The 181 rules of RPGs
 

I know some of you know of this, because you have them in your sig, but here is for the un-inlightened.

http://project-apollo.net/text/rpg.html

165: "Evil will always triumph, because Good is dumb!"
If the villain needs all ten legendary medallions to attain world domination and you have nine of them, everybody in your party still thinks it is neccessary to bring the nine to the villain's castle and get the final one, instead of hiding the ones they've already got and spoiling his plans that way. After you foolishly bring the legendary medallions to the villain's hideout, he will kidnap one of your companions (usually the main love interest) and you will trade the world away to rescue your friend.
156: Way To Go, Serge
It will eventually turn out that, for a minimum of the first sixty percent of the game, you were actually being manipulated by the forces of evil into doing their sinister bidding for them. In extreme cases this may go as high as 90%.
141: "Mommy, why didn't they just use a Phoenix Down on Aeris?"
Don't expect battle mechanics to carry over into the "real world."
140: Stealing The Spotlight (Edea Rule)
The characters who join your party only briefly tend to be much cooler than your regular party members.


The list goes on. :D

My favorite is still the Load-Bearing BOss one. King of the Dead, anyone?

That's a good site, very funny. I've known about it for awhile already, and had this one as my sig for a while.

168. The Best-Laid Schemes
The final villain's grand scheme will have involved the deaths of thousands or even millions of innocent people, the clever manipulation of governments, armies, and entire populations, and will have taken anywhere from five to five thousand years to come to fruition. The hero will come up with a method of undoing this plan forever in less than five minutes.

I wanted to have this one, but it was more than 500 characters... stupid sig limit...

148. Good Is Bad, Baby!
Watch out for generous priests, loyal military officers, and basically anyone in a position of authority who agrees to help you out, especially if they save your life and prove their sincerity innumerable times -- they're usually plotting your demise in secret (at least when they can fit it into their busy schedule of betraying their country, sponsoring international terrorism, and stealing candy from small children) and will stab you in the back at the most inconvenient moment.

Another good one is http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html

lol, good stuff

I could add another axiom to that list, assuming it's not there...it's been popping up in a ton of recent games.

Et Tu' Brutus?
A mutual friend or party member will always betray you exactly 3/4ths of the way into the game, usually handing over some important artifact or information. You will always then get the choice of either fighting your former comrade (who has a 90% chance of being female) or converting her back to the side of good through verbal trickery.

I can count at least 5 games out right now that this happens in.

The Higher The Hair, The Closer To God (Cloud Rule)
The more outrageous his hairstyle, the more important a male character is to the story.

Haha, I love that one. Here's my favorite from the overlord list.

7. When I've captured my adversary and he says, "Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?" I'll say, "No." and shoot him. No, on second thought I'll shoot him then say "No."

i love this list, i found it a number of years ago when i was poking around various rpg sites. kind of sad how formulaic rpgs have gotten.

Wow, I may never buy another RPG again...ok, I'm over it. Seriously, it's funny how most of those are true. But you have to agree that without betrayal, manipulation, greed, and countless cliches, RPGs woudn't be as much fun. There are some exceptions like Golden Sun to rule 23 about selling items and never seeing them again, but other than that, good stuff.

If RPGs didn't have the cliches, nothing would happen. It would be like Havert Moon games, since without these cliches none of the bad guy or good guy things would work.

I'd rather find only a maximum of 50 or 60 of those in an RPG.