kept a diary saying they lost it fighting a lich who lives in a cave to the south. So, you go to the cave, fight the lich for the item. Then you return it back to town.

That's when things like that get annoying.

Come to think of it, I?d love to play a game like that. For once, it?d be nice to play a royal Prince who sets off into the world to bring peace throughout the lands, like those old Grimm?s Fairy Tales. And he doesn?t have to be a Moses character, either.

Actually.. I thought of a CRPG with a royal plot like that, minus the Grimm Fairy Tales..

Prince of Qin

I'm kind of amazed you didn't think of it when you were typing the word, "Prince" so often.

 

[Rosh]

I'll probably reply to the rest when I'm a bit awake more, but:

Lack of reaction to time of day. Acranum is the only game I can bring to mind that even tried to deal with this. Some old ultima games might have as well.

Ultima was the first and still is the best to do this. Check out Ultima 7 sometime for time schedules, employment, routines, etc. of all the characters, even based upon what day number it is. It was very impressive, and is still why it's one of the more favorite Ultimas around, despite it's RT combat (which wasn't too bad).

 

[DarkUnderlord]

?Thanks for defeating the evil bandits, here?s a microchip for a laser gatling gun that my great-grandfather used to have in the Old World, for your troubles. It?s obviously of no use to me since I don?t have a gatling gun of my own or I would have killed those bandits myself, obviously? but maybe you?ll find some use for it.?

Doesn't this go back to the +5 Magic Sword thing? Why couldn't he just sell the chip and solve his problems?

Better yet, how come he still has the chip at all? He kept the chip but threw out his great-grandfathers gun? Right. I doubt the chip would even work due to age and might need to be repaired.

Still, I think the information/training thing for a poor farmer type person is a much better route, because it's less of something that they can use for themselves but will help you.

The truth is though, how DO you reward someone appropriately for what they do? Why would a farmer know important information? What training could he give you? Are any of those real compensation for the Hoardes of Monstersâ„¢ that you have to kill? I hate it when they give you something like that and act as if the deal is all squared away. Why can't I refuse the offer and demand more from them in return? Perhaps the daughter comes with me for a while or I slaughter his family unless he gives me everything in his house (which I can probably steal from him anyway, but it's just not the same).

If your daughter's been kidnapped by raiders and you're a poor farmer, what possible compensation do you have for the hero that has to kill all the bad guys and bring your daughter back? Most probably nothing other than a supply of food, some warm clothing and a bed for the night (perhaps with the daughter as well? )... And yet they never admit it.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

The truth is though, how DO you reward someone appropriately for what they do? Why would a farmer know important information? What training could he give you? Are any of those real compensation for the Hoardes of Monsters? that you have to kill? I hate it when they give you something like that and act as if the deal is all squared away. Why can't I refuse the offer and demand more from them in return? Perhaps the daughter comes with me for a while or I slaughter his family unless he gives me everything in his house (which I can probably steal from him anyway, but it's just not the same).

Actually, there's a lot of things a farmer can teach you because farmers would typically know things that adventurers might not know. Farmers typically know the land around them. They might know where fresh water can be found, or where the source of the fresh water is. This would be a good place for an orc camp or a good place for someone bad to tamper with the water, for example.

Farmers could teach the player how to hunt for food and where the good hunting spots are. They could teach the player how to skin animals for their pelts. They could teach you to tan those pelts and make armor.

Farmers, especially in a small town, can be valuable source of information via gossip. There are really no secrets in small communities, after all.

 

[Jed]

Re: my first post

This I agree with, since I've hunted with a bow and arrow. Against an unarmored target, hit with arrow = screwed.

Even against armor, arrows are pretty damn effective. Maybe not so many folks know this, but the long bow was one of the major factors in ending the Age of Chivalry in Europe. Arrows went clean through armor; the knights that maintained so much of order in that time were suddenly rendered much less effective.

Yee-owch!
Jed