History Main / SetAMookToKillAMook

* In Halo 1, on the level Keyes, [[spoiler: after you find the flood infected captain]], a HUGE amount of flood forms rush into the room.
It's overwhelming, unless you realize you can open the door to the next area, which causes an equally irritateing covanant spec ops team to enter the room. Then hide in the back corner while the two sides waste each other.

* In ''StarWarsShadowsOfTheEmpire'', if a Wampa strikes another Wampa by mistake, the two beasts will fight to the death, leaving you with one dead and the other wounded for an easy kill. Using a cheat code you can even control the Wampas yourself and start the infighting.

* In ''PlantsVersusZombies'', the plant "Hypno-shroom" will cause the zombie that touched it to attack its fellow zombies in its lane until the hypnotized zombies are either eaten by other zombies or left the yard.

* {{Lampshaded}} and {{Averted}} in [[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089945/ Rustler's Rhapsody.]] As the villains move to surround him, Rex says "You know, the way you've positioned yourself, when the shooting starts you're liable to miss me and hit each other." The badguys look nervously at each other and them move back to their original positions.

* Lampshaded and Averted in Rustler's Rhapsody. As the villains move to surround him, Rex says "You know, the way you've positioned yourself, when the shooting starts you're liable to miss me and hit each other." The badguys look nervously at each other and them move back to their original positions.

* ''{{Minecraft}}'' lets you do this with skeleton archers. If they shoot at you and one of their arrows hits another enemy, a fight to the death ensues. Creepers actually drop a special item if they're killed by skeletons. In the Nether, the easiest way to kill zombie pigmen is to trick a fire-spitting ghast into blasting them.

** In Level 8 of ''Doom 2'', one room contains a Cyberdemon, a good sixteen Barons of Hell and four Invincibility power-ups - grab an Invincibility and get the Cyberdemon's attention, then watch the battle royale ensue. Near the beginning of Level 20, a pair of platforms lower to reveal a Cyberdemon and Spider Mastermind which promptly attack you, though it is trivial to trick them into fighting each other.

* In ''{{Portal}}'', when you are in a room with more than one turret, you can cause one to shoot down another. The victimized turret will actually respond to this with alarm, saying things like “Don't shoot!” and “Hey! It's me!”.

In some games, a {{Mook}} who gets injured will immediately and deliberately return fire on the offending party. In these games, it is sometimes possible, through speed and agility, to trick bad guys into picking fights with each other in the best traditions of the Circular Firing Squad. If it is impossible for one mook to injure another, that's DamageDiscrimination.

* {{MightAndMagic}} games has mind-control magic which occasionally worked as advertised. Most monsters were immune to it, however, and it needed to be cast from quite a distance for the monsters to start attacking each other instead of you.
** {{Might and Magic}} VII had monsters that fought each other, humorously allowing you to slaughter the entire village in the beginning of the game, because you happened lead the entire dragon fly hoard to the peasants and [[SarcasmMode their unstoppable army of two guards]]

* In HalfLife 2 you can, with the help of Alyx Vance, hack turrets and rollermines. When the former comes into play, you know you're about to get pummeled; when the latter does, you know there's a bunch of enemies coming up when you don't have a weapon yet.
** Also, enemies are divided into factions, and factions near each other fight even without trickery. Combine soldiers fight antlions and headcrab zombies, but zombies and antlions don't really get much chance to fight each other. A weapon available mid-way through the main game lets the player sic antlions on Combine soldiers intentionally.
*** There is exactly one scripted zombie vs. antlion fight: at the end of the bridge sequence in ''Sandtraps'', a zombie and a couple of antlions are occupying the same ledge that you need to get by, so you simply wait for them to murder each other.
*** There are actually 4 major factions, all hostile to each other. [[TheEmpire The Combine Empire]], [[LaResistance The Resistance]], [[GoddamnBats The Antlions]], and the [[PersonalSpaceInvader Headcrabs]] and Zombies.
* RatchetAndClank has a special weapon that causes enemies to fight against one another.

* The ''DeusEx'' games feature turret-hacking, as well as "scramble grenades" that turn robots to your side.

** Its sequel lets you do the same thing to organic enemies as well with Dominate, Morinth's bonus power. If you have AI Hacking as well, then you can pretty much make any enemy in the game do your bidding. For about 20 seconds.

** And long before that, simply kicking down a door can cause the two warring alien species to spot each other and then start spraying machine gun fire, launching spread rockets and firing Shocksplinter shells at each other. At times, they are already battling each other when you arrive at the scene. If you just wait a little, all you have to do is take down the few survivors before they pick up the healing items left behind by the rest.
*** Or, for that matter, abusing splash damage. If you're tough enough, you can intentionally get hit with a rocket while you're in a cluster of enemies, sending everyone flying. Nice for mining extra nano in a PacifistRun.

** Similar powers exist in ''FinalFantasyVI'' ("Control" - which requires Relm or Gogo to wear the FakeMustache Relic) and ''FinalFantasyVII'' ("Manipulate" - an ability granted by Manipulate Materia). In all three games, they can be very useful when trying to learn Blue Spells/Lores/E. Skills.

* This was a major feature of ''{{Doom}}'', although not made explicit through any particular power-up or ability. It was implemented in [[http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Infighting quite a simple way]]: alert a few enemies of different species, get between them, then dodge one of their attacks so it hits one of the other enemies. Another method is to get an enemy between you and another enemy and use the enemy as a living shield against the other's projectiles or bullets. Either way, war breaks out. This can be very useful in the hands of a skilled player.

*** An important note is that same-species infighting never happens among projectile throwing monsters. This also extends to the fact neither the Hell Knight or the Baron of Hell can hurt themselves or each others' species with their green plasma balls [getting damaged is what causes infighting to start]. The only way to get some enemies to go after others of their own species is to make them misaim melee attacks into an explodable object like a barrel that ends up hitting another monster of their species, and '''then''' they start trying to knaw and tear each other to pieces.

* ''DestroyAllHumans'' has the "Protect" command on hostiles in the first two games, and later the Zombie Gun.

** ''{{NetHack}}'' also features a variety of ways to turn hostile creatures into pets, including the Charm Monster spell and Scrolls of Taming.

* The "Steal Heart" Thief ability in ''FinalFantasyTactics'' can charm one of your enemies into turning on his or her team. In an interesting variation, it only works on humans of the opposite sex from the user, but works on any and all monsters, which [[MarsNeedsWomen has some strange implications]], [[{{Squick}} at best]]. Additionally, Orators can talk enemies into actually joining you so you can recruit them after the battle.

* ''{{Fable}}'' has a sort-of version of this in the form of the "Summon" spell, which summons a spectral version of a weak monster. If that weak monster kills an enemy, it assumes that enemy's form and goes on to attack other nearby enemies.

* If you play a character from the Ventrue or Tremere clans in ''[[VampireBloodlines Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines]]'', you can mind-control any random NPC into killing your enemies for you. If you're a Ventrue you can do the same thing through special dialogue options. Malkavians can also turn moonks into insane berserkers, or give them delusions or hallucinations that make them kill (you can, for instance, convince a Russian mobster that he is a grizzly bear and his two friends are salmon. HilarityEnsues.)

* In some of the ''RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms'' video games, there will be a 'Mislead' or similar tactic where a general will attempt to trick an enemy general into fighting an ally, with one or both units taking damage. Since the success or failure of the tactic is usually based on Intelligence, and the damage done is based on a War or Leadership stat, many of the [[DumbMuscle dumb]] [[TheBigGuy ox]] officers can be hilariously lethal to their own side. Never, ever stand too close to Zhang Fei or [[SmashMook Lu Bu]] if the enemy has a sharp 'strategist' officer hiding in the back.

* ''SplinterCell''. Often a soldier will be patrolling an area near a turret. Why the computer that controls the turret is ''always'' left unattended isn't explained, but you can sneak up to the computer and switch off the mechanism that allows it to tell friend from foe, causing it to open fire on the hapless mook(s). You can then turn the turret completely off and explore the area as needed.
* In ''{{Portal}}'', when you are in a room with more than one turret, you can cause one to shoot down another. The victimized turret will actually respond to this with alarm, saying things like "Don't shoot!" and "Hey! It's me!"
* Military discipline amongst the Pfhor must be very lax, as ''Doom''-like tactics of friendly fire-induced infighting are a staple of ''{{Marathon}}'' gameplay. Inducing such brawls in the ''Marathon'' series is made easier by the fact that most enemies fire slow-moving projectiles.

* In "Rise and Fall" Cleopatra has a special power which makes enemy units around here switch to her side, when they switch they instantly start to attack what was their own army
* In ''{{Prototype}}'', the "Patsy" ability allows you to accuse others of being you as long as you're wearing a military disguise. Any other military in range will gladly gun down your target, then curse their screw up. You can even do it for them without punishment.
* In ''ChampionOfNorrath'' and its sequel, there are two spells like this: Convert for the living, and Convert Undead for the undead. They are learned by the high elf [[TheMedic cleric]] and dark elf [[MagicKnight shadow-knight]].
* In the turn-based strategy ''{{Incubation}}'', there's an enemy called Cy'Coo who has a devastating artillery attack, which is nevertheless slow: it takes it one turn to aim, and another turn to fire. Very clever players can have the Cy'Coo to aim at one of their soldiers, then move that soldier away and trick an alien into walking on the soldier's former position...
* In TheImmortal, you can turn two trolls against each other by throwing a troll ritual knife (used by trolls to declare a fight to the death) in between them, allowing you to sneak by them while they fight.
* Metroid Prime has this once in the Phazon Mines, where you shut down a force field separating some Space Pirates from a horde of Metroids. As long as you don't draw their attention, they'll kill each other for you, maybe leaving one Metroid behind.
* The game manual for FurFighters even suggests this strategy. They even ''completely ignore the PlayerCharacter'' so it's possible to attempt to create an all out mook brawl!
* {{Averted}} in ''{{Odium}}'' - the enemies won't attack if their attack would hurt an ally (or themselves). Which means you can protect yourself from some wide-range attacks by standing next to an enemy (preferrably a [[StandardStatusEffects tranquilized or frozen one...]])

* In [[AssassinsCreedBrotherhood Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood]], you can use the [[spoiler: Piece of Eden]] to cause mooks to fight each other

* This is a common use for ''Charm Person'', ''Charm Monster'', ''Suggestion'', and similar spells in DungeonsAndDragons.

** ''Confusion'' and ''Chaos'' do have the effect of making the affected mindlessly attack whoever's nearest to them, like say their own allies. (They also act confused in other ways, but this is one of the major ones.)
* DungeonsAndDragons 4th Edition's "fey pact" Warlocks are good at making it difficult for enemies to discern between friend and foe. Their highest-level powers involve full-fledged domination.

* In ''OrderOfTheStick'', [[BigBad Xykon]] uses a [[spoiler: ''Symbol of Insanity'' spell, inscribed on a bouncy-ball, to cause a roomful of paladins to attack each other. For bonus points, when the single survivor momentarily regain her senses (as the effect is permanent), she [[DrivenToSuicide commits ritual suicide]].]]
* In KidRadd, G.I. Guy uses a skill to possess a bunny that called more bunnies faster than the heroes could defeat them. After using the bunny to attack its allies, he made it commit suicide, prompting a WhatTheHellHero from Radd.

** In both cases, the trick was to wreak so much havoc that the defenders would be tricked into thinking that they had a much larger enemy to deal with than they actually did. (The "friendly fire isn't" principle is why the uniform was eventually invented.)

* Mal Reynolds kites a massive armada of reavers to fight an equally-massive armada of Alliance in ''{{Serenity}}''. His aim is to keep the Alliance busy so that he can [[spoiler: get the secret of Miranda out to the Verse]].

** {{Might and Magic}} VII had monsters that fought each other, allowing you to slaughter the entire village in the beginning of the game, because you happened lead the entire dragon fly hoard on the pesants and [[SarcasmMode their impressive army of two guards]]

* MightAndMagic games has mind-control magic which occasionally worked as advertised. Most monsters were immune to it, however, and it needed to be cast from quite a distance for the monsters to start attacking each other instead of you.

!!Examples

[[AC:Video Games]]

[[AC:Tabletop RPGS]]

** In Level 8 of ''Doom 2'', one room contains a Cyberdemon, a good sixteen Barons of Hell and four Invincibility power-ups. Grab an Invincibility and get the Cyberdemon's attention. Watch the battle royale ensue.

Compare LetsYouAndHimFight, the non-vdeogame equivalent.

In some games, a {{Mook}} who gets injured will immediately and deliberately return fire on the offending party. In these games, it is sometimes possible, through speed and agility, to trick bad guys into picking fights with each other in the best traditions of the Circular Firing Squad.

* In ''FinalFantasyV'', this is one of the easier ways to kill those dang Skull Eater squirrels: by taking over their minds with the Control ability from the Trainer class. You?have them eat their own skulls. No, I'm not sure how that works.
** [[RedVsBlue "That's exactly what Jimmy said."]]

*** Even more so, Archviles will never receive retaliation from other monsters (or ''other'' Archviles, which ''can'' be hurt by the radius damage of their attacks) even if the Archvile directly attacks one with it's sight-required immolation blast, but it is quick to go after any monster that can hurt it, ending it in a world of pain. Of course, being it's an evil healer, it can just resurrect the demons it kills after doing it's job.

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*In ''OrderOfTheStick'', [[BigBad Xykon]] uses a [[spoiler: ''Symbol of Insanity'' spell, inscribed on a bouncy-ball, to cause a roomful of paladins to attack each other. For bonus points, when they momentarily regain their senses (as the effect is permanent), many of the survivors [[DrivenToSuicide commit ritual suicide]] in penance for their actions.]]
** Kind of HonorBeforeReason for [[spoiler: the suiciders, because they could have saved killing themselves until AFTER they'd attacked the lich responsible for the Symbol of Insanity in the first place.]]
*** [[spoiler:They only get to act sanely for a turn at a time, randomly, so they wouldn't have had a chance of more than annoying Xykon.]]