Over used, underrated, stop using - plots

I want you guys to tell me:

• What are some severely over used plots (either in RPG Maker games or Games in general), these are plots that make you go "omg I know how this will play out - DONE!" or "ugh not this crap again ... "
• What are some underrated plots like "Ya that plot is a bit over used but its severely underrated in its potential to captivate me ... "
• And Finally what are some Stop Using this plot ... plots? example "OMG not this again please for the love of god stop using this plot line....."

Some examples from me:

• FF6 plot lines, We know its a great game but its over used.
• Love stories, these are over used but severely underrated. Some amazing stories can be told with these.
• Save the world from X, Y and/or Z - enough already. How many times do we have to save the world?

And....

... Go!

Every idea has been used before, and will be used again - any such list of ideas would be obsolete anyway.


The trick is to give one of those basic ideas a new twist or a variant that rises interest in the game, and then execute it in a way that keeps the interest by good execution.


One example is the protaginist who has amnesia.


That is a cliche that has been used a thousand times - but it is used for a reason: It explains why the PLAYER has to be told again how the town is named that the ACTOR has lived in for twenty years.


Doing it as a primitve standard would not rise any interest, but giving it a new twist in a way (like he has mixed memories from someone else and misremembers parts) might be more interesting.

-What are some severely over used plots (either in RPG Maker games or Games in general), these are plots that make you go "omg I know how this will play out - DONE!" or "ugh not this crap again ... " What makes me do, 'ugh, not this crap again is games that you fight the same enemies [diablo] or I see something coming, because lots of people do it.  [x person betrays you or y person dies at the end].  Overdone is the evil empire vs the noble rebels.  I think the whole good vs evil thing has me bored out of my mind.

What are some underrated plots like "Ya that plot is a bit over used but its severely underrated in its potential to captivate me ... " I think as many times as they use demons, it is always the same story, and they do not try to look at it from other points of view.  I like to think outside the box, but I do not force myself to do so.  I like to mix, match and go from there.

And Finally what are some Stop Using this plot ... plots? example "OMG not this again please for the love of god stop using this plot line....." Fighting God or where you find out that the religion is fake or some ages old battle.  [Grandia 2, for example]. I, also, do not like endings that are no endings or where your character does all the fighting, but nothing really changes [the elder scrolls oblivion gate].

It does not matter what the central plot is, the central plot is unimportant to the story built around it. You can have something as simple as gathering the four elemental crystals, but have an amazing storyline that has its own characterization and world.

One of the games I'm currently working on has the basic 'MC travels the world and kills monster, gets involved with a war between an empire and kingdom, and is The Chosen One.' Very basic, but the storyline centers around how he's seen as a pariah because he's a little bit different, expanded upon by how the first character that really shows him any kindness only does so because she wants to, rather than out of any obligation.

And also, a lot of games have a basic save the world plot, Most FInal Fantasy games, Lost Odyssey, Fable, The World Ends With You, et cetera. That's the basic plot, but often you're doing many things, like exploring a long forgotten past and exploring emotion, learning that everything has a positive and negative result of one's actions (nevermind good or evil), learning to expand your world and connect with other people, not for their sake or yours, but because it's worth it.

Of course, there are times when those plotlines are blamed for poor storytelling or gameplay, Fable 2 comes to mind with how exaggerated they made everything.

I think it really comes down to the quality of the storytelling and world building more than anything else.  A lot of great stories re-use the same plot at a high level.  You have Romeo and Juliet which itself "borrowed" ideas from Tristan and Islode, which itself inspired other stories and so on.

If the characters are well done, and the world is immersive, and the story is well told, the game will be enjoyable even if it's the "Hero must save the world from a Dragon" cliche.

As for love stories, these are extremely hard to do well in the context of a computer based RPG.  Which is why they're not often done.  Unless the game is extremely dialog intensive, you will only be told key points in relationships.  The rest of the romance must happen "offscreen" as it were.  Otherwise, the romance becomes the entire center of the plot.  If that's the point, then it makes sense. 

Actually that gives me an idea where love is the center of the plot, because a God and Goddess must create the Universe, so this all happens in the "before creation" times all creation myths ignore...hmmm...I'll have to work on that one.

I think the only thing I really wouldn't want to see are games which are poorly done.  Lord knows I've tossed quite a few of my projects into the bit bucket for that reason.

You know, Mario was a plumber who went to save a Princess... that was kidnapped. And he is the one to go... for no reason!

Back then, that was as MUCH cliche as it is now.

But it makes no difference. Mario was one of the greatest hits. The second was Sonic.

There was that debate back then.

"Nintendo or SEGA?"

Nintendo of course won the race, since SEGA was more arcade and action than deeper variety of games.

Still this question was really a debate about "Mario VS Sonic".

Sonic had more entertaining games, action, cool graphics, speed....

Both were challenging though.

So a SUPER cliche story was the story the killer app for Nintendo was based on.

There you go! A live example.

What you must focus is innovation.

There is an artist school (I dont remember the exact one but it exists)

that believes that in order to make something worthy, you must be very influenced by at least a masterpiece already made.

They consider this as high form of art, since it needs a lot of education to get properly influenced by a masterpiece of the past.

So what do these weirdos say here?

Get inspired by something, make something like that. DON'T COPY IT though... make something original.

For instance:

Three pigs make houses. One with hay, one with timber the last used stone.

The wolf destroyed the two first so the two pigs went to the third one, and were saved cause the third's hard work was worth it.

You know the fairy tale.

Now look!

ACT 1:

Three brothers divide their wealth they got from their parents equally.

Then they go on with their lives.

ACT 2:

The first one lives in luxury and has women and expensive stuff.

One day something bad happened that influenced most of the people, like an economic crisis and he is broke now.

Seeks his brother now.

ACT3:

The second brother saves some money but does the same thing as the first one.

So the crisis hit him hard too.

Act 4:

The first two brothers unite together.

With the second's savings they do a trip to find their only hope.

The third brother.

The third brother succeeded, cause he invested the money wisely.

EPILOGUE:

So he takes them in his company and everyone lived happy ever after (or whatever people say in English to make a story conclusion). :p

Boom! in 5 minutes, from a fairy tale, a catchy story.

Is it cliche? HELL YEAH! But it's not that bad isn't it?

Stop worrying about something. Instead, substitute feelings of worry with feelings of hope.
Hope drives people do things, while worrying makes people numb. ;)

Don't overdo it with hope though. ;)

EDIT:

P.S.

Not to mention that you HAVE to write a few bad stories in order to become a good storyteller.

Doing nothing or avoiding stuff will get you nowhere. free your mind and who knows?

You might find a great idea. Imagine it being shown in a movie... you got that?

Ok now instead of a movie, make it happen in a game. You are the story author AND the director. 

So go now and make something that it is worth our time to play it.

And bring it here so we can all together cherish about it.

Want a piece of advice?

How about how do I approach the problem?

Programming methodologies.

You got the big problem "A".

What do you do?

You split it in smaller problems.

a1, a2, a3, a4, a5, a6, a7, .... , ai

a1 is easy to write code to solve it.

So you write the code.

then you go for a2. It's harder.

We split it into two pieces:

a21 and a22

Are these easy? Yup!

So you write code for both, thus a2 is ready too.

........

and finally you do the same for ai

Everything was split to small easy to solve problems.

Every small problem was solved.

Now combining all these parts....

you got the solution for the big problem A!!!!

Now imagine that A is the problem of a good game story.

First you learn to make small stories. How? PRACTICE!

Then you learn to make better small stories. How?PRACTICE!

Then you learn to make good small stories. How? PRACTICE! 

Then you have learned make incredible small stories.  STOP PRACTICE!

If you don't already have the materials to make your game after so much practice,

just use your polished skills to  make small stories, merge them together and make a good game.

Even the most cliche of plots or themes can be saved by good storytelling and gameplay. The first two Golden Sun games are prime examples of an overused plot device executed beautifully. I'd be more concerned with making a polished, great game rather than how cliche my plot devices are, personally.

All of these bad storylines are mostly bad because the game is bad. Just make a good game and throw in whatever the heck you want!

One of the best things in my opinion is a game or story that takes the cliches and runs with them, deconstructing and reconstructing them in new and interesting ways.

I wonder how much time it will take for you to think of a central plot that was never used before... No matter how much used a central plot is, it can still be good depending on how the story is delivered.


"Save the world from X, Y and/or Z - enough already. How many times do we have to save the world?"


Well for one, they are normally different worlds...


Second, no world has really been saved (at least if we're talking of being saved for good). There would always be a conflict along the line so it would need saving again and again. :)

"I wonder how much time it will take for you to think of a central plot that was never used before".

This is called "Stroke of genius"

CLICK!   :p

Really it is a random event.

It takes a moment, but that moment might take forever to emerge in my opinion.

The plot that needs to burn in a fire is "friends sacrificing their lives for no real reason so you can advance forward, and then magically come back and give a friendship speech (insert last boss here)"

so .... FF 10? LMAO

@TheRiotInside: Can I just take a moment to say how excited I was when I saw you use Golden Sun as an example? I really need to play those games again.

I have issues with perhaps being too "into" plots and not being able to recognize when something is off or even overused because I'm too busy being immersed in the plot's world. Therein lies a point, perhaps, one that echoes the above points: even if you have some overused plot elements, if you can build a rich world around them, the reader/player may not even notice that you're using a trope/set of tropes. Execution is vital, as is setup for certain plot points (sacrifices need a setup or at least some good character building or it feels cheap).

I'll second the "all the hero's friends die and come back and be inspiring" trope as one that's a bit eyeroll-worthy though. (Maybe you can salvage it by setting it up as something they planned to do to, say, advance further in the bad guy's lair, but make it really ambiguous as to whether they're going to survive their scheme because actual danger springs up?) I'm also a little wary of Chosen Ones. Especially Chosen Ones that need to be sacrificed. But like I (and others) have said, the magic is all in good execution and coming up with creative twists on things.

@Sami-Fire64

About Chosen Ones:

I like the idea of a game where you THINK a character is the Chosen One, but really someone else is.    In the miniseries Merlin, Merlin himself makes this mistake.  He assumes the Chosen One was a noble knight, and gave his backing to said knight (Lancelot).  Supporting Lancelot brought him into King Arthur's court, where Guinevere was rather taken with him, which led to the eventual downfall of Camelot.  As the Lady of the Lake tells him after the fact, it turns out the real Chosen One was his son, Galahad.

To pull that off well in a game really needs good, solid writing.  You want interesting foreshadowing that hints the Chosen One might be the one you think, but if it's really well done, when you have the Chosen One Bait and Switch, the real Chosen One makes perfect sense for those foreshadows as well.

The "saving the world again and/or slay the dragon" trope would be my vote for most overused.


You know, it may be my recent immersion in tvtropes.org, and looking at terminology like subverting and/or inverting of tropes, but ... I've yet to find a game where the hero of the game is actually the dragon trying to save the world. Or, are dragons all meant to be so self-absorbed that they cannot perform this task?


Also, um, you know, from the tvtropes articles, ... I wouldn't entirely be opposed to playing a "Did- did I just romance Cthulhu?" game. (I'm generally curious, what this "squick" factor I hear tell of, is all about. Or, maybe I'm just a bit of a secret masochist.)

Some overused plots are.

1: Main character has anmesia but is the destined hero who will save the world.

2: The priestess is destined to save the world but is later revealed to do so she must sacrifice her life to do so.

3: The worlds main religion turns out to be false.

4: A group of heroes must venture out to gain the maguffin artifact to stop the big bad from destroying/taking over the world.

Regardless of cliches a game can still be enjoyable, even if they use every cliche ever made if the story is told well. If you can relate to the main characters and actually care about them, then it doesn't matter if it has the ost overused plot ever.

Besides pretty much every basic plot has been done before now anyway.

@ Mirage:

That's basically FF10 in a nutshell, given a few tweaks. Still a good game. (The first one, however, the main character obfuscates amnesia.)

@ Onomatopoeia:

In my Black Wings game, my main character has a pair of dragon wings and one of the party members is a baby dragon you can name. Though you actually give me a good idea that I might have to think about.

The most overused plot is game designers trying to avoid tropes, cliches in some attempt to be "original".

Sure your game might be unique when in reality it's often an unplayable mess.

Focusing on solid game mechanics and story telling can make any cliche entertaining. Just looking at comic books, novels and movies. 

Same story redone a thousand times before but the presentation and effort in the writing is the key difference.

And Tales of Symphonia. But hey I still love them both regardless of all the cliches. :D

I would have to say I am immediately turned off by the whole setting of warring medieval kindgoms, with one kingdom suddenly waging a campaign to conquer all the neighboring kingdoms, and only the rebels can stand against them.  Basically, any Fire Emblem or tactical RPG.  Like any plot, it can be done well, and I'm willing to give such a game a chance in the hopes a plot twist or the characters are interesting enough, but it starts off on the wrong foot.  I especially dislike when you're presented with dozens of fantasy kingdom names and are confused to no ends by what the heck is actually going on- the darzenzals of bockingham shire are now marching from muellester to kargockovich by way of the illuidad in the hopes of rekindling an age old fued between the mias and zions?  OH NO!