HowTo:Live in an RPG
Have you ever realized that someday you could be trapped eternally inside a Role-Playing Game? This usually happens by playing Chrono Trigger during a thunderstorm or just by going into a Ghost Train ride at a suspicious amusement park with your friends. This is when a portal opens to the place where Dungeons and Dragons happens for real. You see a big light, then poof, you faint. When you wake up, you see some dancing mushrooms passing by and a group of weird guys following the thing holding spears, bows and wearing robes (or you may be high on LSD). You finally realize that now you are living inside a real-life RPG. Grab those potions my friend and let's move through that field, shall we?
Start a New Life
You barely know your full name (it usually isn’t as simple as "Frankie"). Write it down (or leave the one that appears) with 5 letters in a wooden board so you can remember it every time you check your inventory. Look around. It's just a plain village, with green grass fields to all directions. If you forget which village you’re from, it's the one with the weakest monsters around it. Find the hut in the center of the little town. It is your house. Some weird flashback will occur inside your head, with big blasts, a freaky guy wearing a cape and a hot chick being kidnapped. You wake up to a woman's voice calling the name you wrote on the wooden board.
Suddenly, you have an important mission to accomplish in the outside world. The best skill you have up your sleeve is that you know how to tend to cows or something, but now you are in charge of saving the universe from the greatest evil of all time. Good luck.
When you say goodbye to your parents, or adoptive parents, or uncles, or grandparents, they will reward you with potions and some money. (Sometimes they give a strange jewel with powers only you can unleash, but not now, you’re still at level 3.) Remember, you can come back to your village any time during your journey. Don't be worried: Mommy will be inside the hut walking up and down in the corridor, saying the same phrase since you left. Crazy old lady.
Walking Around
Every important thing is placed inside chests. They are scattered all over the planet, in the most bizarre places. Look, behind that bush in the fiery forest! Who put it there? Do chests have a will of their own? Are they living beings? Does someone have a weird taste in decoration? A lunatic schizo pirate lost them all? A creepy Feng Shui cult? It's kinda scary. Chests. Oooh, spooky.
Oh yeah, if you are low on cash, cut some grass. You'll definitely find some stray money there. You are welcome in every house. Come in, have a seat, mess with the dog, with the baby, and with the pretty daughter. Feel free to open their cabinets and chests and take their belongings. They just don't care. While you are there, enjoy your visit and break all the pots inside. Don't worry. The owners will keep saying the same stupid things, like "Did you see my son?" or "Since that weird guy wearing a cape arrived, nothing has been the same in this town."
You can carry up to 862 bottles, 34 gigantic swords, 43 shields, 26 rings, 45 necklaces and 65535 or 99999999 (whichever comes first) golden coins in your left pocket. In the right pocket you keep your Mommy's picture. And don't worry, shops everywhere accept the same currency and sell items for the same price, even in lost underwater cities that haven't had outside contact for centuries. Speaking of travel, you can also cross the entire continent in twenty seconds while mounted on the back of a yellow ostrich.
Keep in mind that as the person with the largest sword and the most outrageous hair you are automatically entitled, as well as skilled enough, to pilot the one existing copy of all major forms of transportation. If you are ever flying around in your ancient airship and you come across an airship which is either much larger or much cooler looking, don't fear! The other airship will either end up destroyed in an unnecessarily fancy cut-scene, or you will end up as the captain of that ship as well.
Black forests packed with werewolves, abandoned mines crowded with freaky skeletons, freezing mountains filled with disgruntled Yetis, wide deserts crawling with mutant spiders...the sky is the limit when you want a romantic trip! A family trip? Go to that city filled with happy games and modern buildings! There's always one. Watch out for those golden coins!
Facing Day-To-Day Facts
Forget about changing your clothes. Sleep, eat, kill, die, revive, go on a date wearing the same clothes for the rest of your life. Oh yeah, you can change your bandanna for a stylish cap, perhaps. But why hide your freakishly green pointy hair?
When you swing your gigantic sword (three times bigger than you) at a huge dancing mushroom, the thing doesn't bleed. It vanishes with numbers flying out of it. "276! Ha, take that, bastard!". Oh yeah, if your short-tempered girlfriend kicks your leg, you take "12" damage points and the number flies out of you too. If hit by a broom stick, "68". Flee!
Throughout your adventures you'll meet all sorts of monsters who will make you stronger. The world is full of them. Don't worry, kill as many of them as you like, they'll never go extinct. All monsters like to collect money and items too, even something as simple as slime, so every kill is a reward. No one will ever feel sorry for them either as you keep slaying them. Better them than you, right? Try to find carrot-nosed dogs that have an all-over-spasm. They lead you to magical stones.
Team Up
Weird friends are essential. A wild beast, a maniac soldier, a hippie pot-headed girl, a happy fat guy and a short something you can never quite understand in which animal group it belongs. Runescape characters are not allowed, weird though they may be. And, oh yeah, the cutie that casts Cure spells. She is hot, isn't she? Marry her when you find the time. Don't forget the occasional Dancing Mushroom that isn't trying to kill you, it's actually your friend. And let's not forget the obligatory sex symbol. You know, the childhood "friend" who you keep around as a trophy party member so everyone can see how awesome you are. Only a totally awesome guy would warrant such a stacked cohort. The one that you put at the very outside of your party so the camera zooms into her every time you defeat a dancing mushroom. You know you do, you dirty pimp, you. That's where you're faced with a choice later on: The Cure casting cutie, or the sexy childhood friend, which one do you want to date in the end? It's a tough decision a young man must make someday.
To save space, when entering a town, have your friends collectively merge into your body. Just make sure that they're split up again by the time you get stuck in a battle. If you walk off a map, fall off a cliff, or get sucked into an inter-dimensional vortex, your friends will be right there with you. If one of them dies, no need to pull their body away from the fray; you can revive them wherever you are without it. However, if they get in the way of what you're trying to do, feel free to kill them while they just stand there and take it. They'll disappear, and you can bring them back at your convenience. They won't complain; friends are good that way.
If your world allows it, hit them from time to time for extra experience. They'll thank you for it later.
For some n00b-impressing pastime ask your friends to borrow their equipment and try it on yourself. Can't wear it, can you? Your cohorts will be awed by this, as they've never even considered to wear something that wasn't made for them specifically. It may be a downer at first, but having no need of selecting your attire or choosing from different types of equipment is certainly one of the coolest things about your new home and one of the main factors in making your world-saving efforts a little less tiresome.
You can always call your weird "magus" friend to light up your cigarette. A flaming dragon coming from the underground, exploding in lava is much more appealing than a match. A real chick magnet.
Talking about chicks, it's complicated to get one. Don't even try to impress those with higher levels than you. There you are, all happy at level 23, trying to talk with a level 78? You can barely hold up your sword while she can perform a Mega Slash Uppercut three times in a row, maybe more. You are a loser. "Dear, go kill some dancing mushrooms before talking to me, okay?"
Plot Twists
Your hair is green, mom's is blue. The weird thing is that your father's hair is red. Something is wrong. Technically your mother slept with a yellowish hair guy, so you could come up with the green stuff. Calm down. I bet the villain has yellow hair. Yeah, that's it. That whole "Luke, I am your father" thing. "Again? Why me?"
Don't worry about dying. As long as you have friends around you, ready to throw potion bottles at your head, you'll be fine. They will do that every time you are in need, are poisoned, cursed, blind, mute, petrified or even inflicted with bird flu. They do it because they love you. And they expect you to throw bottles at their heads in return. Never forget that special relation. And don't worry, when you throw a bottle at your friend's head, it won't shatter into a thousand pieces, breaking their skull; it'll just change into some pretty lights and swirl around their head. Also, if you see a fairy, put it in a bottle. It will automatically heal you when you die, and they don't seem to complain when you wipe out their whole species doing so.
You can retire only when you reach level 99 and kill the final boss/villain/dad/monstrous beast/plasma dragon on top of the highest and darkest mountain of the forbidden continent, or within the deepest bowels of your world(a maliciously omnipotent being wouldn't be caught dead anywhere near sea level, and sometimes creates his own dark dimension to avoid your world altogether). Then, relax and take a walk, enjoy the place, and hang out with that cute girl you like!
Until you fight the worst thing imaginable: A Sequel.
See also
