History Main / NewRulesAsThePlotDemands

* The Creator/SylvesterStallone film ''Film/OverTheTop'' builds up to a [[ItMakesSenseInContext double-elimination arm-wrestling tournament]], and the announcer reminds us of this just about every time he speaks. Stallone's character, Lincoln Hawk, loses once to John Grizzly ([[CrazyAwesome whose psyche-out techniques include DRINKING MOTOR OIL and EATING CIGARS)]] in the quarterfinals, and his spirits are broken before his son reminds him that it's a double-elimination tournament and [[IronicEcho repeats a speech from earlier in the film]]. Hawk comes back to beat both Grizzly and [[TheRival Bob "Bull" Hurley]] to win the championship...but wait! We never did see Grizzly or Hurley lose before that, did we? Most of the championship went by in the form of a montage of every single match, in which we saw Hawk, Grizzly, and Hurley easily winning all of their matches...then we saw Hawk lose to Grizzly...and then we saw Hawk beat Grizzly, Hurley beat the other quarterfinalist, and Hawk beat Hurley after a single (albeit extremely long and climactic) match. The entire "double-elimination" aspect was apparently thrown out as soon as Hawk was done using it for a plot device.

** As a result, this also happenes during the design phase of a set. For example, during one test, [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=230768 Reaper from the Abyss]] was about to murder itself due to its Morbid ability, so the designer playing it added "non-Demon" to the playtest version of the card during the game.

* In his duel with Kajiki/[[DubNameChange Mako,]] Yugi calls an attack on "Full Moon". Three major problems with that. First, "Full Moon" is Yugi's own card and is on his side of the battlefield. Second, it's a magic card, not a monster. Third, he's trying to ''stab the moon with a sword''. Yet not only does this somehow work, it dramatically alters the battlefield, causing the tide on the battlefield to go out [[FridgeLogic lower than it was before he summoned the Moon,]] and ''beaching Kajiki's sea monsters''. Konami is well aware of how ridiculous that is, as evidenced by this card: [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Attack_the_Moon! Attack the Moon!]] And yes, the whole sequence made far more sense in the manga, where the card game was basically a hybrid of Dungeons & Dragons with Magic: The Gathering.

** Later, Yugi attacks it once its ATK was low enough for his weaker monsters to defeat it. However, it is stated that because Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon is a Fusion Monster that requires three Fusion Material Monsters, it must be attacked three times to completely destroy it, so Yugi's attack killed only one head. No other Fusion Monsters do ever display this characteristic and this is never brought up again.

* In the anime, the Egyptian God Cards cannot be affected by any card effect apart from each other's (for more than one turn), and in Ra's case, not even that. However, in the first duel with The Seal Of Orichalos, it does raise Obelisk's ATK. Apparently, because the Orichalcos is more ancient, it has more power than the Egyptian Gods. This in and on itself makes little sense as at the end of the arc the Egyptain Gods battle the Great Leviathan, essentially the God of the Orichalcos, and kick its ass.
* The duel against Dartz has quite a bit of this. First, it is said that The Seal Of Orichalos can't be made to leave the field by any means. However, Dartz does remove it, in order to activate an enhanced version, which is later replaced by an even more enhanced version. Then when the Pharaoh summons the Legendary Knights, they destroy the Orichalos anyway. When one of Dartz' monsters is destroyed, he pays all of his Life Points to summon Divine Serpent, a monster with infinite ATK, and an effect that makes him able to continue, even though he has no Life Points. Unsurprisingly, despite being hit by an attack with infinite power behind it, [[PlotArmor the Pharaoh still doesn't lose,]] and uses a card that also makes him unable to lose, as long as he keeps his Dark Magician Girl in play. Then the Pharaoh has two of his Legendary Knights attack Divine Serpent, and make their attacks constantly reflect each other, until their ATK raise to infinity. Then he suddenly sacrifices them in the middle of an attack, so as to summon a fused form of the Legendary Knights, which gains the infinite ATK, and then is able to destroy Divine Serpent, and win the duel.

* In his duel with Kajiki/[[DubNameChange Mako,]] Yugi calls an attack on "Full Moon". Three major problems with that. First, "Full Moon" is Yugi's own card and is on his side of the battlefield. Second, it's a magic card, not a monster. Third, he's trying to ''stab the moon with a sword''. Yet not only does this somehow work, it dramatically alters the battlefield, causing the ACTUAL tide (which actually rose when Yugi first played "Full Moon", how a card can control an actual real-life tide is never explained) to go out [[FridgeLogic lower than it was before he summoned the Moon,]] and ''beaching Kajiki's sea monsters''. Konami is well aware of how ridiculous that is, as evidenced by this card: [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Attack_the_Moon! Attack the Moon!]] And yes, the whole sequence made far more sense in the manga, where the card game was basically a hybrid of Dungeons & Dragons with Magic: The Gathering.

** Most infamously, Ash once managed to defeat a Rhydon by having Pikachu shock its horn, randomly guessing that it was his weak point. This bypassed his immunity to Electricity for some reason. A few sagas later, we learn that Rhydon's horn actually ''attracts'' electricity due to his Lightning Rod ability in order to protect his teammate, and it has absolutely no effect on the Ground-type Rhydon.

** The Winged Dragon of Ra returns in one duel and gains a new effect: after sacrificing all of his life points to power up Ra, the player who summoned it uses De-Fusion (a card that returns a fusion monster to the extra deck and summon the monsters used to fuse it from the GY) to...defuse Ra's gained attack points and regain them as life points.

* In his duel with Kajiki/[[DubNameChange Mako,]] Yugi calls an attack on "Full Moon". Three major problems with that. First, "Full Moon" is Yugi's own card and is on his side of the battlefield. Second, it's a magic card, not a monster. Third, he's trying to ''stab the moon with a sword''. Yet not only does this somehow work, it dramatically alters the battlefield, causing the ACTUAL tide (which actually rose when Yugi first played "Full Moon", how a card can control an actual real-life tide is never explained) to go out [[FridgeLogic lower than it was before he summoned the Moon,]] and ''beaching Kajiki's sea monsters''. Konami is well aware of how ridiculous that is, as evidenced by this card: [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Attack_the_Moon! Attack the Moon!]] And yes, the whole sequence made far more sense in the manga, where the card game was basically a hybrid of Dungeons & Dragons with Magic: The Gsthering.

* Bandit Keith's Machine-Type monsters were immune to magic attacks to give him an advantage over Jonouchi, even though Yugi's Dark Magician was able to destroy the Meikyu Brother's Labyrinth Tank in an earlier episode.

* Obelisk's Soul Max effect changed during the Battle City tournament. First, it could destroy all enemy monsters and inflicts 4000 damage, but later in the finale, Obelisk's ATK increases to infinity instead. Not only that, Obelisk changes its color when powering up, something that didn't happen with the previous Soul Max effect.

* Anime/{{Pokemon}}:

* The Battle City rules themselves count as this. The rules used in the show were deliberately moved closer to that of the real life TCG with no greater justification than "Kaiba changed the rules for his tournament" even though he in no way owns the intellectual property of Duel Monsters. If the new rules had just been for Battle City, it would be one thing, since tournaments sometimes use HouseRules, but Kaiba somehow makes the rule change ''permanent'': even after the tournament is over, nobody ever goes back to the pre-Battle City rules despite these being the official ones in-universe. Even players from alternate universes use Kaiba’s new rules for some reason!

** Riding Duels are duels on motorcycles. They have some special rules and special Spell Cards, the Speed Spells. However, Yusei, Jack and Crow team up together to duel Rex Goodwin. The twist? They duel on their motorcycles, but Rex Goodwin [[IHaveTheHighGround has just high ground]] and stands there the whole time. There is no mentioned rule of semi-Riding Duels being possible. Like his three opponents, Goodwin is limited to use Speed Spells and he gets Speed Counters, which can increase or decrease the speed of the D-Wheel, but he has no D-Wheel. Later, he even says that Crow and Jack don't get any turns as long as they cannot drive their D-Wheels after they crashed ([[ScrewTheRulesIHaveSupernaturalPowers and they crashed because he sabotaged them in the middle of duel]]), but he still isn't riding a D-Wheel, yet he is excluded from the rule.

** In the Dark Signer arc, two of the Duels of Darkness were interrupted at the right moment when Yusei and Aki are about to lose. Later, Rudger and then Demack tells Yusei that Duels of Darkness cannot be cancelled, despite Kiryu and Misty exactly did that. While in Kiryu's case it makes a bit of sense, since Yusei's D-Wheel broke in the Duel which would automatically end the Duel, but Misty's excuse was not very convincing.

** The ''Manga/YuGiOhArcV'' manga has Yuya using tokens for XYZ summon to summon [[spoiler: Dark Anthelion Dragon]] which shouldn't be possible as tokens can't actually be used for XYZ summons. To clarify, the moment a token leaves the field, it ceases to exist. XYZ materials are not considered to be on the field so it's impossible for it to be attached to a XYZ monster. This is also why Sangan[[note]]a popular target of getting sent to the graveyard.[[/note]] does not trigger if it was used as material as an example.

** In the simulated duel, Kaiba summons Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon. The writers forgot that Slifer's Lightning Blast effect would decrease Blue-Eyes' ATK by 2000. Also, Obelisk's Soul Max effect happened during Kaiba's turn, which would be impossible.

** In the climax of Jaden’s duel with Yubel, we see the latter preparing to Fusion Summon a monster that will [[ApocalypseHow destroy all of existence if it goes through.]] Jaden stops this by using a trap that lets him select what will get fused, and then chooses to [[FusionDance fuse Yubel with himself.]] While there could be precedence for choosing Yubel, as they are a spirit of a monster and they did use their card self in the duel itself, Jaden is not a monster, or even a card in any way, shape, or form, and shouldn’t be a selectable target. Despite this, the fusion goes through anyway, which ends the duel. That said, this particular example is Justified in that the card used is a magical artifact established to have effects on the world outside the Duel, and not anything printed by Industrial Illusions.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'''s Spira is to death [[NarniaTime what Narnia was to time travel]]. Things start simple enough: when someone dies, their spirit must be "sent" (that is, [[{{Psychopomp}} magically transported]]) to the Farplane, Spira's version of the afterlife, and those not sent eventually transform into monstrous, feral creatures called fiends. Things get complicated later with the "Unsent," [[UnfinishedBusiness strong-willed]] (read: plot important) people who die but aren't sent, effectively tangible ghosts, and can pass on either by willingly fading away or by being defeated and then sent. (Whether an Unsent can actually be around a sending without suffering any "ill" effects is also inconsistently portrayed.) Still later, we see zombie-like Bevelle soldiers wandering the ruins of Zanarkand, humans in appearance but fiends in mind and spirit. [[spoiler:Seymour]] is just the opposite: he dies multiple times, becoming an unsent after the first time, achieving progressively more powerful fiend-like powers each time he returns but never losing his human identity, in contrast to [[spoiler:Auron]] who is also an Unsent but never receives any fiend powers. Then there's the Fayth, people who willingly gave themselves up to animate Aeons, who can be tied to one person's Aeon or everyone's. Plus, there's [[spoiler:Tidus and Dream Zanarkand, memories of people who ''may'' have existed maintained by the Fayth]]. Finally, there's [[spoiler:Yu Yevon]], who is more of a WalkingSpoiler than the rest here.

* ''Franchise/AceAttorney'' introduces new laws relatively frequently, almost without exception to inconvenience the defense. The most egregious example of this happens during the final case of ''VisualNovel/SpiritOfJustice'', [[spoiler:the prosecutor of which being the monarch of the country the trial is being held, who has no problems literally rewriting the law on the spot. Of course, she's also the culprit of both crimes you're going to court for, so she has a vested interest in winning the trial at all cost]]. In fact, the only way to win that case is to [[spoiler:make sure that these new rules are unenforceable by turning the royal guard against the prosecution]].

** Of course, in that particular example, [[spoiler:it wasn't exactly ''forcecage''; it was ''Xykon's Moderately Escapable Forcecage'', since Xykon [[BatmanGambit planned for Miko to escape anyway]].]] However, it's entirely possible that this was a hasty {{retcon}} by Rich Burlew in response to the abovementioned forum posters.
** The forums spent many a thread statting out [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0639.html Familicide]]. On the one hand, it could genuinely be done by epic spellcasting rules. On the other hand, initial estimates measured its Spellcraft DC by the hundreds, which may have been technically possible (it was researched by an epic level wizard, and cast by a wizard with the power of ''three'' epic level casters) but was insanely unfeasible and unlikely. [[ZigZaggingTrope On the third hand]], if you're willing to [[GameBreaker seriously cheese the rules]] (and your GM lets you get away with it), there ''is'' a notorious bug in epic spellcasting which allows one to build arbitrarily powerful spells for a small fixed cost. In any case, it's unlikely Rich bothered to come up with actual stats for the spell.
** And inevitably {{lampshade|Hanging}}d when Durkon employs [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0352.html Control Weather]] to generate thunder as a [[MakeMeWannaShout sonic attack]]. The following strip opens with an angel questioning the use of the spell thus, and Thor basically telling him to mind his own beeswax and not contradict the thunder god.
** [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0453.html A later comic had one of the Southern Gods telling (well, snarling at) Thor to back the hell off when he tries a similar feat outside his designated territory]].

* ''Webcomic/{{Goblins}}'' author Thunt ostensibly based his comic on Third Edition ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', and yet frequently writes low-level characters dealing improbably-strong blows to high-level characters, like [[http://www.goblinscomic.com/03032010/ here]] and [[http://www.goblinscomic.com/06222009/ here]]. In both cases, the wooden guy with the green hair is level 10, fighting against level 2 characters. He's claimed that the fights 'work out fairly' within the HouseRules he uses, at one point averting the trope by giving a play-by-play explaining how the fight would play out if it were at a gaming table.
** It would be irresponsible, however, to not point out that one of the second level characters in question is named [[MinMaxing Minmax]].
* In ''Webcomic/{{Erfworld}}'', the DM set up an unwinnable scenario, flat-out saying that the only the players could have won was to cheat. After the DM ends up stuck in the scenario, he does that: he [[spoiler:uses necromancy to reanimate a ''[[FantasticNuke volcano]]'']].

* In the first RP of ''Roleplay/DarwinsSoldiers'', scientist player characters weren't allowed to carry heavy weaponry. For some time in the first RP, Zachary got to wield a bazooka and he wielded a RPG in the final battle.
** The rule about "no heavy weaponry for scientists" was rescinded for the second and third [=RPs=]

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'', the fairy bible "Da Rules" provides frequent examples of this trope. One being that new sub-points of certain rules are added so that the plot can't be magically fixed. For example, magic can't interfere with love (i.e. wishing a partner to move away to [[MurderTheHypotenuse eliminate a rival]]). In a later episode, they add that the rule doesn't mean both parties have to be [[StalkerWithACrush in love with each other]]. It has also been hinted that new rules to avoid some wishes appear every time a wish goes horribly wrong.
** Parodied in the episode where Poof debuted, in which a rule was meant to be implemented but nobody got around to it. It's a joke that's used at least twice when Timmy asks why he can't wish one of his Godparents to be pregnant, with Wanda then Jorgen Von Strangle (the main rule maker himself) having to check Da Rules when asked about it, and leading to the above.
** Also of note is that [[GenieInABottle genies]] aren't bound by Da Rules, but this [[JackassGenie isn't necessarily a good thing]].
** One episode has Cosmo picking Da Rules and ripping off the page that says he they can't help Timmy win the movie's competition, but he never does it again. The funniest part is, Timmy changed his mind later so he didn't even break the rule.

* Carnies have a term called an ''alibi'', which is when someone who has apparently won a game of chance is told about a previously undisclosed rule, in order to be able to deny giving them a prize. A common example is stating that the player crossed an invisible "foul line." At least most of them are up front about not allowing underhand shots.
* The UsefulNotes/{{N|ationalFootballLeague}}FL has some rules that are so obscure that even coaches are not generally aware of them. Sometimes they are called attention to in playoff games, which leads to accusations that the league is manipulating the outcome to allow the more popular team to advance to the UsefulNotes/SuperBowl. Infamous examples include the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuck_rule tuck rule]], which changed the outcome of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuck_rule_game 2002 [=AFC=] Divisional Playoff Game]], and the "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_Emanuel Bert Emanuel]]" rule, so named when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had an apparent pass reception overturned by officials in the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999–2000_NFL_playoffs#NFC_Championship:_St._Louis_Rams_11.2C_Tampa_Bay_Buccaneers_6 2000 [=NFC=] Divisional Championship Game]]. The latter ensured that the "Greatest Show on Turf" offense of the St. Louis Rams, considered to be more ratings-friendly than the Buccaneers' stifling defense, would reach the championship; while the former extended the chances of the New England Patriots and Tom Brady's star power. A non-playoff example occurred during a 2010 game between the Detroit Lions and Chicago Bears, in which a potentially game-winning touchdown catch was overturned when officials ruled that Lions receiver Calvin Johnson failed to maintain control of the ball because [[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/12/calvin-johnson-touchdown-_n_713897.html he set it down too quickly after catching it]].
** The problem with the NFL the amount of nit picky rules that the human refs are supposed to take into account along with the general vagueness of a lot of rules coupled with the limitations of the review system. For many years, the official NFL rule book was not available on the internet ([[http://www.nfl.com/rulebook now it is]], along with the offical casebook), and most people aren't privy to NFL officials meetings that clarify interpretations of the rules. Most of the examples would definitely be subjective for these reasons (they may appear to be bad calls to people on the losing end or 50% of non-vested viewers while the other half will feel otherwise). An example: during a punt the ball was rolling into the end-zone and a player from the punting team dove onto the ball, initiated contact with the ball outside of the end-zone and released contact with the ball after it was in the end-zone. It was ruled a touchback, it was challenged, reviewed and upheld. The rule that allows you to down the ball is called illegal-touching and doesn't clarify (at least in the internet rules version) whether you just have to touch the ball or have to possess the ball for it to be downed. It's interesting because for it to be considered a fumble or a muffed reception, the receiving team merely needs to graze the ball. Interpretations of the rules seem to follow along the US Justice system whereby previous interpretations continue until corrected by a higher authority.
** Illegal touching means that the ball is downed when the kicking team gains control of it and cannot be downed in such a way as to give the receiving team worse field position than when the kicking team first touched the ball. Thus, if a member of the kicking team attempts to down the ball, but it goes into the endzone off his hands, it's a touchback. If the ball is deflected toward the receiving team's endzone and then downed, the ball is placed back where it was first touched. And now for the GameBreaker: if a ball is touched by a member of the kicking team and a member of the receiving team then gains control before the kicking team does, the ball can be advanced by the receiving team, and the receiving team CANNOT FUMBLE. If the kicking team recovers a fumble or intercepts a lateral pass on such a play, the ball is downed instead of going back to the kicking team. This means that, except for the risk of throwing the ball back through your own endzone for a safety, there is no risk to attempting a rugby-style multi-lateral pass play (which like pulling the goalie in ice hockey, is normally reserved for an end-game desperation play, but is a free option on a delayed penalty, wherein the opposing team is not allowed to gain possession).

* [[SocietyMarchesOn As society is constantly changing]], the law needs to be constantly revised, resulting in constant new laws introduced, and changes to original laws. Due to the obvious potential for abuse, many countries have a law banning or restricting ''ex post facto'' laws (also known as a Grandfather Clause), which makes laws unable to be applied retroactively (in other words, you can't prosecute someone if whatever they did was legal at the time). In some countries, new prohibitions cannot be retroactive, but ''repealing'' a prohibition is (in other words, if something becomes legal, the perpetrators are released from jail).
* The code for buildings, electricians, plumbers, etc is ''constantly'' being revised and changed to meet with new technology or to address things that were later realized to be not restrictive enough or ''too'' restrictive. Keeping up with these code changes is a major part of these peoples jobs. Like above, there is also a Grandfather Clause which states an installation that was up to code upon installation is ''still'' up to code even if such a thing would be prohibited nowadays, unless of course it is so blatantly dangerous that it is an active hazard (knob and tube wiring, lead piping for potable water, and friable asbestos being three major examples of things that ''must'' be removed upon discovery).

* Most tabletop roleplaying games incorporate what's generally known as "Rule 0," which is [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem the GM's word is law]], giving him free rein to adjust or ignore the rulebook at his whim as well as simply make up new rules on the spot. It's to be hoped that the GM will only do this to make the game more fun. HouseRules should generally be negotiated and agreed upon before play begins.

* An actual gameplay point of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsAdvance''. The game has "Laws", which are basically rules, the judge draw "law cards" and if ANYONE break the rules, get sent to jail [[TheAIIsACheatingBastard (Except bosses)]]. As the game goes on, more laws appear and you have to obey multiple laws at the same time, some of those laws are just stupid (No damage to monsters? How is that fair?!) and only appear because the plot requires the game to get harder. That sounds fairly simple until you see the "Advanced Laws", only Judgemaster Cid can use them and they are obvious plot devices.

** The second time is even weirder when you fight [[CopyCatSue Llednar]], who is actually invincible.[[spoiler:Cid says Llednar's Omega spell is too dangerous to use, and throws an advanced law at him to prevent him from using it. Except it doesn't prevent anything, after a short time Llednar will start to cast the spell, but Cid sends him to jail before he finishes it. Technically speaking, Llednar never managed to break the law since he was sent to jail before that, but thanks to that you can win the battle.]]
** [[spoiler:And lastly, there is an advanced law called "Fortune" created by the last boss and given to Llednar that makes him completely invincible. This goes against everything you learned so far, being immortal isn't a breakable rule and only Judgemaster should be able to use advanced laws. The last boss just says ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem]]
* In ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes2DesperateStruggle'', Sylvia decides to start changing the rules to the UAA matches, such as setting up a Battle Royale, allowing Charlie and his 24 cheerleaders to fight as a team, allowing Shinobu to fight for Travis but giving Travis the ranking, and [[spoiler:killing assassins who lose the ranking match without dying by their opponent's hand]].

[[folder:Web Comics]]

Games have rules. Those rules are around to [[CompetitiveBalance make everything fair and give everyone a reasonable chance for success]]. [[MagicAIsMagicA They do not always make logical sense, but they're there]].

This is not about the differences between rules in a work and rules in a game it's based on (the former will often be inherited from the latter), but when the rules of a work don't make sense and violate their own [[InternalConsistency internal logic]].

Deliberate and clear cheating which acknowledges that the characters are bending the rules, or finding some technicality to exploit, are also not this trope. The key is implausibility and being unbelievably complex.

* Dragon Poker, a game popular in the world of Robert Asprin's ''Literature/MythAdventures'' consists ''entirely'' of this. In-universe, its described as the most complicated game in the world, and has so many rules that to anyone who's never played (I.E. the readers) its functionally indistinguishable from CalvinBall. Gameplay is only vaguely poker-shaped and is equal parts moves that have never been mentioned before using cards that have never been mentioned before, and [[RulesLawyer Rules Lawyering]] over obscure rules and modifiers based on absurd things like the phase of the moon or which cardinal direction the player is facing when sitting at the table which completely change the values of cards and the outcomes of moves. Pretty much ever single move, card, or rule of the game gets mentioned exactly once in the entire series, and almost none of them are ever explained to the reader. This is, of course [[RuleOfFunny quite intentional]].
* The climactic duel in ''[[Literature/TheHeirChronicles The Warrior Heir]]'' is traditionally fought to the death, but [[spoiler:Jack and Ellen tell the organizers to go stuff it in the end, gambling on the fact that there aren't a lot of Warriors and the traditionalist Wizards aren't about to reduce their numbers]].
* In the third/fourth Literature/RangersApprentice books, [[spoiler:Halt]] is banished by the king, but instead of the traditional "exile for life," it's only for one year, since [[LoopholeAbuse the "for life" bit is tradition, not law]]. Everyone around is very much aware that the King is doing his best to skirt the rules, but since everyone is rather fond of [[spoiler:Halt]] and realizes his value, nobody complains about it too much. It technically ends up being eleven months and five days, thanks to more LoopholeAbuse.
* In ''Literature/TheSwordOfTruth'', magic seems to work however writer Creator/TerryGoodkind needs it to in a given scene, even if earlier information has suggested that magic can't work that way. One of the clearest examples is the Mord-Sith's method of capturing wizards; they are able to steal any magic used on them and use it against the wizard, including protective spells. Despite this being established, the wizard Zedd later states that the Mord-Sith are not a threat to him because "I have protection." The strong implication is that he has a protective spell that prevents them from stealing his magic, but this would be impossible as they could steal the protection spell as well. It's just one of many examples.

[[folder:Literature]]
* Dragon Poker, a game popular in the world of Robert Asprin's ''Literature/MythAdventures'' consists ''entirely'' of this. In-universe, its described as the most complicated game in the world, and has so many rules that to anyone who's never played (I.E. the readers) its functionally indistinguishable from CalvinBall. Gameplay is only vaguely poker-shaped and is equal parts moves that have never been mentioned before using cards that have never been mentioned before, and [[RulesLawyer Rules Lawyering]] over obscure rules and modifiers based on absurd things like the phase of the moon or which cardinal direction the player is facing when sitting at the table which completely change the values of cards and the outcomes of moves. Pretty much ever single move, card, or rule of the game gets mentioned exactly once in the entire series, and almost none of them are ever explained to the reader. This is, of course [[RuleOfFunny quite intentional]].
* The climactic duel in ''[[Literature/TheHeirChronicles The Warrior Heir]]'' is traditionally fought to the death, but [[spoiler:Jack and Ellen tell the organizers to go stuff it in the end, gambling on the fact that there aren't a lot of Warriors and the traditionalist Wizards aren't about to reduce their numbers]].
* In the third/fourth Literature/RangersApprentice books, [[spoiler:Halt]] is banished by the king, but instead of the traditional "exile for life," it's only for one year, since [[LoopholeAbuse the "for life" bit is tradition, not law]]. Everyone around is very much aware that the King is doing his best to skirt the rules, but since everyone is rather fond of [[spoiler:Halt]] and realizes his value, nobody complains about it too much. It technically ends up being eleven months and five days, thanks to more LoopholeAbuse.
* In ''Literature/TheSwordOfTruth'', magic seems to work however writer Creator/TerryGoodkind needs it to in a given scene, even if earlier information has suggested that magic can't work that way. One of the clearest examples is the Mord-Sith's method of capturing wizards; they are able to steal any magic used on them and use it against the wizard, including protective spells. Despite this being established, the wizard Zedd later states that the Mord-Sith are not a threat to him because "I have protection." The strong implication is that he has a protective spell that prevents them from stealing his magic, but this would be impossible as they could steal the protection spell as well. It's just one of many examples.
[[/folder]]

* In ''Film/TheCannonballRun'', they make a point at beginning of each team punching a card in a time clock to note their start time and the cars left at staggered intervals. This indicates that the winner would be the team with the best overall time, not necessarily who makes it to the finish first. At the end, all the racers act like it's the first team to punch their ticket that wins and JJ is mad a Victor for stopping to save a dog, despite the fact they left quite a bit after the "winner". Everyone else just gives up.

** As a result, this also happenes during the design phase of a set. For example during one test, [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=230768 Reaper from the Abyss]] was about to murder itself due to its Morbid ability, so the designer playing it added "non-Demon" to the playtest version of the card during the game.

** While in the English dub, Anubis tenfolds Theinen the Great Sphinx's ATK with [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveSupernaturalPowers magical powers,]] in the Japanese dub, Anubis activate Theinen's (anime) effect. Theinen gains the ATK of all monsters that are in Anubis graveyard, a total amount of 31,500 ATK.[[note]]3x Blue-Eyes White Dragon (3x3000), Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon (4500), Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon (3000), Familiar Knight (1200), Rare Metal Dragon (2400), Des Feral Imp (1600), Paladin of White Dragon (1900), Peten the Dark Clown (500, two of the three are banished), Spear Dragon (1900), Andro Sphinx (3000) and Sphinx Teleia (2500).[[/note]]

** The show seems to forget every so often that ''shooting'' your opponent's fingers... or head... or friends... with a ''marble capable of shattering stone'' is, in most games, a [[UnnecessaryRoughness flagrant foul]]. Not that the real things shoot like that, but still...

* In ''Manga/DragonBall'', this is how the rules of the wish-granting dragon Shenlong were constructed [[WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants as the story went along]]. At first Shenlong could grant any wish, no questions asked. This holds true until the Saiyan Arc, where it's introduced that he cannot restore someone back from the dead more than once (in addition to a similar rule where he can't grant the same wish twice), to add permanence to the later death of Chiaotzu. In the same Arc he also reveals that he cannot kill the oncoming villains as they exceed his power.[[note]][[FridgeLogic Why they didn't ask to blow up their space pods instead is anybody's guess]][[/note]] In the Namek Arc it's introduced that he cannot revive anybody who died of old age, [[RuleOfDrama just so that Kaio has to bank on the Grand Elder, the one he wanted to revive, on having died due to the added stress of Frieza exterminating his people]]. And at some point it's established that he cannot revive anyone who died over a year ago - [[Anime/DragonBallZResurrectionF except no]], he totally ''can'', but doing so returns the subject in the [[HalfTheManHeUsedToBe exact]] [[LudicrousGibs physical]] [[AndIMustScream state]] they were in at the moment of their death, rather than in full health.[[note]]It's worth noting that ''Anime/DragonBallGT'' introduced the Black Star Dragon Balls that operated under the original "any wish" pitch, with the downside that it would cause the planet the wish was asked on to blow up in a year if the Balls weren't collected from across the galaxy and returned).[[/note]]
* In ''Manga/MiyukiChanInWonderland'', Humpty Dumpty forced Miyuki to play a giant game of chess against her own [[EvilCounterpart lesbian reflection]] with full-sized scantily-clad human women as chess pieces, and whenever one piece took another, she'd bitch-slap the shit out of the piece that's just been taken, and [[TheNudifier her clothes would disappear]]. Also, the stakes are that whichever Miyuki lost would have to take her clothes off. And THEN it starts getting weird. the real Miyuki never said "Check" or "Checkmate", and we didn't see a single red/black piece take a single white/blue piece, and yet, all of a sudden, Humpty Dumpty declared the Reflection the loser and the reflection stripped.

** Ground type Pokemon had been hurt by Electric type attacks several times up to the Johto tournament, but with zero {{Foreshadowing}}, Ground types were revealed as immune to Electric type moves in said tournament. After this, the relationship of Ground types being affected by Electric type moves switches between immune and not immune as the plot demands.
** Ghost type Pokémon are generally portrayed as having the [[ElementalRockPaperScissors advantage]] over Psychic types ... outside of a single episode of the Johto arc, where is portrayed as having a ''dis''advantage instead.
** Solarbeam is a ChargeAttack, but sometimes certain Pokémon just fire it immediately without charging and with no Sunny Day to accelerate the process. This is especially blatant in the Kalos Saga.

** This is actually embraced as a core gameplay element. Official manuals stress that when the rules and a card effect conflict, the card takes priority, and basically any rule in the manual can be violated by some combination of cards. This includes cards that prevent you from playing cards, attacking your opponent, or even winning the game. This does mean that some combinations can create infinite loops or bizarre interactions which most players will have no chance of properly understanding. As a result official tournaments have long lists of specific rulings for many cards which explain their functionality in common strange interactions, as well as ''three'' levels of Judges who deal with rules disputes at tournaments.

** Then there are Silver Bordered cards (as opposed to normal Black Border cards), which intentionally turn this up even further. All Silver Bordered cards are explicitly not legal in any sort of formal play and don't exist on any digital clients of the game. They allow mechanics that don't actually work within the games normal rules, having cards that are both in your hand and in play, having non-integer stats (including fractions, infinity, and π), influencing games outside of the one they're cast in, and getting benefits from high fives from people outside the game. Silver Bordered cards exist primarily for joke sets and promotional cards, but some of the more feasible designs have inspired regular black-bordered cards, like Giant Fan inspiring Power Conduit and The Cheese Stands Alone being reprinted verbatim as the black-bordered Barren Glory. Some also are simply regular cards but with their effects turned UpToEleven, like having Triple-strike on top of the Black Border double-strike.
** To a lesser extent, this was the purpose of the oddball ''Future Sight'' expansion, the [[DenserAndWackier denser to the silver bordered sets' wackier]]. It included mechanics such as enchanting a card that wasn't in play, referencing a card type that didn't exist yet, and counting individual Mana symbols on cards. The set (and its precursors, ''Time Spiral'' and ''Planar Chaos'') were so difficult to parse (particularly for new players) that they directly inspired a massive change to the way sets were designed, particularly in regards to restricting more complex cards to higher rarity while making common cards significantly more straight forward.

* It should be noted that most of the examples in this section are based off of earlier parts of the series, when the rules for an actual physical card game had either not been created or were still in their infancy, as manga was first published in 1997 while the first set of trading cards weren't released until 1999. Basically, the games, cards, and interactions were treated more like {{Shonen}} fight scenes than an actual card game with defined rules. Cards are allowed to have creative or bizarre interactions resulting in complex cause and effects that often had some degree of logic behind it, but would never exist in a real card game. While some stranger interactions were eventually implemented in one way or another, many one off interactions are simply ignored for the rest of the series and in the game.
* In the first season, Duel Monsters was played on a large field with multiple areas of attack. Different monsters had different field advantages depending on where they were played that it was never possible to keep track of with the limited information given. Often the bonus would vary wildly from doubling a monster's stats to tripling them to raising them by 50%. Duelist Kingdom standardized it to 30%, resulting in weird things like the Player Killer of Darkness's Castle of Dark Illusions having 250'''9''' DEF.
* In the fifteenth episode of the second series anime, Yugi uses a monster called Catapult Turtle to launch a Fusion Monster, Gaia the Dragon Champion, at another monster, the Player Killer's Castle of Dark Illusions. This destroys the Dragon Champion on impact, causing Yugi to lose most of his Life Points (going from 1606 to 300 for no apparent reason) and the castle's flotation-ring to fall off, but it seemingly doesn't destroy the castle... until Yugi mentions that the Castle is now being held up by Yugi's Swords of Revealing Light (which were keeping all of the Player Killer's monsters paralysed). Yugi ends his turn, ending the effect of [=SoRL=], thus causing the destruction of the Castle... and all of the Player Killer's monsters, which were underneath and, due to the Player Killer's Chaos Shield, couldn't get out of the way in time. If these had been real, physical creatures engaged in a battle, this would be reasonably creative and entirely valid. But they're just cards in a card game, [[MagicAIsMagicA subject to the rules thereof]], so Yugi's trick had ''absolutely no basis in the rules'' ([[RuleOfCool but it looked cool]]).
* In the same episode as the above, the flying castle itself has the effect of hiding the villain's monsters in darkness, so Yugi can only attack the darkness and get his monsters killed by cards he can't see. How exactly is that supposed to work ''without'' holographic technology? 'You're attacking my monster. Sorry, it has higher ATK than yours. No, I can't prove it, that would defeat the whole purpose of the shrouding darkness. Just take my word for it, will you?'

* In his duel with Kajiki/[[DubNameChange Mako]], Yugi calls an attack on "Full Moon". Three major problems with that. First, "Full Moon" is Yugi's own card and is on his side of the battlefield. Second, it's a magic card, not a monster. Third, he's trying to ''stab the moon with a sword''. Yet not only does this somehow work, it dramatically alters the battlefield, causing the ACTUAL tide (which actually rose when Yugi first played Full Moon, how a card can control an actual real-life tide is never explained) to go out [[FridgeLogic lower than it was before he summoned the moon]], and ''beaching Kajiki's sea monsters''. Konami is well aware of how ridiculous that is, as evidenced by this card: [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Attack_the_Moon! Attack the Moon!]]
* The Yugi vs. Kaiba duel in the Duelist Kingdom arc gives us this little gem: Yugi is able to fuse one of his monsters, Mammoth Graveyard, with Kaiba's Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon using Polymerization to fuse the Living Arrow card (which has since become [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Spell_Shattering_Arrow Spell Shattering Arrow]]) with Mammoth Graveyard and then fire it at Kaiba's monster, resulting in a different Fusion... or something... in any event, the result was on Kaiba's side of the field. Because it was a Fusion of an "undead" monster and a "living" monster the unnamed Fusion Monster's ATK and DEF decreased by the ATK and DEF of Mammoth Graveyard.

* In Yugi's duel with the fake Kaiba, it's revealed that Mystical Elf, a Normal Monster at first glance, actually had the effect of transferring its ATK (1100 at the time, due to a Magic Card) to another monster you control. It also could, apparently, stop Spell Effects because it was "chanting a mystical chant."
* ''Makiu, the Magical Mist'' gets this an awful lot. It does something different every time it's played -- in the duel with Insector Haga, it washed away the spores of the Great Moth and powers up Summoned Skull; in the duel with Jonouchi, it's used during Jonouchi's turn to stop Thousand Dragon's attack; finally, in the duel with the possessed Keith, it weakens all his Machine-type monsters. To make things even better, in the original manga, the card was ''printed'' with the effect: "Water vapor surrounds all monsters on the field". Apparently, the players' imaginations were supposed to take care of the rest. This was a callback to the original design of the Yu-Gi-Oh card game, being an RPG similar to Dungeons and Dragons with a randomized card system. However, due to the ambiguity of the card effects, the idea was scrapped. These examples are a prime reason.
* Battle Ox, a monster without an effect, was resistent against FIRE monsters, just so Jonouchi would get a disadvantage against Kaiba. Additionally, Dinosaur-type monsters were weak against FIRE monsters for no reason, giving Jonouchi an advantage over Dinosaur Ryuzaki. This is later dropped.
* Summoned Skull also gets an effect in the duel with the Rare Hunter, where it charges up Alpha the Magnet Warrior's attack by 200 points [[note]]He doesn't even need to do that to win, he could have just attacked Exodia with Alpha then have Chimera and Summoned Skull finish him off in one turn[[/note]]. Throughout the series, Summoned Skull is implied to attack with [[LightningCanDoAnything electricity, which is used to give him a huge variety of added abilities]] (additional ATK points, greater range, etc). Furthermore, the first time Yugi uses Summoned Skull in the anime (when dueling Pegasus [[TheTapeKnewYouWouldSayThat through the video tape]]), Summoned Skull attacks physically, which is why it can't attack Pegasus quickly enough to win Yugi the duel. Of course, it could easily have attacked quickly enough with electricity.

* Each time The Winged Dragon of Ra is played it has a new power. First, there is that special writing which can only be seen under the light of the God (and that means the hologram). When Mai summons it, it doesn't work, since you need to read the text (that is written in Egyptian) to activate it. Marik promptly reads the text, taking Ra to his side of the field and activating it. Next battle, it has two new abilities: it can increase/decrease its ATK by decreasing/increasing his owner Life Points at the owner's will, and it can attack at the same turn as it has been summoned. And against Jonouchi, Ra has a Phoenix Mode that allows Marik to destroy all monsters of the opponent at the cost of 1000 LP, and it cannot be harmed in this mode. And this is all before the battle is against Yugi, when it shows its real power.

* Averted in Kaiba's reaction to the Winged Dragon of Ra. Midway through the series, Kaiba discovers through his computer that Ra has several 'unwritten' powers. Seeing as it's his tournament and he made the rules for it anyway, he could just declare that only the abilities listed in the text count, making Ra much easier to defeat, but he doesn't. Kaiba justifies this by saying doing so would really defeat the point of the tournament in the first place, which is to see who deserves to be called the best; if Kaiba were to [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem nerf his opponent's best card just so that he can win]], Kaiba would lose face, and more importantly, [[{{Hypocrite}} sell out his own principles]].

* Bakura tends to do this more often than not as his entire strategy. In Battle City, Dark Necrofear works to summon a Field card called Dark Sanctuary, which seems to be activated by the system reading his mind to see what card he designated the target without anyone else knowing. How this could actually be enforced under any situation, period, is not entirely clear though it is worth noting that this is not the case in the Japanese version. And in his final appearance, he manages to be in three places simultaneously and completely flouting the rules in all three. As Zorc, he ignores the effects of four separate all-destroying attacks. As Honda-Bakura, he uses a strategy that works purely by making his graveyard go away. The cards aren't banished and don't go to his deck or hand, which is the only place they can go, but the Graveyard just... goes away. And as the game master, [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem he explicitly says he's making up the rules as he feels like it]].

* When Kaiba introduces the new rules with the Duel Disk System, Fusion Monsters couldn't attack in the same turn when they are summoned. This rule disappeared since the fourth season.
* During the life threatening duel between Yugi and Jonouchi, where the winner gets the key to free himself from the anchor, Yugi chooses himself as Jonouchi's Spell Card's target. Yugi lose all of his Life Points, but Jonouchi realizes that his Spell Card allows him to be attacked by Yugi's Red-Eyes Black Dragon, so Jonouchi would lose all of his Life Points as well. Regardless how you look, Yugi lost his Life Points first, and Jonouchi needs minutes to figure out that he himself can be attacked. Both effects of his Spell Card do not work simultaneously.
* Before the duel between Jonouchi and Rishid, people could apparently create Fusion Monsters as long they have Polymerization. When Jonouchi drew it and he has three monsters on the field, the Spell Card was useless because he cannot fuse them for some reason. Presumably, having the fitting Fusion Monster is indeed needed, even this was never an issue before.

* Noa's duel with Kaiba/Yugi. Kaiba loses due to a card effect without running out of Life Points, at which point Noa turns him to stone. At which point, everyone seems to forget that Kaiba had ''lost'', and acts as if he is simply unable to continue the duel, so Yugi takes over from where Kaiba was at the previous turn, and on top of that he is for some reason allowed to mix his own deck with Kaiba's remaining cards for the rest of the duel. Justified, however, in that Noa [[CheatersNeverProsper frequently cheated]], and Yugi points out that Kaiba would have been able to win or force a draw otherwise. Noa rolls with Yugi's challenge because he wants to prove he's stronger, and because Yugi continuing where Kaiba left off means he's at a colossal disadvantage.
* In ''Manga/YuGiOhR'' there was an odd rule pertaining to Fusion Monsters; a duelist's field was considered to contain both the Fusion Monster and its components. This meant Yugi's Arcana Knight Joker counted as ''four'' monsters when determining the ATK of Devil's Eraser, which had 1,000 ATK times the number of opposing monsters. (The rule implemented simply to make it strong enough to defeat Arcana Knight Joker.)
* ''Anime/YuGiOhTheMoviePyramidOfLight'' is infamous for its errors, with some of them involving ignoring rules or effects.

** While in the English dub, Anubis tenfolds Theinen the Great Sphinx's ATK with [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveSupernaturalPowers magical powers]], in the Japanese dub, Anubis activate Theinen's (anime) effect. Theinen gains the ATK of all monsters that are in Anubis graveyard, a total amount of 31,500 ATK.[[note]]3x Blue-Eyes White Dragon (3x3000), Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon (4500), Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon (3000), Familiar Knight (1200), Rare Metal Dragon (2400), Des Feral Imp (1600), Paladin of White Dragon (1900), Peten the Dark Clown (500, two of the three are banished), Spear Dragon (1900), Andro Sphinx (3000) and Sphinx Teleia (2500).[[/note]]

* The Five-Headed Dragon was a Ritual Monster in the Virtual World arc, mostly because the Big Five didn't have Dragon-type monsters that can be fused into it. Later, at the beginning of the Grand Championship arc, it is a Fusion Monster, and it remains a Fusion Monster as seen several times in ''GX''.
* In the anime, the Egyptian God Cards cannot be affected by any card effect apart from each other's, and in Ra's case, not even that. However, in the first duel with The Seal Of Orichalos, it does raise Obelisk's ATK. Apparently, because the Orichalcos is more ancient, it has more power than the Egyptian Gods. This in and on itself makes little sense as at the end of the arc the Egyptain Gods battle the Great Leviathan, essentially the God of the Orichalcos, and kick its ass.
* The duel against Dartz has quite a bit of this. First, it is said that The Seal Of Orichalos can't be made to leave the field by any means. However, Dartz does remove it, in order to activate an enhanced version, which is later replaced by an even more enhanced version. Then when the Pharaoh summons the Legendary Knights, they destroy the Orichalos anyway. When one of Dartz monsters is destroyed, he pays all of his Life Points to summon Divine Serpent, a monster with infinite ATK, and an effect that makes him able to continue, even though he has no Life Points. Unsurprisingly, despite being hit by an attack with infinite power behind it, [[PlotArmor the Pharaoh still doesn't lose]], and uses a card that also makes unable to lose, as long as he keeps his Dark Magician Girl in play. Then the Pharaoh has two of his Legendary Knights attack Divine Serpent, and make their attacks constantly reflect each other, until their ATK raise to infinity. Then he suddenly sacrifices them in the middle of an attack, so as to summon a fused form of the Legendary Knights, which gains the infinite ATK, and then is able to destroy Divine Serpent, and win the duel.

** Call of the Haunted's effect was changed to its real life counterpart, while in ''Duel Monsters'', it had an entirely different effect -- not to mention it was a Spell Card (in the original) back then.

** In the climax of Jaden’s duel with Yubel, we see the latter preparing to fusion summon a monster that will [[ApocalypseHow destroy all of existence if it goes through]]. Jaden stops this by using a trap that lets him select what will get fused, and then chooses to [[FusionDance fuse Yubel with himself]]. While there could be precedence for choosing Yubel, as they are a spirit of a monster and they did use their card self in the duel itself, Jaden is not a monster, or even a card in any way, shape, or form, and shouldn’t be a selectable target. Despite this, the fusion goes through anyway, which ends the duel. That said, this particular example is Justified in that the card used is a magical artifact established to have effects on the world outside the Duel, and not anything printed by Industrial Illusions.

** The newly introduced Synchro Monsters with new rules related to them. This is justified, considering that the game has advanced so far between ''5D's'' and ''GX'', it is actually an aversion. This feat is later repeated with the Xyz Monsters in ''ZEXAL''.
** Yusei is dueling Rudger. Rudger has his Earthbound Immortal Uru on the field, as well as the Field Magic Card "Spider Web". Earthbound Immortals cannot be attacked while a field magic card is on the field, so Yusei pulls some LoopholeAbuse and declares that he'll instead attack Rudger directly, a strategy that, needless to say, is impossible...[[SubvertedTrope now]]. This was actually the original ruling for the specific wording of this particular attack-immunity effect possessed by the actual Earthbound Immortal cards (originally used for the Legendary Fisherman of Kajiki (the freaky fish guy) fame). The original ruling had been [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem overrode specifically by Konami]] for these and subsequent cards to make them more viable. Cards that retained the old ruling now specify, via errata, that they allow for direct attacks so as to avoid confusion.

** In the Dark Signer arc, two of the Duels of Darkness were interrupted at the right moment when Yusei and Aki are about to lose. Later, Rudger and then Demack tells Yusei that Duels of Darkness cannot be cancelled, despite Kiryu and Misty exactly did that. While in Kiryu's case it makes a bit sense, since Yusei's D-Wheel broke in the duel which would automatically end the duel, but Misty's excuse was not very convincing.

** The effects of some cards were changed to make them closer to their real-life counterparts. For example, Junk Warrior's effect was a Continuous Effect in the early part of the anime, later it's changed to a Trigger Effect. And Blackwing -- Sirocco the Dawn could be Special Summoned from the hand if there are only monsters on the opponent's side; the Special Summon part is later changed to "Normal Summon without Tribute".

** In Episode 43, Kaito Releases Yuma's monsters to summon his Photon Kaiser. This is iffy enough because the rules don't seem to specify whether the two are sharing fields or not (the previous episode implies this is not the case, as Kaito's Photon Pressure World Field Spell damages everyone who doesn't control a Photon monster, and Yuma is damaged by it). What happens next is a blatant example, however. To clarify, Photon Pressure World's effect is that when a Photon monster is summoned, everyone who doesn't control a Photon monster takes damage equal to the summoned monster's Level x 100. Kaito summons Photon Kaiser, and for some reason (most likely that Yuma would lose otherwise), Photon Pressure World doesn't activate. With no good reason. And the card text is written in such a way that the effect is compulsory. At best it might be argued that Kaito summoned Photon Kaiser to Yuma's field (which it plainly wasn't, and in any case has no basis to begin with). Doing so would damage III and IV, but not Kaito because he had Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon out.

** During Sora's duel with [[SpellMyNameWithAnS Yuto/Ute]], Yuya joins them ''in the middle of the duel'', playing on Sora's side. This obviously violates the rules without any question, but his Duel Disk accepts his action as legit and activates the Battle Royal Mode. Yuya has his own field and starts with 4,000 LP while the other two duelists don't, giving him an advantage and Yuto a big disadvantage. Additionally, the plot progresses a lot thanks to Yuya joining the duel and major questions of the series are revealed as a result.
*** Sora also disappears in the middle of the duel, so it becomes back to 1-on-1. This is still a weird situation for a duel. Again though, Sora didn't withdraw so much as he was forcibly teleported [[spoiler:back to his own dimension]], so the magical/sci-fi element isn't exactly something we have rules for in real life. Yuri's duel with Yuzu is also ended without a winner or a surrender when the same thing happens to him.
** The Battle Royal is not only legal in-universe, but it is also used in the Maiami Championship. The only illegal part is that you cannot join in the duel when you aren't participating in another on-going duel. If you do, you get 2000 penalty damage. This might be a special rule for the tournament because people won't get much advantage like Yuya did before. Generally, the Battle Royal Mode is a plot device that allows the writers to break more rules and traditions from the previous series in order to advance the plot or to give their characters more CharacterDevelopment. Or just for RuleOfCool.

* ''Anime/YuGiOhVRAINS'' has the "Storm Access" skill used by Playmaker in speed duels, and it allows one extra deck monster to be added to the deck while in battle. Although it didn't garner as much reaction and many even copied the skill, later on, this trope works for the villains as Bohman and Windy can somehow spam their Skills in the middle of a Master Duel with little explanation as to how. Meanwhile, Queen used a similar skill against her battle with [[spoiler: Ai and it's implied they all cheated since the first two are AI and Queens's the one who owns and controls LINK VRAINS.]]

** The effect of Magic Cylinder seems to depend on the era it is played. In the ''Duel Monsters'' era, it reflects the attack to the attacking monster, and it’s first appearance implies the player must control a Spellcaster. In the ''GX'' era, it reflects the attack directly to the opponent, like in the real game. The latter is played early on by Sho, while the former is used by Yugi during his duel with Judai, who somehow traveled to the past.

** To a lesser extent, this was the purpose of the oddball ''Future Sight'' expansion, the [[DenserAndWackier denser to the silver bordered sets' wackier]]. It included mechanics such as enchanting a card that wasn't in play, referencing a card type that didn't exist yet, and counting individual Mana symbols on cards. The set (and it's precursors, ''Time Spiral'' and ''Planar Chaos'') were so difficult to parse (particularly for new players) that they directly inspired a massive change to the way sets were designed, particularly in regards to restricting more complex cards to higher rarity while making common cards significantly more straight forward.

* ''Series/StargateSG1'' does this for the eponymous Stargate. The Stargate is a machine that can create a wormhole and take you across the galaxy in the blink of an eye. At the beginning of the series, they set out a few simple rules for the Stargate technology: The wormhole can only terminate at another Stargate (justified, in that it's basically a souped-up telephone), the wormhole only transmits in one direction (because of reasons, and science, and stuff), the wormhole can only remain active for 38 minutes (because of other reasons, and different science, and stuff), nothing can come through the wormhole if there's something directly in front of the Stargate's event horizon (this one actually makes sense!). After they lay out these rules, they proceed to break them in every succeeding episode and explaining it away by having a scientist say something polysyllabic. The 38 minute deadline is violated repeatedly, including the very episode where it is introduced.

* ''Series/StargateSG1'' does this for the eponymous Stargate. The Stargate is a machine that can create a wormhole and take you across the galaxy in the blink of an eye. At the beginning of the series, they set out a few simple rules for the Stargate technology: The wormhole can only terminate at another Stargate (justified, in that it's basically a souped-up telephone), the wormhole only transmits in one direction (because of reasons, and science, and stuff), the wormhole can only remain active for 38 minutes (because of other reasons, and different science, and stuff), nothing can come through the wormhole if there's something directly in front of the Stargate's event horizon (this one actually makes sense!). After they lay out these rules, they proceed to break them in every succeeding episode and explaining it away by having a scientist say something polysyllabic. The 38 minute deadline is violated repeatedly, but for some reason this always surprises people.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIIRemake'': The [[spoiler: controversial TwistEnding]] blatantly violates '''all three''' of [[SandersonsFirstLaw Sanderson's Laws ]] by suddenly introducing [[spoiler: ''multiverse theory'']] into VII's narrative, while also implying that [[spoiler: the same Sephiroth from '''after''' the events of ''[[Anime/FinalFantasyVIIAdventChildren Advent Children]]'' has [[DiabolusExMachina somehow]] gained the ability to time-travel [[MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight in an attempt to avert his defeat at the climax of the original game]]]].