Lessons learned from role playing games

The fine folks at project-apollo.net have been compiling the Grand List Of Console Role Playing Game Clichés. These are fine lessons to carry you thought your gaming, and non-gaming lives. Here are a few of my favourites:

Edison's Lament
No switch is ever in the right position.

Dimensional Transcendence Principle
Buildings are much, much larger on the inside than on the outside, and that doesn't even count the secret maze of tunnels behind the clock in the basement.

Nostradamus Rule
All legends are 100% accurate. All rumors are entirely factual. All prophecies will come true, and not just someday but almost immediately.

Bed Bed Bed
A good night's sleep will cure all wounds, diseases, and disabilities, up to and including death in battle.

Zelda's Axiom
Whenever somebody tells you about "the five ancient talismans" or "the nine legendary crystals" or whatever, you can be quite confident that Saving the World will require you to go out and find every last one of them.

Not Invented Here
Trade of technology will not exist. One place in the world will have all the techno-gadgets while all the others will be harvesting dirt.


If You Meet The Buddha In A Random Encounter, Kill Him!
When you're out wandering around the world, you must kill everything you meet. People, animals, plants, insects, fire hydrants, small cottages, anything and everything is just plain out to get you. It may be because of your rampant kleptomania.

Wait! That Was A Load-Bearing Boss!
Defeating a dungeon's boss creature will frequently cause the dungeon to collapse, which is nonsensical but does make for thrilling escape scenes.

Supply and Demand Axiom
Killing a powerful enemy will usually yield an item or weapon that would've been extremely useful if you had gotten it before killing that enemy.

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.

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