January 19, 2007

RPG Rules

Rob discovered this site that I find a touch too amusing. I'm not sure if I should admit to laughing through the whole list or not, but I couldn't help posting some of my favorite observations here. Enjoy.

Gender Equality
Your average female RPG character carries a variety of deadly weapons and can effortlessly hack or magic her way through armies of monsters, killer cyborgs, and mutated boss creatures without breaking a sweat. She may be an accomplished ninja, a superpowered secret agent, or the world's greatest adventurer. However, if one of the game's villains manages to sneak up and grab her by the Standard Female Character Grab Area (her upper arm) she will be rendered utterly helpless until rescued by the hero.

Know Your Audience
Every woman in the game will find the male lead incredibly attractive.

Gender Equality Addendum
In the unlikely event that the main character of the game is female, she will not be involved in any romantic subplot whatsoever beyond getting hit on by shopkeepers.

Party Guidance Rule
Somewhere in the last third of the story, the hero will make a stupid decision and the rest of the party must remind him of all that they have learned from being with him in order to return the hero to normal.

The God Rule
All major deities, assuming they actually exist and weren't just made up by the Church to delude its followers, are in reality malevolent and will have to be destroyed. The only exception to this rule is the four nature spirits who have preserved the land since time immemorial, but now due to the folly of mankind have lost virtually all of their power and need you to accomplish some ludicrous task to save them.

Doomed Utopia Theorem (Law of Zeal)
All seemingly ideal, utopian societies are powered by some dark force and are therefore doomed to swift, flashy destruction.

Thousand Year Rule
The Ancient Evil returns to savage the land every thousand years on the dot, and the last time it showed up was just about 999.9875 years ago. Despite their best efforts, heroes of the past were never able to do more than seal the Evil away again for the future to deal with (which brings up the question of just how exactly does this "sealing away" work anyway, but never mind.) The good news is that this time, the Evil will get destroyed permanently. The bad news is that you're the one who's going to have to do it.

Principle of Archaeological Convenience
Every ancient machine you find will work perfectly the first time you try to use it and every time thereafter. Even if its city got blasted into ruins and the machine was then sunk to the bottom of the sea and buried in mud for ten thousand years, it'll still work fine. The unfortunate corollary to this rule is that ancient guardian creatures will also turn out to be working perfectly when you try to filch their stuff. Modern-day machinery, by contrast, will always break down at the worst possible moment.

Law of Scientific Gratification
If the hero needs a new invention to progress, he will find out that somewhere in the world someone has spent his or her entire life perfecting this invention, and usually just needs one more key item located in a monster-infested dungeon before it is completed.

The Moral Of The Story
Every problem in the universe can be solved by finding the right long-haired prettyboy and beating the crap out of him.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yup, definitely laughed all the way through it.

"Modern-day machinery, by contrast, will always break down at the worst possible moment."
Why Chris, didn't you know that they make things to break nowadays so you have to buy a new one to keep the economy going? I mean, come on, things were always made better in the past. :-p

Rob said...

Glad you enjoyed the list - it is true that all RPGs seem to do these things.

You don't notice them while you're playing, but when the cliches are fully laid out...man you feel dumb for acclaiming these games.