Definitely a lazy developer, myself.
While it depends on the complexity of your game, a good game should be able to convey most of its mechanics without text boxes, or signs - especially an RPG Maker game. Players tend to be pretty smart (too smart ), and will go a lot further than you might expect without any guidance. As long as players know what the keys are, that works.
I wish I had footage of it still on Youtube, but back when I worked in RPG Maker my project had very simple tutorials that basically amounted to the keys appearing on the screen with a sound playing in the background. I'd associate the functions of keys together by grouping the tutorial at the same general times, and then slowly pad out the first 15 minutes of the game with these. So it looked like:
Opening cutscene with dialogue. (Player must learn to press enter on their own.)
Player finally gets control.
Arrow keys show up with tone.
WSAD shows up with similar tone.
5 seconds later enter shows up with faded, and lower tone. Even if the player is not standing in a place where enter is used (difficult because the starting room is very small and has many interactables in it) they know from the dialogue scene beforehand and now the tutorial that enter is in use.
Player goes through more dialogue and title comes up.
Player enters second real area they have control in.
Q shows up with tone similar to the first tone that shows up.
When the player presses it, it opens the save menu.
As I would go on, I'd teach the player about using their inventory and the like in a very similar way.