Will Neff: I was just baffled by that the prize is tennis.
Doug: No we wanted- like dude, so we figured if we put on this show, right? You guys are very adaptable and whatnot, it's a similar skill set to tennis.
PointCrow: Was this whole thing just to find tennis partners?
Doug and Jerma: Yeah.
Doug: No we wanted- like dude, so we figured if we put on this show, right? You guys are very adaptable and whatnot, it's a similar skill set to tennis.
PointCrow: Was this whole thing just to find tennis partners?
Doug and Jerma: Yeah.
Our heroes are at the quarterfinal of their Tournament Arc, defeating all comers in glorious and very expensively produced battles. Suddenly an announcement comes over the loudspeaker: their next challenge will be a singing contest!
Cue a Flat "What" en masse from the protagonists and the audience.
Something probably happened behind the scenes, or possibly in public during a previous match, that forced a major change to the contest format during the contest. Maybe they're trying to rig the match in their favor by Moving the Goalposts, or possibly multiple teams withdrawing forced a shift in the scoring system.
This is something of an In-Universe version of an Unexpected Gameplay Change, where a video game requires you to do something out of the ordinary for its genre in order to advance. Compare to Obvious Rule Patch, where a specific rule is changed instead of the entire contest format, and Halfway Plot Switch and Genre Shift, where the entire plot of the story is altered.
Compare to Calvinball and New Rules as the Plot Demands, where the rules of a game or contest aren't fully explained to the audience and frequently change—in the former case because the characters are literally making them up as they go along, and in the latter because the work creator is doing so and contradicting themselves.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- During Dragon Ball Z's Buu Saga, the 25th World Martial Arts Tournament had a number of participants drop out, due to the heroes needing to deal with the looming threat of Babidi trying to awaken Majin Buu. Due to the absence of many participants, the tournament format changes from traditional one-on-one brackets to a battle royale format between Android 18, Mr. Satan, Mighty Mask (who is just Trunks and Goten wearing his costume), Jewel, and Killa.
- Helck: In the first chapter, Vermilio the Red is incensed that a human hero, the eponymous Helck, is decisively winning the tournament to crown the next Demon Lord. Convinced he must be a Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, she begins switching the formats of his matches to such things as building castles of cards in hopes of getting him out of the tournament. He continues to win anyway.
Fan Works
- Inspected by No 13
: Thanks to Harry and Edwina levying massive fines for the poor handling of the second Triwizard task, the tournament budget is completely exhausted, and the third task is changed from a maze to a single round of Wizarding rock-paper-scissors.note
- Smash King: In "R n' R," President Dedede formally reveals the Tetracardinal trophies, a set of supremely powerful Fighter Trophies, specifically Ridley. He declares that being at the top of the Smash King tournament rankings won't be enough, where they must also defeat Ridley in order to truly meet with The Creator. The winning team of the tournament has only one chance to defeat him, and if they fail, then no wishes will be granted. This goes against how the tournament had been structured, where it had advertised a meeting with the creator as a prize for standing atop the rankings, especially when the tournament had been going on for a month. Rightfully, the participants call out the Brawl Spectator Society for Moving The Goal Posts, but Bowser figures out that this is was done so Ganondorf could secure his chances at meeting with the Creator (as Ridley is under Ganondorf's control).
Donkey Kong: You're only telling us this, now?!
Pikachu: What a load of crap! We fight for a month, and the winner isn't even fully guaranteed a wish?!
[...]
Dedede: We are aware how sudden this announcement was. We had originally planned to spring this on ya during the finals, but in order to be a bit fair, we had Ridley personally show up for Char-Char's event to show the world what he's made of.
Film — Animated
- In Shrek, Lord Farquaad holds a tournament among Duloc's knights, with the winner earning the right to go on a Suicide Mission to rescue Princess Fiona. When Shrek shows up just as the tournament gets underway, the disgusted Farquaad comes up with a new idea: the winner is whoever kills Shrek. Shrek defeats the knights with ease, so Farquaad changes his plans yet again and declares Shrek the winner, sending him to rescue Fiona instead (hoping he'll either succeed or get himself killed by the dragon).
Literature
- The Hunger Games: Played for Drama. The games are expected to only have a single victor. Due to Katniss and Peeta becoming beloved as the "Star Crossed Lovers of District 12", though, a rule change is spontaneously announced a few days in that if both tributes from a district are alive, they can win together. This gives the two extra motivation to keep each other alive. However, when they do outlast every other district, the rules change again — revoking the earlier change for in-universe drama. Katniss and Peeta force their hand by threatening a double suicide, so the rules flip back for a final time so they can both go home as victors.
- Reign of the Seven Spellblades: School-organized tournaments usually use a round-robin format with the participants being scored on points. In volume 9, however, of the four finalist teams in the underclassmens' tier of the combat leagues, two are forced to withdraw after their matches.note As a consequence, the school switches the final match between Team Horn and Team Andrews to winner-take-all and organizes a bonus round in the labyrinth (consisting of cleaning up invasive species left over from the upperclassmens' prelim) for the runners-up to make up for the reduction in the number of matches.
- Epithet Erased: Prison of Plastic: The Spelling Bee's challenge is, as the name suggests, based on successfully spelling words. Once Phoenica, who is surprisingly academically gifted for someone with such an overwhelming lack of common sense, has mercilessly crushed the first two rounds with a smile on her face, Lorelai starts getting desperate and changes tack, improvising a challenge on the spot where the objective is to come up with a word the Spelling Bee can't spell, and setting a few rules so as to fend off the most obvious Loophole Abuse attempts like inventing a word on the spot. Unfortunately for the Spelling Bee, Phoenica's nickname, Feenie, technically complies with all those rules...
Live-Action TV
- Each arc in Kamen Rider Geats is delineated by a major change in the format of the Desire Grand Prix. The Encounter arc that begins the show is the closest to a conventional "season" of the DGP, then the Scheme arc that follows it sees the Game Master attempt to take out Ace for digging too deep into the DGP's secrets, then the Divergence arc that happens after the Game Master was booted gains Reality Show elements like contestant interviews and fan voting. The Lamentation arc sees the sponsor Beroba take over the DGP on behalf of the Jyamato, the Yearning arc has the DGP take over the show again after Beroba completes her Jyamato Grand Prix in preparation for ending the world, and the final Genesis arc sees multiple rounds of the DGP take place as the heroes and villains fight for the power of creation.
Video Games
- Happens a couple times in the Danganronpa series, which revolves around a Deadly Game, both times in the final chapter to bring the game to a close.
- Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc: Near the end of the first game, Monokuma uses a rigged trial to get rid of Kyoko, only for Makoto to take the fall, leading to him being executed, despite the rules saying only the person who killed the victim being valid as the correct person to be executed. Thankfully for Makoto, his talent for being Born Lucky allows him to survive the execution, giving him the opportunity to confront Monokuma about this. Monokuma initially plans to declare Screw the Rules, I Make Them!, only for Makoto and Kyoko to remind him about the killing game being broadcast, and further cheating would heavily undermine his intended message. Monokuma then decides to challenge the six surviving students to a final trial. Instead of the standard "figure out the killer" goal, this last trial requires them to solve the Ontological Mystery and work out who is the mastermind controlling Monokuma. Winning this trial will allow them to leave alive, while failure will lead to them all being executed. The rules change again during the trial, after the reveal that Junko Enoshima was Faking the Dead through a Twin Switch, and as such, is the mastermind. Junko decides to try and force the students past the Despair Event Horizon, and changes it so that the vote is now between letting hope or despair win. If anyone votes for despair, Junko wins, Makoto will be executed, and everyone stays in the school. Should hope win through a unanimous vote, Junko is executed, and the remaining six will leave. Makoto successfully rouses hope in the others, allowing for hope to win, and Junko to be defeated.
- Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony: In the final chapter, Shuichi finds some evidence that suggests the first trial was rigged, and Kaede was falsely executed, leading to him calling for a retrial. While this is seemingly unprecedented, Monokuma shows amusement in the idea and agrees to it. In the trial, Shuichi reveals the truth, exposing Tsumugi as the one who actually killed Rantaro and got away with it, undermining the rules of the game. At this point, Tsumugi reveals herself to be the mastermind, having used her position to subvert the rules and continue the killing game, which again, is an Immoral Reality Show, but this time, instead of hijacking the airwaves, the killing game is fully legal and backed by a studio, the result of a "Truman Show" Plot. Tsumugi then changes things up, so again, the vote is between hope and despair, but as a full on Sadistic Choice. Hope will have Tsumugi and two of the survivors move onto the next season of Danganronpa and partake in that killing game (it's implied Rantaro took a similar deal in the previous season), while despair will lead to K1-B0, the Ultimate Hope Robot, being executed and the killing game?s continuation. Shuichi instead decides to Take a Third Option, where everyone abstains from voting, even knowing that doing so will lead to their execution, in order to give the show the most disappointing ending possible and drive the viewing audience away from the show. It takes a lot of effort, but Shuichi eventually convinces the others to abstain, even with K1-B0 being hijacked by said audience in the studio's last ditch effort to foil his plan. Despite the intent for everyone to be executed, K1-B0 performs the execution, only killing Tsumugi and then proceeding to self destruct to destroy the set, allowing the remaining three to escape alive.
Webcomics
- Kill Six Billion Demons: During the King of Swords arc, Solomon suddenly changes his Circle of Strength competition from a ranked tournament to a battle royale.
Western Animation
- Arthur: In "My Club Rules", D.W. tries to horn in on Arthur and his classmates' meeting about their float for the town parade, and they come up with the idea of declaring themselves the "Parade Float Club" to exclude her. After D.W. demands to join the club, Francine comes up with the idea of kicking a ball out of the yard as a membership test—and supply a bowling ball. D.W. demands THEY try to kick it, too, so Francine changes the "rule" to drawing a funny picture of Mr. Ratburn. Buster thinks D.W.'s drawing is funny, so Arthur overrides Francine and tells D.W. that club members have to be third-graders.
- Total Drama: In "The Final Wreck-ening", after Mike defeats Mal and reconciles with Zoey, Chris gets annoyed with the touchy-feely attitudes and lack of tense competition, so he declares that anybody who gets to the target first — including the helpers, not just the finalists — can win the million dollars. This triggers Alejandro and Heather to go from Sickeningly Sweethearts to their typical competitive selves.
