Overused ideas

For NPC mods:

• Character with incredibly convoluted and tragic past
• Character w/o any family left
• Character with unusual eye colour (violet, green)
• Character with exceptional "stat" or using the highest possible stat for his/her race
• Character who wittily wins over certain NPCs (Anomen *cough*) in every banter
• Character who refuses to speak of his/her past
• Character background/upbringing is unique (demi-vampires, quarter-demons, accidental out-of-worldly creatures, kind-hearted drow etc)
• Character connected to the Shadow Thieves
• Character whose will to live/love CHARNAME has to restore
• Wolf companion/communication with wolves
• Drow in general
• Hating Yoshimo out of the blue (unless NPC is a Diviner)

1) Hot, Sexy characters, male or female. If you want to create a straight, gay or bisexual character fine, if you want a romance-able character, cool, but there should be more to the character than the contents of his/her robes and his/her plans for them.

2) Misunderstood Villains/Heroes. Yes, it's a staple of the genre. Yes, it's part of everyone's experience to feel terribly misunderstood, generally from the ages of 10 to 40. It's trite, and it's dull. Why not try a well adjusted adult NPC as a change?

3) Alignments that in no way relate to character behavior. Reliable, trustworthy NPCs who are Chaotic or Evil, unreliable basket cases who are Lawful, saints who are Neutral, treacherous idiots who are Good. Bioware is just as guilty of this as NPC makers.

4) NPCs who are the real stars of the story. Unfortunately an easy trap to fall into, as every tabletop DM knows. This is CHARNAME's story; an NPC should not be stealing his/her thunder more than once or twice in the game, and certainly should not dominate every single encounter.

5) Uber-powerful rules breaking NPCs. When NPCs are vastly more powerful than CHARNAME, you quickly get to the point of wondering why the heck anyone is interested in him/her.

For non-NPC mods:

1) Uber-Spells and Uber-Items. The easiest trap to fall into, and one I'm guilty of myself. Items do not have to be more vastly powerful to be interesting and worth using, and uber items just make the game even less balanced.

2) Cheating Uber-Monsters. Bioware is guilty of this in TOB, as are many mod makers. These come out of saying "how can I make the encounter a tactical challenge" without also saying "does this make sense in the context of the game world". It is possible to do both, it just takes more work. The related issue is Cheese to Fight Cheese. Yes, players will exploit weaknesses in the AI. Finding ways to stop that by making monsters smarter is Good. Finding ways to stop this by giving infinite copies of spell X to every opponent is Dumb.

3) Assuming reloads. Saying "It's not so hard, just fight the battle 10 or 20 times and you'll figure out the trick" is crap role-playing. It only works if you view BG entirely as a tactical combat game. A smart, cautious player should be able to get through a battle without having to look for the one cheesy tactic that the designer didn't think of.