inspiration for these optional rules comes from Risus: The Anything RPG which is © S. John Ross and is freely available for download and use.

What is a Cliché
A cliché is nothing more than a short hand means of defining what your character knows or is good at. A cliché, by association, tells the world something about your character and sets up certain behavior expectations (saying you are a teacher (teacher would be your cliché) sets up certain expectations for what your character is like). Feel free to expound upon the basic cliché (teacher) with adjectives, etc. to fully flesh out the concept – i.e. say you are a geek science teacher is a bit more specific than just saying teacher. You can also embed roleplaying hints in your cliché description with more adjectives: happy-go-lucky geek science teacher.

In Active Exploits, clichés are very similar to Fields of Expertise from the advanced section of the rules. However, clichés are different in that you are not necessarily an expert in any of your clichés.

Ranking Clichés
Since you may not be an expert at your clichés, you need to define just how good you are with them. For Active Exploits, clichés have the same ratings as skills: novice, proficient, and expert. In order to determine how many clichés you get, just compare it to the reality level.

Number of Clichés

CLICHÉ RATING		DRAMATIC		Heroic		Epic
Novice		1		*		*
Proficient		2		2		3
Expert		**		1		2

* technically none, but the director can allow extra clichés at the novice level to fit the character’s background.
**only at the director’s discretion

You define your cliché and rank on your character sheet in the skills area.

Using Clichés
Clichés are like skills in that they add free effort to the task at hand (use the chart for Free Effort from the Active Exploits rules). However, it is possible to use just about any ability with any given cliché. This requires roleplaying on the part of the player to specify how they are using their cliché in combination with the ability they want to use.

Extra Experience
Players get the same extra experience as defined in the skills section of Active Exploits for thier given reality level. Experience can be used in conjunction with a cliché in the same means as for a skill.

Specializing Clichés
Part of the problem with a strictly skill-based system is that you can’t possibly define everything a character knows. Part of the problem with a strictly cliché-based system is that you can’t differentiate between two people with the same cliché and rank; i.e. what is the difference between two geek science teacher: proficient characters.

One solution is to futher define the cliché with adjectives (then they aren’t the same). Another solution is to keep your clichés generic (i.e. teacher), and define skills related to a specific cliché that your character has specialized with using the chart below. Check with your director for which solution your campaign is using.

Number of Specialty Skills

CLICHÉ RATING		DRAMATIC		Heroic		Epic
Novice		1		2		2
Proficient		3		5		6
Expert		5		7		8

You define your specialty skills beneath your cliché on your character sheet.

You may specialize in the same skill more than once (indicated by an additional plus sign (+) next to the skill name; i.e. if you specialize in Computers 3 times, you would indicate 2 additional instances of specialization: Computers +3.

If you use specialized clichés and you are using the specialized skill in relation to an action used by the cliché, you may add 1 free point times it’s level of specialilzation; 3 points of free effort for the Computers example.

Improving Clichés
Directors grant experience points to clichés in the same manner that they award experience points to skills. However, in the case of clichés, they can only improve their rating at director discretion. This usually requires significant roleplaying.

If you are using Specializing Clichés, players may spend 20 experience points to add a new specialty skill or increase their specilization by 1 rank.