'''Basic Trope''': The player begins with incredibly weak equipment.
* '''Straight''': The King of Troperia sends [[TheHero Bob]] on a quest to defeat [[EvilOverlord Emperor Evulz]]. He's equipped with a knife and a shield.
* '''Exaggerated''':
** All of reality will be erased if Bob fails his mission. Bob is given no equipment at all, despite several powerful characters knowing about the crisis.
** Bob starts with just a shield, [[ShieldBash proceeds to beat every enemy to death with it]], the whole way through.
** Bob starts with no equipment whatsoever, not even armor! Hell! Everything he has at the start of the story is his GoofyPrintUnderwear! ...And the king still thinks he's over-equipped!
* '''Downplayed''': Bob's given what was left in the armory. His quest is important, but the war against Evulz has drained the supply. The sword's rusty but was well kept when it was owned perviously, and the shield is actually pretty good.
* '''Justified''':
** Emperor Evulz stole most of the King's and Bob's equipment, leaving them with the weakest one.
** The king that sent Bob into his mission [[TheQuisling is actively supporting Emperor Evulz from the shadows]], so he sent Bob equipped with sub-par gear and into a dangerous mission with [[UriahGambit the hope of getting rid of him]].
** Bob, a mere commoner, wants to marry the King's daughter, [[PrincessClassic the fair Princess Alice]] when the King [[ArrangedMarriage wants her to marry]] Prince Charles of Tropestan. Not wishing to lose face, the King offers Alice as a StandardHeroReward whilst really setting Bob up to fail for his impudence.
** Bob is a private citizen who set off on his own without proper gear.
** The king who sent Bob was GenreSavvy and knew that he would be fine without the best equipment.
** Bob is questing for a legendary sword, a shield that can block anything, and armor that has amazing effects on its wearer, as either part of or the whole quest, so it might just seem prudent to give Bob enough that he can protect himself against known monsters around [[GreenHillZone the village/city he is leaving from]], possibly thinking that he will get at least one of the set before he gets into truly deadly areas or just doesn't know that next village over they have a more deadly monster problem.
** Bob and the King have no idea what they're sending Bob to. Bob might have the sharpest sword in the kingdom and the best protection, but where he's going that counts for very little, possibly the best weapons are made out of pure magic rather than materiel, meaning that Bob did have good equipment, but the situation made it either worthless in comparison or his weapon just isn't as useful.
** Bob is the latest in a long line of would-be heroes who have claimed they could defeat Emperor Evulz, and all of the previous ones have been defeated and subverted. The King is holding back on the goodies because he doesn't want to risk having such valuable equipment falling into enemy hands and wants to be sure Bob is actually the Chosen One before he trusts him with anything beyond easily replaceable standard-issue gear.
** Bob majorly screwed up and the King is trying to let him redeem himself in the course of his quest.
** Bob is [[ItsRainingMen airdropped]] deep behind enemy lines with a stealth glider to avoid being shot down before arriving at the place where he must be dropped, and he can only carry limited equipment. Sure, a BFG would be great, but given the rate at which such babies eat through ammo, it's not gonna be useful to him for long, so he's forced to bring with him only [[BoringButPractical low powered but reliable equipment]] and make do with what he will find.
** The kingdom simply doesn't have any good equipment available to equip Bob with; maybe they're broke, maybe there's a material shortage, maybe they just don't have access to good metalworking or firearm technology there.
** The kingdom Bob comes from is one of the few that remained unattacked. To prevent an attack the good king sends Bob with the best weapons he can part with. As you adventure farther and father, you find out just why your starting weapons can easily be replaced by better ones: The kingdom is actually poor and has few things going for it aside from farming, and the reason they weren't attacked wasn't because they could defend themselves, it was because they just weren't worth it.
** Bob made a bet with the King regarding the quest. [[ButThouMust You don't back out of a bet with the King.]] Either the King's money is on Bob failing, or Bob deliberately picks substandard equipment as part of a FailureGambit.
** The King needs plausible deniability in his role in sending Bob on his quest, and cannot arm him with anything that could be traced back to him.
* '''Inverted''':
** Bob begins his quest with [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill Black Hole Generator]], and finds progressively weaker ones.
** Alternately, Bob must use the InfinityPlusOneSword to...[[MundaneUtility chop some very large vegetables]] grown by the resident GreenThumb.
** Emperor Evulz starts his quest to TakeOverTheWorld with nothing but his underpants and a rusty stick to his name.
* '''Subverted''':
** Bob begins his quest with a knife and a shield, but there is a shop nearby that sells [[InfinityPlusOneSword Legendary Sword of Legendary Overkill]].
** Bob begins his quest with an unassuming wooden sword that later turns out to be the InfinityPlusOneSword in disguise.
** Bob thinks he's going to get a load of crappy gear, but is instead given a bunch of top-end equipment...
** Bob is given a sling, knife, and a quarterstaff. Those are actually perfect tools for his task to deliver a message to a distant kingdom. Swords would get him mistaken as a bandit, and bows as a poacher. A quarterstaff is good enough for defense against bandits, a good assistant on a long hike, and the weaknesses of not interacting well with formation fighting don't matter to a single traveler. The sling has effectively infinite ammo and it assumed shows only an intent for defense against beasts or hunting small game nobility doesn't care about. Everything is low valued enough that he doesn't even look worth robbing.
* '''Double Subverted''':
** ...But [[TeaserEquipment it costs 100000 gold.]]
** To turn the wooden sword into the InfinityPlusOneSword, you must defeat the {{Superboss}} ''with the wooden sword equipped.''
** [[ATasteOfPower ...And he promptly loses it all twenty minutes]] [[BagOfSpilling after starting his mission.]]
** Bob starts his quest with AwesomeButImpractical gear that looks nice but isn't actually very helpful, so he instead goes about gathering up [[BoringButPractical humbler but more effective weaponry.]]
* '''Parodied''':
** Bob begins his quest with an actual, literal herring.
** Bob begins his quest with [[{{BFG}} a bazooka]], and finds [[SerialEscalation progressively more powerful weapons]].
** Before he can begin his quest, Bob must turn in all his equipment and cash and get them replaced with a standard issue knife and shield.
* '''Zig Zagged''': Bob begins his quest with a knife and a shield but there is a shop nearby that sells a sword said to be incredibly powerful. The sword costs 100000 gold, but Bob find that much money after he kills the a very weak slime nearby. When he buys the sword it is almost as weak as the knife.
* '''Averted''':
** Bob begins his quest with the best equipment he or his king could afford.
** Bob starts off with endgame weapon and gear because he's playing on NewGamePlus Mode.
* '''Enforced''': "We don't want Bob to plummet through [[SortingAlgorithmOfEvil weak enemies]] that easily. Do we?"
* '''Lampshaded''': "Kill Evulz? With ''this''!?"
* '''Invoked''': [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaCDiGames "There is no time! Your sword is enough!"]]
* '''Exploited''': Drill Sergeant Carl gives his new recruits a mission to take on a gruelling exercise with only a small knife and several changes of underwear... because he wants them to improvise and think for themselves instead of relying on equipment they might not always have.
* '''Defied''': "I will ''not'' go until you give me something better!"
* '''Discussed''': "Are you sure sending Bob with a knife, a pistol and C-4 is going to be enough?" "Unless you have a plan to insert him deep behind enemy lines with a lot of equipment and without him getting shot down, we're gonna have to hope it will be."
* '''Conversed''': "Don't you find it ridiculous for heroes famed worldwide to go on a quest to kill [[Franchise/CthulhuMythos Cthulhu]] [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu with a sword]]?
* '''Implied''': It's never shown in the inventory, but after a few points, the sword and shield Bob are using is changed and he gets a stat boost when this happens. By the end of the game, if one goes out of their way to not gain stats, they see the starting and middle boosts are vastly improved.
* '''Deconstructed''': Bob's starting weaponry is woefully inadequate to take out just about any opponent, and he ends up stuck on the receiving end of a CurbStompBattle very early on.
* '''Reconstructed''':
** Bob's starting weaponry is woefully inadequate to take out just about any opponent, [[StealthBasedGame so he doesn't]].
** Bob's starting weaponry is woefully inadequate to take out just about any opponent, but he is so good he manages to do it anyway.
** Bob's dagger is weak, but he isn't.
** Bob's pebbles are useless at the beginning, and he gets pounded into the ground. Bob practices [[Creator/BruceLee ten thousand times]] at [[DavidVersusGoliath throwing the pebbles]] and they become an adequate weapon.
* '''Played For Laughs''': When passing by a lake, Bob fishes for a bit and catches one, [[ShamuFu entering a random battle with it equipped]] he will say "Wow, this is better than that junk the king gave me. Why don't the guards just use fish?"
* '''Played For Drama''': The equipment shows what the king thinks of Bob, while one with less skill gets weapons that are much better than the poor items than Bob got, he considers multiple times betraying everybody and simply joining Evulz because of how clear they are making it that they want him to die on this quest.
* '''Plot Foundation''': This is used to cement Bob's status as a GuileHero and/or badass: just give him a pistol and airdrop him onto a remote island somewhere, and he'll have a BFG and a small fortune when he gets back on that luxury yacht he stole from Evulz.
----
With only this link, you just go back to WithThisHerring
----