500 traits of an original RPG.

Valigarmander · #1

1. The hero isn't a spiky-haired, nihilistic teenaged orphan with a giant sword, chosen by destiny to save the world from evil.

2. The party doesn't feature a silent, female character who casts healing spells, or a big, obnoxious fellow who smashes things with an axe/his fists but deep down is a real softy.

3. The main villain isn't a typical emo anime villain.

4. There's no "evil empire" to serve as a red herring while the main villain masterminds everything in the background.

5. There's no "ancient evil" that was sealed away by a group of heroes exactly 999.99 years ago that will awaken after 1000 years.

6. The hero's home town doesn't get demolished or overrun by monsters at any point in the game, giving the hero "motivation" to go stomp some bad guys.

7. The game doesn't revolve around 3-8 elemental crystals, ancient talismans or some other magical item that needs to be collected by the hero.

8. The game features more than six towns per planet.

9. Characters and towns don't have names overflowing with apostrophes (ex: Zul'legos traveled to the city of Kel'marath in the land of Qu'makalaka'hai.)

Metal Man · #2

10. The plot is fully comprehensible to more than 10 people on the entire planet.

#3

11. The Hero does not have Amnesia

Bad Dragonite · #4

11.No mysterious stranger who gives the main character a sword and turns out to be the main characters father in a "bizzare twist".

12.No woman/girl who is in love with the main character who is the ,"Key".

13.More than 1 black person in the entire game.

I am nobody · #5

14. The geography and climate of the planet is actually plausible

15. The culture breakup is actually plausible - 5 miles across a field does not justify entirely different cultures.

Crazyswordsman · #6

16. Teenage girls that join your party don't wear excessively revealing outfits unless they're dancers

17. Towns have more than three stores

18. You recover by eating food, not "potions." -CSM

Auron · #7

Crazyswordsman wrote:18. You recover by eating food, not "potions." -CSM

There's actually a lot of RPGs that do that.

Speed · #8

19. No silent kind of emo "badass" character who gets all the fangirls.

Ace Mercury · #9

This is more of a JRPG sort of thing, but I digress.

20. There is more than one town per continent.

#10

21. The Final Boss does not come out at the last second, wrecking the story.

Speed · #11

22. The boss isn't an emo freak who just wants to "save the world by destroying it"

It was cool the first 20 times but it's fricken played out.

I am nobody · #12

23. "Undiscovered" continents do not sell exactly the same items as the stores you just came from.

24. Technology actually progresses as time goes on, and the world is not filled with "Ancient Powers".

25. The weather is not a plot tool, and storms occur even when the bad dude isn't about to win.

Metal Man · #13

26. People in your party range as far as alignments go.

Rainbow Dash · #14

27-218. The opposite of each and every one of cliches on The Grand List of Console Role Playing Game Cliches

#15

....
eh.

219. Your Father is not Evil/Dead/Lazy.

X-3 · #16

220. There is only one playable character.

Crazyswordsman · #17

Auron wrote:There's actually a lot of RPGs that do that.

Yeah, well I only know of 3 that take it seriously.

221. Weapons don't look ridiculous. -CSM

Metal Man · #18

30. Aliens that actually behave and look like something you've never seen before. (I.E., they aren't modelled after one of eighty bazillion overdone variants seen elsewhere and are actually very 'bizarre'/'alien' in their appearance/behavior.)

ChuckleHuck · #19

222. The main character works alone; no other party members.

Auron · #20

223. In polar opposite to 222, your party consists of more than 8 people, like upwards of 25.