Line #70 Main/RatStomp


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3	%% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks!
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6	[[quoteright:320:[[VideoGame/PuzzleQuest https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/47540_screenshots_2011-04-27_00012_802.jpg]]]]
7	[[caption-width-right:320:Not even the VersusCharacterSplash would make a mundane quest [[MundaneMadeAwesome any more epic.]]]]
8
9	->''"Giant rats? It's like the start of every bad adventure tale my grandfather used to tell."''
10	-->-- '''Ser Gilmore''', ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins''
11
12	You're a brand new adventurer, setting out for fame and fortune, and probably about to get caught up in an epic plot to unmake reality as we know it, which only you can foil.
13
14	But first, can you clear out the rats in my basement?
15
16	A common early quest in many [[RolePlayingGame RPGs]], particularly of the Western, tabletop-derived variety. Rats may be [[RodentsOfUnusualSize of unusual size]], or substituted with some similarly non-threatening and easily killed critter, and indeed the basement may well be a different room entirely (possibly the NoobCave). This may even be part of the game's combat tutorial. Whatever the specifics, there's an area filled with small squishy things that need squishing. Get to it.
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18	Often considered a classic hallmark of the genre, and is likely to be included simply as a nod to tradition. Or, as is becoming more and more common, parodied with an unusual variety of rats.
19
20	Subtrope of MassMonsterSlaughterSidequest. Not to be confused with GoombaStomp, though the enemy rodents essentially serve as TheGoomba.
21
22	If you're still getting these sorts of quests when you're famous and powerful, it's high time to start hollering "DudeWheresMyRespect"
23	----
24	!!!Examples:
25	[[foldercontrol]]
26	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
27	* Rookie adventurers in ''Literature/GoblinSlayer'' are often advised to start out clearing the sewers of giant rats.
28	[[/folder]]
29
30	[[folder:Fan Works]]
31	* Played straight and averted in ''Fanfic/TheKeysStandAlone: The Soft World''. In Gothmarik Citadel, rats are some of the opponents in there. But because the four are [[ActualPacifist Actual Pacifists]] and won't kill anything, John simply immobilizes them with warm ice timed to melt in a few hours.
32	[[/folder]]
33
34	[[folder:Roleplay]]
35	* In ''Roleplay/TheDaoOfTheAwakened'', the first fight Hua Yin gets into, not counting sparrings and exams, is against three [[RodentsOfUnusualSize dog-sized rats]].
36	[[/folder]]
37
38	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
39	* Any time you start out on lower levels in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', you will be killing rats. Just like [[YouAllMeetInAnInn starting in a tavern]]. More recently, goblins are becoming the staple of low-level adventurers, but they're not a big step up.
40	** However, [[https://i.imgur.com/w7xm40n.png rats can be genuinely dangerous for non-adventurers.]]
41	* ''[[TabletopGame/SavageWorlds Evernight]]'', true to its [[ClicheStorm stereo]][[AffectionateParody typical]] [[StandardFantasySetting fantasy RPG]] roots, has one of the very first quests: kill the rats under the tavern.
42	[[/folder]]
43
44	[[folder:Video Games]]
45	* Downplayed in ''VideoGame/TwoDark''. Practically every level will have at least a few rats in the dark, damp backskirts/basements the player'll generally have to sneak through. These will bite if they come too close, and accidentally pissing off a whole swarm can easily lead to Smith getting overwhelmed.
46	* One of the tasks you must perform in ''[[VideoGame/ThreeDUltraPinballCreepNight 3-D Ultra Pinball: Creep Night]]'' is to knock out a bunch of rats attacking a MadScientistLaboratory.
47	* Your first quests in Noobshire from ''VideoGame/AdventureQuestWorlds'' has you ''saving'' rats rather than killing them, though one of the quests for Yulgar does involve cleaning out his rat-infested basement.
48	* In the original ''Videogame/AloneInTheDark1992'' you must dodge rats in a wine cellar while looking for ammunition in that room. The rats can't be killed, but if they touch you, they wear down your life force and you are liable to die.
49	* In ''VideoGame/ArcanumOfSteamworksAndMagickObscura'', a Tarantian businessman asks you to clear the rats out of his warehouse, although this actually occurs a short way into the game (usually the second, third or fourth town you visit). There are a couple of opportunities earlier in the game to kill rats in dark rooms, though.
50	* ''VideoGame/ArmoryAndMachine'': The ''second'' area of the game that features rats as enemies, with the boss being the Rat King. These rats however are no pushover, as they ''all'' come with a dangerous attack that, if not interrupted by Stun, deals a ''whopping'' 300 or 400 damage at a point where you have 600 HP maximum.
51	* ''VideoGame/ArmoryAndMachine2'': Rats are possible enemies in the first area and they are TheGoomba of the game, taking one hit to die from your weakest attack.
52	* At the beginning of ''VideoGame/BaldursGate'', you're asked to kill all the rats in a warehouse as part of the tutorial. The player character's journal contains a several-lines long [[DeadpanSnarker sarcastic rant]] on his/her [[LampshadeHanging thoughts]] on the 'quest'.
53	* ''VideoGame/BaldursGateDarkAlliance'' also begins with one of these, in the cellar beneath the Elfsong Tavern.
54	* ''VideoGame/BaldursGateIII'' gives you this quest very late in the game at a point where your characters are already toppling demi-gods. The slight twist is that it's given to you by a bunch of lazy snooty cats who don't want to leave the kitchen for fear of missing food and instead pawn it off on a lesser being (the player).
55	* The reboot of ''VideoGame/TheBardsTale'' starts with the Bard trying to impress a Barmaid by taking care of her rat problem. Turns out that the 'problem' is a giant, fire-breathing rat, and the locals regularly get a kick out of watching cocky adventurer types being beaten by it. Even [[Creator/TonyJay the narrator]] has a hard time [[{{Corpsing}} holding back his snickers]] as he describes your demise.
56	-->'''Narrator:''' [[SarcasmMode All hail the Bard; Rat Killer and Rodent Bane, who has bravely made the cellars once again safe for buxom barmaids and wanton widows!]] ...Or has he?
57	* ''VideoGame/BoxxyQuestTheGatheringStorm'' plays a bit with this. In computing terms, a R.A.T. (short for Remote Access Trojan) is a type of malware virus, and [=BoxxyQuest=] takes place in a fantasy-ized version of the Internet. So naturally, the tutorial dungeon is filled with R.A.T.s shaped like rats that have poisonous bites.
58	* One of the first things you do in ''VideoGame/BrainLord'' is help clear one villager's attic of rats.
59	* Your first quest in ''VideoGame/CandyBox 2'' is to clear out some lady's basement of rats. It's also impossible to lose, since the rats die within 1-3 hits, and deal 1 damage to you. As a CallBack to the previous game, the rats aren't drawn in ASCII unlike all the other enemies, instead literally being shown as the text "rat".
60	* In ''Series/ChinesePaladin 2'', one of the earlier mainline quests involves getting rid of a rat infestation. You pick up your first summon there, a giant rat-spirit who has earth-element attacks and can also steal stuff.
61	* Subverted in most [=RPGs=] created by ''Creator/FromSoftware'', particularly ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' and ''VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}}''. Rats can be seen early on, but it isn't you who stomp rats, [[RussianReversal it's the rats who stomp you]]. Not only are they [[RodentsOfUnusualSize larger than you]], they are also poisonous and [[ZergRush can swarm you]]. ''VideoGame/DarkSouls2'' has two rat bosses, the Royal Rat Authority, a giant rat a dozen times your size, and the Royal Rat Vanguard, which is a roughly human-sized rat, surrounded by dozens of other rats of the same size, forcing you to pick him out of the crowd to attack him.
62	* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' has the human noble fight off an invasion of rats in their family's pantry in their origin story. Like all classic RPG tropes in the game, it's [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded,]] providing the page quote above. Oddly enough, it's the only time in the entire franchise thus far that giant rats are an enemy.
63	* ''VideoGame/{{Drakensang}}'' features a brewery full of rats. This is, however, not a low-level quest. Hilariously lampshaded later when the main characters ask to an Inn Keeper if he can obtain his trust by killing the rats in his cellar, making him angry at you. Then is double subverted when you find out that he does have giant rats in his cellar.
64	* One of the weakest enemies and most common first encounters in ''VideoGame/DungeonCrawl'' is the common brown rat.
65	* In ''VideoGame/EarthboundBeginnings'' you have to enter your basement towards the beginning of the game to retrieve a certain item, where there is a chance that you will fight rats.
66	* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls''
67	** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'':
68	*** The first quest for the Balmora Fighter's Guild has you killing a room full of rats.
69	*** ''Tribunal'' has the "Crimson Plague" side questline, which involves you killing some rats who are spreading the disease. (It averts the "beginner" quest part, however, as the quest soon escalates to you needing to kill a notorious DamageSpongeBoss.)
70	** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]''
71	*** Plays it straight by starting you off in a dungeon/secret passage largely populated by rats, but inverts it with the first Fighter's Guild quest -- you're told a local woman has a "rat problem" in her basement, but the problem is that they're her pets and ''mountain lions'' are killing them.
72	*** When asked about "Rumors," some [=NPCs=] will [[LampshadeHanging point out]] how the tasks given to new recruits always seem to have something to do with rats.
73	** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' also has an archetypal "clearing out rats" quest during the ThievesGuild questline, but it's not possible to do it before a number of other quests have been finished. Interestingly, you also fight a man named Hamelyn who's been experimenting on the rats, and he can actually be a little tough if you aren't prepared. Also, exterminating pests will only be a cover for the ''real'' task...[[note]]putting rat poison in the mead so the brewery fails [[TheInspectorIsComing the health inspection]].[[/note]]
74	* In ''VideoGame/EternalSonata'', while there's a tiny part of the game before it, Allegretto and Beat's first battles are in an AbsurdlySpaciousSewer with a lot of rats in it. The only ones you're ''required'' to fight, however, are the ones in the bottleneck that serve as a combat tutorial for item use, Special Attacks, and light levels, should you elect to let it be one, and the boss and entourage at your destination.
75	* ''VideoGame/EveOnline'', even being a WideOpenSandbox, is not immune, except the rats are low-level NPC pirates in spaceships...which the players call "rats", and the act of cruising for [=NPCs=] in asteroid belts "ratting". And not just because of the Fun With Abbreviations to be had with pi''RAT''e... player pirates don't get called that.
76	* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}''
77	** Your first task in ''VideoGame/Fallout1'' is to head over to Vault 15 and see if they've got a spare water chip. As it happens, Vault 15 is now a bomb shelter full of mutant rats, and of course, you start in the area outside Vault 13, also full of rats.
78	** ''VideoGame/Fallout2'''s Trapper Town has a serious rat problem.
79	** ''VideoGame/FalloutBrotherhoodOfSteel'': Your first mission is to clear out radioactive rats and bugs from town.
80	** And then, in ''VideoGame/Fallout3'', one of the first quests you can obtain involves testing out a rat repellent. It involves hitting rats with a stick. That makes their heads explode. Before that the Radroaches you fight during the escape from Vault 101 also count.
81	** One of your very first tasks upon venturing out into the Commonwealth after escaping Vault 111 in ''VideoGame/Fallout4'' is going to Concord. Along the way, you find the Red Rocket station near Sanctuary, which is home to [[PostApocalypticDog Dogmeat]], who helps you fight off a bunch of Mole Rats that have burrowed out from the cave under the station.
82	* The first thing you are required to do in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'' is to clear out the rats in a sewer. One of the local old guys even calls Vaan "Vaan Ratsbane" jokingly.
83	* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'': The Main Scenario quest "Tales from the Tidus Slayer" has Trachtoum, a [[MilesGloriosus self-proclaimed]] former member of the Company of Heroes, ask you to kill some rats before he'll share his tips on fighting Titan. In truth he's just a blowhard farmhand who padded his resume and is tricking you into helping with his chores.
84	* Done again in ''VideoGame/IcewindDale'', where the first quest involves clearing out the basement of the inn. In this case weak bug enemies are used instead of rats.
85	** It gets parodied in ''Icewind Dale 2'', when you encounter another group of low-level adventurers who were given the exact same quest and chose to solve it by tossing a cat into the room with the rats.
86	* Inverted (!) with ''[[{{VideoGame/Hades}} Hades]]'', as giant mutant rats are among the last and therefore most powerful enemies you face. Additionally, it's a Justified inversion because the entire game involves escaping from the Greek underworld; the presence of living, rather than undead things at the end indicates that you're very close to escaping. The trope itself is lampshaded in Achilles's codex, which asserts that gigantic vermin excel at "being slain in great droves by would-be heroes setting forth to prove themselves, all in the name of Experience."
87	* ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing''. The ''tutorial's'' RatStomp features bunnies(!), but you start out fetching a mosquito larva from a forest and clearing out a tavern owner's basement of rats - including the miniboss [[DastardlyWhiplash Baron von Ratsworth]]. However, the rats [[MookMaker just keep coming]] until you find and turn off the [[RuleOfFunny rat faucet]]. (This area is more significant than it appears; cranking the challenge level up beyond what a new player can handle can get you extra ''types'' of rats, potentially enabling a risk-for-reward shortcut against far more dangerous rats in a quest well down the line.)
88	* ''VideoGame/KnightsOfPenAndPaper2'': The first quest, "Giant Rat Population", is actually:
89	--> '''Village Elder:''' Save our precious rats.
90	* ''Krusty's Fun House'' is an entire game about exterminating rats.
91	* ''VideoGame/TheLastSovereign'': Parodied in the first chapter. Tal, the Chosen makes much ado about how many rats he's killed. How many? "Like a bunch." He's still at level one when you get him. And then in Stineford, the party can offer their services to a local barman whose cellar is full of rats. Of course, by that point, most of the party's levels are in the double digits (and they can kill said rats in a single hit from pretty much any attack, even a ''physical'' attack from one of the party's {{Squishy Wizard}}s), but he lets them at it anyway. Within said cellar are four different corpses all succumbed to rats.
92	* ''[[Videogame/{{Mardek}} Mardek RPG]]'': The rats have strange pipes instead of tails.
93	* The first storyline quest you'll get in ''Videogame/MightAndMagic'' ''VII'' is to clear the castle you just won of bats, Goblins, and, yes, rats.
94	* Played straight in Facebook game ''VideoGame/Mousehunt2008''. Though ''everything'' you fight is a mouse, the three weakest mice (White, Brown and Grey) the player encounters in the tutorial are based off regular varieties of real-life mice/rats while everything else is a NinjaPirateZombieRobot.
95	* ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights'' has a [[http://nwn.bioware.com/support/patchdetails127.html demo module]] for rats and dire rats, named "[[TalkLikeAPirate Thar be Rats! Yarrr!]]"
96	** In ''Hex Coda'', a module by [[{{Tropers/Twoflower}} Stefan Gagne]], you're asked to get rid of the rats in the basement of a bar. Except that these are mutant, anthropomorphic rats, and the best course of action is not violence, but diplomacy -- you can simply ask them to leave nicely. The Journal entry for this quest is called "Ratstomp", making this the TropeNamer.
97	** Another fan module, ''VideoGame/ADanceWithRogues'' contains a rather nasty subversion: in the course of one Act I sidequest, the Princess finds herself alone in a sewer full of common rats... without [[NoGearLevel any of her gear or weapons]] and with [[InjuredPlayerCharacterStage just a single HP left]]. Suddenly, common sewer rats become a terrifying menace that can kill you in one hit and ''you can't even fight back''.
98	* ''VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment'' has a quest that gives you a bounty on rat tails. In keeping with Sigil's utter bizarreness, it is on ''Cranium'' rats, who become increasingly deadly sorcerers when in the presence of more of their kind.
99	* In ''VideoGame/{{Pokemon}}'', the first Pokémon you'll find in the wild will likely be a [[ComMons Rattata]] in the [[VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue first]] and [[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver second]] generations, and Patrat in the [[VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite fifth]] generation.
100	* The tutorial battle in ''VideoGame/RegaliaOfMenAndMonarchs'' has the heroes clearing out a dusty old armory where some rats have taken up residence. Defeating the smaller rats reduces the HP of the Broodmother, making her easier to defeat.
101	* The old [[NoobCave Tutorial Island]] in ''VideoGame/RuneScape'' included a Battle 101 section, where you killed - you guessed it - giant brown rats. The rats in the "real world" are much smaller.
102	* ''VideoGame/{{Sacred}}'' 2 asks you to clear out a couple of cellars toward the beginning of the game. One of them is, predictably, full of rats.
103	* In ''VideoGame/SouthParkTheStickOfTruth'', an early {{side quest}} takes the New Kid to Skeeter's bar, where he is asked to rid the basement of a few mutant rats.
104	* Any RPG made by Creator/SpiderwebSoftware has a good chance of having rats as the very first enemies you fight, before you even go on any quests.
105	* ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'' had a subversion; you don't fight rats until around halfway through the game. Even then still, at first they're not a challenge, but once you've shrunk down the rats are about 12 foot, and bust out boxing moves.
106	* Toyed with all over the place in ''VideoGame/TotalWarWarhammerII'': the [[RatMen Skaven]] are a common StarterVillain early foe for many faction starts, and true to the trope their early units are weak: However, they have serious MagikarpPower thanks to an array of plagues, mad science, and ninja, and are your final foes in the Vortex Campaign. [[spoiler: In fact, the entire plot was orchestrated by the Skaven!]] In addition, they are a playable race in their own right, and depending on the faction chosen you may also fight them in the mid-game as well. Hence, the trope can be played straight, inverted or averted depending on the faction.
107	* While ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' indeed has some quests dealing with rats, they are never a challenge - even first-level quests deal with wolves, panthers, bears, giant owl-bear hybrids, or humanoid bandits. The only ones that come close are a couple concerning giant ''undead bats''. A more standard example of this trope would be the Kobolds, who are a race of mining rat-people that populate the early Human player maps.
108	* While rats can spawn in [[FirstTown Ragni]] and can thus be fought early on in ''VideoGame/{{Wynncraft}}'', there are no early-game quests bidding the player to slay a bunch of them.
109	** In Misadventure on the Sea, a later quest, the player is commanded to do this by a band of pirates who've kidnapped them, forcing the player to serve as a deckhand and a menial.
110	[[/folder]]
111
112	[[folder:Webcomics]]
113	* ''Webcomic/TheNoob'', being a parody of the MMO genre, has plenty of fun with this trope. From the disappointment that the heroic adventure starts with the collection of [[TwentyBearAsses rat tails]], to the ExplosiveBreeder needed to repopulate the starting zone, to the elf-players looking down on the humans starting with ratstomping (while [[HypocriticalHumor starting elf players are all stuck killing spiders]]), to the starting-zone rats being made into [[DemonicSpider giant spiked monstrosities]] because the head developer ordered the team to ramp up the difficulty or be fired (he only meant the endgame dungeon).
114	* Subverted in ''WebComic/YokokasQuest''; Mao takes on a quest to drive out 'some kind of vermin', but the vermin in question turn out to be giant poisonous [[MixAndMatchCritter snake-centipedes]], rather than the rats he was expecting.

Context Main / RatStomp