History Main / NPCAmnesia

* ''VideoGame/IndianaJonesAndTheFateOfAtlantis'': Adventure games normally avert both the password variant and this trope in general by making you fist-fight any guards you fail to bluff your way past. However, in this game, there's a sequence where you can only learn a password by first admitting you don't know it (this will give a hint about where to find it).

%%* ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'': Accidentally parodied with its Land Shark routine.

* ''VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork'': the quiz givers will ALWAYS repeat the exact same lines, and give the exact same questions. Always. Apparently, they have forgotten that you have just done their quiz and failed, odd, as you would think that they would consider a rare item as a prize a reason to remember those who have taken the quiz.

* ''{{Manhwa/Yureka}}'': As the manhwa is set largely within an MMORPG, this is played for tragedy with Piri, a cheerful shopkeeper [[NonPlayerCharacter NPC]] who is meant only to [[DeceptivelyHumanRobots seem like a person on the surface]], but instead [[GrewBeyondTheirProgramming experiences grief]] when her memories are wiped whenever the game resets. Except [[spoiler:she's actually a real human, hooked up to a game ever since she ended up in a coma after an accident.]]

* ''VideoGame/TheLongestJourney'': The most blatant example is a high-strung secretary who won't let you into the CorruptCorporateExecutive's office. You can go through every option in the DialogueTree (all of which will fail), then leave, come back with a pizza, and pretend to be a delivery girl (in the same set of clothes), and he'll let you through. Although he does acknowledge that your character April does look familiar, April pretty much gaslights him into believing you.

%%** Both ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' and ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'' did similar gags.

* ''VideoGame/StarControlII': You can ask a question as often as you like unless you offend the person you're asking when you ask the first time.

* ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia''. At one point you have to deliver a letter to a king to help one of your party member friends, but the king is ill and the guards will not let you inside his castle. Just after the first two guards deny you entry, two other guards appear and tell the first two "Your shift's up.". This allows you to leave and come back shortly after you get the help of a [[spoiler: future ally]] who allows you to pretend that you're helping her deliver sacred wood inside the castle.

* A rare video game aversion happens in ''VideoGame/LANoire''. Since questioning suspects and witnesses is a huge part of the game, you as a rule only get one chance to ask the right question, although for some you can re-ask it or a similar one after you find more evidence and re-question them. Your rating on each case is partially determined by how well you go through the dialogue trees.

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* Accidentally parodied by ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' with its Land Shark routine.

* In ''{{Manhwa/Yureka}}'', set largely within an MMORPG, this is played for tragedy with Piri, a cheerful shopkeeper [[NonPlayerCharacter NPC]] who is meant only to [[DeceptivelyHumanRobots seem like a person on the surface]], but instead [[GrewBeyondTheirProgramming experiences grief]] when her memories are wiped whenever the game resets. Except [[spoiler:she's actually a real human, hooked up to a game ever since she ended up in a coma after an accident.]]

* Mocked by ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' - in one episode, Homer takes a free sample offered by someone in a store, but is refused a second. So he comes back with a fake mustache on, and is refused again. Until Homer comes back on the other side of the screen, and it's actually someone else who looks exactly like Homer with a fake mustache. Both ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' and ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'' did similar gags.

This could be considered one of the AcceptableBreaksFromReality if there weren't at least two other options -- wait for the guard change (which could be a simple PaletteSwap after you've exited the screen), or have a screwed-up conversation force you to find a non-conversational route past the guard instead. Like getting in through the window with your handy GrapplingHookPistol, find the secret passage, etc. Or just let the player kill the guard, because that's what they'll want to do anyway. But this involved a lot of extra programming work, and the deadline is Christmas. Implementing NPC Amnesia is easier.

!!Examples:

[[AC:{{Puzzle Game}}s]]
* Happens frequently in the DOS game ''VideoGame/GodOfThunder'':
** In chapter 1, when you go to get the bridge repaired.
** In chapter 3, when you try to enter the [[spoiler: resistance headquarters]].

* {{RPG}}s often have a similar, if simpler, situation where an NonPlayerCharacter will ask a yes or no question. You can answer "Yes" and get some information, then come back and answer "No" to get different information that might also be important. Or answer "No" first. It's all the same to the NPC, who doesn't recognize you as the flip-flopper you are.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'': Yuffie appears to the party as a random battle encounter. If, during the post-battle scene, the player answers wrong, she'll disappear, stealing from you. She keeps coming back with the same dialogue and continues to steal from the party, until her entire dialogue's answers are chosen correctly and she joins the party. Although at that point, she will acknowledge the previous encounters by offering to return "some" of the money she stole earlier.
* Averted in ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireII''. When you're trying to smuggle your partner out of town in a garbage can, the guard will stop you and ask what you're carrying. Any of the three responses will work. Later on, the party is asked by a monk what the true name of their god is; answering correctly will let you skip a boss fight.
* ''VideoGame/DiscoElysium'' lampshades the trope: in the endgame encounter with "Dolores", one of her criticisms of the PlayerCharacter is that they treat conversations like dialogue trees.
* Averted in at least one instance in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout|1}}'', where you can lie about having done a particular quest. If you chose to lie and get found out, you can go and do the quest, and come back only for him to tell you "I think you're just lying to me again. Go away." [[spoiler:Particularly annoying if you rely on this trope, since completing his quest is the only way to get the PowerArmour and {{BFG}}s]]
** Also one instance in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 2}}'', where if you fail to convince the guard first time and try again, the guard remarks that you didnt even walk behind the corner before coming back and giving another excuse.
** Sometimes played straight and sometimes averted in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}''. NPC characters have a hard time remembering if you've insulted them unless it drove them to attack you; however, when you're given a chance to make a Speech check, you only get the one chance - botch it and you can't convince them to let you try again. Not related to Speech checks, if you [[spoiler:steal the Power Armor Mr. Crowley is hoping to retrieve]], the NPC in question will never talk to you again, [[spoiler:instead only saying, "You stole what was rightfully mine."]]
** Sometimes played straight in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas''. Some dialogue trees have a "skill check" as your only dialogue choice. If that skill is too low your response isn't very good. In those cases you can fail the check and try again after boosting that skill and the person doesn't even seem to find it odd that you were less eloquent before reading a magazine and putting on leopard-print nightwear.
* Justified in ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'', where you can give a password as "Uh, sic semper cough, cough ...", then come back with the real passcode. It's Justified because you're speaking to a computer.
* Averted in ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia''. At one point you have to deliver a letter to a king to help one of your party member friends, but the king is ill and the guards will not let you inside his castle. Just after the first two guards deny you entry, two other guards appear and tell the first two "Your shift's up.". This allows you to leave and come back shortly, after you get the help of a [[spoiler: future ally]] who allows you to pretend that you're helping her deliver sacred wood inside the castle.
* Numerous examples in ''VideoGame/EarthBoundBeginnings'', often just for fun but there are some particularly complex trees which must be solved through trial and error in order to proceed.
* A required feature in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedI''. You can kill someone, turn a corner and hide in a haystack, wait for thirty seconds and then do it again. Nobody notices the man in white when he emerges from his hiding place. Justified in that the [=NPCs=] aren't actual people, but rather Altair's memories of them, [[UnreliableNarrator as remembered by]] [[GeneticMemory his descendant roughly 800 years later]].
* In the ''VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork'' series, the quiz givers will ALWAYS repeat the exact same lines, and give the exact same questions. Always. Apparently they have forgotten that you have just done their quiz and failed, odd, as you would think that they would consider a rare item as a prize a reason to remember those who have taken the quiz.
* ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords'' has a non-dialogue aversion on Dantooine. A running theme across the game is that people aren't exactly happy with Jedi ''or'' Sith; for normal people, it's hard to tell the difference between one group of superpowered folk running around with lightsabers and another group that does the same thing, and whenever one of them goes after the other, regardless of who starts it, they have a tendency to set the entire galaxy on fire along the way. The people of Dantooine in particular don't like Jedi because the presence of an Enclave made the area a prime target during the Jedi Civil War. As such, running around with your lightsaber visibly equipped tends to make people angry or at least hesitant to talk to you - and they're ''not'' going to conveniently forget that you just talked to them with a lightsaber equipped if you back out of the conversation and put it away before trying again.

!!Examples

* In ''VideoGame/StarControlII'', you can ask a question as often as you like, unless you offend the person you're asking when you ask the first time.

* Subverted, unsurprisingly, in ''VideoGame/GrimFandango''. Part of the Rubacava section requires you to go through a security checkpoint, and the first time you go through the guard has you place all of your items on the nearby table. Later, after you've annoyed the guard so much that she throws away an item you need, you can return to the checkpoint and attempt to go through again. The guard appears to mindlessly repeat the earlier conversation about placing your items in the table...until she makes it clear she ''does'' remember you by following those instructions with a suggestion to "jump out the damn window!"

* ''Franchise/IndianaJones'' adventure games normally avert both the password variant and this trope in general by making you fist-fight any guards you fail to bluff your way past. However, in ''VideoGame/IndianaJonesAndTheFateOfAtlantis'', there's a sequence where you can ''only'' learn a password by first admitting you ''don't'' know it (this will give a hint about where to find it).
* ''VideoGame/TheLongestJourney'' had a few of these, the most blatant being a high-strung secretary who won't let you into the CorruptCorporateExecutive's office. You can go through every option in the DialogueTree (all of which will fail), then leave, come back with a pizza and pretend to be a delivery girl (in the same set of clothes), and he'll let you through. Although he does acknowledge that your character April does look familiar, but April pretty much gas lights him into believing you.
* In the second ''VideoGame/TexMurphy'' game, Tex is on the phone trying to convince another man to meet with him. This requires a very specific set of (lying through your teeth) conversation steps, and if you say the wrong thing at any point he'll hang up on you. But don't worry, you can call him back two seconds later and repeat the process from step 1; he'll be none the wiser.
** And if you've done the whole thing right and convinced him to meet you, but forgot to use the address tracker to find out where his home is, well, you just do the whole thing again.
* Ridiculously common in the ''Franchise/AceAttorney'' games. In this case, it's also PC Amnesia, as you can repeat an entire conversation in the exact same way multiple times. Sometimes, taking advantage of this is even necessary to continue the game.
** You only have one shot at getting April May to tell you about her employer. Blow it and you have to drop by Grossberg to find out.
* Subverted in ''VideoGame/SamAndMax'': you need a password to get into the back room, and the trope works just as described even though you are obviously not a member of the mafia (as they all wear giant bear heads). However, the first thing that happens when you get through is that they're ''impressed you were able to steal the password'', and are offered a position in the mafia provided you do some other jobs for them. Incidentally, one of Sam's initial guesses before you get the password is "[[ThePasswordIsAlwaysSwordfish Swordfish]]"
* Averted in ''VideoGame/GeminiRue''. At one point, you have to ask a fellow at the front desk of an apartment building the room number of Matthius Howard. But he won't give it to you without (what he thinks is) a legitimate reason and there is in fact a correct solution. If you fail to provide one, he'll refuse to speak with you for the rest of the game. At which point, you can call your partner, Kane to call the guy and ask for the number, which he'll relay to you. Played straight later, though. In which you have to convince a smuggler to meet up with you, and no matter how many times you botch the conversation, he's willing to give you another chance to convince him despite his apprehensions.
* Averted in ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDead''. '''Every''' single thing you do and say will be remembered by everyone around you, and can come back to haunt you several chapters later.
* This happens a few times in ''VideoGame/ChainsOfSatinav''. While posing as a messenger to gain access to a pirate ship, you need to answer the guard's three questions. You can't find out the answer to the second question until you've been asked it by the guard and sent away. Then, when you come back with the answer and repeat the conversation up to that point, you learn that you need to know what it's called in pirate jargon. Now leave, come back, and have the exact same conversation again! Later in the game, there's a conversation with Olgierd [[spoiler:where you try to convince him not to kill himself]] that can be very repetitive if you fail to address his arguments satisfactorily and have to start a dialogue branch over. However, this conversation is optional [[spoiler:since you'll eventually get the item you need whether he kills himself or not]].

!!Non-video game examples

* Subverted in ''VideoGame/SamAndMax''.. you need a password to get into the back room, and the trope works just as described even though you are obviously not a member of the mafia (as they all wear giant bear heads). However, the first thing that happens when you get through is that they're ''impressed you were able to steal the password'', and are offered a position in the mafia provided you do some other jobs for them. Incidentally, one of Sam's initial guesses before you get the password is "[[ThePasswordIsAlwaysSwordfish Swordfish]]"

* Numerous examples in the original ''VideoGame/{{MOTHER|1}}'', often just for fun but there are some particularly complex trees which must be solved through trial and error in order to proceed.

* ''Franchise/IndianaJones'' adventure games normally advert both the password variant and this trope in general by making you fist-fight any guards you fail to bluff your way past. However, in ''VideoGame/IndianaJonesAndTheFateOfAtlantis'', there's a sequence where you can ''only'' learn a password by first admitting you ''don't'' know it (this will give a hint about where to find it).

** The latter case is less an example of this trope as there is an (incredibly obscure) way to find this out.
*** Or, you could just have [[spoiler:played the first game.]]

* {{RPG}}s often have a similar, if simpler, situation where an {{NPC}} will ask a yes or no question. You can answer "Yes" and get some information, then come back and answer "No" to get different information that might also be important. Or answer "No" first. It's all the same to the NPC, who doesn't recognize you as the flip-flopper you are.

* [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII Yuffie]] appears to the party as a random battle encounter. If, during the post-battle scene, the player answers wrong, she'll disappear, stealing from you. She keeps coming back with the same dialogue and continues to steal from the party, until her entire dialogue's answers are chosen correctly and she joins the party. Although at that point, she will acknowledge the previous encounters by offering to return "some" of the money she stole earlier.

* Happens frequently in the DOS game ''VideoGame/GodOfThunder''.
** To be specific, it happens:
*** In chapter 1, when you go to get the bridge repaired.
*** In chapter 3, when you try to enter the [[spoiler: resistance headquarters]].

* Accidentally parodied by ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' with its [[http://video.aol.com/video-detail/saturday-night-live-season-1-land-shark/1415496980 Land Shark routine]].

* Subverted in ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'', where you can give a password as "Uh, sic semper cough, cough ...", then come back with the real passcode. It's a subversion because you're speaking to a computer.

* ''VideoGame/TheLongestJourney'' had a few of these, the most blatant being a high-strung secretary who won't let you into the CorruptCorporateExecutive's office. You can go through every option in the DialogueTree (all of which will fail), then leave, come back with a pizza and pretend to be a delivery girl (in the same set of clothes), and he'll let you through.

[[AC:RealLife]]
* The former head of the U.S. Secret Service tells the true tale of how a group of fake check passers went up to a clerk, got him to cash some checks, then went outside, switched their hats, went back in, cashed more checks under a different name, went back outside, switched shirts, went back in...etc.
** This is a real quirk of human memory, especially in situations like this. People don't pay attention to things that don't directly concern them very often. A hilarious test into memory involved people signing in for a psych exam, but the real exam was memory. One researcher handed them the forms, then ducked behind the desk and a different person (including glasses, a beard, and a different shirt and hair style) collected the papers when they were done. You could switch out three times on most people, and no one would notice. In a situation where you meet lots of people (retail/secretaries) it is even easier to fool people.
*** A similar experiment was done with a "stranger asking for directions" format. The first experimenter would ask a stranger for help figuring out a map, and in the middle of this a couple people carrying a huge object would separate the pair, as the first experimenter switched out for the second experimenter, who just stepped in and continued asking as though he'd been there all along. They managed to change a white woman into a black man and no one blinked an eye.
*** There is a Website/YouTube [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBPG_OBgTWg video]] of Creator/DerrenBrown showing off this quirk, although he's a master at picking susceptible people out of a crowd[[note]]and lying/hiring actors[[/note]]. For an added bonus, the object being carried is Derren's own portrait. And yes, they switched Derren for a black man and an Asian woman and the person wouldn't blink an eye until he left.

* Nearly any "okay, what's the password?" question will have several wrong answers, and it's not uncommon that you can't learn what the password really ''is'' until after you've given at least one wrong one ([[OnlyIdiotsMayPass you didn't even know you had to find one until then]]). The guy asking never suspects you're just guessing, no matter how many bad passwords you give him.
** ''Franchise/IndianaJones'' adventure games normally advert both the password variant and this trope in general by making you fist-fight any guards you fail to bluff your way past. However, in ''VideoGame/IndianaJonesAndTheFateOfAtlantis'', there's a sequence where you can ''only'' learn a password by first admitting you ''don't'' know it (this will give a hint about where to find it).