Loophole Abuse in Visual Novels.
- Danganronpa is full of these: Monokuma is happy to admit that he deliberately introduces rules including exploitable loopholes, partly because he uses those loopholes himself. Some of these include:
- Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc:
- Monokuma introduces a ban on students lending their ID cards to each other. Ain't no rule that you can't borrow or steal an ID card; and, in fact, Monokuma leaves the dead students' ID cards in a publicly accessible box in the school lobby where anyone can pick them up.
- No picking locks or breaking down locked doors. Later in the game, though, the students break down a door into a sealed room without punishment, because it was barred, not locked.
- Any student who kills another and then is discovered at the trial faces execution, but ain't no rule that they actually have to die. Towards the end of the game, Alter Ego and Kyoko Kirigiri manage to disrupt Naegi's execution and bring him back into the school, causing Monokuma, who can't break the rules to execute Naegi again, to fly into a rage and allow a "final trial", which sets up the ending of the game.
- The students are forbidden from sleeping anywhere but the dorm rooms. However, the rule does not specify that students have to sleep in their assigned room (hence Sayaka and Makoto's room exchange), nor are they forbidden from sharing a room with another student (Aoi and Sakura had a sleepover in the same chapter). Also, it only covers deliberately sleeping, being knocked unconscious is not counted as a violation of the rule- which is a good thing for Toko, since she tends to faint when she sees blood.
- The rules of the killing game make having an accomplice unlikely; only the person who actually does the deed is the Blackened and is eligible to leave, so an accomplice would die along with the rest at the end of the class trial. They are not, however, forbidden, so if you can convince someone to be your accomplice in spite of them knowing the above, you're both free. Celestia gets Hifumi to be her accomplice by telling him that they'd take advantage of another loophole: there's nothing saying that there can't be two killers who each act as each other's accomplice. If this happens, then there will be no reason to betray their partner at the class trial, since they'll both escape if all goes well and their partner can also betray them. Of course, it's a moot point in this case since Celestia always intended to kill Hifumi when he'd played his part instead of killing someone else like she told him.
- There is a rule that says a participant may not kill more than two people, to prevent the obvious problem of some kill-happy participant killing everyone else and leaving no one to convict them in a trial. But while the participants can't kill more than two people, but Monokuma can, so one student manipulates a crime scene in order to get the students to vote for the wrong culprit, meaning that Monokuma will kill everyone except the murderer. And yes, this does mean that the responsible student (who isn't the killer) will die too, but due to circumstances they don't care. Aoi Asahina held every remaining student, herself included, responsible for Sakura's death, and framed herself for Sakura's suicide so Monokuma would kill them all.
- There is a mole among the students working for Monokuma, albeit unwillingly, as Monokuma has a hostage. One of their orders is to kill someone if there hasn't been a murder in a while to keep things from getting too boring. Nothing saying it has to be someone else, thus Sakura commits suicide to both fulfill her end of the deal and atone for betraying everyone's trust as the mole, leaving behind a suicide note urging the other students to band together and fight Monokuma. Before doing so, she also breaks down the locked door to the headmaster's office, thus allowing the other students to enter it and investigate without breaking the above rule.
- Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair:
- Monokuma cannot kill a student unless they break a rule. What he can do is lock them in an area without any food and refuse to let them out until a murder occurs. Technically it's the students' fault if they starve to death.
- Fighting against Monokuma will be punished by him attempting to kill the culprit. However, there's nothing stopping you from Taking the Bullet in the culprit's stead; since you didn't attack Monokuma and thus didn't break the rule, Monokuma will have to save your life.
- The entire premise of that game can revolve around this. Once Monokuma took the role as the teacher for the Neo World Program, Monokuma needed to find loopholes in order for his plan into reviving Junko Enoshima to work as the role of the teacher can't interfere with a student unless they break the rules, and he can't remove any rules, though he can add new ones. So he deliberately creates a rule (the obligatory 'kill someone to leave' rule) that encourages people to break the rule against violence, which would allow him to kill the perpetrator, and adds a rule against voting wrong in class trials so he could kill the others if they didn't find the killer.
- Nagito ended up threatening to blow up the entire island killing everybody on it (which is actually a bluff, but Hajime doesn't know that yet). Hajime attempts to convince Monokuma to stop him as this is a violation of the rule in which you can't kill more than two people. Monokuma's response is that Nagito hasn't actually broken the rule yet, and therefore has done nothing to deserve punishment. Merely intending to break a rule is not against the rules. Also, Monokuma knew it was just a bluff anyway.
- Chapter 5 revolves around exploitation of the same two-person limit loophole that happened in chapter 4 of THH (students can't kill more than 2 people, but Monokuma can kill more if they break the rules or vote wrong), though in this case the one responsible wanted someone else to escape and all the other students, themself included, to die. After learning that everyone in class was a Remnant of Despair, Nagito crossed the Despair Event Horizon himself and decided to kill them all. However, there was a mole planted by the Future Foundation who was innocent (Chiaki), so he decided to rig it so that a)Chiaki killed him, and b)nobody, including Chiaki herself, could know that she did it.
- Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony:
- The game has the same basic premise, but a slightly different ruleset, so many of these loopholes no longer apply, and some new ones are created. For example, there is a rule saying that you may not enter the gym or the pool after nighttime. However, that rule only applies to the actual pool itself, not the room with the pool in it. Also, only living people have to follow the rules. Corpses don't.
- There is a big change to the "two murder limit" rule. There is no limit to the number of people you are allowed to kill. Also, the killing game ends when there are only two people left. The loophole these two rules create does not go unnoticed: just kill everyone except yourself and someone else, and the game immediately ends with no class trial or execution.
- Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc:
- Fate/stay night is filled with these.
- The Holy Grail War is a fight between Servants. Ain't No Rule that you can't kill a Master (who is usually a Squishy Wizard) to make their Servant disappear. In fact, since not all Servants are suited to direct combat, sometimes it's the only way to have a chance.
- A Master is given the power to summon one Servant, and if he loses it, he can form a contract with a Servant whose Master was killed. Ain't No Rule that he can't form contracts with multiple Servants at once (though, given the mana requirements a single Servant has, a mage strong enough to provide for multiple Servants would be rare indeed).
- There does seem to be a rule that one Servant can't summon another, but the Grail's punishment is simply to make it a fake Servant who can still fill the role nicely enough.
- Ain't No Rule that the supervisor of the war can't compete in the war.
- The Berserker class has probably never been used for its original purpose (powering up a weak Servant to usable levels), with every known Master opting to make a powerful Servant even more powerful.
- On a related subject, the Berserker class is supposed to trade its sanity in exchange for raw power; the sanity reduction does hinder the Servant's fighting ability, but the power increase is supposed to make up for this and make the trade-off a net positive. However, there Ain't No Rule that says you don't get the power if your Servant has a skill which effectively renders the sanity loss moot (for instance, the Fate/Zero Berserker has a skill called Eternal Arms Mastership, meaning his fighting abilities aren't affected by mental hindrances... like the sanity loss caused by his class), allowing for the Servant’s fighting ability to fully benefit from the power increase without being impacted by the sanity reduction.
- Ain't No Rule that you have to wait until the war begins to summon your Servant.
- Broken Phantasm is a technique that releases all the power in a Servant's legendary weapon at once, destroying it in the process. Ain't No Rule that you can't use it with temporary copies of weaponsnote .
- From the 3rd Holy Grail war in the backstory and Fate/hollow ataraxia: Ain't No Rule that you can't apply your family's "cast spells twice" ability to the ritual that summons Saber. Meanwhile, the summoning of Angra Mainyu as Avenger was an attempt at Ain't No Rule that suffered from Epic Fail and Gone Horribly Right (they tried to summon the God of Evil and got a random guy whom early humans used as a scapegoat, who has no powers and only qualifies as a Servant by being the embodiment of humanity's wish for evil to exist in a form they can see; when he died, his spirit entered the Grail... which grants wishes).
- One example not related to the Grail War rules: in Fate/Zero, Kiritsugu puts himself under a geas that he will not harm Kayneth, provided that Kayneth gives up on the Grail and kills his Servant. Kayneth agrees and does so... and is immediately shot dead by Kiritsugu's ally. After all, Kiritsugu himself did not harm Kayneth.
- The Grail War is full of loopholes because many of the rules were made by the Mages' Association and Holy Church, but the Grail only follows its own rules. As far as the Grail is concerned, there ain't no rule Masters have to be chosen from members of either of those organizations, or that their Servants have to recognize their rules.
- In the end, really the rules are just flimsy guidelines and a set of things you physically can and can't do, but at the end of the day, all that really matters is that the last man standing can claim the prize (and they might not do even that). For example, it looks like a rule that every entrant is a Master with Command Seals to control and maintain their Servant, but all that's really there is that Command Seals help control a Servant, and Masters are granted them; anything from an unruly Servant, to Masters stealing Seals, to alliances, to unrelated parties jumping in, to even the supposed neutral ground can jump in on the action. Anyone who strictly plays by the intended rules is doomed to get taken out by everyone else.
- In The Great Ace Attorney, the final trial is a closed one, meaning the public aren't allowed to see the proceedings. This would have allowed Lord Chief Justice Mael Stronghart to cover up the results and get away with his crimes, except for a loophole that Herlock Sholmes exploits; yes, people not involved in the trial aren't allowed to see it. But all trials in England are conducted under the auspices of the Queen, so essentially live-streaming the trial to Queen Victoria is fine as it's her laws being broken and as such she's considered involved by default. And Her Majesty is not happy to see what her Lord Chief Justice has been up to...
- In Heart of the Woods, in an unused ending of the game revealed in the artbook, Morgan frees Madison from her obligation to become Fairy Queen after Geladura's death by saying that Madison had promised to find the fairies a queen, not to become queen herself, then taking Madison's place.
- In Higurashi: When They Cry's backstory, citizens of Hinamizawa protested the construction of a dam that would flood their town by, among other things, chanting Buddhist sutras at an extremely high volume outside the construction site so their protest would qualify as a religious service, and therefore protected speech, and the police would be forbidden from doing anything to stop them.
- Magical Diary:
- At Wizarding School Iris Academy, class exams take place in dungeons, and generally the only rule is "find the exit". In one exam, an illusion is hiding the exit, and the student is expected to use magic to break the illusion. However, Ellen is smart enough to just deduce where the exit is on her own without even needing to use magic. She passes the exam, but her professor basically equates what she did to cheating, since the exam was meant to test one's magical ability.
- The player can do something similar in a different exam; the key to the exit is locked in an exploding chest, but if your Strong is high enough, you can survive the damage you take from the explosion and proceed to pocket the key. Just like the above example, your professor isn't very happy with you if you do this.
- The sworn vow of a witch or wizard is absolutely binding, and due to this, two characters accidentally find themselves in a Magically-Binding Contract when they make a Childhood Marriage Promise. They're horrified to learn that they have to marry each other once they turn eighteen, or else they'll both die. Eventually, a loophole in this is found: the characters promised that they would marry, not that they would marry each other. The player character can offer to marry her instead to fulfill the requirement on her end.
- Minotaur Hotel: The protagonist's main strategy in the Main route. A Smug Snake asking Asterion to come to the valley? Point out his Exact Words and avoid being forced to do a Kick the Dog. Asterion reminding you that you're a master and he's a servant? Tell him that they're only master and servant to the hotel, but that doesn't mean they can't be equals in other terms. The Labyrinth having an absurdly large contract that makes it difficult to modify and makes it easy for masters to exploit the systems for their own selfishness? Create a contract so that his arm would amputate should he ever send Asterion to the valley just so he can prove to Asterion that he wants to keep him safe.
