The Dink Network

This is a huge list of RPG game cliches
http://project-apollo.net/text/rpg.html
there are a few that apply to Dink Smallwood, mainly #6

Interesting link

Wow, those are so true! XD I always knew there were many similarites, but THAT many!?

"The achingly beautiful gothy swordsman who is riven by inner tragedy."

"Leave me alone; I like looking like an emo. I like people thinking I cut myself, too. Gives me certain advantages (wait...'perks' isn't it?)- people sympathize with you, even if they don't know why. Look at Edward Cullen: he's got all the girls just by talking like "boo-hoo" and sucking things."

So much of that is true

But still, you can't craft an interesting story without applying some of those to it, or it will end up making no sense whatsoever.

They obviously got to be cliches because they work.

Hhaha the first one already made me laugh! How come so many supposed heroes are total lazy bums?

Awesome list, dude

i wonder how many of these fit Dink Smallwood.

About 23.

This is stupid. Anyone can make a list like this for any type of video game and actually call it a cliche list because most of the stories possible will be enlisted in your list. I bet it's just some random dude posting some random crap and just hit the spot on certain games because there are so many suggestions in that list.

/rant.

I disagree. While the suggestions are quite numerous, many of these fit the conventions of multiple Japanese RPGs, a genre that I'm both pretty familiar with, and find to have been quite creatively stale for a good number of years now.

There are even a few that fit most RPGs, like how there are more people in a town than there are houses to hold them (where does Milder live in Dink's town anyway?) or how the insides of houses are almost always larger than the outside.

I guess it depends on what kind of RPG you play. Take Dink Smallwood and Zelda for an example. I think the reason the houses and so one are smaller than what's on the inside is because it's hard to put things into perspective when watching an outside and an inside version of the household. Not to mention the screen resolution which the game developers are working with. Err, I don't know exactly where I'm going with this, but I believe it's rather how things have to be rather than concepts which are used too much in RPG games.

Let's see if it makes sense.

Oh, I know the reasons for doing things like that, but that doesn't make it not a cliche. They don't *have* to be like that, but it's convenient to do so, even if it defies physics or reason.

I guess RPGs are mostly visual representations of imaginary concepts.

In most japanese turn-based RPGs there's a map-mode where you see a giant character who is the size of a city walking around a map. I don't think he ate an enlargement potion or that the outside of the city is smaller than the inside. And I don't think that the travel needs to be realistic and take one real time month. Also.. are all the monsters invisible until you face them?

The teammates usually enter inside the body of the main character and disappear inside it like if they were swallowed (from behind? ugh..). Most of the citizens you encounter repeat always the same lines no mater how much you talk to them.

I think that the important thing is the story behind the RPG, rather than the representation of it. Dink Smallwood has some original adventures, and there are a lot of cool DMODs.

I agree that's why i play rpg's too i love the storylines in most of them but some of them could be easily worked around like the fifth rule of travel. and the simple solution is a tutorial for the character it is like driving lessons for the players it is learning the mechanics of the vehicle.

One RPG tha defies most of the cliches listed is TES: Oblivion... except for the predictable storyline (king-sel in distress)

Alternatively to the logic-defying nature of many modern RPGs, one could revert to the text-based adventures popularized in the 70s and 80s

I myself have seen many of these overused in games.