The RPG Cliche List

Law Of The Humble Designer. Small press game writers are always intelligent, friendly, and (unlike many of their counterparts in large companies) show few signs of having their heads up their asses. (There was an exception defined here, but I censored it, for reasons of cowardice combined with my total lack of legal representation - Jonny)

Lejendary Law. It is important to avoid even the most flimsy pretense for a copyright infringement lawsuit, even if it makes you look dumb. Also known as the Aeon Law.

Loonball. Although a highly useful general term, "loonball" here applies to a precise form of lunacy. Specifically, a gamemaster or storyteller who hates fielding rules questions from players, so much so that they don't even read or study the rules to the game they're running. Thus, every major confrontation in the game is soon complicated by the fact that the gamemaster/storyteller gets insanely irritated at their players for even mentioning the rules, much less asking questions about them.

Mainstream Impotence Law. Except for Dungeons & Dragons (and sometimes not even then), no attempt by RPG makers to spread their creations to other media ever succeeds on any impressive scale, however well done they might actually be. (Emperor Of The Fading Suns, Kindred: the Embraced, the various novels for non-D&D games, etc.)

Manslut. A predatory, perpetually single male LARPer who spends every minute of every game chasing skirts. This behavior may verge from the passive and cute to the idiotic and destructive.

Mass Mediocrity Law. All the game systems of the largest game companies suck: Dungeons & Dragons, Palladium System, GURPS, Storyteller, etc. (Exception: non-first edition Shadowrun/Earthdawn, arguably)

Matrix Fanboy Law. Every gamer group contains or knows any number of dimwitted gamers who are (or were) just dying to use The Matrix as the basis for an RPG.

Middle Finger Evolution Law. It is not important for companies and designers to improve or change their game systems, no matter how many years (or decades) they've been around. See also the Gamma World Law and SJG Law.

Ministry Of Truth Rule. Except where [a rule Jonny censored] applies, game designers are incapable of acknowledging bad reviews. One good review is enough to prove it's a good game and quote repeatedly, even if there are several bad (and well-reasoned) reviews to outweigh it.

Mode: Downward Spiral. Any campaign where the futility of the players ever succeeding at anything beyond their own demise or the destruction of the world becomes apparent after three game sessions (or less). Usually degenerates into vast silliness as the players act any way they want to, knowing the same thing would happen if they actually tried and went on with the storyline.

Mode: Foot Bullet. Any period where the gamemaster has presented a not-entirely-logical puzzle and lets the frustrated players stumble around for hours without being even close to the solution. Most of these involve finding some kind of secret door, and are colored by increasingly bizarre and/or stupid actions as the players become more and more desperate.

Mode: Monty Haul. Any campaign where the gamemaster doles out huge amounts of experience/treasure/power/other rewards. Usually becomes stupefyingly pointless after the player characters become the most wealthy/powerful beings in the universe.

Mode: Schizophrenia. Any game where a gamemaster changes the game system he's using for his world more than once every three sessions.

Mode: Weenie. Any game where the gamemaster hates allowing player characters to die, and will secretly fudge die rolls and involve other deus ex machina to keep them alive. Once the players figure this out, the game typically becomes boring, although safe for the ego.

Mode: Wishful Thinker. Any game where the gamemaster is planning to write a novel based on the game's events. Particularly tragic, as most gamemasters never actually complete the novel and even if they do, they are faced with the fact that most game fiction sucks anyway.

Mode: Zero Sum Game. The Amber Law in effect: any game treated as a competitive event between gamemaster and players.

Modern-Day Occult Game. A game set in our modern, contemporary world, except that (unknown to mundane humanity) magic(k) is real, vampires and/or other monsters are real, conspiracies are probably screwing with society, blah blah blah, and we're usually expected to believe something about all this is horrifying. Referenced many other times in this list, the modern-day occult game has very much become a cliche unto itself, and the genre is quickly reaching the same point of gross oversaturation that high fantasy games reached in the 80's and beyond. See also...well, about half of this list.

Monkey's Paw Rule. When players get wishes, the gamemaster will make every attempt to pervert the wording of the wish into something harmful (usually by interpreting the wish as literally as possible). Legendarily true in D&D games. This often leads to players taking several minutes (and multiple breaths) to recite a once-simple wish, in order to close every possible loophole that could screw them. (Example: "I wish for a Girdle Of Storm Giant Strength that doesn't have a storm giant or anything else already in it and that doesn't already belong to someone else and that isn't cursed and that I will receive immediately and that will remain in my possession and not just vanish or disintegrate or whatever [inhale] and that..." ad nauseum.)

Mook Law #1. Any NPC who the players join with and the gamemaster doesn't bother to name is an NPC that invariably dies.

Mook Law #2. Any time the gamemaster describes a character, the players will assume they're important and start screwing with/conversing with/stalking them (see also the Paper Clip In Socket Rule). On the other hand, gamemasters will rarely bother to describe anyone who is not important to the plot of the campaign.

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