History Main / CommonPlaceRare

** Introduced in the same game: charcoal. You usually only get one piece of it during the course of the game.

* In ''WorldOfWarcraft'', after levelling your character up to level 45 or higher, you and a group of 4 other like-minded adventurers (you'll die if you try to do it alone) can go on a dangeous quest deep inside Zul'Farrak to obtain the electric scale of a giant hydra named after {{Godzilla}}. Your ultimate reward? '''A carrot on a stick.'''

** The pickling supplies--dill, brine, vinegar, and [[spoiler:ghost]] cucumbers--are perhaps even rarer than beets, as the area where they drop only appears for a single day at a time, completely randomly, and was last accessible on [[AprilFoolsDay April 1, 2006]], when the entrance was invisible and the only clue to its presence was a ''fake'' entrance in another zone.

* Salt and Aluminum have both, at different times, been more valuable than Gold. Salt because for a long time the sea was pretty much the only source for it and so it was very valuable in inland regions. Aluminum, on the other hand, was just extremely difficult to extract from its ores until someone figured out a trick involving lots and lots of electricity.
** The top of the Washington Monument is capped with what at the time was an incredibly precious metal - the aforementioned aluminum. At the time, both Aluminum and Silver were a dollar an ounce.

*** [[LethalJokeCharacter Unless you play as a tourist.]]

*** ''DragonQuestVIII'' has a CommonplaceRare ''ship''. You need a ship, so you need to find an ancient abandoned ship in the desert, then go through a monster-filled castle to find the library, then get a once in a lifetime wish and give someone a priceless ancient artifact owned by a king who owes you a favor, to put the ancient ship in the water. Why you can't just ask the king for a ship remains unexplained.

* In ''Scarface: The World Is Yours'' it's entirely possible to have lackeys weilding weapons the player is not yet allowed to buy. Don't fret. They can give them to the boss by placing them in the trunks of special cars (think mobile armory). Doesn't quite work with the boat-mounted machine guns that Tony can later buy to weild himself. Also, it doesn't quite matter how much cash Tony has. Being able to purchase entirely legal items (such as a vending machine or a park bench) depends on how much his enemies respect him.

* In ''Scarface: The World Is Yours'' it's entirely possible to have lackeys weilding weapons the player is not yet allowed to buy. Don't fret. They can give them to the boss by placing them in the trunks of special cars (think mobile armory). Doesn't quite work with the boat-mounted machine guns that Tony can later buy to weild himself.

*** Although technically, it could just be that the only bow Link ever finds is always locked away in a dungeon. Or maybe they're made of illegal materials (thus only evil mooks having them).

See also UnusableEnemyEquipment.

** Clay is also rather rare to find, there found on coastal areas. Heres Your boat, have fun!

** If you want to go the extra mile, however, you can go further into the cave and find the Dill Whip. This [[BraggingRightsReward doesn't bring you any reward whatsoever]], but at least you get told that your characters have found a legitimately undiscovered plant.

* In ''StarOcean 2'', you have to go into a dangerous cave filled with monsters as a test of strength - the proof of your journey being to bring back a rare and undiscovered herb. It turns out to be [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvia_sclarea clary sage]], a fairly common, hardy and widely-distributed medicinal plant. Still, everyone reacts as if it was completely unknown.