History Main / SchrodingerFu

[[quoteright:243:[[GuiltyGear http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/faustwoohoo1.gif]]]]

->'''EDI:''' If two AI weapons are pitted against each other, the one with superior hardware will always win. Human misjudgements defy predictive models.
->'''Joker:''' License to screw up, commander. You heard it straight from the [[SpaceshipGirl ship]]!
-->--'''''MassEffect2'''''

Some fighters have [[FragileSpeedster speed]], some have [[MightyGlacier strength]].

Proponents of SchrodingerFu have ''unpredictability''. Their attacks and motions are chatoic, making them difficult to read and predict. They are the natural nemesis of those blessed with AwesomenessByAnalysis. Stylish SchrodingerFu fighters sometimes double as {{Dance Battler}}s.

TruthInTelevision on rare occasions. John Von Neumann [[hottip:*:founder of Game Theory]], said random strategies are unique in having no consistent counter.

Sister trope to SpannerInTheWorks, in a general sense. See also DrunkenMaster, DrunkenBoxing.
----
!!Examples

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* ''{{Aiki}}'': One of the bizarre training regimens involved doing a crazy dance so that your strikes couldn't be seen.
* Ginji in ''{{Getbackers}}''.
* Ikki in ''{{Air Gear}}'' does this in his battle with Buccha.
* ''{{Naruto}}'' has Rock Lee, but [[DrunkenMaster only when he's drunk off his ass]], [[CantHoldHisLiquor though that's easily accomplished.]]
** Naruto himself is often referred to as the "number one ninja at surprising people", after all. This is the main reason he was able to beat Neji and Kakuzu: both times he caught them off-guard by using a [[DoppelgangerAttack Shadow Clones]] charge where the real one was hiding where it made the ''least'' amount of sense to.
** A smaller example is Hidan's scythe, which he swings around on a cord making it fly around in a manner that's incredibly hard to predict and thus block (and if you even get a scratch [[BloodMagic you're pretty screwed]]). That's probably why the first thing Shikamaru did in the rematch was destroy the cord with an explosive.
** Bee's swords style (where he [[DualWielding wields seven swords in everything but his hands]] while spinning around) is too damn weird for even the [[CombatClairvoyance Sharingan to predict.]]
* Monkey D. Luffy of ''OnePiece''. Case in point when the methods he used to defeat [[AGodAmI self-proclaimed god]] [[PsychoElectro Eneru]] was not just due to [[ElementalRockPaperScissors having the properties of]] [[RubberMan rubber]], but to catch him off-guard even when another of Eneru's godlike abilities is ''predicting your attacks by reading your thoughts''. He did this by ricocheting his attacks off a wall, Luffy himself didn't know which way they'd ricochet, and therefore had no control over his own attack, which means that Enel couldn't read his mind to evade them.
** Hilariously enough, his first attempt to defeat the mind-reading was to think nothing, but since this consisted of him becoming an idiot for a few seconds, he forgot to attack. A life of badassery, however, gives him an innate instinct that allowed him to dodge every one of Eneru's attacks as easily as Eneru dodged his own... he just couldn't fight back.
* Natsu from ''FairyTail'' tries the same trick against a similar opponent -- only Natsu can apparently fight quite efficiently when his thought processes shut off. Even better, it doesn't seem like he was actively trying to not think -- [[IdiotHero his thoughts stop rather easily.]]
* Not involving fighting, but this is key to all of Tylor's victories in ''IrresponsibleCaptainTylor''.
* Kaori of ''{{Saki}}'' accidentally managed this by being a [[UnderdogsNeverLose complete beginner]] in her table during the tournament, making her completely unpredictable to everyone else who were deeply steeped in the professional MetaGame. Even Mako, who has a PhotographicMemory of thousands of past Mahjong games and can therefore decipher what the other players are planning based on them, couldn't get a read on her since she had never seen how amateurs played.
* ''SamuraiChamploo'''s Mugen uses a style based on apparently random sword strikes and spinning kicks which make him unable to be beaten by (or to beat) the classically trained Jin, although he eventually gets taken apart by AwesomenessByAnalysis master Kariya Kagetoki who works out the patterns underlying Mugen's instinctive attacks while commenting that, because he attacks on nothing but instinct, he involuntarily reveals all his limitations to his enemy.
* In ''ShinAngyoOnshi'' this is pulled off in army level. Seeing how the BigBad relied heavily on mind reading, Munsu rolls dice to determine the army's strategy.
* In the second season of ''HajimeNoIppo'' (subtitled ''The New Challenger''), Takamura ends up fighting one of these for the World Championship belt -- a crazy american who goes up against Takamura's orthodox boxing-style with a wild, crazy, uncontrolled street-fighting style, including weird sways and punching upwards from a bent-backwards position. Amusingly enough, this resulted in them turning into a RedOniBlueOni matched pair, even though Takamura is usually as crazy as they come...
* [[AxCrazy Vigo]] from ''{{Psyren}}'' gets frustrated when [[spoiler:Shao]] reads his mind. First tactic- think so much that it's much harder to read him. Second tactic- '''stop thinking'''. [[spoiler:It works frighteningly well.]]
* Jounouchi from ''[=~Yu-Gi-Oh!~=]'' builds his deck around this trope, many of his cards (Time Wizard, Roulette Spider, Graceful Dice, Skull Dice, etc.) revolving around sheer luck of the draw, and can either give him an incredible advantage, or get him into a worse mess than before.
** Most duels in the ''[=~Yu-Gi-Oh!~=]'' franchise end with a character pulling out some "never seen before" card that allows him/her to make a comeback one turn short from suffering a humiliating defeat.
** ''{{Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds}}'' is an extreme case where in some occasions, the character in question obtains the card '''during''' the match.
* ''StarDriver'': This is pretty much the reason for Takuto's spotless winning streak: he makes a point of never showing a skill or ability unless it's absolutely necessary in surviving the fight so that the Glittering Crux have no idea what their opponent is capable of (and thus have no way to counter it) even a dozen battles into the series.[[spoiler:Takuto still had some items in his bag of tricks for the very final battle]].
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[[folder:Comics]]
* Done in ''Regifted'' during a hapkido tournament; the main character takes a move from her sparring buddy, that she describes as idiotic, ''and it works''; no one would know to expect it.
* {{Deadpool}}, from Marvel Comics. To the extent that he once defeated ''[[AwesomenessByAnalysis the freakin' Taskmaster]]'' by sheer unpredictability -- Tasky thought that Deadpool was about to get angry and sloppy, but he ''really'' just [[CrazyAwesome started on a dance number]].
** While it's true that Deadpool is an unpredictable fighter, that specific example doesn't compute. When your enemy is able to read and copy every one of your moves, acting crazy is just the most sensible action. DareDevil did the same trick years ago, goading Taskmaster into jumping in front of a moving car.
* In ''{{Watchmen}}'', Dan says that Rorschach was a good fighter because he was unpredictable. Probably related to the fact that he's [[CrazyAwesome not quite sane]].
* This is usually the reason given as to why the Joker can occasionally actually win at hand-to-hand combat against Comicbook/{{Batman}}.
** Tim Drake managed to overcome [[{{Batgirl}} Cassandra Cain's]] bodyreading ability by throwing out all style and just going with what felt natural. Note that ''[[DidNotDoTheResearch this is not how body language works.]]'' While Cassandra takes it to [[CharlesAtlasSuperpower impossible levels]], the principle of reading someone's body language to react to their actions faster is completely sound, and something people do all the time. Throwing out all style should have just made him telegraph his moves all the more, as avoiding such a thing takes the greatest amount of skill.
* ''TheAuthority'': This is one of the few ways to beat Midnighter, as it completely confuses the precognitive computers in his brain.
* ''{{Nextwave}}'' famously and hilariously had ''Schrodinger's Death!''
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music]]
* JamesBrown doesn't know karate, but he knows ka-razy.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live Action]]
* Wong Fei Hung in ''The Legend of The Drunken Master''. His drunken boxing style is ALL ABOUT doing stuff that seems insane or physically impossible to do.
* ''{{Pirates of the Caribbean}}'' : As anyone who's fought Jack Sparrow of more than once knows he's a wicked [[{{The Chessmaster}} Chess Master]] with a one-track mind, sometimes the only way he can win a fight is by being unpredictable.
* Near the end of ''Chocolate'', Zen gets rather badly beaten by [[spoiler:a man with Tourette's syndrome. Her usual method of evading attack, anticipation, is ruined by his tics - she can't tell them apart from his attack tells. Only when she starts mimicking his tics does she get any offense in.]]
* ''{{Film/Serenity}}'': So says JossWhedon in the commentary, regarding the [[CurbStompBattle end fight]] between River and the Reavers:
-->"My wife often refers to this style of fighting as 'just keep waving things until they go away'.".
* In ''QuantumOfSolace'', this is what lets the physically unthreatening villain stay alive (temporarily - not a spoiler, it's a ''Bond Film''). He flails about so wildly that [[JamesBond Bond]] can't really fight him effectively - that is, until the ''downside'' of wild flailing is illustrated, when the villain performs an inadvertent axe-foot interface that is excruciating to watch.
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[[folder:Literature]]
* In ''The Oval Amulet'', Paragrin beats Cam by swinging wildly. Kirk, however, knows what he's doing.
* ''The Traveler'' by John Twelve Hawks: The [[HeroSecretService Harlequins]] are sworn to protect the titular [[TheChosenOne Travelers]] from a [[TheEmpire totalitarian shadow government]] which seeks to [[{{Anvilicious}} eliminate liberty and free choice]]. To fight these control-freaks, Harlequins "cultivate randomness". They are deliberately unpredictable in battle and go so far as to use random number generators to make decisions in order to confound predictive tracking algorithms.
* ''TheElenium'' by DavidEddings: Taking it to other levels, the reason Sparhawk can stick the metaphorical middle finger up to the gods is because he moves outside destiny, and therefore even the ''gods'' can't predict what he's going to do next. In one of the few cases of this ''ever'', this is {{Jossed}} ''in-universe''. To wit: [[spoiler: In ''TheTamuli'' trilogy which follows on the heels of the ''Elenium'', one of the fundamental forces of the universe says that even its own path may be thwarted by random chance; lesser beings like mere Gods are just as subject to deviation from their intended plan. The gods are freaked out at Sparhawk/Anakha because Anakha is said universe-shaping powers' ''son'', making him not only a God but a God more powerful than any in the world, unique in the universe - if only he could release his full potential.]] It's implied (though never directly stated) that the whole "lack of destiny" deal is a smokescreen to help keep him from realizing exactly what all of this implies.
* Rincewind of ''{{Discworld}}'' too is a walking entropy generator. [[TheGrimReaper Death]] once said so himself, and his [[DeathsHourglass hourglass]] is equally unpredictable due to its strange shape.
--> [[AC:with him here, the only certain thing is uncertainty. and i'm not even sure of that.]]
** This has less to due with Rincewind himself, and more to do with Rincewind being The Lady's favorite pawn.
*** There is a reason that Rincewind is her favorite pawn. Even without her favor (which works against you just as often as for you) he's still capable of achieving victory by a mixture of base cowardice, chance, a whole lot of cunning, and by being very sensitive to danger. Hero of a thousand retreating backs indeed.
** Also from the Discworld, in ''Monstrous Regiment'' it is said the worst opponent a skilled fighter can go up against is an amateur, because there's no telling what crazy thing they will try to do.
** When Mort and Death fight it's noted that while a scythe is not preeminent among weapons of war, once it gets spinning its practically impossible for anyone, including the wielder, to tell where it's going to be next.
* ''Literature/TheScar'' by [[{{Ptitlen9ir3dhv}} China Miéville's]]: Uther Doul has a probability-altering sword that's this trope at its most literal. It passes through all the paths it could potentially have taken with each swing, and he's taught himself a random, uncontrolled style to maximize the effect.
** Although, it's not a totally random and uncontrolled style. Complete randomness would cut himself up as much as his enemy. Complete control would leave too few alternate possibilities to be effective. It has to be somewhere in the middle, controlled but not precise.
* An example occurs in the second book of Brandon Sanderson's ''{{Mistborn}}'' trilogy, when Vin counters Zane's ability to see the future by using his movements to figure out what she's going to do next, and then doing something else.
* In FredSaberhagen's early ''Literature/{{Berserker}}'' stories, the berserkers were [[OmnicidalManiac omnicidal]] self-replicating war machines whose combat strategies were driven by a random number generator, seeking to avoid predictability at almost any cost. As the series progressed, this aspect of the berserkers' programming came up less and less often and the berserkers' strategies became much more logical.
* ''HonorHarrington'' once referenced the adage that "The best swordsman does not fear the second best, he fears the worst since there's no telling what that idiot is going to do."
* The woman known as Schrodinger's Cat in Eric Flint's ''[[JoesWorld Joe's World]]'' series. When she fights it's possible to keep track of where she is, or what she's about to do, but not both.
* In ''AConnecticutYankeeInKingArthursCourt'', the narrator notes:
-->The best swordsman in the world doesn't need to fear the second best swordsman in the world; no, the person for him to be afraid of is some ignorant antagonist who has never had a sword in his hand before; he doesn't do the thing he ought to do, and so the expert isn't prepared for him; he does the thing he ought not to do; and often it catches the expert out and ends him on the spot.
* ''TheDresdenFiles'': Harry Dresden often defeats opponents with hundreds, sometimes ''thousands'' of years of experience on him, buttloads more magical talent and skill, and vastly superior physical abilities often by doing things that are the exact opposite of sensible. With a bit of [[XanatosPlannedThisIndex every Xanatos trope ever]] thrown in. Yes, even XanatosSucker. On Harry.
* '[[EndersGame Shadow Quartet]]'': Achilles from the is stated to be one of these; though he is not a particularly smart genius compared to others from Battle School, he is able to orchestrate globally significant events by being unpredictable.
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[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* In ''{{Engine Sentai Go-onger}},'' Hiramekimedes, master of AwesomenessByAnalysis, kept losing to Hiroto, who was even better at it... [[spoiler: so he went OneWingedAngel and adopted a ''nonsense-based'' style, fighting crazily and yelling things like "1+1=300!" He was winning until Sousuke, who has the usual HotBlooded hero's style of "charge in mindlessly and win via plot convenience," stepped in. ''Throwing his sword and riding it like a surfboard,'' he managed to finalize Hiramekimedes singlehandedly.]]
* ''DoctorWho'': The idea is sort-of mentioned in passing in "Resurrection of the Daleks". The Daleks, and their enemies the Movellans, are engaged in a war against each other. Both sides are more machine than animal (the Movellans are possibly androids, maybe cybernetically enhanced bio-forms), and each side controls their entire battle fleet from a giant supercomputer. Because both fleets are using [[StrawVulcanpurely logical]] tactics, the computers never launch an attack, as the opposing computer can instantly create a counterattack scenario. They both realise that the only way for either side to win is to turn off their battle computer and do something random, as a totally logical battle plan is doomed to fail due to its own predictability.
* ''SmartGuy'': ChildProdigy TJ is [[SmartPeoplePlayChess beaten at chess]] by a computer. In the rematch, he wins by deliberately making bad/random moves, having learned while practicing how hard it is to play against someone who doesn't know how to play well. [[LogicBomb The computer virtually melts down in response]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* From ''[[{{Warhammer 40000}} Warhammer 40,000]]'', the Ork Shokk Attak Gun and the Inquisition Orbital Bombardment are both extremely erratic and unpredictable -- which is part of what makes them so fearsome.
** The Orks in general have a lot of this, although their fantasy counterparts go a little further -- your units might decide not to move this turn... or they might go charging off extra-fast...
** [[AlwaysChaoticEvil Chaos Daemons]] are all about this, with this trope being their [[PlanetOfHats racial hat]]. To illustrate, you literally cannot guarantee beyond a 66% certainty that a unit will start the game on the board!
*** On that train of thought, anything that uses Deep Strike deployment (barring [[ItsRainingMen the... safer kinds]]), involving dropping a unit anywhere on the table and rolling dice to see if or where the unit will deviate to. Landing on other units or impassible terrain has a 1/3 chance of [[CriticalExistenceFailure killing the entire misplaced unit instantly]]. (In previous edition, such an offending unit would be killed instantly ''every single time''!) The advantage to this? Your ranged weapons (barring [[DoNotRunWithAGun heavy weapons]] ''will'' be in range to unleash [[MoreDakka a hail of death]], or the otherwise incredibly short-ranged [[KillItWithFire flame template weapons]]. A unit that deep strikes is pretty much always a GlassCannon that would not survive walking up the table normally.
*** Oh, and every unit in a Chaos Daemon army deep strikes ''after'' the enemy deploys, with half the army entering battle the first turn in this manner and the rest coming in at random intervals. One of the Daemon's greatest strengths is that, to paraphrase Sun Tzu's BigBookOfWar, they can discern their enemy's form while themselves remaining formless. One of their greatest weaknesses is they really suck at getting into play in the formation the Daemon player would like them to.
* An old staple in ''[[DungeonsAndDragons Dungeons & Dragons]]'', starting with 2nd edition, is the Wild Mage. Conceptually, his casting power level is modified by a die roll whenever casting a spell, and each spell has a small chance of producing a "wild surge", which is something completely random from a long list. The original list had 100 entries, but various fanmade lists on the Internet are far longer. Then he gets a spell that does nothing ''except'' produce a random effect. In 4th edition, this is severely toned down. The "Chaos Sorcerer" has numerous random effects (such as attacks that deal damage of a random element) but lacks true wild effects because they don't fit the strict ruleset, or because they would be disadvantageous to the caster. Usually a player character (and this can be highly frustrating to the ''other'' player characters), but there's nothing stopping the Dungeon Master from throwing one at you.
** Before that, there was the Wand of Wonder, which was Wild Magic on a Stick. Best used when desperate... or bored.
** The Wild Mage in ''D&D'' Miniatures also has the Wild Surge, but its effect simply modifies spell damage. Contrasted with the Green Slaad, a chaos monster whose spells also have random effects but could include ''fireballing'' your own army.
** Speaking of Slaadi, as embodiments of pure chaos they do ''everything'' this way. This should certainly include fighting.
** A 3rd edition sourcebook included "Drunken Boxer" as a PrestigeClass.
* Paranoia has the infamous [[http://www.crd-sector.com/uv/r&d/weapons.htm#Probability%20Grenade Probability Grenade]], which can and do end sessions in a TCK (that's Total Complex Kill, yup). The list, however, is so off the wall that it can only go here. You will learn to FEAR 00.
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[[folder:Video Games]]
* It's this basic principle that often lets inexperienced [[ButtonMashing button mashers]] beat experienced players in fighting games (and other games) at least a few times. Skilled players and the AI are generally predictable, but it can be tricky fighting a flailing foe whose moves are often the ''worst'' in a normal situation.
** "Often" is a relative term here. In any half-decent fighting game the experienced player will win 99% of the time anyway.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBn5wMnqVSY&feature=related 3D fighter maker.]]
* Voldo in ''SoulCalibur''. Very few characters in the series can keep up a volley of attacks at an opponent while ''facing the opposite direction''. Or while prone. And then there's his variety of interesting grab attacks, the most acrobatic of which is occasionally known by the FanNickname of "[[WheresWaldo Where's Voldo]] [[ShoutOut Now]]?"
** Ditto with Yoshimitsu. Yoshimitsu's repertoire includes propeller-based flight, teleportation, healing himself from the LotusPosition, {{Seppuku}}, spinning until dizzy, using his swords as stilts or pogo sticks, and a health-draining face grab, to name a few. Sometimes several of the above occur at once, and the health-drain also unlocks limited usage of a small move pool consisting of [[ShoutOut an attack borrowed from each Tekken character]].
* Kefka in ''DissidiaFinalFantasy''. He doesn't shoot a fireball at you; he'll toss one [[{{Roboteching}} that slowly tracks you across the battlefield while stopping and changing direction at random intervals]]. He won't crush you with an ice block; he'll throw one that stops ''just'' before you would expect it to hit you, and then explodes into shrapnel. His lightning attack doesn't directly hits you but instead hits around you, so you get fried when you try to dodge; ''most'' of the time, anyway. Some of the bolts ''do'' attack you directly, so standing still isn't a winning strategy either. His [[OneWingedAngel EX Mode's]] ability makes all of his attacks even ''crazier''.
** The sequel, ''Dissidia 012'', gave this attribute to Gilgamesh from ''FinalFantasyV''. With every melee attack, he picks a random weapon out of eight, each with varying effects. The Naginata has increased attack range, Masamune gives you double EX Force from hits, Excalibur does double damage and [[JokeItem Excalipoor does one damage with every hit]]. However, unlike Kefka, Gilgamesh becomes ''more'' predictable in EX Mode, choosing a set of weapons and sticking with it until he reverts to his normal form.
* Jack in ''PowerStone''. He walks on all fours with knifes in his hands and feet and has suprisingly long reach despite his main weapon being daggers. His Power Stone form has the longest non-projectile reach and has giant chainsaw hands with unique combos.
* Claymores in ModernWarfare2 online are only dangerous when placed at percise angles around corners... or in the middle of the ground with no rhyme or reason.
* Mr. Game & Watch and Wario in ''SuperSmashBros.'', thanks to their low-frame animations. Also, Game & Watch has genuine unpredictability in his Judgment attack.
** Luigi, starting in Melee, is a mild case of this. Although he looks like Mario, his moves function notably differently, throwing many people off. Several of his moves are designed to come from nowhere, his Green Missile can randomly launch him at killer speeds, and several of his moves (most notably his forward+A on the ground) are designed to be longer than they look. His floaty nature and low traction make him hard to combo. Finally, his Final Smash move in ''Brawl'' is just plain weird, inflicting random [[StandardStatusEffects status ailments]] on enemies (and inflicting sitar music on all the players).
** Sonic is another mild case; the unpredictability comes from the sheer number of his moves that start with very similar spinning animations but do wildly different things [[spoiler:and the fact that he can still attack after his recovery move]].
*** In particular, the Smash Bros. Wiki has severe trouble in gauging Sonic's Tier level, since, while the character doesn't perform universally well in tournaments (unlike high tier characters, such as MetaKnight) Sonic performs so radically different depending on who is playing him that any kind of tier level is theoretical at best.
** And Lucario has insanely weird hitboxes.
** Olimar uses Pikmin in all of his attacks. Each color of Pikmin has different properties, and when he creates them, they spawn randomly. When he performs an attack, the line cycles, so his next attack will use the next Pikmin in line. This means that different strategies open up depending on what order your Pikmin are in. Fun times for both players.
** A meta-example (not unique to SSB, but a good example) if using the random character select in tournaments - provided you're at least competent with all characters, your opponent not knowing who they're about to face until the last second can let you get the drop on them before they have a counter-strategy worked out.
* Brad Wong from ''{{Dead or Alive}}'' uses DrunkenBoxing, making his movements indirect and unpredictable.
** Due to the nature of the counter system in ''{{Dead or Alive}}'', making your character do this is one of the most significant skills.
* ''GuiltyGear''
** Faust. Three of his moves are explicitly random, one super involves ''swimming through concrete'', and his Dust (a universal popup attack) has him become a tornado, change into a child with a baseball bat, smash the opponent, and tornado back. In ''XX'', Venom challenges him to a fight on the grounds that he needs to train against someone who doesn't follow human logic.
** Zappa. He's an ordinary man, who happens to be possessed by no fewer than seven different ghosts, and they do the fighting by using him as a puppet, leading to incredibly strange attacks and movements. He also randomly summons these ghosts one at a time, changing his moveset as he goes. While the player has no way of telling what ghost might pop up next, neither does the opponent.
* ''{{Tekken}}'':
** Eddie Gordo (and his student Christie Montiero), with his weird capoeira ground-fighting moves, is sometimes impossible to predict unless you know his character inside and out.
** Lei Wulong has several different stances, plus a variety of moves that can be used from the ground or while facing the other direction.
** Ling Xiaoyu also has two stances, some effective combos that hit someone behind her, and the ability to roll or cartwheel off to the side of her opponent.
** Dr. Boskonovich from ''Tekken 3'' has an unfortunate tendency to fall over for no apparent reason but capitalizes on it with several ground combos.
** Mokujin. At the beginning of each round, he randomly chooses the moveset of a random character to fight with.
* ''KingdomHearts'':
** Most Nobodies in have some degree of unpredictability, due to their random stretching and boneless flailing. Organization XIII members (in fact, any Nobodies resembling regular humans) don't have this advantage. [[{{ThatOneBoss}} Not that they need it.]]
** The [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Mysterious Figure]]. You never know just how he'll two-shot you. Maybe he'll do his spear-whip two times in a row, or maybe he'll do his blade combos after it, or maybe his tornado attack. Or perhaps he'll use Megaflare and then some unavoidable thing before you can cast Curaga. [[BeyondTheImpossible Or maybe he'll just do a random combo of all of these while having ten copies of himself running around the field doing each their own thing as little balls of light fly around trying to stab you with more spears, lagging your [=PSP=] to high-heaven]].
* ''[=~Pokémon~=]'':
** Some Pokémon do this. Mew can learn all TM and HM moves in the game and has the stats to do fine in whichever archetype it needs. Smeargle takes this even farther; while its stats are much worse, it learns Sketch, which permanently copies a move and can be used to learn ''any move that exists in the game''. More subtly, there's [[http://www.smogon.com/dp/pokemon/clefable Clefable]] in 4th gen, whose new oh-so-abusable ability and large movepool allow for a ridiculous number of viable movesets, many of which are ''completely unique'' (while being kept from being a GameBreaker by mediocre stats).
** Salamence was arguably banned in Gen IV due to a minor case of this combined with being rather powerful in its own right. Its two primary sets, [=MixMence=] and [=DDMence=], were almost exactly the same barring one move-Draco Meteor for [=MixMence=] and Dragon Dance for DDMence-and possibly different EV spreads. Each set had radically different counters, and its checks generally relied on either a choice item or Stealth Rock. Very little could counter both sets, and the few things that could had their own weaknesses.
** Metronome is an attack capable of causing the Pokémon to use ''any'' available move in the game. The move Assist has a similar, but more controlled, effect as the 'mon using it will pull off a random move from any of its party member's current movepools. Sleep Talk is a very minor example of this, as it uses one of the user's ''other'' moves at random.
*** Played with in the anime, where May's Munchlax and Skitty probably won more contests with Metronome and Assist (respectively) than without.
* Bal-Baros in ''VirtualOn: Oratorio Tangram'' can leave his arms and hip-guns floating anywhere around the stage, meaning his can hit you from unexpected angles if you're not careful.
* Players in ''{{World of Warcraft}}'' who make active use of the Engineering profession for combat purposes often succumb to this. Most of their gadgets have a chance of backfiring, so an engineer toting a net launcher may snare a foe for several seconds, or launch themselves headfirst into melee with the foe. Rocket boots may yield a short but powerful burst of speed, or they may explode and hit everyone nearby. The shrink ray is guaranteed to change the size of ''something'', but whether something grows or shrinks, and whether that something is the wielder or the target is up to chance.\\
\\
Engineers fit this trope and the GlassCannon one as well. Due to high cost and low profit margins, players who specialize in engineering are traditionally some of the poorest in the game, with the crappiest armor and weapons. Fighting one can be a CurbStompBattle or you can find yourself turned into a chicken and taking over 5000 damage from a death ray.\\
\\
The randomness to Engineer craftables was eliminated with the second expansion; now everything works and is guaranteed to work. Perhaps to make up for that fact, everything was nerfed to hell.
* In the online MMORPG {{Dofus}}, there's a class based on doing damage on the roll of a die or the flip of a coin called Ecaflip's Coin. Two attacks even go out and heal the target after it damages it.
* ''{{Touhou}}'' character Marisa Kirisame does this in the fighting game spin-offs of the series, ''Immaterial and Missing Power'' and ''Scarlet Weather Rhapsody'', with quick and annoying attacks that mess with combos, including the dreaded "[[AssKicksYou Butt Attack]]".
** The latest sequel added Suwako, who takes this trait and amps it to 11. Her default standing position is ducking, ducking makes her ''taller'' by summoning a lily pad underneath her, she air dashes by flapping her arms, she ''swims'' through the ground in both her ground dash and several of her moves, and many of her attacks involve summoning trees in various places. She does not even walk. '''She hops.'''
** Both ''Scarlet Weather Rhapsody'' and ''Unthinkable Natural Law'' involve some random factor because of the weather and deck system: The weather will mess with you depending on which one that comes up, while the deck system allows you to either change your moveset on the fly or use super moves at the cost of cards.
** We might as well add Hong Meiling's final opponent. You've been fighting against typical opponents, all the while the background gradually becomes more simple in style. Then a giant catfish shows up. [[FlatWhat What]]. You already know the entire battle will be random.
* ''[=~Punch-Out!!~=]'''s [[{{Oireland}} Aran Ryan]], Wii version. He never holds still and slides all about the ring throwing in random punches. He's also a [[TheCombatPragmatist foul stinking cheat]] and incorporates headbutts, elbow strikes, horseshoes in his gloves and perhaps most blatantly of all a ''boxing glove on a rope'' that he swings around like a flail, into his attacks. Also, [[AxCrazy he's fucking crazy]]. We mentioned the crazy, right?
* ''GateKeepers'': The SuperPrototype beats the AwesomenessByAnalysis enemy general because its lack of a PowerLimiter makes it impossible to completely control. The general can't predict its random motions and thus can't hit it or defend against its attacks. The downside to not being able to control the prototype exactly is the risk that the attack you want to make isn't always [[RammingAlwaysWorks the attack you get]].
* ''{{BlazBlue}}'' has the insane EldritchAbomination Arakune, who fights much like you'd expect an insane blob-thing to fight. He can teleport, turn invisible, glide, fire out projectile clouds with random properties, and some of his moves are actually ''fake-outs'' for teleports.
** Now accompanied by [[MagicalGirl Platinum the Trinity]], who has six different modes to switch between. Her randomness is limited by the fact that her next mode can be seen by both players, but anything beyond that is as random as Zappa's ghosts.
* ''VirtuaFighter''. Shun Di, especially in ''VF 4 Evo'': starts out predictable, [[DrunkenMaster but you get enough drinks in him]], and there's basically no position he can't be a threat from.
** Real ife example, certain ''VF'' players use a playstyle called ''abare'' which emphasizes using an unusual style outside of what is considered the safe way to play a character to win a match.
* ''[[DawnOfWar Dawn of War 2]]'': In "Last Stand" mode, the hero Ork Mekboy has two types of teleporter armor. The standard "Teleporta Pack" allows controllable teleporting within a certain range. The other is the "Mad Teleporta Pack"; this grants the Reactive Escape and Reactive Teleport traits. The former trait is a 15% chance to teleport the mekboy to a random nearby location when the Mekboy is hit by a melee attack whilst the latter is a 50% chance to teleport the ''attacker'' to a random nearby location when the Mekboy is hit by a melee attack. The result of this is that when fighting a wave primarily composed of melee troops both you and your opponents are being more or less constantly teleported around the arena with absolutely no control over it. Its worth noting that from a practical perspective this is probably not a very helpful piece of equipment as it is just as likely to throw you into danger as get you out of it.
* ''[[{{Lufia}} Lufia: The Legend Returns]]'' Ruby has a few moves that rely on pure chance, such as "Fortune Dice", which simply has randomized effects, and "Double Up", which makes you play a card-guessing game to increase the power of the attack - a good run can be incredibly devastating, but guess wrong even once and you get a laughably weak attack. Of course, she's a habitual gambler whom you meet in [[GoldenSaucer a casino]].
* ''FinalFantasy'' has the Gambler class. Gamblers use slot machines, dice, and other random factors in their special abilities, which sometimes produce awesomeness and sometimes... don't. Examples include [[FinalFantasyVI Setzer]], [[FinalFantasyVII Cait Sith]], [[FinalFantasyVIII Selphie]], [[FinalFantasyX Wakka]], and anyone using the class in ''FinalFantasyX2''.
** ''FinalFantasyXI'' 's [[{{Pirate}} Corsair]] is a variation. Like the Bard, his job revolves around giving the party {{StatusBuff}}s, but he can make the make the buffs much more powerful with a "Double Down". Bad luck (or just being to greedy) can result in a "Bust", negating the buff.
* [[EnigmaticMinion Archer]] of ''FateStayNight''. He's an archer-class who prefers to DualWield ''swords'' in melee combat. His dress, weapons, and abilities do not match those of any known mythological hero, his personality is decisively non-heroic, and he has a magus-level knowledge of magical phenomenon, making it impossible to identify him. On top of this, he is shown to use multiple Noble Phantasms belonging to very different myths, in some cases even sundering the Phantasms as part of his attacks, normally a near-unthinkable, one-time TakingYouWithMe attack -- and no explanation as to where he acquired his Phantasms is forthcoming. Due to this, none of the other Servants can predict him, often giving him the advantage even though he statistically is one of the weakest of the Servants.
** In addition, [[spoiler:Kuzuki]] is master of an unconventional martial art that incorporates odd, hooked and snake-like movements: while this makes it less energy effective, attempting to dodge or block attacks as if they were straight punches from a "normal" style allows the user to hook back and pierce the opponents' defence, landing telling blows. Once the enemy sees through the unusual movement pattern, however, the style loses its effectiveness.
* Dhalsim from ''StreetFighter'' is quite possibly the first fighting game character to use this style, as his various angled jump attacks and different teleportation moves make him great at screwing with the opponent's head.
** In more recent versions, we're given Crimson Viper, El Fuerte and Abel, all introduced in ''StreetFighterIV'', and each one whose primary gameplay revolves entirely around scoring a single knockdown and keeping your opponent in an endless guessing game.
* In the ''MegaManBattleNetwork'' games that involve a light/dark system, one side effect of going dark is the ability to pull random Battle Chips out of goddamn ''nowhere''. When you fight a DS Navi (most often [=MegaMan=]'s own dark side), you can be moments from winning, only to get slaughtered by a [=GigaChip=]. But since this is random, DS Navis are just as likely to use low-level chips or miss you completely. If you choose to go dark yourself, you get the same ability in a modified form -- your dark side will take over when your HP runs out, fighting randomly for a while. In this case you'd better hope for ''good'' random draws, because you come out of berserk mode with just 1 HP.
* ''RuneScape'' has a small version of this; the Vyrewatch are a specific enemy that are normally undefeatable; it's said that they are able to read your mind so that they can predict your moves. Thus, you have to use an unpredictable weapon to land a strike on them. The [[EpicFlail Ivandis flail]] is a weapon which can only be controlled in a general sense - "swing it at that guy". Even the wielder can't tell where the blow will land, or from what angle, so the predictive telepathy is worse than useless.
** Oddly, the more Vyrewatch you kill with the flail, the more skilled you become with it... but counterintuitively, this ''improves'' the flail's efficacy, rather than allowing you (and thus the telepathic Vyrewatch) to predict its movement better. A true straight playing of SchrodingerFu would have the flail become slowly less effective as its wielder gained experience with it -- green recruits would be the best Vyre slayers, predictable veterans would be dead meat.
* ''BattleCapacity'' has Kitsunoh and Fidgit. The former loves setting up traps with long-lasting projectiles and diagonal headbutts, while the second has insane combo ability with a long range launcher, an equally long range air catcher, and an airgrab.
* In ''DefenseOfTheAncients'', most heroes have four skills; three normal and one [[LimitBreak ultimate]]. The Invoker hero has three "reagents", which grant minor buffs life increased speed or damage or regeneration, and Invoke, which grants a skill based on which reagents are active. Since there are ten possible combinations and the effects include summoning, buffing, disabling, creating temporary walls, four different attack spells (one with unlimited range), and turning invisible, it's very difficult to tell what an Invoker will do next. Since the Invoker is limited to having two skills readied at a time, it also makes him DifficultButAwesome.
* ''MassEffect2'': This trope is directly discussed by Joker and EDI. While EDI can control the ship all by herself, the ''Normandy'' can achieve maximum performance if Joker is manning the helm due to the page quote.
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[[folder:Web Comics]]
* Nemen Yi, the Chosen of Battles in ''{{Keychain of Creation}}'', fights using a unorthodox Sidereal Martial Arts style that involves MediumAwareness and BreakingTheFourthWall, literally. She jumps between panels of the comic strip, breaks off a piece of the gutter to throw at an enemy (which then pins them in place, because ''the gutter doesn't move''), tosses her opponents across panels, and uses the perspective of the comic to hit enemies out of her reach -- the RealLife equivalent of "I squish your head". It's enough to utterly baffle her Abyssal opponents, with whom she mops the floor quite handily. It doesn't hurt that, in ''{{Exalted}}'', Sidereals can make themselves impossible to predict by most people.
** She also looks down towards the following panels of the comic to see what will happen in the future. Yep, Sidereals.
* Lord Sykos from ''TheWotch'' is particularly dangerous because, though his moves are random, each individual move is also incredibly clever and effective, showing a keen understanding of the psychology of most magicians.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* Appears on ''TheGuild''. Kwan is revealed to be a champion-level gamer [[UpToEleven in Korea]]. He was defeated by [[spoiler:Mr. Wiggly]], who seemingly picked his spells at random -- including spells so unorthodox that Kwan hadn't bothered defending against them.
* [[http://survivingtheworld.net/Recitation48.html This]] SurvivingTheWorld comic advocates this strategy for Rock-Paper-Scissors.
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[[folder:Western Animation]]
* In an episode of ''CaptainPlanet'', Dr. Blight's evil computer MAL takes over an environmental simulation and is able to block out the protagonists' attempts to regain control. Then Wheeler steps in to confuse it into submission by randomly inputting commands into the terminal, [[ChekhovsGun like he had done earlier in the episode]].
* ''DarkwingDuck'': Crazed toymaker Quackerjack. In addition to his deadly toys, his sheer instability and unexpected acrobatics make him as much of a challenge as the other members of the [[FiveBadBand/WesternAnimation Fearsome Five]].
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[[folder:Real Life]]
* "The world's best swordsman need only fear its worst, because he has no idea what that idiot will do."
* Often seen in the chess world. Many's the amateur who succeeds through offbeat play, and even at the grandmaster level, some players favour bizarre openings like 1. b4. A 19th-century example, William Potter, is described in ''Lasker's Manual of Chess'':
-->''Potter probably saw through the emptiness and the presumption of the style then dominating and with his style of play he seemed to call out to his contemporaries: "You want to beat me right from the start by force of your greater genius? Look! I make ridiculous moves, and yet you cannot beat me. Become, I pray you, more modest and more reasonable."''
* DouglasAdams invoked this trope when he coined the word "Aboyne", which he described as ''"To beat an expert at a game of skill by playing so appallingly bad that none of his clever tactics or strategies are of any use to him."''
* Bruce Lee was in fact a huge advocate of this trope:
-->Become unpredictable, strike from your subconscious mind, let your moves flow out from your individual essence. Even the most masterful opponent will fall from a strike that has no history or reference, the moves created from your own individual unique essence may surprise even you.
* "Beginner's luck" may sometimes come from this -- in a game of moves, counter-moves and counter-counter-moves, sometimes the correct move against a professional is the most basic one. Until he dials down his strategy, of course.
* Chess playing computers play like this -- not bound to any strategy or school, but simply by picking the moves that will, in the long run, have the greatest chance of success. Or should have... Kasparov did win his 3-rd and 4-th games in a 4-game match against computer by ensuring that there is really no positive history for computer to rely on in the played games -- and going into purer Shrodinger Fu than computer was designed for netted him a win with the black.
* There are a handful of baseball pitchers who throw the knuckleball. Essentially throwing the ball with no spin, allowing the imperfections (mostly the seams) to determine the flight path. Such pitches are so unpredictable (even the pitcher doesn't know what will happen, the catcher usually wears an oversize mitt to help snag them), that some batters take the day off rather than have their timing and instincts ruined for the next several games.\\
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Even more so is the Spitball. It's actually banned from most professional leagues for its sheer unpredictability, which can ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Chapman kill a man]]'', although that wasn't so much unpredictability as invisibility. It's equivalent is still legal in Cricket, with certain exceptions (gouging the ball with your fingernails, for instance, is unacceptable while spitting on one side and polishing the other is no issue)
* The Wildcat Formation in American Football. There are four main plays (two rushing, two passing) that can be run from the Wildcat Formation, and all of them look exactly the same until the play is actually executed, making it difficult for the defense to anticipate what they must do.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Richard Maurice "Rocket" Richard]] was once asked in an interview how he planned his shots on goal. He answered along the lines of "If ''I'' don't know what shot I'm going to make, how will the goalie?"
* Pick a combat sport or martial art, any of them, from boxing to competitive martial arts to fencing, and this trope is partially in effect. To an expert, first-timers are tougher than beginners; first-timers are often so bad, all that expert's hard-won skill is thrown off by helpless flailing. Someone with no training and no understanding of the sport likely will do better (though still lose) than a beginner with some training. Becoming good means passing through a phase of drilling basic movements - and that makes a beginner highly predictable to an expert. This can be a difficult problem for an instructor. "You're really improving," sounds hollow when they did "better" their first time.
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