Is it possible…

…to cram too much into a single cliché? If you read over Anatomy of Cliché (from the companion), you can add all sorts of spices to your Barbarian (3) cliché to make your character really come alive. However, don’t you think it’s possible to take it too far and have so much in one cliché that you would seem psychotic if you added more?

An adjective cliché?

Is it reasonable to have just an adjective as one of your clichés? The implication from the Companion is that a cliché like Athletic isn’t really much of a cliché at all since it’s just an isolated quality, an adjective.

However, I’ve seen some players doing just such a thing and making their cliché, Wealthy (for instance), instead of Playboy Millionaire Faking being a Playboy (ala Bruce Wayne).  One tells you about the character, the other really doesn’t do much.

So, as a Risus GM, do you allow adjective clichés in your campaigns?

Inappropriate Clichés

I don’t really understand why people always want to pull this one out of their Risus game when they are being all “serious”. If you are really in a “serious” game, does this really come up? I usually follow the idea that if both people want to fight, it’s fantasy combat and anything goes (for those Wizard vs. Fighter instances).

But what about something more mundane: folk guitarist vs. mob hit man? Odds are probably pretty good that the folk guitarist doesn’t want to fight. If this were a “serious” campaign, could it still work? I like to think so.  It’s all in how you want to interpret clichés.

When the mob hit man pulls out his gun, what is the poor folk guitarist to do? Well, assuming your folk guitarist is any good, he’s probably had to deal with protest situations (probably as part of one). What if the folk guitarist starts gathering protesters who harass the mob hit man? Or what if he distracts the mob hit man by playing just the right song to remind the hit man of his carefree youth?

Anything is possible, just not very probable. If you reward your folk guitarist by granting him the ability to affect the situation with the hit man, you can really get some great roleplaying going on.