General RPG Guide

• Talk to everyone! - This is definitely one of the most classic tips to help you through almost any RPG. Talking to people may give you important information on what to do later. Sometimes, certain events will only occur when you talk to a certain person.
• What you can see, might not be there - Several times there are secret passages which seem like regular walls. If you are stuck in a dungeon, tower, etc., you should investigate the room and its walls thoroughly to see if there is not a secret passage you are missing. The same goes for the other way around. What you cannot see might be there. Sometimes (if your character were real) then he/she/it would be able to see a certain treasure, but the point of view of you, the player, is at, you would not able to see it.
• He who fights and runs away... - Are you in a regular random battle and the enemy is just too tough? Or are they just so annoying that you don't want to bother battling? Then run away! Never forget that in most regular battles in the vast majority of RPGs, you have the option to run away if you need/want to. Don't run away at the sight of every enemy though. Fighting gives you helpful experience and money (usually), so if you run away from every battle, when you get to a boss, then you may be too weak to fight it!
• True heroes Save people - Probably the most vital function in any true RPG is the save option. I can't express enough how important it is to save often! You never know exactly what's going to be around that next turn (unless you've played the game). Most RPGs have a boss not too far after a Save Point. Even if you do know what will happen, a brownout might occur, and then what happens? You have to start way back when you last saved. I'm not saying to save every single step you take. I'm just saying to save often enough that if something like a brownout were to occur, you wouldn't be extremely pissed off to replay what you didn't save.
• Curiosity killed the cat? It helped me! - Some bosses (or other enemies) seem so impossible to beat that you'll never get past them. Well, in cases like this you need to experiment with different spells, items, attacks, etc. Just because one attack is weak against a boss doesn't mean they all are. You can experiment all you want against foes soon after a Save Point. Then, even if your experiments fail, you can fight the enemy again and try some other stuff on it.
• Fight fire with... cure? One thing to remember is that when a character loses HP, they can regain it. When fighting in a battle, especially a boss battle, it will be helpful to have one or two designated healers. Instead of fighting, these people will heal the other characters with items or spells if needed. This will help insure that your fighters can keep battling.
• These aren't your regular birth defects... - The RPG newbie may look at an item/spell that causes a status effect and think "Why should I use this? It doesn't even effect HP!" Well, while most status effects do not have a direct influence over HP, they do have an indirect one. Positive status effects like Haste will let you attack more often. Barrier and MBarrier (FF7) will keep the HP damage from physical and magical attacks respectively down. Negative ones like Poison will make the enemy gradually lose HP. Slow will make the enemy attack less often. Neutral effects like Reflect will bounce magic spells to their opponents side. (They are called neutral because their effect can be positive or negative.) Also, never forget items/spells that effect attributes. These can make an enemy less powerful or you more powerful.
• Hey, don't forget me! - It is helpful the make the most use out of everything and everyone you get. It is almost senseless to have one character fight and the other two do nothing. The same goes for items and spells. It's OK to save up items, but items that are never used (in one way or another) are useless. If you never use an item, then you should probably sell it or drop it to get the most use from it. (Drop it only if the game has a limited number of items you can hold and you can't sell it.)
• "Hi... I'm Fred... and I'm an RPGalohlic." "Hi Fred!" - Most importantly when playing an RPG, have fun! If the game gets you to frustrated, bored, or just not feeling good, then it is probably not right for you. Everyone looks for different elements of an RPG. You should not get something just because everybody, even me, loves it. For example, I personally believe that Super Mario RPG is a better game than an RPG, but yet in Nintendo Power Magazine's Poll, it is always above Final Fantasy 3. Remember, if you stop having fun while RPGing, then you've lost the entire reason for playing them.