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Acceptable Breaks From Reality
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alt title(s): Acceptable Break From Reality "While it might be 'realistic' for a nearly dead character to limp, move slowly, and have generally less effective moves, it's not fun."
A Willing Suspension Of Disbelief is a must for almost any work of fiction, and that goes triple for videogames. Even though games have gotten generally more realistic over time, there are certain elements of gameplay where realism would simply make gameplay tedious, difficult, or confusing. Sometimes, these elements are conventions that have been hanging around for quite a while, and gamers are already used to them. Thus there are ways in which games will be blatantly, unabashedly unrealistic, and nobody really minds.
It's possible for these to become unacceptable, when the abstraction gets in the way of playing the game.
Forms of Acceptable Breaks From Reality include:
- Aliens Speaking English
And with perfect American/English/Canadian/wherever-the-game-was-made accents too!
- Already Undone For You
Someone already got through this trap-laden dungeon to wait for you, so why are the traps still all there?
- Arbitrary Gun Power
Video game guns don't kill instantly, they do HP damage.
- Arbitrary Headcount Limit
Arbitrary requirement that stops you from having too many characters in a party or unit.
- Lazy Backup
If you're only allowed three out of eighteen party members, and those three are killed, you get a Game Over even though the rest are still alive.
- Arbitrary Maximum Range
There is no "maximum range" for weapons in space - but that wouldn't make for gripping space battles.
- Art Major Biology
No, the work doesn't follow actual biology, but if they did, we wouldn't have a very good story.
- Art Major Physics
Ditto, just replace "biology" with "physics".
- Authority Equals Asskicking
The higher a character is in his hierarchy, the better he is in a fight.
- Automaton Horses
Horses never have to be watered, fed, or rested in video games.
- Benevolent Architecture
Architecture and geography in games seem to be designed for that genre and your character's abilities.
- Blatant Item Placement
What's a medkit doing here anyway?
- Bottomless Bladder
Video game characters don't have to do mundane things like eat, sleep, or pee unless the story dictates it.
- Bottomless Magazines
In Strategy Games, you get unlimited shots, because who wants to stop the action to dock and reload?
- Cap
A maximum number the game puts on numeric amounts, ranging from statistics to score to damage points.
- Chaos Architecture
When geography of countries and buildings in sequels do not resemble their previous incarnations.
- Command And Conquer Economy
A game in which nothing gets built unless the player orders it to.
- Competitive Balance
In Racing or Fighting Games, ensuring that each character is balanced enough to be used somewhat effectively against every other character.
- Conspicuously Selective Perception
In sneaking games, enemies will be very attentive to your noises but not to any others.
- Convection Schmonvection
You can get as close as you want to lava - as long as you aren't actually touching it, you'll be perfectly fine.
- Critical Encumbrance Failure
You're perfectly fine with 87 pounds of weight, but add one more item and you suddenly can't move.
- Critical Existence Failure
You're perfectly fine with 1 Hit Point left, but lose the last one and you die instantly.
- Cut And Paste Environments
That new area looks awfully like the one I just went through an hour or two ago...
- Damage Discrimination
Things that do damage to one thing don't always do damage to something else.
- Friendly Fireproof
Your own attacks will never damage your friends, and enemy attacks won't damage their allies, unless done specifically that way.
- Easily Amused
In the entire in-game world, there is only one kind of entertainment or only one city where you can find it.
- Easy Communication
When you give orders to your troops, they are transmitted instantly to every soldier.
- Easy Logistics
You don't need to worry about feeding your troops or keeping up supplies - that all happens automatically.
- An Economy Is You
All stores in a city are centered around selling things you in particular will need.
- Enough To Go Around
In MMORPGs, a quest item is supposedly "unique", yet there's one for every player of the game.
- Eternal Equinox
Day and night are always the exact same length, regardless of the season.
- Event Driven Clock
In-game time and calendar is based around the hero's actions and progress rather than a real-time clock.
- Every Bullet Is A Tracer
You will be able to see the path of your bullets, to aim aiming.
- Everything Fades
Things will vanish when you're done with them (killed enemies, broken chairs, etc.
- Explosions In Space
Should be impossible, but...
- Fight In The Nude
Characters' equipment won't show up visually; they may be wearing Diamond Armor, but it looks like the same old Stripperiffic costume to me...
- Firewood Resources
In Real Time Strategy games, wood is always shown in bundles.
- Floating Platforms
Because it's much easier than building proper structural supports.
- Gameplay Guided Amnesia
Because the character knows things the player doesn't, sometimes the character gets amnesia to excuse the explanation to the player.
- Gateless Ghetto
You're dumped in a small part of a city walled off from the rest of it, so you can't explore what hasn't been programmed.
- Heal Thyself
When you pick up a medkit or use a potion, you get healed instantly - no medicine application, no bandaids, no waiting.
- Hyperspace Arsenal
You can carry an absolutely enormous amount of stuff; who knows where you actually keep it.
- Improbable Power Discrepancy
Enemies in RP Gs are given statistics based on how powerful you are expected to be at that point, not how strong that enemy would be based on common sense.
- Inexplicable Treasure Chests
Where did they come from? Who put them there? Why does nobody else ever open them?
- Infinite Flashlight
A flashlight which never runs out of batteries or needs to be recharged.
- Insecurity Camera
You can easily just blow up security cameras and nobody will be alarmed by it.
- Instant 180 Degree Turn
Characters can turn around in an instant.
- Instant Home Delivery
When you buy something, it shows up instantly, or at least much faster than in Real Life.
- Instant Win Condition
When you clear a stage, all the troubles, death traps, remaining enemies etc. are completely ignored, because You Won!
- Insurmountable Waist Height Fence
Trivial obstacles can't be passed with brute force, no matter how powerful you are.
- Invisible Wall
It's just a boundary. There's nothing there, but you can't go past it.
- In Vehicle Invulnerability
Driver doesn't die or get injured when a car crashes without explosion in video games.
- Just Add Water
Items can generally be created by just sticking two or three things together and hitting "MIX".
- Justified Extra Lives
An in-game explanation for why you can keep coming back from the dead.
- Justified Tutorial
A tutorial that makes sense in context.
- Law Of Cartographical Elegance
Land masses will never cross the edge of a world map.
- Leaked Experience
When fighting in RP Gs, characters not in the active party will get some percentage of the experience that the active party gets.
- Limited Sound Effects
Yay for programmer laziness!
- Loud Of War
Playing music REALLY LOUD at someone won't cause hearing damage.
- Marathon Man
You do not have to break off the action to rest, eat, or sleep in-world.
- Money Spider
Monsters carry money. When you beat the monster, you get the money.
- Muzzle Flashlight
You have no flashlight, so just start blindly firing your weapons and follow the muzzle flash!
- News Travels Fast
As soon as something important happens in the plot, everyone in the world will know about it.
- No Periods Period
Nobody ever menstruates.
- No Recycling
In strategy games, you can't scavenge debris for usable materials.
- Nobody Poops
At least not onscreen.
- Nominal Importance
Only people that are relevant to the plot or a sidequest will be blessed with names. Everyone else will be nameless or be referred to with generic or descriptive titles.
- No Stat Atrophy
Once you raise a stat, it will never go down again.
- NPC Amnesia
In a Dialogue Tree, people will not remember when you pick the "wrong" choice; you'll just get to choose again.
- Olympic Swimmer
If (or once) you know how how to swim, you will do it perfectly and for as long as you like.
- Olympus Mons
The game allows the player to capture and control creatures that a preteen hero has absolutely no business owning.
- One Bullet Clips
If you fire one bullet and reload, you will be shown reloading a full magazine but will still only have reloaded one bullet.
- One Size Fits All
Clothing and armour can be worn by anyone, regardless of its source or the wearer's size or gender.
- One True Faith
A work of Science Fiction or Fantasy has only one religion (The Church) in it; furthermore, there are never any factions of it, or different interpretations of its belief.
- Optional Traffic Laws
In freeform driving games, you can safely ignore all the rules of the road.
- Pamphlet Shelf
Whenever you see a bookshelf, there will never be more than one book (and often one line) that you can read.
- Power Equals Rarity
The more powerful an item, monster, or ability/spell is in a game, the harder it is to find.
- Puzzle Reset
If you exit and re-enter the room, any puzzle will reset itself.
- Reward From Nowhere
A seemingly arbitrary prize for an in-game action, with no explanation as to who gives out the prize or why.
- Ridiculously Fast Construction
In Real Time Strategy games, all buildings can be produced and military units trained in a ridiculously short amount of time.
- Selective Gravity
Gravity is only applied to some things; others are totally immune.
- Short Range Long Range Weapon
The inability of a long-range weapon user, especially a villain, to use said weapon at long range.
- Soft Water
A fall from any height at all can be rendered harmless or merely incapacitating if, at the end of the fall, the character meets a body of water.
- Sound Coded For Your Convenience
In video games, many things have distinctive sounds, to the point where you can be tipped off by what's happening just by listening for them.
- Space Compression
Where a game's environment is blatantly not to scale.
- Statistically Speaking
No matter how high your strength, speed, etc. goes, you still will not be able to, for example, lift that tree in your way.
- Steel Ear Drums
Nobody is ever bothered by extremely loud noises and explosions and things.
- Super Drowning Skills
Video game characters can't swim. They just sink like a stone.
- Super Not Drowning Skills
Video game characters can breathe underwater for infinite amounts of time.
- Surprisingly Functional Toys
When a character is shrunk and encounters a recognizable object scaled to the character's new size, said object will retain the function and properties scale of it's original size.
- Suspicious Video Game Generosity
When the game gives you a whole whack of healing items and ammo, you're about to fight a nasty boss battle.
- Three Round Deathmatch
Best of three wins in a Fighting Game. You start again with full health.
- Thriving Ghost Town
Cities and towns in RP Gs are much, much smaller than they should be for sustainability.
- Took A Shortcut
You spent all that time going through the dungeon and beating all the puzzles, so how the heck did these guys get here first?
- Trauma Inn
Sleeping at an inn is guaranteed to instantly cure all wounds and even death!
- Twenty Four Hour Armor
You wear your armor everywhere. You eat with it, you sleep with it, you take baths in it.
- Units Not To Scale
In Real Time Strategy games, infantrymen are ridiculously large when compared to vehicles and buildings.
- Universal Drivers License
The hero can drive any vehicle he comes across, without any training.
- Universal Poison
There is only one type of poison, and generally one type of antidote for it.
- Very High Velocity Rounds
You've slowed down time, and while enemy bullets will crawl like molasses, yours go at normal speed.
- Video Game Geography
The world map is a toroid. Distances aren't quite right. But hey - it's a video game!
- Wallet Of Holding
Where you can collect millions of gold coins and not have your pants fall down.
- We Buy Anything
Want to sell that suit of armor at a grocery store? They'll take it!
- You ALL Look Familiar
There are only a few NPC models; you'll see it repeated over and over again.
- You Call That A Wound
When a special character (generally an NPC) is incapable of dying or being seriously injured in a battle.
- You Get Knocked Down You Get Back Up Again
When you're knocked down, you can't be damaged until you get back up.
Examples
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