Teleportation can easily become a Story-Breaker Power if the writer isn't careful. One common way to avoid this is to restrict the ability so that one can only teleport to places one already visited on foot or for which one has a clear description.
A painting or photograph might or might not be enough. In even looser versions, a reliable map and a compass or even a verbal description could do the job. On the other hand, you may need to know not only what the location looks like but where it is relative to your current position. Attempting a Blind Jump may or may not be possible in a given system, but if it is, trying to do so can easily lead to a Teleporter Accident or Tele-Frag.
This has the potential to create a Catch-22 Dilemma if the only obvious way to get to a location is to teleport.
Subtrope of Teleportation with Drawbacks. Compare Anchored Teleportation, where you need a beacon of some sort to teleport to a location correctly. This is an Omnipresent Trope of Warp Whistle systems in video games: in order to prevent Sequence Breaking, you can only use quick-travel to get to locations you've already reached once the hard way.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Finral, the spacial mage from the Black Bull brigade in Black Clover can create portals within his field of view for his allies to pass through. He can also use this for long distance teleportation as long as the destinations are locations he previously "marked" when visiting them.
Comic Books
- Power Pack: The Power Pack once helped a mutant child given the name "Lighttrakker" because her teleportation power is involuntarily triggered by any strong light source she sees to transport her to it. This can be anything from studio lights to a beacon light on a radio tower. To prevent this from happening she wore Sunglasses at Night to stop it from activating.
- Secret Warriors: Eden Fesi, codename Manifold, can teleport seemingly anything anywhere within the universe so long as he has his bearings. If he gets turned around in an enclosed space with no visual references to the outside for his location, he can't use his powers.
- X-Men: Nightcrawler can only teleport to places he either has line-of-sight to, or for which he has a good idea where he's going. Technically, he can teleport without this, but doing so risks him teleporting inside a solid object.
Fan Works
- Dungeon Keeper Ami: One mentioned, but never seen, teleportation method allows the user to return to places where they've been. Ami was looking for teleportation to retrieve objects to her location at the time.
- In the fanfic PATCHWORK SOUL
, Sans says that he can only teleport to places he's previously been to, which is why he never tried teleporting out of the Underground. In fact, there's an entire mini-arc centered around Sans and Frisk trying to get into the ruins precisely so he can later teleport there in case of an emergency.
Films — Live-Action
- X2: X-Men United: Nightcrawler's teleportation abilities depend on him having a line-of-sight to his destination, and warns the team that trying to travel blindly might result in him re-materializing inside a wall—meaning that he can't help them get inside Stryker's base under the dam. However, when they have to rescue Professor X from behind the sealed doors of Dark Cerebro, Nightcrawler is called upon to perform a Blind Jump; thankfully, Nightcrawler just manages it with some emotional support from Storm.
- The Pumaman (subject of a 1980 "superhero" film) can teleport via a tangible form of Astral Projection — y'know, a well-known trait of pumas — but can travel only to a place he "knows" i.e. has been to, or risk getting "lost in The Nothingness". This prevents him from simply appearing inside the villain's hideout, and forces him to get clever.
- David's apartment in Jumper is filled with photographs of different places around the world so that he can visualize and therefore jump to them easily.
Literature
- In The Art of Arrow Cutting by Stephen Dedman, the MacGuffin artifact can (among other powers) teleport the holder, dependent on the holder's ability to picture themself at their intended destination. This effectively limits it to destinations that the user has either been before or has a good photo of. Toward the end of the novel, the protagonist tests his control of the artifact by teleporting to the moon and back by way of a photo of one of the Apollo landing sites.
- Below: Mages can teleport to anywhere they've been, but anyone else needs an item like a one-shot scroll to do the same. Hoping to empty one of the otherwise impractical treasure pits in the underground ruins, Brenish has the novel idea of using a teleportation orb that can carry multiple people and all the treasure near them. An orb is incredibly expensive, which is why no one has ever tried it. The orb is one-shot too, but unlike a scroll using it merely depletes rather than destroys it.
- Dragonriders of Pern: The dragons of Pern are capable of teleporting to any location on Pern that they know or that can be accurately described to them. It works through time as well: in Dragonquest, F'lar is able to travel back in time a few hours to observe a Threadfall at his current location by describing the position of the sun to his dragon. They even try teleporting to the planet the Thread come from, but the initial expedition fails because there's no air to breathe at the destination.
- Downplayed in Elantris. Anyone who knows the teleportation spell can teleport by specifying direction and distance, but there's no safeguard against teleporting into walls. Raoden can only jump to a different city because someone memorized the distance.
- Harry Potter: A prerequisite to successful Apparition is being able to accurately visualize the place the witch or wizard is trying to teleport to. Distance is also a factor; Apparition gets harder to perform safely the further someone tries to travel in one teleport. Most Apparition in the series is consequently used for travel to locations that characters have been to before within the British Isles.
- Heralds of Valdemar: This is one of the rules of the Gates, magical portals wizards can use to teleport vast distances. The wizard casting the spell must be intimately familiar with the destination he's going to. Travel by large groups is often accomplished by sending a mage out overland with a small party, and having him cast his Gate back to the origin point to allow the rest of his group to cross through it and join him. This fact is what helped Urtho's forces disrupt Maar's supply lines as they retreated during the Mage Wars, and in fact is a distinct advantage to any defending or retreating army.
- Joshua Dread: Cassie's dad can only open portals to locations he has already been to before.
- In Jumper, David can only teleport to places he can visualize, which means either places he has been to in person and can clearly remember or places he can see directly. Once he understands his power he starts recording a videotape library of places he visits to refresh his mental image. The other side of his ability is shown in a scene where he “hikes” across a vast expanse of difficult terrain by focusing on a spot he can see near the horizon and jumping to it.
- In Septimus Heap, ghosts can only go places they traveled when they were alive. This counts boats and horses as "places", so they could go somewhere new if the boat was still intact or the horse was still alive (or was a ghost horse that had traveled other places), they just can't get off. They can't teleport, though.
- Skulduggery Pleasant: Teleporters can try to teleport to places they've never been before, but without an accurate picture in their mind, they may end up in the wrong place, like inside a solid object. The exception is Nero, a Neoteric whose teleportation works differently from the norm. He can track and follow other teleporters no matter where they go, even if he has no idea where they're going.
- Torture Princess: Fremd Torturchen: Elisabeth Le Fanu has a teleportation circle in her castle, drawn in her own blood, that allows her to jump to any location she's familiar with, or that has a matching circle on the other end. Kaito exploits the latter with his golem body in order to summon her into places where she's never been: since it was animated using her blood, he's able to carve a working teleportation circle into his own stomach at one point for a Zany Scheme. And since he memorizes any information carved into his skin, he's able to draw it himself from memory afterward.
- The True Game: The teleportation Talent requires familiarity with the target location. In Necromancer Nine, Peter gets around this problem by using his shapeshifting powers to increase his visual acuity, letting him Teleport Spam his way across country.
- The Teleportation power in Villain.net requires the user to have seen the place (a picture will do) and know roughly where in the world it is.
- The Wheel of Time:
- Downplayed with Power-assisted transportation; channelers can at least attempt to travel to their destination even if they don't know where they're going, but they will probably not end up where they want to be.
- Inverted with Traveling, where the main factor in determining precise placement of the exit Gateway is familiarity with the starting surroundings. Once an entry Gateway has been successfully formed in a given location, a channeler is considered "familiar" with that place, so sometimes they make a shorter, less accurate, jump first.
- Played Straight with Skimming, where precision is mostly determined by familiarity with the exit Gateway's position. Unlike Traveling, Skimming is not instantaneous, and requires that the channeler pass through a Void Between the Worlds.
- In The Witling, most Azhiri have the ability to teleport to places they've seen before. Some also have the ability to remotely see distant places, allowing them to see and then teleport to places they haven't physically visited.
- Wulfrik: The Seafang obeys Wulfrik's commands by going into the daemon realm and emerging where he wants. However, sometimes he himself doesn't know where he wants to go, such as fleeing Ulthuan only to end up in the Empire instead of Norsca (as the wizard who'd tricked him was hiding there), or only knows where he's going because of the visions sent to him by the gods.
Live-Action TV
- Meta of the Week Shawn Baez from The Flash (2014) can teleport anywhere in her line of sight. She aids this ability by carrying around a telescope, which is also sturdy enough to serve as a bludgeon. The heroes contain her by putting her in a cell with two-way mirrored walls, so she can be seen but can't see out.
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons & Dragons:
- Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition: : The teleport spell has a percentage chance of failing—meaning anything from landing off-target to suffering a Teleporter Accident, also decided by percentile dice—that increases the less familiar the caster is with their target location. Greater teleport removes the chance of damage but still requires at least a good description of the destination: if the description you have isn't good enough, you simply reappear back where you started.
- Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition:
- The Teleportation spell can work with places the caster hasn't been, but the risk of failure decreases with the level of familiarity with the place. Only a magic circle and having an object associated with the target location are completely safe.
- Misty Step is a 2nd level spell that lets you teleport up to 30 feet, but you must be able to see your destination.
- Monster of the Week: The Divine playbook's ability Angel Wings allows them to teleport to any place they have physically visited before or to any person they personally know well, wherever that person may be.
- Pathfinder: 1st Edition uses the same mechanics as Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition. 2nd Edition combines teleport and greater teleport into a single teleport spell that requires the caster to know both the appearance and position of their target relative to them.
Toys
- BIONICLE: The Kanohi Kulasi, the mask of Quick Travel, requires the user to have a clear line of sight to their destination.
Video Games
In this folder, per rules on Omnipresent Tropes, please include only examples that are either not components of a Warp Whistle system, or play with the trope.
- Azure Striker Gunvolt: Jota, one of the bosses, is a light manipulator who can move at the speed of light. As this speed is faster than his own neural network, this means that he cannot think while moving as such speeds, and thus can only "teleport" to places he had focused his thought onto.
- Miriam gains a couple of such abilities in Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, not counting the Warp Whistle type items or rooms. Early on she learns Reflector Ray that casts an aimable beam of light which can either be pointed to a destination or bounced off of mirrors, which quickly shoots her down the beam and to its target. Very late in the game she gains Dimension Shift that functions similarly, but can pass Miriam through solid objects rather than be reflected off of them. Both require Miriam to be able to see where she wants to aim her teleportation.
- EarthBound (1994): Zig-Zagged. Normally PSI Teleport only takes a person to someplace they've visited first, but Poo uses PSI Teleport Beta immediately after learning it in order to reach Summers from Dalaam and meet with Ness, Paula, and Jeff for the first time.
- In Final Fantasy XIV, the Ascians are able to teleport virtually anywhere at will, disappearing into a black fog on command and potentially kidnapping others with them. Combined with their non-corporeal bodies, this means there's almost no place they don't have access to, which allows them to remain one step ahead of the Scions to plot their next move. However, they don't seem to be able to teleport to places that haven't been to already, hence Lahabrea needing to acquire a special key to access the Allagan research facility of Azys Lla. This ability is later revealed to be a product of the Echo, and Zenos gains access to it as well after turning himself into a Resonant.
- Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Dimension Door spell, which teleports your hero to a target location on the adventure map, can only take you to places that aren't covered in the Fog of War and only has a range of 8 squares. It's still considered an absolute Game-Breaker since it lets you cover a massive amount of terrain for very little movement cost and can be used to teleport over obstacles that might otherwise take several turns to get around.
- King's Quest: Mask of Eternity: There are designated warp points in each area. Normally they only appear on your magic map once you've visited them, so you can only go to places you've already been. However, at one point a magical device is used to trick the map into adding a new warp point.
- Inverted with the Warp Whistle system in Super Mario Bros. 3, which is primarily used to go forward in the game rather than going back, although returning to previously-visited worlds is a possibility (to a limited extent) if one so desires.
- In An Untitled Story, you gain the ability to teleport between save points, and completing the game depends on the player realizing their initial assumption about the teleportation mechanics is wrong. You can warp to any save points you've seen, and not just the ones you've visited. Meaning you can warp to a save point as soon as you've been on the same screen as it, even if you haven't reached the save point itself by normal traversal. Players who assume the usual video game teleportation restrictions apply, inevitably get stuck at SkySand, where one of the necessary power-ups is in a chamber that's only accessible by save point teleportation.
- Zig-Zagged in Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders. When Zak learns how to use the Yellow Crystal and draws the map from his dream, he can teleport to the Mars Face even though he hadn't been there yet. Atlantis and the Mars Pyramid also appear on the map, but Zak can't teleport to either location because the pads are broken there.
Webcomics
- El Goonish Shive: Nanase can create fairy dolls that are linked to people and take control of the doll at any time for a Remote Body. However, she can only make them appear in places she's been to before and can't create a doll if she doesn't have a clear picture of who she's trying to link to. Also, if she tries creating a doll on someone she's already linked with (and she isn't currently transformed), she goes back to the old doll wherever it is.
