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"That illusion of choice was just a formality. Your task has already been decided, you see."
The RPG version of You Cant Fight Fate. In RPGs, the main character has two jobs: in the plot, he is The Hero of his motley crew of rebellious aristocracy, mysterious girls, and many others. He's the leader, the point-man, calling the shots. He's also, however, the player's avatar in the game world. Therefore, it's becoming increasingly common for the other characters to turn to you and ask (in the form of a multiple-choice question and Dialogue Tree) what they should do in any given situation.
The problem, however, is this: The writer already has the script plotted out, and your decision, whatever it is, is going to affect all of jack squat. Either the other characters will just ignore the answer and get on with what you're supposed to be doing, or they'll ask the question over and over until you make the "correct" choice. You might see some altered dialogue or a slightly different scene, but the plot itself will remain largely unchanged.
Occasionally a game utilizing this trope will toss in a question where an incorrect answer results in a Nonstandard Game Over. (God knows why.) Such questions are usually pretty obvious (The Big Bad asking you to become his disciple, for example), though, so it's easy to avoid falling into that trap. Either way, this represents the game forcing you to Follow The Plotted Line, period.
In some games, particularly in Sierra adventure games, answering a choice incorrectly can leave the game in an Unwinnable state, for example the salesman in Space Quest I, who you have to refuse the first offer from, then wait for him to reappear so he offers you a jetpack, which is critical later on. Guide Dang It!
Another way to make these questions relevant is to tie them into Relationship Values — your decisions might not change the plot, but they will change how other characters perceive you.
This trope obviously doesn't apply for games that make heavy use of a Karma Meter, such as the Ogre Battle series, or most western RPGs. In those games, your decisions can and will direct the plot, albeit usually on a pre-programmed branch.
Summed up eloquently in this webcomic ( With A Herring, no less) and numerous others.
Named after one of the first instances of the trope, from the original Dragon Quest ( Dragon Warrior in the original American release). Compare Stupidity Is The Only Option, Catch-22.
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Examples where giving the "wrong" answer makes it impossible to proceed until you give the "right" answer (including giving Nonstandard Game Overs):
Action Adventure
- Princess Zelda from The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina of Time does it, among others. In her case, she actually reacts to your refusal, but then the conversation loops right back to the same question.
- The first conversation with her actually has two - the aforementioned "help me save the world?", and whether you happen to own the Kokiri's emerald. (A fan-favorite Sequence Breaker was to use the "crooked cartridge trick" to get out of Kokiri forest before obtaining it - thus allowing you to lie to Zelda when she asks if you have it.)
- But in the color version of Link's Awakening, if you say "no" enough times to the photographer, you get an alternate photo in which you're knocked out.
- A more obscure one exists in Majora's Mask. In the Astral Observatory, you can look through the old man's telescope by talking to him. He asks you if you want to look through it first, and you can refuse. He'll take it well. However, speak to him as Deku Link and he won't take no for an answer.
- Also in Majora's Mask, if you say "No" when Kafei asks if you can keep a secret he'll say "Listen, when someone asks you something like that, you're supposed to say 'yes'" (or something along those lines).
- If you say "No" when the Great Deku Tree asks if you're ready to enter him and fight the evils inside, he'll assume that you want to train some more and not open up until you talk to him again.
- Okami does this a lot, played for some jokes as Issun, your sidekick, expects you to say "no" almost every time.
- Amusingly, if you say 'No' to Queen Himiko about calming the Water Dragon down, she'll then say "But... you must!".
- In Psychonauts, Ford Cruller asks you if you want to be an agent for him. If you select the No option, he just smacks you and says "How 'bout now?".
- Brave Fencer Musashi did this at least twice. When Steward asks you to rescue the princess, if you choose "No", he literally says, "But Thou Must".
- After you agree to save the princess, Steward asks you to visit the library before leaving. If you say no, Steward hints you're either lazy or stupid, and asks you again. If you say "no" at least once, Musashi responds exasperatedly that he will go to the library, but if he says "yes" the first time, he remarks that it's actually a good idea.
Adventure
- Done incredibly emotionally painfully in Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Apollo Justice, in the fourth case. The player knows during a flashback that presenting a certain piece of evidence will result in incredibly bad things happening to Phoenix. However, it's the only piece of evidence the game will accept, all others giving a loop back to the question. It won't even penalize you for getting it wrong, leaving the player's idea of suiciding on that portion of the trial, leaving Phoenix alone. (Of course, this would probably result in a Time Paradox.)
- In Justice For All in the final case, there is one part of the trial where you can't use evidence to support your case and it's up to you to decide whether or not your client is guilty or innocent. Of course, it doesn't matter what you pick since Franziska bursts into the courtroom to deliver more evidence to prove Matt Engarde's guilt, which is what Phoenix was trying to do while saving Maya.
- In the rest of the series before Apollo Justice, most of the multiple choice/yes and no questions won't change the plot at all other than either changing the dialogue slightly or you're at a dead end until you give the right answer. This happens during trials as well where you have to answer a question and giving the wrong one results in a penalty and forces you to try again. Other times, it won't matter what you pick since the plot will stay the same, but picking the wrong answer will get you penalized because it annoyed the judge or another character.
- When given a choice to either raise an objection or "Wait and see what happens", you will always end up objecting.
- Not necessarily. Game 1 case 5 - Phoenix is asked if he wants to present evidence incriminating Gant. If he says "yes," the player is prompted to pick a piece of evidence, as usual. But it's a red herring. There is no incriminating evidence.......yet. This seems to be the ONE exception that throws off the otherwise perfect principle of "always object."
- Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, Albus asks Shanoa to absorb some very powerful glyphs along the game. The game gives you control over the action here, but the gives you no option. You can try to get out of the room with the glyph, but Shanoa will comment something like "But... I have to get that glyph...". You can try to attack Albus, but no matter how hard you try, he'll aways dodge by teleporting. Or you can turn off the game as a way to say "screw you!" to Albus.
- Parodied in the second Monkey Island, where, upon being told he is not allowed to pick up a certain bucket, the player gets to ask about repetitive questions while the NPC keeps responding "no". The player eventually comes across the correct answer, though it takes about a hundred tries. But if you pick the second initial option, the guy admits it's not his bucket, and lets you take it.
- Telltale Games got in on the act in episode 2 of Tales of Monkey Island. At one point, Guybrush's wife Elaine tries to persuade him to go on an errand for her- you're presented with a whole thesaurus-worth of synonyms for "no", but each time you use one she makes puppy-dog eyes at him and asks again. And the word you chose has disappeared from the list, until you've got no option but to say "Fine".
- Hell, half of the Telltale Monkey Island dialogue responses are of the sort where Guybrush just says the same thing for any option.
- The Fate Stay Night visual novel contains plenty of decisions that lead to almost immediate bad ends (as well as some that delay the consequences for some time), but the most amusing example comes in the third route, which doesn't even try to disguise how you have no choice: you are given three options as to what to do... and they are all exactly the same◊.
- Being done by the same circle, Tsukihime share the same trope, a wrong choice and you go bad ending. Though some choices may seem innocent, they actually feed an affection point system, eventually leading to a bad end if you made too much bad choices. The only non-bad-ending choices are the last ones which can sometimes lead to an end or an other.
- Done fairly well and "realistically" in the interactive movie Star Trek: Borg. The premise is that Q is offering to take you back in time to Wolf 359 where your father was killed and alter history to save him (and his ship). The very first puzzle he presents to you after presenting the offer is a phaser in one hand to go kill Borg, and a Trekian duffel bag in the other for not wanting to kill Borg. If you pick the phaser, the game goes on. If you pick the Duffel bag, Q leaves in a huff and it's Game Over.
- It's also possible to get a rare (for Star Trek) Fourth Wall Break Game Over. If you click on neither of them (or repeatedly fail later sections by not clicking), Q breaks in and explains what a mouse cursor is and how to click on something, prompting the player to click on his nose. If you still don't do it, he also leaves in a huff after insulting the player. As it turned out, finding the fun and funny ways to cause things like this to happen ended up being a lot more interesting than playing the game properly.
- Several missions in Star Trek: Bridge Commander include communications with ships sending, say, distress calls. Many of them include the option to tell them you will not respond to them. Naturally this doesn't often go well for the player.
- Some of these are more like "side quests" than part of the main plot, but it's still not very Starfleet Captainly to refuse
H-Games
- Comically used in the otherwise appalling Hentai game Gloria, which starts with the main character receiving a letter inviting him to work as a tutor at the titular Gloria mansion. You have the option of telling your friend you don't intend to take the job- and the game ends. The Something Awful review fround this to be the best part of the game:
This is roughly one minute into the game and makes for a pretty cool ending that needs to be featured in more Hentai games if you ask me. It’s basically you taking the option of “no, I don’t want to play this game” and the game apologizes for being so shitty and you’re free to leave.
- A particularly cruel variant in Bible Black: If you refuse to become the just-revealed Big Bad's man-slave, she kills you on the spot. (You don't get any prior warning.) If you surrender to her, the story continues. So, inevitably, you WILL die the first time around.
RPG
- In Ultima Underworld II, you are offered the key to the sewers to investigate a plague of monsters. If you complain that you are 'loath to enter the sewers' it is foisted on you anyway. Likewise, when you attend a meeting near the start and tell Lord British that you have some business to attend to first, the meeting continues regardless.
- The aforementioned usage in Dragon Warrior — the princess asks you to let her accompany you on your travels, which inevitably leads to her marrying you, and if you answer no, she simply says "But thou must!" and gives you the choices again. You can keep hitting "No" until the cows come home, but she just won't take it for an answer. (Telling the Dragon Lord "Yes" when he asks you to join him, however, is a Nonstandard Game Over.)
- It is just possible to avoid this fate, by never rescuing the princess in the first place, in which case the silent hero marches off on his own in the end for a much less dramatic ending. Technically you're supposed to rescue her so that you can get directions to a Plot Coupon, but you can find it by yourself if you're willing to search blindly around a swamp for half an hour. Essentially, this dooms the princess to rot starving to death in the bowels of a pitch black dungeon. But nobody liked Gwaelin anyhow.
- Search blindly, nothing. Find the large swamp, find the small two-block-wide channel that separates both the larger "ponds", and then it's five steps to the right of that. Boom, first try.
- Alternately, YOU can be the clingy one, and never take her to her throne, and thus never put her down, taking her on adventures into the darkest dungeons.
- It's worth mentioning that the Game Boy Color remake does not have this quote (or any other examples of Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe, for that matter). Apparently Enix didn't see the need to keep memorable quotes, as opposed to, for example, "You spoony bard!" being in every single version of Final Fantasy IV. Perhaps this wouldn't have been the case if the remake had come out after Square and Enix merged.
- Dragon Quest V - Hand of the Heavenly Bride is chock-full of this. I haven't yet found a question where you can actually say no and get away with it - this includes a situation where the evil spirit you are supposed to fight invites you to lunch, promptly making you fall down a trap door. Very much a case of Stupidity Is The Only Option, as well.
- Lampshaded at the beginning of Final Fantasy IX where you get an extra scene scolding you for stubbornness if you keep choosing the 'wrong' answer.
- You have to very stubborn to get it though. Right at the start of the game Zidane's at the Tantalus mission briefing. They're about to kidnap Princess Garnet, and the Leader asks Zidane who they're kidnapping to see if he knows what's going on. The two responses are Garnet and Queen Brahne. You have to choose Brahne 64 times before you get the extra scene, where another Tantalus member runs in and warns you that you're late.
- The obscure Game Boy RPG Great Greed has a scene in which a bad guy asks you to join their side. If you say "yes" you get a fake Non Standard Game Over - your NPC ally blasts you with a lightning bolt, you see a Game Over screen for a moment, and then she says that it was a demonstration of what would have happened if you were serious. You are then returned to the game as it was just before you talked to the boss.
- In Paper Mario it actually asks you if you want to take partners. You can choose the option to not take the partner, but, of course, you'll be But Thou Must'd into choosing the option to take them anyway. Which is a good thing, because, y'know, if they let you go without, you could end up making it Unwinnable.
- Super Paper Mario subverts this. If you say "no" to Merlon enough times at the beginning, when he offers you the first Pure Heart, you'll eventually get a Non Standard Game Over. Note that this occurs before the actual gameplay begins. The same happens if you repeatedly refuse an offer for a mission from Queen Jaydes. And also if you refuse to put on a helmet in outer space.
- It also plays with it near the end of the game. At one point, the shapeshifting villainess Mimi disguises herself as Merlon and tells you to hit a box, in a way that's an obvious trap. If you try to avoid it by talking to her, instead of just repeating a single response, she has a variety of responses — including direct Lampshade Hanging in the form of mention of hypothetical flags that can prevent you from doing what you want unless you trigger them.
- Subverted later on as "but thou musn't", when Dimensio offers to team up with Mario and Luigi to take down Count Bleck. If you answer "no" a few times like you're supposed to the game continues, but if you answer "yes" a few times - as he'll continually sweeten the pot even though you're already accepting his offer, to throw up an even bigger red flag - then he'll slap a mind-control plant on your head and give you a Non Standard Game Over.
- Annoyingly used in Persona 3. Though you may be itching to spend time with a social link, your allies will occasionally pop up to ask you to do something with them or for them that will use up your "after school" hours. No matter how much you say "No" you'll be forced into the problem anyways.
- Also used during the full moon event at a love hotel where you are "tempted" by the Boss. To many players' amusement and/or frustration, as much as the game gives you choices to give into temptation, you cannot move on in the game unless you resist in all three choices presented to you.
- Another blatant example is when you do not join one of the athletic clubs when they are first available. On 5/27, your composition teacher will confront the protagonist and But Thou Must him into joining the club. This was implemented most likely so you would not miss your chance to open the Star social link, but most get pretty pissed when you have to waste an entire week for sports training, for a tournament you can't even win.
- Really, the whole game is one big But Thou Must, thanks to the contract the game makes you sign at the beginning. "I chooseth this fate of mine own free will" my foot.
- On the New Year you can choose to kill Ryoji and receive a Nonstandard Game Over, but that's really cold comfort.
- Persona 4 is a little better about this—you're told about the culture and sports clubs but you are not forced into joining either. The game still has "plot interruption days" though. Some of the social links (like your allies) are forced but building them up gives them new tricks in battle and all social links no longer reverse or break if left alone for prolonged periods of time.
- Suikoden I loves these, forcing you to pick the answer it wants again and again. Early on in one game, for example, you're asked if you want to carve a symbol on a rock, and if you answer that you don't, the other character just says "Sure you do! C'mon!" and you do it anyway. More frequently, the character asking something will give a verbose explanation of why you should say yes, then ask again, repeating a rotation of 3 or 4 explanations for as long as you keep refusing.
- It's subverted in the sequel, Suikoden II, however — two of the One Hundred And Eight warriors can only be recruited by saying 'No' to the same question three times in a row...
- Suikoden II features another subversion — at one point, your sister suggests that you give up on the war and run away with her. If you agree, you actually do it, for a while, and brief optional plot arc in which you abandon your responsibilities follows; this ends with the hero confronted by his followers and forced to choose again. Insisting on abandoning them at this point causes a Nonstandard Game Over, and it's implied that you've lost their respect in any case.
- There's also yet example near the start of the game: after finding out that the local army wants you and your best friend dead, said friend suggests jumping down a waterfall to escape. Saying "No" four times will result in a battle against a group of soldiers, then you'll be given the exact same choices again. You can repeat the process infinitely, but the game won't continue until you agree to jump. HOWEVER, fighting 108 battles in this style will result in the flashback that follows your suicide jump changing from black-and-white to full color.
- Suikoden IV has at least one Non Standard Game Over and one Bad End you can get this way. In the case of the Bad End, you earn it by refusing to use the Rune of Punishment on the flaming ships about to ram your headquarters, even while your strategist, mentor and everyone else around you begs you to just use the damn Rune. It's pretty much a Too Dumb To Live moment, even though overusing the Rune can kill you... Damned if you do...
- How did we get this far without mentioning the scene from the first game where you can't refuse to drink the poisoned tea? ("Come on, just a taste." "Not if it's bitter." "Come on, just a taste." "Not if it's bitter." "Come on, just a taste.")
- Shortly before Earth Bound's first real boss fight (against a local gang leader), the protagonist is asked if he wants to join the gang. Answering "Yes" results in being told to come back after finishing the game.
- Kumatora But Thou Must's you into taking a shower in Mother 3.
- Also in Mother 3, at the end of the game, when Flint asks if you want to pull the last needle, if you choose no, he essentially tells you to suck it up and then gives the same speech he'd give if you'd said yes. After that, when the game asks you if you want to pull the needle, Yes and No do the exact same thing.
- And, in Earthbound, before time-travelling to the Big Bad's final lair, Dr. Andonuts gives a big inspirational speech about how Ness is The Chosen One and all, and by pressing the "go back in time" button with his own hand, he is fulfilling his ultimate destiny, and then asks a yes/no question as to whether you want to do it. Saying no prompts him to simply say "Oh. I see", and then ask his own son to do it instead. Saying no past that just loops back to Ness until you press the button.
- If you leave one of the towns in Super Mario RPG through the north exit, the entire party But Thou Must's you into leaving through the south exit for no good reason.
- Storyline-wise, this is likely because the north exit is more northwest, and thus visually leads to the next area, when you're supposed to go back to the game's first town at this point. Gameplay-wise, it doesn't matter, as any area exit just takes you back to the world map, which is why your party stopping you looks so ridiculous.
- Before The World Ends With You's final boss, Kitaniji asks Neku to join him. There is little to no change in dialogue even if you choose the 'no' option — Neku will just briefly say that, three weeks ago, he would have said yes, and then say no anyway.
- In Grandia II, when Ryudo is inside his own soul, he is forced to answer three questions about whether he desires power. However, if he says that he desires it, he is told that that is not his real opinion, and must answer again.
- Subverted in the obscure NES RPG Destiny of an Emperor (based on the Romance Of The Three Kingdoms story). In one scene, a defeated enemy declares "I am the Emperor. Let me go!" and you are given the standard YES/NO choice. If you choose NO, he says it again and again. If you give up and choose YES, you fight him again as part of a later boss encounter, but if you choose NO enough times, the loop breaks, the enemy is executed, and the later fight becomes easier.
- Early in the game, the dying Emperor Tao Qian asks Liu Bei to become his successor, and if you say no, he asks you to reconsider until you say yes. The justification is that Destiny of an Emperor is based (loosely) on actual history, and this is pretty much exactly what happened in real life. Liu Bei refused the crown the first two times Tao Qian asked him.
- In Chrono Trigger, Marle will keep asking you to reconsider not accompanying her after running into her at the beginning of the game; furthermore, after witnessing Lavos destroy the world, your other two party members are all gung-ho about stopping it, and won't take no for an answer.
- Avoided in Chrono Cross. At no point in the game is any decision foregone, leading to what was a rather aimless game, according to some people.
- In the earliest case where Kid (the female protagonist and hero's love interest - First Girl Wins be (jarringly) damned even though the first girl is the childhood friend and girlfriend of the hero) tries to join up with you in what seems to be a But Thou Must sequence, repeated refusal will cause her to not join up with you and you will get a different party member instead. Because Kid will then join your party shortly after anyway, unless you pointlessly refuse this time (in fact, it's possible to play the entire game without Kid, the heroine, joining the party) and because that extra character who would join your party (amusingly, she is the parallel world version of the main character's childhood friend and girlfriend) is otherwise Lost Forever, you're actually better off for refusing the first time it looks like thou must.
- In another scene, Kid is injured and the player either charges off to her rescue or expresses doubt he can save her. Although it looks like a But Thou Must situation, being pessimistic turns out just as well and sets you on the path to pick up Glenn, one of the most powerful characters in the game.
- In the Neverwinter Nights premium module Kingmaker, you're offered a chance to run for rulership of the town you end up in. You can try to refuse, but your intelligent weapon that revived you after you died in the beginning tells you that you were brought back for this specific purpose. If you lose the election, your weapon kills you.
- In the episodic content download "Knights of the Nine" of The Elder Scrolls, several people try to join a knightly order you are building. You can technically tell them "no," but if you do they just stand around in your lodge waiting for you to change your mind.
- This is actually the case for most everything in Oblivion, and to a lesser degree Morrowind. You can't actually say no to a quest offer—instead you respond that you'll do it later. The Elder Scrolls series is remarkably open-ended, but the individual quests are pretty linear and inflexible.
- You can turn down all minor quests in Daggerfall after reading the preamble to it. You can't turn down the main quests, and whenever you fail to accomplish one, or fail to initiate one before its time limit is up, you lock yourself out of the plot.
- In order to acquire the Guardian Force Bahamut in Final Fantasy VIII, Squall must answer a series of dialogue prompts. The first has only one answer available; the second has two, one which allows Squall to proceed and one which ends the dialogue, requiring the player to start it over again in order to continue the sidequest. The third prompt is where things really get tricky: when Bahamut asks Squall why he wishes to fight, the two visible options both result in a fight with a pair of dragons and a repetition of the question afterwards, and it takes picking a third, invisible dialogue option to proceed to the boss fight and complete the sidequest.
- A minor variation on this pops up in Exodus Ultima for NES. There's an NPC in the starter town that asks "I am Sherry. Think me beautiful?". Initially, saying Yes will generate "Thank you. Next time bring some flowers" (a big hint for later) and saying No will... repeat the question. You can keep this up indefinitely, saying No. However, when you then say Yes, she responds with "Flattery will get you nowhere".
- The Japanese Famicom game Doraemon - Giga Zombie no Gyakushuu begins with Doraemon asking the player character to help him find the rest of his lost crew and save the world from the game's Big Bad in what seems like a standard But Thou Must. If you say no multiple times, however, Doraemon finally takes the hint, and walks off crying in a Non Standard Game Over. We hope you're satisfied. Jerk.
Simulation Games
- In Custom Robo for the Gamecube, right before the final mission, you are given the choice of either joining your friends in the mission or staying behind. Eventually, if you keep saying no enough times, you get a Non-Standard Game Over where they let you stay behind and the game goes black and a text box says that all your friends died trying to fight and one of your friends says "See, I told you to join us!"
- Subverted again at one point during the final mission. The Lancer (of the comedic variety) needs to stop to use the restroom in the post-apocalyptic ruins of a theme park overrun by an evil syndicate and begs that The Hero accompany him. The Lancer will continue to beg if the player refuses, but eventually gives up and goes on his own if the player continues choosing not to follow. There is no penalty for choosing not to follow, apart from missing the opportunity to earn a few non-notable Robo parts from a battle in the restroom.
- Arena has this too, right smack at the beginning of the game, and a few other times to boot. I read somewhere else that one of them is a subversion, though, but haven't tested it. It goes like this: Your school's weakest Custom Robo team, Team Numero Uno, is getting attacked/played with by the Grapple Gang (the school's strongest team). Your options? Join the weak team. And given this takes place in a courtyard, there's massive Drone Jam involved in this.
- In Harvest Moon DS, the mayor gets attacked by your dog at the beginning of the game. You can choose to help or not to help, and choosing not to help causes the credits to roll, implying that the dog killed the mayor... somehow.
- In Harvest Moon: More Friends of Mineral Town, you can tell the mayor at the beginning that you don't want the farm, and get the Game Over. This is actually the only way to end the game.
- A similar event happens in Harvest Moon 3 GBC, where the premise is that the farm is to be turned into a theme park. If you refuse to take the farm, a cutescene occurs where you read a newspaper article about how the farm was turned into a theme park along with a game over.
- And yet another in Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life. At the end of the first year, if you haven't proposed to any girls then Ceilia will automatically propose to you. If you refuse, the game's over.
- Wing Commander IV had a similar setup. You're given two chances to defect to the Border Worlds. If you don't take the second chance, infinite Border World bombers spawn until your home base is destroyed, thus ending the game for the player. Given the moral issues the game was trying to raise, that didn't exactly help with making the player believe there was really any morality concerns. (To be fair, though, the $12M production costs for the game were some of the highest costs in games, at the time, a lot of which was due to the full motion video cutscenes, which were filmed on real sets instead of using CGI like its predecessor, Wing Commander III. More choices means more filming, and even with EA's pockets funding a company, there is a practical limit.)
Stealth-based Games
- In Metal Gear Solid, the player has the chance to destroy the Big Bad with a missile, but the blast will kill the Cyborg Ninja (who was revealed to be Snake's old war buddy) too. Although said Ninja exists solely so he can die heroically, if you try to take the shot Snake just says "It's no good, I can't do it".
Close Stealth-based Games
Tabletop Game Adaptations
- There was an interesting inversion in Vampire: the Masquerade - Redemption. In one scene, the character giving out the quest keeps delivering "but thou must not" lines for a goodly long while, and the fastest way to get on with the damn quest is to agree to not go.
Close Tabletop Game Adaptations
Text Adventure
- Spoofed beautifully in the Homestar Runner game Thy Dungeonman 2, in which you can actually be But-Thou-Musted to death. You'll reach a point in the game where you're dying of the plague and are given the choice between talking to a doctor or a faith healer. The doctor is the correct choice, as he will saw off your plague, but if you talk to the healer, she'll just keep asking you questions until you drop dead from the plague.
- Subverted in the Infocom text game The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The exchange goes something like:
>Aft
The entrance leads to the Infinite Improbability Drive chamber. It's supposed to be a terribly dangerous area of the ship. Are you sure you want to go in there?
>Yes
Absolutely sure?
>Yes
I can tell you don't want to, really. You stride away with a spring in your step, wisely leaving the Drive Chamber safely behind you. Telegrams arrive from well-wishers in all corners of the Galaxy congratulating you on your prudence and wisdom, cheering you up immensely.
>Aft
What? You're joking, of course. Can I ask you to reconsider?
>No
- At this point, the game lets you in to the room, but pouts and won't tell you what's in it until you >look a couple times.
Turn-based Strategy
- In Shining Force II, the player is, at the end of the game, asked if would kiss and marry the princess who is trapped in eternal sleep... even though they've exchanged about ten words total before she fell into that sleep. The game almost plays off of this by having the lead female character storm off in anger, but your only options remain "Yes" and "I will walk around town for a while, then come back and be given these two choices once more".
- In Fallout, you can compromise the location of the Doomed Hometown and/or agree to join the Big Bad, in which case cutscenes play showing your people being mercilessly butchered and you (bound, gagged, straightjacketed and hung from a meathook) being dropped into a vat of green slime. At which point, the game ends with a sober scolding from the narrator. Earlier on, the Overseer demands that you hand over the initial Mac Guffin in order for the plot to progress, to the repeated uttering of "Please, the chip!" until the player either caves in or quits the game, should s/he persist in refusing.
- In Real Life these are called leading questions and we psychology majors learn to be wary of them. ...Just like the advertisers learn to exploit them. Civilization IV comes packaged with a networking software that lets you set up matches with your buddies. When choosing whether to install it or not, your choices are, "Yes," and, "No, I don't want to play video games with my friends". Way to be subtle there, guys.
- In Devil Survivor, After getting Miss Maki's bag and entering the scene to give it to her, there is the option to not give it to her which earns the MC a whap to the head from his friends.
Close Turn-based Strategy
Web Original
- College Saga, a live-action spoof of Final Fantasy tropes that you can find here on You Tube, uses this when the main character sits down for a class and is immediately asked "Sleep? Yes/No". He selects "No" a couple times, but it keeps popping back up....
- While obviously a videogame trope, it is used in the the first episode of Yu-Gi-Oh The Abridged Series spin-off, Cr@psule Monsters, in which Alexander Brisbane (of Most Definitely Not A Villain fame) reveals a magical map and insists that the heroes step on it. Yugi continues to refuse, leading to back and forth, until Brisbane says that there is candy in the map, and Tristan and Tea eagerly jump on, dragging Yugi along.
Webcomic
- Episode 2 of the Penny Arcade games does this, with the main character having the option of refusing Gabe and Tycho's original request to join the party. Every time the character refuses the two spend a day looking around the remains of your house before coming back and asking you again, with Tycho getting more and more agitated with each asking. There is even an achievement for refusing to join the party five consecutive times, after which the requests start looping and it becomes obvious you have to accept.
- In the middle of a story arc which spoofs most RPG tropes, the aforementioned episode of Dragon Tails takes on this one.
Real Life
- A Real Life example: "License agreement - do you accept? [Yes/No]".
- Hospital admitting forms. "You must sign to receive care." If it is an elective procedure, it is theoretically possible to decide to try another hospital (which will have the exact same form you must sign) or just decide not to have the procedure. If you are there because you are really ill, well, I guess you could decide to just leave and die. One wonders why hospitals even have to have you sign such forms, as the law might just as well make it an implied agreement for care, since you really don't have a choice anyway.
- This is actually necessary because some people, like Christian Scientists, are bound by their religion to refuse most forms of medical care or just want to give up and die already. So basically the form is a legal CYA measure.
- Also, you're essentially agreeing to let them do whatever they want with you, including but not limited to not letting you leave until a doctor's said you're okay.
Other/Unsorted
- In The Matrix: Path of Neo, the player is presented with the choice Morpheus gave to Neo in the first film: the choice between the red and blue pill. If the player takes the blue pill, the game is over.
- Similarly, The Matrix Online simply closes the game if you pick the wrong pill. This Troper, who had mis-remembered the film and obstinately did not read dialog, thought he had some sort of crash bug the first time he played.
- The not-so-well-known SNES game EVO: Search for Eden features several of these that lead to Non-Standard Game Overs. Probably the best-known is during the Dinosaur Era, near the ending, when "Tyrasaurus", the Big Bad of that chapter, asks you to join him in world domination; answering yes leads to being killed by a meteor shower. However, after viewing the outcome, you are returned to the World Map, and forced to fight.
- On the next stage you encounter a strange race of bird men who are manipulating the evolution powers to become more powerful. Again, they offer to let you join them. If you do, you become part of an advanced bird race that are eventually worshiped by humanity as gods. Then it dumps you back to the map and lets you play on, again not giving you the question when you confront the birdmen this time around.
- Fahrenheit / Indigo Prophecy does this:
- The most annoying one happens while you're controlling Tyler who is on his couch with his girlfriend celebrating their anniversary. Then the phone rings and you must get up, answer it, grab your coat and walk out the door without much more than a quick "sorry" to your girlfriend. If you do not do this the telephone just keeps ringing for five minutes (and your partner does not consider this odd when you finally answer).
- Later you have to bust into hotel room 366, but the first room they try is actually room 369 (it is a pretty crappy hotel with the final number dangling upside down). If you spot this (you have to walk past rooms 371 and 370 to get to room "366") and try to walk over to the actual room 366 the game won't let you.
- As open-ended as the game claims to be, there are lots of scenarios where the game will still actively railroad the player through certain situations. For example, early on in the game there's a scene where the player character has a precognition of a police officer examining his apartment. Being able to see this precognition to the end (and learning what he has to do to avoid capture) depends on the player passing a short quick-time event sequence, but even if the player fails he is still expected to do these things, and should the player fail to do so the game ends immediately.
- Rambo for the NES console hangs a lampshade on this trope at the beginning of the game, where Colonel Trautman offers Rambo a mission in exchange for getting out of jail. You are prompted to either accept the mission or reply that you prefer staying in prison. If you choose the second answer, the Colonel flat-out tells you that the game can't begin until you select the first answer.
- When you start monster breeding game Dragon Seed, you're asked by a veteran trainer to engage in a friendly match. If you refuse, he will keep insisting until he eventually tells you that you have no choice and "No" option will be disabled.
- In Metal Saga, the very first question asked of your character, "Do you want to be a mechanic?", can actually end the game about two minutes after it started.
- Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia: After collecting the Yellow Gem, the third Mac Guffin needed to stop the Big Bad's plans of world domination, a member of the Quirky Miniboss Squad (who had been unconvincingly masquerading over voice transmissions as your rival) pops in and offers aforementioned rival in a Hostage For Mc Guffin scenario which you are given a Yes/No option for. Now, despite the fact that it has been drilled into your head through most of the game that the titular Pokemon Rangers are focused on protecting people, Pokemon, AND nature, leading to a "needs of the many versus needs of the few" scenario... despite the fact that your rival is a Ranger easily as skilled as you and tells you to refuse... despite the fact that YOUR RIVAL IS IN NO IMMINENT HARM SHORT OF BEING BOUND, selecting "No" simply leads to you being mocked and asked again. Apparently, "Oh? You not care about Keith? Not a very good friend?" is the most compelling argument in all of history.
- Spoofed in D/P, if the player refuses enough when offered the Pokedex, Professer Rowan will tell the player that he "can stand here all day without talking if I have to."
- Also spoofed in Platinum. Buck asks the player to investigate Stark Mountain because something funny is going on - if the player responds with "No," Buck says "I'll just keep asking until you say yes!" and then repeats the question.
- Blue Dragon: When you encounter Nene's army of War Mecha-Robos in the Wire Highlands, Jiro repairs the red barrier device and raises a red barrier, which destroys any Mecha-Robo that tries to cross it. Nene then switches tactics and sends the Servant Mecha-Robos that you befriended in Baroy Town against the barrier. Kluke gets upset and demands that the barrier be lowered; you're given a choice, but answering no simply results in you being asked again after a few seconds.
- In Spycraft The Great Game, at one point you're called into a darkened van and asked through a slot to join with the Villain. This almost seems like an aversion, since if you join the villain you continue the game, being given a mission to kill the President; however, after the mission, the villain's second-in-command comes into the room and shoots you, making this a non-standard game over.
- At the beginning of Legend Of Legaia, Meta asks Vahn to join with him. If you say no, he apologises for forcing you but explains that you have no choice but to agree, and presents you with the choice again.
- A party member in Star Ocean: The Second Story demands to accompany the player character on a quest. If you tell her 'no', she claims not to have heard what you said. Justified in that it fits the character perfectly...
- ...then turned on its head when you complete the quest and are given the option of dropping her like she's hot.
- The PC FPS Operation Flashpoint's expansion campaign, Resistance, offers the player a choice to either help the invading troops' army by revealing the location of a member of the titular resistance, or be summarily executed in the second mission. Obviously, given the title of the game, you are expected to escape and join said resistance in fighting off the invading force, but you can actually accept the invitation to help the invasion force. You're even given a unique mission to find the location of the resistance's base of operations, upon which you are again given the choice to join the resistance or carry out the mission. Of course, since the leader of the invading army is not a very rewarding leader, he'll execute you if you carry out your mission anyway, so it's pretty much in your best interests to join the resistance.
- In Phantasy Star IV, when Chaz is given the choice of whether or not he wishes to learn Megid. If you say Yes, Re-Faze kills him; you have to say No to both stay alive and learn it.
- At the start of Chapter 2 of the NES game Star Tropics, your submarine is hailed by a dolphin who asks you to find her missing son. Your little robotic navigator/dolphin-speak-translator asks if he can tell her you'll do it. Say no all you'd like - you're gonna find that damn dolphin.
- In Rayman 2, you are given the choice whether or not to accept a haul of treasure. You get a plot-advancing potion if you decline, and a non-standard game over if you accept.
Examples where giving the "wrong" answer has little or no effect:
Action Adventure
- Most of the Legend Of Zelda games use it, such as the Great Deku Tree asking for Link's help at the beginning of Ocarina of Time but ignoring him if he refuses.
Adventure
- Played with in The Curse of Monkey Island a couple of times: Guybrush gets prompted to give a false name to a smuggler, but no matter which alias the player chooses, the smuggler will refer to Guybrush with his real name, explaining that he has his sources.
Puzzle Games
- Puzzle Quest gives you 2 options for many quests (for instance, returning the item the NPC asked for or keeping it), but most of them don't really make much of a difference... except for a early quest that sets the path for the evil ending that initially seems to have little consequences. There is a story-related mission to escort a unwilling princess to her arranged marriage. If you refuse to do so and instead get her to safety, you get her as a companion as well as a nice sum of money, and the main storyline remains unaffected.
- Freeing Princess Seraphine comes pretty damned close, considering how much effort goes into not taking her to her arranged marriage. Not to mention, given the often crappy nature of the quest items you can choose not to return (you can't even see what they do until you've decided to keep them), choosing the "wrong" path is less "But Thou Must" and more "Take That for not being a hero!"
RPG
- The Golden Sun series is the king of this trope. The main character gets asked for his opinion every ten seconds, and his answers are completely irrelevant...
- ...Except for one of the first times in the game, where you are asked to embark on the quest or not. You can refuse, but the game then immediately ends. (The CRPG The Magic Candle does this too.)
- ...and after finishing one of the sidequests, at which point the main character is offered a lift back to the city from which the plothook originated. It takes five or six tries, but the well-meaning NPCs can be convinced to let the party walk back.
- Also, when the first Djinni Flint comes to add his powers to yours, he asks if you will take him with you. You can of course say no, which makes the But Thou Must start. But after answering no sufficent times, he'll suddenly say "But I'll come with you anyway" and join.
- The second game parodies this with an additional scene if you answer "no" to every such question at least once up until you reach Lemuria, the resident ancient civilization, in form of The Philosopher Kraden going into a longwinded rant about you not taking your quest seriously and entering Lemuria on his own if he has to regardless of what you think about it.
- Skies of Arcadia is one of the few games that utilizes both this trope and the Karma Meter. While picking the most heroic answer will raise your "Swashbuckling Rating", which is relevant for a few sidequests (for example, a certain crewmember needs a Vyse the Daring or higher before he'll join), the plot itself is never changed.
- Final Fantasy games, all of them.
- In Final Fantasy VI, Terra is asked to help the Returners defeat the Empire. If she says yes, she is given an item, but if she says no first and talks to someone else, she receives a more powerful item. If she says no three times, the story continues exactly as if you had said yes, but skipping a cutscene.
- In the Timber section of Final Fantasy VIII, incorrectly giving the password to the resistance only has a tiny impact on the game (no promotion). Likewise, when coordinating Garden's defense at the beginning of the Battle Between the Gardens, your decisions don't change the way the battle goes, just your SeeD rating.
- There's also the interrogation scene at the D-District Prison, during which Squall has a choice between lying in order to stay alive and trying to commit suicide. Despite the Violation Of Common Sense implicit in the latter, it is the "correct" choice and results shortly thereafter in a reward, but aside from that the decision has no real effect on the course of the game.
- Tales Of Symphonia uses a form of this trope — your selections affect your relationship with party members, but (with one exception) do not affect the plot.
- The Baten Kaitos series is similar — your answers do not affect the plot (with one exception), but picking the correct ones will give you bonuses in battle.
- The Paper Mario series plays this trope for laughs — knowing full well that whatever choices you make are irrelevant, the games are packed with outrageous answers and willfully ignorant NPCs (and ones that aren't ignorant at all and actually respond to said outrageous comments, notably your party members), such as an elderly town mayor who pretends to be hard of hearing so that he can browbeat you into solving his town's Fetch Quest.
- Suikoden loves these, forcing you to pick the answer it wants again and again. Early on in one game, for example, you're asked if you want to carve a symbol on a rock, and if you answer that you don't, the other character just says "Sure you do! C'mon!" and you do it anyway. More frequently, the character asking something will give a verbose explanation of why you should say yes, then ask again, repeating a rotation of 3 or 4 explanations for as long as you keep refusing.
- It's subverted in the sequel, Suikoden II, however — two of the One Hundred And Eight warriors can only be recruited by saying 'No' to the same question three times in a row...
- Dragon Quest is still keeping this trope alive and well, and may still be reigning champion. Dragon Quest VIII rarely even bothers to offer you any options of what to say. On the rare occasion where you're given a "Yes" or "No" option to choose, it not only doesn't affect the game plot... the maximum difference you might get is a tiny, TINY difference in the other character's response to you, which immediately thereafter is treated as if you'd made the "right" choice all along.
- The best such scene is during the standard ending. The princess clearly doesn't want to marry Prince Charmles, instead hoping to run off with the main character. When she asks if you'll elope with her, choosing "no" results in her weeping over the decision, her father getting comically irate, and the question posed once again to the player.
- Played with a bit in three. You can refuse to see the king at the very beginning of the game, and you can even lie having done so to your mother. However, your personality is changed to "Stubborn".
- In the Bidoof's wish episode of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of the Sky, upon meeting Jirachi, you can choose between a series of wish (Including world domination) but he instead chooses to wish for new juniors, AKA, you.
- Even better later when Chimecho lampshades this. After Spinda's Cafe opens, Chimecho approaches you and asks if you will let your party members wait for you in the cafe instead of at the crossroads. If you answer no, Chimecho laughs at you for choosing it, claiming you did it just to see how she would respond, because whenever you pick "no", you eventually have to pick "yes" anyway, and the result is always the same.
Simulation Games
- In Animal Crossing, whenever you pay off your expensive home loan to Tom Nook, he offers to give your house an expensive upgrade, increasing the amount of room available and putting you further in debt. You are given the options "Bigger is better!" which results in him upgrading your house, or "Smaller is cozier!" which results in him upgrading your house without your consent and still charging you for it.
- Ace Combat When your squadmates ask you a direct question there are three options: yes, no, and "no response." The choices don't matter (except if ever asked about a song), and the only thing that changes is the response dialogue from your squad.
Stealth Based Games
- In Metal Gear Solid 3 where Naked Snake has to kill The Boss, his mother figure and mentor. If the player doesn't pull the trigger, the game does it for them.
- Metal Gear Solid 4 has an interesting variation on But Thou Must during the infamous microwave hall sequence. If Snake dies during that scene (which you really have to go out of your way to do) Snake will give out the most mournful death cry you'll ever hear (and Otacon will give out the only genuinely heartrending SNAAAAAAAAAKE! in the entire series). However if you select "Exit" from the Game Over screen, Exit changes to "Exist" and Liquid Ocelot taunts you "Brother! It's not over, not yet!"
Close Stealth Based Games
Other/Unsorted
Examples where there is no "wrong" answer available to choose:
Action Adventure
- In A Link To The Past, when sage Sahasrahla asks Link if he really wants to find the Master Sword, the player's choices for a response are "Yeah!" and "Of Course!"
- Phantom Hourglass does this a lot. There's some things Link can't say no to. Even if it's a Creepy Child on a ghost ship asking you to "rescue" her equally creepy sisters.
- Wind Waker generally avoids this by not asking the player for input - instead, Link just nods his head automatically when he's asked to perform the next mission.
- In Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time, at one point, there's a dialogue where Norschtalen comments that it's odd that Sherlotta has a tail when most people don't, and when she asks your opinion, the only response possible is "Not really." Norschtalen immediately breaks the fourth wall to complain that you only had one option to choose from, and demands you try again with at least three. This time, the three are "Why?", "Nope", and "Seems normal to me".
Adventure
- Spoofed in Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice For All. In case 3, when the painfully cute Regina Berry asks Phoenix for a favor, all the responses are basically "yes", and regardless of which one you choose, Phoenix will say to himself that he just can't say no to a girl like Regina.
- In the final case of the same game, after presenting the evidence that drives de Killer into terminating his contract with Matt (and subsequently making Matt into his next target), you are once again asked to choose to either plead guilty or not guilty, only this time, the choice doesn't really matter anymore: If you plead guilty, Phoenix gives up his client, who promptly has a Villainous Breakdown. If you plead not guilty, Matt himself will plead guilty (because if he's let go, de Killer will be after his ass once he's out of custody) and will go into his breakdown. A satisfying ending to the final case!
- In Curse of Monkey Island, the smuggler asks Guybrush if he trusts him, and all the choices offered are a variation of "absolutely not". No matter which alternative is selected, Guybrush, apparently hesitant to speak his mind, will reply "Of course I trust you!"
- Played with elsewhere in the Monkey Island series as well, generally speaking as a short gag (but considering the linear path of these games, which don't even let you die no matter how bad you screw up, you might say the whole game is nothing but a series of "But thou must!" moments). For example, the first game has a moment where your ship's crew has decided to skip out on their duties and instead sunbathe on the deck of your ship. When you try to get them working again, they'll ask, "Guybrush, do you know what the word 'keelhaul' means?" No matter your response, including the choice to recite a dictionary entry for the term, Guybrush backs down with, "I see your point, thanks."
- In Curse of Monkey Island, Guybrush is asked if he has a girlfriend. Selecting the three "yes" answers results in a normal voiceover read: selecting "no" results in a cheerful "You bet!"
- In Escape from Monkey Island, you reach a point on an island where a stern man with a large cannon is drilling Guybrush, asking for his name and what he's doing. Although multiple smart-mouthed options are available, Guybrush always replies truthfully, with a nervous stammer.
- Hotel Dusk contains the only example I have experienced of a But Thou Must Not - during Chapter 6, Iris (resident stuck-up rich girl) asks if you want to drink with her. You receive two options, both of which involve turning her down (since Kyle and Iris don't exactly see eye-to-eye).
- In addition, like the game Trace Memory by the same maker before it, the main character does a mini-review at the end of each chapter. Getting the wrong answer doesn't have any impact, but lets you pick again. This makes some sense as it's purely a way for the player to freshen up on the facts in case it's been awhile since they've played.
- In a complete aversion of the trope, nearly all the conversations that can be had with various people can have the wrong answers chosen resulting in at least changing how they interact with you in the future, or at worst a Game Over. And in many cases, it isn't at all obvious which the "correct" answers are and it actually takes thinking like the main character.
- Parodied in Space Quest III: Would you like fries with that?◊. Somewhat of a comment on Real Life fast food clerks.
First Person Shooter
- Bioshock deconstructs this by revealing that you've been brainwashed so that whenever you are told "would you kindly" by your guide or other characters, you literally must. The deconstruction lies in the subtle commentary on how the player has been following these same orders simply because the game tells them to and that's the only way you can beat the game.
- Kind of lampshaded in Half Life 2, where the G-Man tells the player: "Rather than offer you the illusion of free choice, I will take the liberty of choosing for you..."
- This was also a nod towards the But Thou Must ending of the original Half-Life, where G-Man gives you a choice between working for him, or a certain death. Perhaps he is in fact aware of all the assorted Freemans (Freemen, hah) that did prefer to go up against an army of vortigaunts armed with nothing more than harsh language.
- Somewhat ironically, the events of the second game show that going with the Vortigaunts was the better choice.
- In The Darkness, a variation of this occurs: After finishing the "boss fight" with Uncle Paulie, despite The Darkness repeatedly saying that if Jackie kills Paulie, he'll lose his mind and soul to The Darkness forever, you absolutely have to finish him off. The door is suddenly locked for no obvious reason, and if you delay to try to let him get away, he instead grabs a hidden gun and starts shooting, forcing the issue.
Close First Person Shooter
MMORPG
- Browser-based MMORPG Travians lives on these, but one particular instance was at least more amusing than most:
You attempt to give Lorena a letter from the main villain of the game.
Lorena: Should I read it? You decide for me!
Choice #1: I'll rather keep the letter with me for a while.
Choice #2: Goodbye! (Standard conversation-ending choice)
And if you choose the only choice available:
Lorena: I trust your common sense.
- Parodied for a throwaway joke at least once in Kingdom Of Loathing: when you encounter Dr. Awkward the second time, the game offers you three choices of Battle Cry, all of which have exactly the same effect (i.e. entering combat).
Puzzle Games
- In World Of Goo, in the last level of Chapter 4, you are sent through a puzzle to "undelete" all the junk mail MOM has sent. When you get the Undelete button to the bottom of the level, a prompt appears, asking, "Undeleting everything is an irreversible operation. Are you sure you want to do this?" The two choices are "OK" and "yes".
RPG
- Super Paper Mario plays with it in a different fashion when Peach encounters the uber-nerd Francis. Francis treats the encounter as a Dating Sim and attempts to woo Peach in a variety of ways. After each attempt, the player is given three potential responses for Peach, ranging from calm acceptance to outright yelling at Francis. Regardless of the response chosen, Francis only finds her more attractive by the minute. Finally he mentions the possibility of marriage. The player's three responses now range from accepting the proposal to merely considering the proposal. After starting to say the chosen response, however, Peach demands to know who's choosing the answers, insists she'll never marry someone like Francis, and declares the whole thing a waste of her time.
- Also, when Mario first meets Squirps, Squirps tells him, "Your only responses should be 'Yes, sir!' and 'Gotcha!' Understand, squirkle?" It goes without saying what the available responses to that question are.
- Bioware is infamous for a number instances of this (when they are not Lawful Stupid Chaotic Stupid), giving the player various variants on the same phrase (such as rude, and Parrot Exposition). These varrients make no effect on the diaolage beyond a slight alteration of the next line at most.
- In {{Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood}}, this troupe is partially subverted. A few times during the game, you can give Sonic's response to Amy's actions. Near the end of the game, it will affect how your relationship with Amy ends up, and whether Sonic truly likes her.
- In Mother 3 when you refuse the Rope Snake's plead to aid you out of Saturn Valley enough times, the options become "Okay" and "I'm so moved".
- Breath Of Fire II has an instance where you are asked to cough up 900K Zenny or an Uparupa (an exceedingly rare creature) in exchange for releasing the Grass Man, Spar. After encountering and subduing the Uparupa (releasing it gives some good booty in exchange for your kindness), you can choose to give the Uparupa, the obscene sum of money, or you can valiantly refuse. MC Tusk (the guy who made the offer in the first place) chooses to kill you regardless of your answer. Cue boss fight.
- The epitome of Pokemon's But Thou Must attitude occurs in the first generation, on Nugget Bridge. After beating down five trainers, you're asked by a Team Rocket member if you want to join Team Rocket. You're not even given a Yes or No choice here — he just goes on talking as if you're automatically saying "no" each time he asks, before you wind up in a battle.
- Oh, it gets worse. You are given a personality quiz, and the only answers the quizzer will hear are the correct ones. And once that farce is done, he is impressed by "your" stance on Pokemon. Argh.
- In Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness, when returning to the pit leading to the lair of the "grand master of all things bad", after having already fallen in and escaped/lost once, the partner suggests walking around the pit this time, when Wigglytuff runs up and pushes them into the pit, effectively But Thou Musting the team into fighting the grand master.
- Secret Of Mana played with this trope at one point. The leader of the mushroom people ask you if you like the name he chose for your dragon. Both of your choices are of displeasure. However, before you get a chance to respond, he interrupts your bubble, realizing that no matter what you really think you'd say you like it because he's the king. So he decides to keep the name. The rest of the game mostly avoids this trope, by the revolutionary and edgy means of giving your character a voice and a personality.
- Want to prevent a companion from joining your party in Neverwinter Nights 2? Sorry, that's not an option. Not even for Grobnar.
- An early funny moment in Shadow Hearts: Covenant is when you arrive at Le Havre for the first time. On the way to the mayor's house, a character claiming to be a Lottery Member stops Yuri and But Thou Must's him into participating in the Lottery game. All three choices Yuri can make all equal "Yes."
- Soul Blazer does this to you at the end; when the Love Interest asks if you'll come back to see her, you can literally only say yes.
- At one point in Mario And Luigi: Partners in Time, you're instead provided no right answer. To pass a gate, Luigi has to pick the correct answer out of three provided... except, none of them are the right answer — the correct answer is a fourth option that doesn't exist. The gate claims Luigi is lying when he points this out.
- In the third battle of Valkyrie Profile Covenant Of The Plume the game won't let you move or do any commands until you use the Destiny Plume on Ancel. Even if you manage to get through the battle without it (only really possible on a New Game Plus using counter attacks), the game continues on as if you used it anyway.
Shoot Em Up
- Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters mostly averted this, with its vastly open-ended gameplay, but for one vital decision that ensures its ultimately linear storyline, it actually justifies the lack of free will you experience. That is, through in-story mind control. Your only dialogue choices then range from failed struggling to fawning agreement.
Simulation Games
- The first Sakura Wars game (a dating sim, so a game where normally your choices do matter with many branches), still manages to have a few choices where the girls just won't listen to you (which is okay, cause that will happen from time to time) but right before the final battle, your character says "for us there is only one option left" at which point an option box pops up, which literaly only has once choice... and if you let it time out it still goes through the exact same dialogue.
Stealth Based Games
- Played with it in Metal Gear Solid 2. If you do something depraved or senselessly violent (such as looking at pornography in a toilet stall, shooting seagulls or knocking out a young hostage to look up her skirt) it will understandably upset Raiden's girlfriend, who's also responsible for allowing saving. If you then try to save, she replaces the SAVE|DO NOT SAVE menu with one saying I WON'T MAKE YOU SAVE|DO NOT SAVE, until Raiden apologizes to her.
Close Stealth Based Games
Tabletop Game Adaptations
- In Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, this is justified as the Prince using his vampiric mind control powers (the Dominate discipline) on you when you try to refuse his orders. Prince: "You - will - destroy - the Sabbat", and you get three identical dialogue choices of "I will destroy the sabbat".
- Which by VtM standards is the Prince actually being polite. In the tabletop RPG, gross insubordination to the Prince is generally punishable by being nailed to a wall facing east and left to wait for the sunrise.
- This makes it much more enjoyable when, in the good Camarilla ending, he orders you to give him the key to the Sarcophagus, and you resist it—causing him to fall to his knees and sob. (Of course, if he knew what was in it, he wouldn't want the key.)
Close Tabletop Game Adaptations
Unsorted (please help!)
- In Legend Of Mana, you can refuse any of the NP Cs who want to join your party, and if you don't bother to correct the Onion Kid when he calls you "Chumpy" you are stuck with the nickname for that game cycle, but you are compelled to "buy" some fairly bad gear from Honest John's Dealership on your first quest with him every single time, and in one arc you're not even given the option to refuse the quest to defeat the Big Bad (justified in that you were blackmailed into working for him through most of the quest).
- .hack brings us the big hulking green freak Piros. The people who designed the first four games must like this guy. He drags you on two quests per game. Half of which are caused by his ineptitude and gullibility. This guy is seriously annoying but the story will NOT progress until you clean up his messes. Because Kite has nothing better to do....... besides saving coma victims.
- Piros makes FAR more sense when you realize that he's the Author Avatar of Hiroshi Matsuyama, the president of CyberConnect2 and the director of the .hack series. Not only is Piros literally Hiroshi in the game universe (ie, the "graphics designer" who plays Piros' character is Hiroshi Matsuyama), but the real Hiroshi even sings his theme song in the GU games.
- Shin Megami Tensei II has Beth force you to let Daleth live so he can flee. It still impacts your Karma Meter, though.
- In Deus Ex the player is constantly given choices that have some impact on how the game plays out. Despite this, you can't chose your allies or enemies until the game decides that you trust them. Justified barely in that having people shoot you on sight is a lot less about how you feel about them and a lot more about how they feel about you.
- In a particularly egregious example when you are given the mission of killing your own brother, if you try to actually do so he ignores being repeatedly shot and just says "stop kidding around, J.C..
- And later in that mission, the game makes an invincible enemy and removes your escape chopper, forcing your "death". Though, to be fair, it does give you the option of surrendering.
- It's worth noting exactly how much this looks like it would avert this trope. See, after sending the rebel's signal and going back to Paul's apartment, you're surrounded by Mi Bs. It is possible to shoot or sneak through all of them, which takes you to the hotel lobby, crammed with soldiers. Once again, you can shoot or sneak through all of them and head outside. Jock will then say that he can't set down the chopper here, so you've got to head to Battery Park instead - while the streets are crawling with patrols. You can then use a code to open the subway gate, and take it back to the park...where you will then meet with Anna Nevarre, if she's still alive out for your blood. If you then kill or sneak by Anna, and take the stairs up out of the subway, you will then meet the invincible Gunther. He will offer you the choice to surrender or fight - fighting will make him and his surrounding army shoot you up until you have the scripted Fake Death. Even if you use cheats to get past everyone, you can't get to the chopper or even walk out of the park - the exits and chopper are behind Invisible Walls. So close and yet so far!
- And even later, before going to the Ancient Conspiracy's headquarters, you're given two dialogue options, both of which result in you getting knockout gassed and dragged there unconscious.
- The sequel, Deus Ex: Invisible War gives you at least two factions telling you what to do every step of the way. More often than not, they are telling you to do almost the exact same things. In the end, you are given a choice to tell them all to shove it and leave you alone, but that of course still plays into at least some of their plans.
- Used straight in Brass Restoration, as it's a Visual Novel, but also lampshaded a few times.
- Trace Memory, at the end of each chapter the main character quizzes herself. Getting the answer wrong just makes her say 'No, wait... That's not right' and you can guess again. Becomes really obvious in the ending.
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