Also check out Sandbox.Tabletop Game Project

To-Do List

Sandbox.Downfall Slay The Spire: Soon ready for launch. Just needs a description. Will probably procrastinate until the auto-wicking thing is launched though.
Sandbox.Touhou Lost Branch Of Legend
Webcomic.X Why: Needs improvements.
VideoGame.The Void Rains Upon Her Heart: Needs updating.

Category 1: Priority entries

Catch Falling Stuff Mini-Game

Laconic: A mini-game about catching falling stuff.

A mini-game where you catch falling stuff. Often made more interesting by also featuring stuff you need to avoid.

Sometimes you need to dispose of the stuff you catch. This is often time-consuming enough that you risk other stuff falling on the floor if you're not careful.

It may or may not be explained why it's so important to catch the stuff before it hits the ground. Simiarly, the items often fall slowly. Insert Painfully Slow Projectile joke here.

Compare and contrast Breaking Out.

Examples

Mini-Game Games

The Licensed Game of Jul i Blåfjell features a mini-game where some guy keeps throwing garbage around. You have to make Turte catch the garbage and dispose of it in the appropriate bin.
The Jul i Skomakergata Licensed Game features a mini-game where a donut machine has gone berserk and just spits out donuts all over the place. Your job is to catch them on a stick before they fall on the floor. You also have to empty the stick at the right times.
The Licensed Game of Pinchcliffe Grand Prix features a game where you play as Sonny trying to catch falling apples in his wheelbarrow before they hit the ground, while avoiding the rotten apples and remembering to empty the wheelbarrow into the basket before it gets too full.

Party Games

Mario Party 5 has the "Coney Island" mini-game where the players try to catch the scoops of ice cream that inexplicably fall from above by moving to where their shadows are. The more ice cream you have in your cone, the slower you walk and turn. Whoever catches the most ice cream wins.

Rhythm Games

EZ2DJ has the EZ2Catch game mode where you try to catch falling fruit on a platter in time with the music.

Web Games

In Lilo & Stitch: 625 Sandwich Stacker, you play as Experiment 625 trying to make a sandwich by catching tasty, inexplicably slow-falling ingredients while avoiding nasty stuff like shoes and fish skeletons.

Multiple-Benefactor Effect (needs a better name?)

It can be a way to inject more resources into the game. "You get 2 coins and your opponents get 1"

They differ from Symmetric Effects by having at least one of the following properties:

Asymmetric Benefits: Your opponents get a bonus, but you get a bigger one.
Partial Distribution: You share the benefit with opponents, but not necessarily all opponents.

These are often more enticing to players than Symmetric Effects, as their usefulness is more obvious and avoids the question of "why bother if the opponent is just getting the same benefit out of it anyway?"

Note: If an effect says something like "You and a chosen opponent both gain a coin" in a game that can be played at 2 or more players, it goes both here and on Symmetric Effect because it's a Symmetric Effect in practice at 2 players.

Examples

Board Games

A central mechanic in Race for the Galaxy. When you choose to perform a phase, every player gets to perform it. However, those who chose that phase get a bonus associated with it.
Res Arcana has several artifacts with powers that give you a number of essences, and give each opponent one of the same essence. An interesting one is the Tree of Life, which does this for Life, and has a secondary effect that protects you from attacks. However, the extra Life it gives to your opponents helps them obtain a buffer from attacks as well.
Wingspan has a lot of "friendly" player interaction cards that give each player a bonus, and then gives you an additional benefit.

Video Games

Trading Card Games

Magic: The Gathering:
- The tempting offer cycle consists of five cards that give you a benefit. Then each opponent gets the chance to copy the effect... but for everyone who accepts, you get an extra copy as well. The demonstrate cycle is similar: you get an effect and may choose to repeat it once, but if you do, you have to choose an opponent who also gets to copy it.
- Trade Secrets has an opponent draw 2 cards, then you get to draw up to 4. Then the opponent may repeat this as many times as they want. It's banned in Commander because it essentially says "you and an ally draw as much as you want to". Secret Rendezvous is a more balanced card with a similar idea, as it has you and an opponent draw 3 cards once.

Fallback Action

An actions that's always available in a game where actions being conditional is the norm. Sometimes it's a last resort if you have absolutely nothing else to do and the turn or resource would otherwise go to waste. Some games want you to use it more proactively.

Examples:

Board Games

7 Wonders: You can always discard cards for 3 coins. This is mostly an emergency option if you really need the money and don't like anything you get, and an Anti-Frustration Feature if you can't build anything (so your turn doesn't go completely to waste). Duel also always has discarding a card as an option — as the players no longer pay each other for resources, the game needed another reliable source of income. Gaining money to buy something else later is often more important than taking whatever a building in front of you.
The Castles of Burgundy: Most actions are restricted by your dice rolls for a turn, but any roll can be used to gain 2 workers.
Dominion: The cards Copper, Estate and Curse are always available (unless they somehow get bought up) and can be taken for free.^note
The Worker Placement game Everdell has several spaces that can be used regardless of how many workers are already there. While not as useful as the single-use spaces, they let you get something out of a worker if the spaces you wanted are occupied.
Happy City: You can choose to skip buying a building and instead taking a coin. This mostly serves as a last resort if you can't build anything.
Living Forest: You can take a fragment regardless of what resources you have.
Race for the Galaxy: "Explore" (card draw) is the only action that always accomplishes something^note — Develop and Settle do nothing when you have nothing you can play, Consume is useless when you have no goods to sell, and Produce is useless if none of your worlds can produce anything. The flipside is that since your chosen phase(s) is/are shared with everyone, your opponent(s) get a benefit too.
Res Arcana: Any card can be discarded for 1 gold or any 2 non-gold essences. This means you can get something out of an otherwise useless card, which is particularly useful in the late game when it's too late for many artifacts to pay off. This mechanic also enables you to play your best cards faster in the early game.
In the Worker Placement game Viticulture, the Grande worker can be placed in a spot even if an opponent is taking it up.

Trading Card Games

Duel Masters: Any card in your hand can be played into the mana zone. This is your main way of gaining access to mana, but it's also a guaranteed use for a card.

Card Battle Games

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft: Your Hero Power is always available, has a low mana cost at 2 (1 for Demon Hunter) and can be used once per turn. This contrasts with the cards in your deck, which need to be drawn to be used.

Shoot 'em Up

Touhou Project:
- Touhou Kouryuudou ~ Unconnected Marketeers: At the end of each stage, you get to buy one Ability Card from the boss's shop. The cards Spell Card (grants an extra Smart Bomb), Money Comes and Goes On its Own (grants 50 money) and Ringo-Brand Dango (grants 0.50 Power) are always offered for free.
- Black Market of Bulletphilia ~ 100th Black Market: At the end of each stage segment, you visit a Black Market and can buy up to 3 Ability Cards. You always have the option to take Money Comes and Goes On its Own (which grants between 50 and 100 money) for free; however, it must be your only card for that market if you take it. If you can't afford anything, this card will automatically be "purchased".

Category 2: Ideas I'm pretty confident about, but need some more work

Russ Song

A russ song is a song produced to promote the "russ concept" of Norwegian high school graduates as part of the russ celebration

. Most of these songs are some kind of Electronic Music, though Rap also shows up fairly frequently. They can be recognized from their titles, which are almost always something like "Tropers 2018" for a TV Tropes-themed group who graduated in 2018.

These songs tend to have simple lyrics that revolve around things like partying, driving in the russ car, consuming lots of alcohol (if not harder drugs), having lots of sex with beautiful women, and fantasizing about being filthy rich. In addition, the russ group's concept will usually be loosely incorporated into the track (for instance, a hypothetical "Tropers 2018" song would likely contain direct references to Sex Tropes). Most controversially, they often have unflattering portrayals of women which may include treating them as sex objects, frequently calling them whores, Questionable Consent, and even explicit assaults. This has attracted some negative media attention.

Of course, commissioning a song from a famous producer can be expensive. Some groups instead decide to make their theme song themselves.

The rarest type of one-off russ song is when a group gets an artist not known for russ songs to make one. These tracks often have unusual musical styles and lyrics for a russ song.

Compare the lyrically similar Crunk and Snap.

Russ song producers by stage name:

DJ Pøssycat is known for his provocative lyrics, which he describes as crass satire.
Before he pivoted to emotional Pop music, TIX was known for producing russ songs. He collaborated with an anonymous writing collective named The Pøssy Project, which got the credit/blame for the often-controversial lyrics.

One-off russ songs by song title:

"Maiden 2020"
Ole Ivars "Smørebussen"

Parodies and discussions in media:

Web Video

Norwegian YouTuber Ole Wold has a series where he MSTs russ songs he finds terrible (though each video features a token okay/good song).

Norwegian Graduation Party Anthem

During their final spring semester, many Norwegian high school graduates participate in the russefeiring and are referred to as russ. The celebration tends to involve a lot of partying and alcohol. Typically, the russ form groups who share a car (sometimes even a bus) and create a concept with which they decorate their vehicle. In The New '10s, it became common for these groups to have their own theme songs: the Norwegian Graduation Party Anthem. They can be recognized from their titles, which are almost always something like "Tropers 2018".^note

These songs tend to have simple, crass lyrics about things like partying, driving around in their car, consuming lots of alcohol (if not harder drugs), having lots of sex, and fantasizing about being filthy rich. In addition, the russ group's concept is loosely incorporated into the track — "Tropers 2018" would probably be a party song with explicit nods to Sex Tropes. Most controversially, the songs often feature unflattering portrayals of women which may include treating them as sex objects, frequently calling them whores (or dickteasers if they don't have sex), Questionable Consent, or even explicit assaults. Some creators have tried to distance themselves from that aspect of russ music, while others don't care or even try to aim for No Such Thing as Bad Publicity.

While a Norwegian Graduation Party Anthem can theoretically belong to any genre, most of them are some kind of danceable Electronic Music, with Rap also showing up fairly frequently. Although many Norwegian artists have songs in English, the vast majority of Norwegian Graduation Party Anthems are still in Norwegian because their creators aren't going for the international market anyway.

These songs are usually commissioned from a producer who specializes in russ songs or cobbled together at home by russ who didn't want to fork over thousands of dollars for one. There's also the rare variety where a group commissions an artist not known for russ songs. The latter two types are more likely to have unusual musical styles and lyrics for a russ song.

Compare the lyrically similar Crunk and Snap.

Russ song producers by stage name:

DJ Pøssycat is known for his provocative lyrics, which he describes as crass satire.
Before he pivoted to emotional Pop music, TIX was known for producing russ songs. He collaborated with an anonymous writing collective named The Pøssy Project, which got the credit/blame for the often-controversial lyrics. "Sjeiken 2015", an Arab Oil Sheikh-themed party song.

One-off russ songs by song title:

"Maiden 2020"
Ole Ivars "Smørebussen"

Parodies and discussions in media:

Films — Animation

Bukkene Bruse på badeland: The song "Badebussen" is a stylistic parody of russ songs. The lyrics are about the film's three main characters having a child-friendly party on the way to a water park.

Web Video

Norwegian YouTuber Ole Wold has a series where he MSTs russ songs he finds terrible (though each video features a token okay/good song).

Ownership-Exchanging Ability (Obvious Beta)

A power that lets you steal your opponent's unit, give a unit to an opponent, or both.

Of course, this will rarely be an equal exchange in practice. If you can get away with it, you'll probably steal their Mega Dragon of Ultradeath and give them a random Mook in return. Sometimes you can toss them a Joke Item that does nothing but hurt them.

Some abilities do nothing but give your opponent a unit for free. Most of the time, this ability is only usable in gimmicky White Elephant Tactics.

Stealing Examples

Board Games

7 Wonders Duel:
- Ra and Extortion allow you to steal an opponent's unbuilt Wonder.
- Baal and Foreclosure allow you to steal an opponent's brown or gray card.

Trading Card Games

Magic: The Gathering:
- Blue is associated with stealing, and has several effects that let you permanently take control of an opponent's permanent.
- Red sometimes gets temporary stealing.
- Sen Triplets has an ability that lets you use cards from an opponent's hand.
Yu-Gi-Oh!: If your opponent uses a Spell Card that targets them, you can use Mystical Refpanel to steal the effect for yourself.

Video Games

Pokémon: The Pickpocket and Magician Abilities give its user a 30% chance of stealing an opposing Pokémon's item when a certain condition is met.

Exchange Examples

Board Games

7 Wonders Duel: One Conspiracy lets you exchange control of two blue cards or two green cards of your choice.
Fluxx
- Some cards let you exchange control of two Keepers.
- Brain Transference from Star Fluxx makes you switch your entire game position with another player of your choice.

Trading Card Games

Magic: The Gathering:
- Aminatou, the Fateshifter has an ability that makes every player give all their permanents to the player to their left (or right).
- If you have Perplexing Chimera out and an opponent casts a spell, you can choose to give them the Chimera to take their spell.
- Sudden Substitution lets you exchange a creature for a spell, or vice versa.
- Several permanents have an ability that goes something like "you can give this to an opponent to take one of their permanents".
- Cultural Exchange lets you choose any number of an opponent's creatures and any number of your creatures, and then exchanges control of them all.
- Some cards make players exchange life totals.
Yu-Gi-Oh!: Creature Swap makes both players choose a monster, then exchanges control of those creatures.

Video Games

Pokémon: The move Switcheroo makes its user switch held items with its target. This can be combined with items that have detrimental effects, like the Flame Orb (which burns its user).

Gift Examples

Board Games

Trading Card Games

Magic: The Gathering:
- Donate and Harmless Offering have you give a permanent you control to an opponent.
- Zedruu the Greathearted has an ability that can give one of your permanents to an opponent. She also gives you life and card draw depending on how many of your permanents your opponents control.
Yu-Gi-Oh!: Gold Moon Coin is a draw power card with the unusual cost of "add 2 cards from your hand to your opponent's hand".

Video Games

Pokémon: The move Bestow gives its owner's item to its target.

Special Cases (hybrids between the types, "give an opponent something controlled by a different opponent", etc.)

Board Games

Fluxx: The "Not Your Prob" card can be used to move a Creeper from any player to another. This has three uses: (1) Giving an opponent a Creeper you control so you don't have to suffer from its negative effect(s) any more. (2) Stealing an opponent's Creeper to fulfil a Goal that explicitly requires that Creeper. (3) Give an opponent a Creeper controlled by a different opponent to sabotage the latter's attempt to win.

Trading Card Games

Magic: The Gathering:
- Confusion in the Ranks. Whenever an artifact, creature, or enchantment enters the battlefield on a player's side, they have to pick an opponent's permanent of the same type and exchange control of the two permanents.
- Scrambleverse takes every nonland permanents and assigns it an owner at random.
- Thieves' Auction puts every nontoken permanent in a pile. Players take turns taking a permanent from it.
Yu-Gi-Oh!: Mystical Refpanel changes the target of Spell that targets one player. So you can (1) steal the effect of a Spell your opponent targeted themself with or (2) target yourself with a Spell and give the effect to your opponent.

White Elephant Tactic draft (needs a better description, more examples, and more example context) (too niche?) (name?)

A tactic that revolves around giving your opponent something detrimental.

The "white elephant" is usually either a purely detrimental Joke Item or something that's rendered Awesome, but Impractical thanks to a hideous downside. A White Elephant Tactic makes these and otherwise baffling "give your opponent something for free" effects Not Completely Useless. With that said, this type of tactic often ends up being Awesome, but Impractical, as you need to run both the white elephant and an effect that gives it to your opponent, so why not just run two units that actually help you instead?

Another way to force a white elephant on an opponent is to use an Equivalent Exchange-type item — you get to steal your opponent's thing and give them your detrimental trash in return. Whenever your opponent would have been better off getting literally nothing back, this is at least in part a White Elephant Tactic.

Sometimes you get both effects in one item, such as a spell that summons harmful units to your opponent's side. This avoids some of the aforementioned impracticality, but even then your opponent will sometimes be able to take advantage of the units you gave them.

Examples

Board Games

Everdell: The Fool, which is played in an opponent's city instead of your own, has a negative points value and clogs up a valuable city slot. However, the game also has a few elements that let a player get rid of critters for a bonus — and yes, the Fool can be used as fodder for them — so you have to be careful about that.

Card Games

Magic: The Gathering:
- Donate and Harmless Offering have you give a permanent you control to an opponent. So you can give them something like Illusions of Grandeur or Demonic Pact.
- Sudden Substitution lets you exchange ownership of a spell and a creature. This adds the option to steal one of their creatures, and force a bad spell like One with Nothing on them.
- Zedruu the Greathearted has an ability that can give one of your permanents to an opponent. She also gives you life and card draw depending on how many of your permanents your opponents control.
Yu-Gi-Oh!:
- Creature Swap
- Mystical Refpanel
- Dustons

Video Games

Pokémon: The move Bestow gives its owner's item to its target, and the move Switcheroo makes its user switch held items with its target. This can be combined with items that have detrimental effects, like the Flame Orb (which burns its user).

Compulsion to Move (Obvious Beta)

Note that Zugzwang currently redirects to Morton's Fork, but would make a much better name for or redirect to this.

When a game forces you to make a move even when all possible moves make you worse off than doing nothing.

For games where a turn involves unpredictable luck, it's Compulsion to Move if every possible move has a negative expected value. For instance, if it's your turn and you have a 1/6 chance of losing the game on the spot, and a 5/6 chance of a neutral result, it counts. This is a rare case of zugzwang that's usable in games with more than 2 players.

Please only list examples where Compulsion to Move shows up at least somewhat regularly, and not just in some weird, rare edge cases.

Compare Stupidity Is the Only Option, where the plot railroads you into doing something stupid. See also Morton's Fork, which many zugzwang positions overlap with. Compare But Thou Must!

Examples

Board Games

7 Wonders Duel: When it's your turn, you are forced to remove a card from the structure, even if doing so will give your opponent something they want (or just give them the chance to deny you something you want). The Pantheon Expansion Pack gives you the option to buy a Divinity card instead, but there may not be any available, or buying it may waste money on an effect you have no use for.
In Azul, as long as there are tiles remaining, no one can pass. If all you can do is putting a lot of tiles into the penalty row, you have to do that.
Chess: Zugzwang.
Monopoly:
- In the late game, you'll wish you could skip your turns, as landing on an opponent's property can hurt a lot, landing on your own properties does nothing, Chance and Community Chest are a mixed bag, and the only purely beneficial spaces are any remaining unbought properties (assuming you can afford them) and, oddly, Go to Jail.
- In the late game, being in Jail is beneficial. Nevertheless, you're forced to roll the dice to see if you roll doubles and get out.
Res Arcana: You can't stop taking actions without passing for the rest of the round, so if you want to stall to get a magic item or deny your opponent the one you currently have, you may sometimes be forced to pass before you want to, or choose between passing early and taking a detrimental action just to stall.
A big part of Sobek 2 players is moving the Ankh pawn so that your opponent is forced to make awkward moves that help put the Ankh token where you want it. There's even a Pirogue token that flat-out lets you dictate what your opponent will do on their next turn.

Video Games

In the multiplayer version of the "Loves Me...?" mini-game in New Super Mario Bros., you're forced to pick between 1 and 3 petals from the flower on your turn. This means that if you get an unfavourable number of petals (such as one left when the result will be "Loves Me Not", or four left when the result will me "Loves Me"), you're forced to pluck at least one even though it only helps your opponents.

Virtual Tabletop Game

A common formula for party games is a wacky virtual board where you roll to move between spaces with all sorts of effects, and the players are frequently thrown into mini-games

These usually take advantage of the digital medium by including things that would be impractical or impossible in a real-life board game, such as mini-games, fancy, ever-changing boards, or just mechanics that would be a pain to track in a physical board game.

Super-Trope to Card Battle Game.

Important: Adaptations of existing tabletop games go on Digital Tabletop Game Adaptation, not here.

Examples

Party Games

Eye Toy Monkey Mania
Fortune Street:
Mario Party:
- The board game portions.
- 5 had a separate board game.
Rabbids Land has a Mario Party-esque board game portion.

Other

As the title suggests, 5D Chess With Multiverse Time Travel is a chess variant with multiverse time travel, i.e. pieces can travel through time and between timelines. It's a digital game because keeping track of all the multiverses with multiple chess sets would be a massive pain in real life.
Magic: The Gathering: Arena experiments with digital-only cards. These use mechanics that would be cumbersome with physical cards.

Category 3: Ideas I'm pretty confident about, but need a lot more work

Excessive Collection Penalty

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bromelia.jpg

When you're penalized for taking excess objects. The penalty must go beyond just "the excess item goes to waste".

This is the opposite of Set Bonus.

Examples:

Board Game

Canopy:
- The first Bromelia card gives you 2 points, and the second gives you a Set Bonus — you get a total of 7 points for the pair. However, if you're stuck with three or more Bromelias, the set gets a point value of -3.
- Normally, Sun and Rain cards are worth 5 points per pair, with excess cards being worthless. However, if you also have Orchid cards, an Excessive Collection Penalty applies: if you have two or more excess Sun/Rain of the same type, you lose the Orchids.
- Zig-zagged with the Fern. If you have an odd number of Ferns, they're worth 2 points each. However, if you have an even number, they're all worth 0.
Sushi Go!: Sushi Go Party! introduces the Tofu card. One of them is worth 2 points, and a pair is worth 6 points. However, if you end up with three or more, they all become worthless. The flavor of the card is that if you eat too much tofu, you get sick of it.

Trading Card Game

Magic: The Gathering: The game used to have the "mana burn" rule: if you produced excess mana, you'd lose life as it emptied from your mana pool. This made certain mana-generating cards like Mana Drain riskier — if you couldn't spend all the mana, it'd damage you. However, this

Manipulated Resource Cost

Super-Trope to Reduced Resource Cost and a potential Increased Resource Cost trope.

Examples of the latter:

Abyss has a lord that increases the cost of your opponents' lords by 2.
Magic

Card Turning "draft" (just a tiny list of zero-context examples for now; I need to do this article sometime) (rename to Card Tapping?)

Board Games

Trading Card Games

Conceding the Game

104.3a A player can concede the game at any time.

Comprehensive Rules of Magic: The Gathering

The feature can be controversial. Some players find it unsatisfying if they're denied the chance to give the killing blow or see their final scores. This goes doubly if the opponent concedes immediately before losing. There's also a risk of meeting scrubs who will concede against strategies they don't like facing.

Examples

Board Games

Chess:

Trading Card Games

Category 4: Needs clarification w.r.t. scope / not sure if tropable

Piggybacking Ability draft (needs a longer/better description) (exact scope?)

An ability that gives you a benefit when your opponent takes a certain action, or lets you leech off of their resources. Your opponent is allowed to take their action or use their resource as normal. They do not benefit from a Piggybacking Ability.

Piggybacking Abilities are sometimes used as a form of player interaction in games that aim to avoid "take that" mechanics. With that said, a Piggybacking Ability can still be incredibly frustrating if it triggers often.

They can also serve as Comeback Mechanics — the "power based on the opponent's resources" variety is helpful for catching up, and the "do X whenever your opponent does Y" keeps them from getting too far ahead if they have a strong set-up going.

Power Copying is a Sub-Trope.

Examples

Board Games

7 Wonders Duel:
- The "Economy" Progress Token gives you coins whenever your opponent buys resources from the bank to build something.
- The Guilds can be Leeching depending on the game state: their rewards depend on how many buildings/built Wonders/coins the player with the most of them has.
- Some Agora decrees give you coins whenever either player performs a certain action, making them in part Leeching Abilities.
Res Arcana has a few cards with the ability "gain a number of <essence type> equal to an opponent's number of <different essence type>".
Wingspan, a game that intentionally avoids punishing player interaction, instead uses pink powers that activate between your turns and give you a bonus if an opponent takes a certain action.

Card Games

Magic: The Gathering has cards that give you something whenever an opponent does something. Examples include Consecrated Sphinx.
Yu-Gi-Oh!: "Maxx "C"" lets you draw a card whenever an opponent Special Summons a monster.

Video Games

Pokémon:
- The move Foul Play uses the target's Attack stat instead of the user's to calculate damage.
- The move Knock Off gets a 50% damage boost if the target is holding an item.

Turn Skipping (Obvious Beta)

The evil twin of Extra Turn effects: effects that make you skip turns instead. Sometimes you lose a fixed number of turns, and sometimes you're stuck in an area and forced to waste turns until you meet a certain requirement.

Note that in 2-player games, there's essentially no difference between you skipping a turn and your opponent getting an Extra Turn.

There are also a few cases of turn skipping being used as a cost for a powerful effect.

Also, certain games have partial examples that make a player skip a certain phase of their turn.

Examples

Board Games

Candy Land: Some spaces make you miss a turn when you land on them.
Monopoly: When you're in Jail, you're stuck there and will waste turns until you get out somehow. This is a bit of a special case, as being in Jail is beneficial in the late game.

Card Games

Uno: If you play a Skip card, the next player's turn is skipped.

Video Games

Pokémon:
- Some moves, including Hyper Beam, require their user to "charge up" (do nothing) the turn after they're executed.
- The ability Truant makes the Pokémon only able to act every other turn.

Trading Card Games

Magic: The Gathering:
- Time Stop forcibly ends the current turn.
- The game has several cards that skip certain steps or phases. Examples include Stasis (which denies everyone their untap step), Necropotence (one of several cards with "skip your draw step" as a drawback) and Fatespinner (which forces players to skip a step of their choice).
- The idea behind Time Vault is that you can skip a turn to untap it so that you can tap it for an Extra Turn later. Magosi, the Waterveil is a similar card whose cost is harder to circumvent.
Yu-Gi-Oh! has a few cards that can skip the opponent's next turn. There are also some step-skipping ones like Yata-Garasu.

Taking the Known or the Unknown (Obvious Beta)

Examples

Board Games

Abyss.
Res Arcana: When you buy a Monument, you can pick one of the two face-up ones or take the hidden one on top of the deck.
Most effects that let you draw a card in Wingspan let you choose between one of the three face-up cards in the tray and drawing a hidden card from the deck.

Trading Card Games

Magic: The Gathering:
- Scrying essentially works like this: you get to look at one or more cards from the top of your library, rearrange them and put unwanted ones on the bottom. This trope comes into play because of the latter part — you decide to gamble on unknown cards instead of taking the ones you put at the bottom.
- "Rummaging" effects that make you discard cards, and then draw cards.

Interaction-Based Balance Change (alternative title: Indirect Buffs and Nerfs)

Counterplay-Based Nerf: Often Highly Specific Counterplay.
Synergy-Based Buff:

Board Games

Res Arcana:
- Creatures were seen as underwhelming in the base game. Both expansions introduce a Place of Power that synergizes with them and improves them. Additionally, the Beastmaster is a new mage that synergizes with creatures.
- Lux et Tenebrae introduces the Fire Demon, which makes it harder to abuse the Witch + early Catacombs and Witch + early Dragon's Lair strategies.
- Lux et Tenebrae decreases the number of monuments in the pile, which makes the "make a ton of gold and buy all the monuments" strategy riskier.

Trading Card Games

Difficult-to-Recommend Work

A work that is generally enjoyed by its fans, but hard to recommend to others for one reason or another.

The work's appeal relies heavily on spoileriffic aspects. This goes doubly if the spoileriffic events reveal the work to be something completely different from what it originally presented itself as.
The work has a bad case of Archive Panic.
The work has a convoluted, hard-to-sum-up plot.
The work's premise is liable to put people off, and whatever makes the work experiencing is awkward to explain to the uninitiated.
For tabletop games, high complexity and/or length can make them hard to get to the table.

It's not uncommon for these works to have a passionate fanbase, while non-fans get Hype Aversion from the constant "trust me, it's great!" exclamations that can't really explain why the work is worth their time.

Important: This is not for complaining about works.

Examples

Video Games

Undertale, while very popular, can be awkward to recommend because a lot of people like it for spoileriffic story events.

Webcomics

While Homestuck was big at its peak, it was also so notorious for fans of the comic trying and inevitably failing to get their peers interested in reading it that it became a meme unto itself^note"LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT HOMESTUCK". This is mostly due to the sheer size of the project (8127 pages in total when it finally finished, which vary in length from single images to Wall of Text chat logs to interactive Flash games); the complexity of the plot making it impossible to explain to the uninitiated; and the video game-centric nature of it. Additionally, in order fully get all the jokes, it is almost a prerequisite that you read the three comics that came before it: Problem Sleuth, which is a monumental read in and of itself, Bard Quest, an unfinished experiment, and Jailbreak, the first, and as a consequence the least polished of all the creator's work. And on top of all this, in order to reach the parts anyone talks about, you have to read through a good 1500 pages of buildup; even the fanbase jokes about how slow and boring the first two chapters are.

Anti-Brute Force

So you're stuck in a Puzzle Game want to Try Everything? Too bad. The developer thought of that.

Having so many potential answers that it's simply not feasible to try everything.
Having each attempt require the player to spend resources, or make the player wait between each attempt.
Making the answer obscure enough that you're unlikely to stumble upon it.

Examples

Video Games

The Professor Layton series rewards you with Picarats for solving puzzles. However, the first two incorrect answers deduct from the eventual reward.
Msot levels in Understand start with some simple sub-levels where it's easy to guess a line that works. However, the later sub-levels tend to be large and/oe complicated enough that you stand little to no chance of stumbling upon a solution if you're just drawing random lines and hoping for the best.
The Witness has self-disabling panels that force you to redo the previous puzzle if you fail them.

Contests

The problems in mathematical contests often have features that keep you from simply guessing or trying stuff untio you find something that works.
- Most problems revolving around a game feature an initial game state that will lead to an enormous strategy tree, so you can't just examine every possible way the game could go. For instance, solving the problem of "Who wins in a 2-player game where you take 1 or 2 coins on your turn, and whoever takes the last one wins?" that way is doable if they start with six coins, but good luck if they start with a billion.^Solution
- Equations will usually have an "ugly" answer like half the square root of 2 — stuff you're unlikely to find if you just plug in random numbers and see if they work. If an equation has an obvious answer or two, it'll probably also have a non-obvious one that you have little chance of finding unless you solve it the proper way.

Asymmetric Information Multiplayer

Needs clarification w.r.t. Asymmetric Multiplayer.

Type 1: Limited information and limited opportunities to convey it

The Crew
Hanabi

Type 2: The game focuses on the exchange of information

Operation Tango
Palallel
Tick Tock: a Tale for Two

Complexity Creep

And they say Yu-Gi-Oh! players can't read.

The text is unreadably small, but the point of the image is the sheer amount of text on the right-side card, not exactly what the text says.

Adding more complex mechanics can be great for keeping

Excessive Complexity Creep can lead to the slow death of a game, as

Compare Power Creep.

Examples

Board Games

7 Wonders:
- Most of the expansions introduce new mechanics.
- Both of the expansions for Duel revolve around introducing an all-new game mechanic.
Wingspan:
- The European Expansion just adds more bonus cards, bonus tokens and birds. With that said, it introduces the new Teal powers, which require some micromanagement to use.
- The Oceania Expansion, in addition to introducing Yellow powers (which, like Teal powers, can be micromanagement-heavy), bring in a new mechanic in the Nectar resource.
- The Asia Expansion features a new 2-player mode and a new 6-7 player mode, both of which are more complicated than the normal game.

Trading Card Games

Magic: The Gathering: As the game keeps adding new elements, the game grows more complex. The developers strive to keep the overall complexity manageable by not using too many complicated mechanics at once, streamlining complicated elements and cutting mechanics and rules that aren't pulling their weight. This led to the death of mana burn, and several early mechanics (e.g. regeneration and banding), have been phased out because players found them confusing.
Yu-Gi-Oh!: In the very first set, most Monsters were Vanilla Units, and most Spells and Traps had simple effects like "you gain 500 LP". However, the complexity has since ramped up to the point where most cards will have at least four lines of text.

Video Games

Pokémon: There has been a trend of battles adding more mechanics such as Items, Abilities and generational gimmicks. In addition, every game allowed you to use almost any Pokémon and moves from previous generations. It culminated with Pokémon Sun and Moon allowing as good as everything, notably having both its own generational gimmick and that of Gen VI. This trend ended with Pokémon Sword and Shield, which started to cut back by excluding some Pokémon and moves, as well as ditching both old gimmicks in favour of having its own unique one.

Category 5: Various ideas I might work on later if I feel like it

Ole Wold (a Norwegian You Tuber, not me misspelling "old world" or something :p)

His russ music reviews discuss or provide examples of:

Accentuate the Negative: Ole will usually feature a token okay/good russ song per video, but openly admits that the series primarily exists to poke fun at terrible ones. With that said, he won't hesitate to praise the beat of a song even if he finds the lyrics awful.
Analogy Backfire: Ole doesn't get why "Jumanji 2019" uses "firefighter" as a metaphor for a man who engages in period sex.
Ole: Someone is bleeding! We have to call... the fire department!
Anatomically Impossible Sex:
- "Pandora 2019" has some ridiculously exaggerated lyrics about how the narrator's penis is 18 meters long and that he has sex with two vaginas at once because "one is too tight". Ole tries to figure out the logistics of how that would work.
- One of his many complaints about "Melkemannen 2020" is the line "We'll fill your clit".
  Ole: How do you fill a clit?
Atrocious Alias:
- Ole thinks several producers of russ music have stupid pseudonyms:
  - He takes a moment to have a negative reaction to the name "Soppgirobygget" (an awkward play on the Norwegian word for "mushroom" and the band name "Postgirobygget").
  - He illustrates the name of DJ Loppetiss ("DJ Flea Dick") to show you how silly he finds it.
  - His facial reaction and burp make it clear that he doesn't like the name "Kuselofte" (a play on "lusekofte" that sounds like "The Pussy Attic") much.
  - In the 2020 video, Ole says that many russ music producers have pseudonyms that just sound like random words while introducing a song by Brünost,^note Olje^notejust the word for "oil" and Haukebri.^notea made-up name
  - "Dildodan" is an exception, as Ole finds the name amusing and notes that he'd like to see what kind of parties Dildodan would throw. He's quick to take it back after listening to Dildodan's music, which just sounds like a jumble of annoying noises to him.
- In the "Oslo 2020" review, Ole mocks "Oslo" as a lazy name for a russ group, as they just used the name of their city.
Author's Saving Throw:invoked Ole notes the contrast between the tone of Sykehuset 2020's songs: the first one is a party anthem with an attitude of "screw the pandemic, let's party anyway!", while the second one is a solemn tribute to nurses that makes a point of noting that the narrators are dutifully upholding the quarantine. While Ole supports the message of the latter, he strongly suspects that the sudden 180 was an attempt at damage control after they got backlash for their first song and, as Ole hypothesizes, women stopped wanting to sleep with them as a result.
Casanova Wannabe: Ole describes the narrator of "Playboy 2017" as a sleazy "fuckboy" who uses the tactic of telling every girl she's special just to extract sex from them.
City Shout Outs: Ole feels that the shout-outs to a few cities in "Disco Demolition 2018" were a lazy attempt to make people from those cities feel a connection to the song.
Cliché Storm:invoked Ole pokes fun at how "Hugh Hefner 2020" has all the russ music clichés: hard drugs, prostitution, oral sex, alcohol, absurd wealth, and so on. In particular, he points how the first three show up in the first 13 seconds.
Doing It for the Art: Discussed. While Ole suspects that the major producers of russ music pump out Lowest Common Denominator garbage for the money, he suggests that you can go the lesser-known ones and indies to find music by people who just wanted to make a cool song.
Do Wrong, Right: Ole reacts to the exaggerated fat shaming of "Broski 2019" by saying it's trying too hard to be provocative and that no one buys it, while the song where the narrator wanted blowjobs from 13-year-olds was at least better at being offensive.
Epileptic Flashing Lights: Ole finds it obnoxious that a lot of the music videos associated with russ songs use so many flashing effects for their drops that they become seizure-inducing. He singles out "Oslo 2020" as the worst one about this, which is so bad that he actually puts an epilepsy warning before playing it.
Fetish Retardant:invoked Ole finds almost all the depictions of sex in the songs too unintentionally stupid and/or gross to be arousing or work as bragging:
- In "Goofy 2018", he notes that "So let me show you something sick/Baby, I'll give you dick" is an unfortunate choice of words because it unintentionally invokes STDs. The following "I wash my dick in pussy" is not much better, as (1) this means that his penis will have gross residues on it, and (2) if it's so dirty that it's better when stained with bodily fluids, how bad was it before he "washed" it? Poor girls...
- In "Pandora 2019", the narrator has the questionable idea of wiping a girl's private parts with money when they get wet. Ole understands that the narrator wants to flex, but points out that that would just be uncomfortable and impractical. He also mocks the song for the silly, exaggerated part with the 18 meters long penis having sex with two vaginas at once, and for sampling a children's song about fishing while bragging about sex.
Gold Digger:
- Discussed in the "Forbes 2017" review, where he says that girls shouldn't want to be with someone just because they're super rich.
- Implied in the "Rollo 2019" review, where Ole says that if you happen to be filthy rich, people wanting to be with you is nothing to brag about.
Hypocrite: Ole points out the hypocrisy of "Hugh Hefner 2020": first the narrator says "fuck buying whores", but later offers a woman his villa and a front page appearance in exchange for a blowjob, which is also prostitution.
"I Am Great!" Song: Many of the songs Ole reviews try to portray the russ group in question as amazing. He almost always ends up finding them ridiculous:
- Several songs talk about how rich the narrator is. Ole's reactions range from "I don't care" to "if you really are that rich, why are you spending time with the russ / not moving away from the Place Worse Than Death you live in?"
- He gets annoyed by the trend of throwing in references to hard drugs in an attempt to look hardcore:
  Ole: Why do you feel like stressing all the time that "oh, we've taken pills, we've taken powder, we've taken coke, we've taken whatever"? We know you're sitting there [using snus] while drinking lukewarm beer.
- Ole likes to poke fun at songs that try to pass off the russ group as the coolest, most badass people ever. Case in point: this quote from the "Mad Mickey 2017" review:
  Ole: Can you imagine how fucking gangsta those in Mad Mickey [..] feel when they listen to this beat drop, and then everyone around them is looking at them and thinking, "Who the hell are those weirdos, and why do they think they're gangsters?"
- The boys of "Authority 2019" try to show how badass they are by dissing the police because "they're the only gang in the town", which Ole thinks makes them sound like 14-year-olds trying to be cool. He also thinks their breaking bottles on other people's foreheads makes them more obnoxious than cool, and their random "fat ladies piss us off!" comes off as teenagers who hate their mothers for whatever reason.
- Ole does think "Bad Habits 2018" (that year's token good song) succeeds in making the group look relatively badass, largely thanks to the song's good beat and the fact that the lyrics deliver more than the usual fare about sex and partying.
Immediate Self-Contradiction: Ole highlights how the narrator in "Mad Mickey 2017" claims he remembers nothing from last night, but then provides several details on what happened. "Kick Six 2019" has a similar problem.
Irony: One comment on the 2019 video joked that Soppgirobygget is environmentally conscious because all their beats are recycled.invoked Ole brings this up in the 2020 video because the subsequent Soppgirobygget song "Jungle Party 2020" has lyrics about burning down the Amazon and flipping the bird at Greta Thunberg.
Kayfabe: In the "Pandora 2019" review, Ole contrasts the russ fantasy of being filthy rich with the reality that they probably sold a lot of toilet paper to afford the stuff they buy.
Literal-Minded: Ole himself says that some of the comedy of the videos comes from him taking the lyrics too literally for comedic value, and that he tries to balance this with getting it across that he genuinely thinks most of these songs are terrible.
Lousy Lovers Are Losers: The songs attempt to portray their narrators as awesome, but one of the many things that make Ole push against this notion is that the narrators often come off as types who'd make lousy lovers:
- In the review of "Forbes 2017", he points out that the type of guy who keeps bragging about how many people want to have sex with him (like the narrator in the song) is most likely a selfish lover who will finish first and leave the partner hanging.
- He feels that the boys of "Goofy 2018" seem like the type of person that could end up unintentionally forcing themselves on a girl because they overrate how good they are in bed and lack the emotional intelligence to tell when a girl isn't actually into it and is only saying yes because she feels pressured to.
Lowest Common Denominator: Ole says that russ music tends to have basic lyrics so that those who don't have much brain capacity can still follow along. He compares this to Fortnite's role in the gaming industry.
Lyrical Shoehorn: Ole sometimes pokes fun at awkward lyrics that were clearly put in to force a rhyme or pad out the song:
- "Syrehagen 2017" has the narrator say "Netflix and chill" immediately after a line bragging that their father is a multimillionaire. Ole asks that if their father is that filthy rich, why are they spending money on "Netflix and chill"? He then says that if they don't know how to rhyme, they should just forego it.
- "Goofy 2018" has the line "I got a bag of molly, molly, molly from Dolly, Dolly, Dolly", which makes Ole note that there probably isn't anyone in Norway actually named "Dolly" and it was only used because it rhymed.^note
- "Hugh Hefner 2020" is about sex, drugs and being filthy rich, but has a random "maybe I'll buy up NASA" thrown in at the end of a verse discussing the narrator's use of caffeine, alcohol and Viagra. This leads to Ole using the Non Sequitur of "NASA" as the song's rating.
- One of his many complaints about "Melkemannen 2020" is that one line randomly mentions that some ladies are barefoot just to force a rhyme.
- Ole finds the lyric "Rollo this and Rollo that" from "Rollo 2019" extremely lazy.
- As Ole points out, "Kick Six 2019" randomly has the narrator's partner go "hey hey hey" because it needed something to rhyme with "L.A." and "bae".
- The first song for Sykehuset 2020 contains the line "For dama her er dum, dum, chicka, bom bom" ("'Cause this lady is dumb, dumb, chicka, bom bom"), which Ole found so goofy that he laughed at it.
- Ole points out that "Razzia 2018" has the narrator drinking airplane fuel, probably because it rhymes and the writers had exhausted everything else they could've been drinking.
Misapplied Phlebotinum: In "Goofy 2018", Ole has fun taking a metaphor about "going to Pluto and beyond" literally by asking why they're celebrating the russetid instead of going to NASA if they've invented a fuel that can take someone to Pluto and beyond.
Misogyny Song:
- While Ole won't call himself a feminist, he thinks many of the songs he reviews go too far with their degrading portrayals of women, such as by constantly referring to them as "whores". He singles out "Playboy 2017" as particularly bad, as it implies that the narrator is raping 13-year-olds.
- He notes that several of the songs (in particular those by Soppgirobygget) contain random shaming of "fat ladies".
Money, Dear Boy:invoked Ole occasionally brings up how much money a russ music producers can make, and feels that the major ones are mostly pumping out Lowest Common Denominator garbage for the money.
MST: Ole reviews the songs by playing clips of them, and then commenting on what he just heard.
Nausea Fuelinvoked: Ole is disgusted by the lines "I wash my dick in pussy" from "Goofy 2018" and "I tickled your mom on the clit with my mustache" from "Authority 2019". He also finds the phrase "wake up with white boogers" potentially very gross, though he says it's possibly a cocaine reference.
Orphaned Setup: Ole jokes that the line "And you know when ladies stand in line at the disco club" comes off as a setup with no payoff (what is it with these ladies?).
Painful Rhyme: In the "Syrehagen 2017" review, he notes that "syre" and "tryne" don't actually rhyme.
Place Worse Than Death: A common joke in these videos is Ole playing up areas in northern Norway as awful places to live, where there are lots of STDs going around, Domestic Abuse is common, and the liquor is crappy moonshine with a 50/50 chance of leaving you blind.
Questionable Consent: Ole feels that the boys of "Goofy 2018" seem like the type of person that could end up unintentionally forcing themselves on a girl because they overrate how good they are in bed and lack the emotional intelligence to tell when a girl isn't actually into it and is only saying yes because she feels pressured to.
Recycled Script:invoked Ole notes that a lot of Soppgirobygget's songs sound the same. In the 2019 video, he compares the drops of "Bender 2018" and "Authority 2019", and concludes that the latter just tweaks a few things to "differentiate" it from the former. He later plays four Soppgirobygget songs on top of each other to show that they're so similar that the mishmash still sounds coherent. Later, he notes that they recycle lyrics too. In the 2020 video, he thinks their songs are still samey, but that making yet another comparison wouldn't be worth the trouble.
Sampling:
- Ole mocks "Pandora 2019" for sampling a children's song about fishing while bragging about sex.
- He notes that "On Sight 2020" samples "AE vil bare dans" and is not sure if that's a mark of quality.
Schmuck Bait: After "Broski 2019" mentions bukkake, Ole tells you not to google it, and then says he only said that because he knew you'd google it and "... like the result".
Skewed Priorities: In "Kick Six 2019", the narrator spends inheritance money on the russefeiring. Ole sums this up with "it's too bad grandma died, but oh well, I got money for this."
So Bad, It's Good:invoked Discussed. In the 2018 video, Ole complains that while 2017 offered hilariously stupid lyrics, the songs in 2018 tended more towards a boring type of bad.
Straw Vegetarian: Ole compares the russ music's constant need to tell everyone how filthy rich the russ groups are to pushy vegetarians who are guaranteed to keep bringing up that they're vegetarians.
Strictly Formula:
- Ole notes how a lot of the songs have repetitive content about doing drugs, being filthy rich and having lots of sex. He also feels that a disturbing number of songs want to have sex with the listener's girlfriend.
- In the "Major League 2019" review, Ole notes that after the song gets through the usual russ music topics, it has the narrator brag about making someone a single mother. This causes Ole to sarcastically congratulate it for coming up with something that's even trashier than the usual fare.
Suspiciously Similar Song: invoked He finds a part of "Geppetto 2018" suspiciously similar to Post Malone's "Rockstar".
Take That!: Ole says that russ music is the Lowest Common Denominator of music, and compares this to Fortnite's role in the gaming industry.
Word Salad Lyrics: In contrast to the usual simplistic Lowest Common Denominatorinvoked fare Ole reviews, he thinks "Melkemannen 2020" is an incomprehensible mess with its weird milk references. The milk might be a metaphor for drugs, semen or skin colour, but he finds it hard to tell.
Your Mom: He highlight the lines "I am from NB, so you know I was at your mom yesterday" as a bad attempt at a diss.
Ole: Did you seriously do a "your mom" joke in a russ song?

Review Refusal

"No review. I refuse."

— James Rolfe on Ghostbusters (2016)

fundamentally opposed to the work.

The reviewer is so disgusted by the work that they refuse to dignify it with a review. This often happens because they feel that the subject matter is too off-putting, or (if the review series is lighthearted) they may be worried about making light of a serious topic. Also a common reaction to works whose creators were aiming for No Such Thing as Bad Publicity, as reviewing them would be playing into their hands.
The reviewer has a good reason to believe that they'd absolutely hate the work. Maybe it has a terrible reputation, maybe it belongs to a genre or franchise the reviewer is known to hate, or maybe a preview gave them an extremely negative first impression. Whatever the reason, the reviewer decides not to waste their time and money on something they'll probably dislike and can't even use as review material without having their review devolve into an angry rant. Common for those who want to avoid Bias Steamroller, Caustic Critic and Accentuate the Negative.
The reviewer is boycotting the work's creator.
The reviewer just doesn't have anything funny or interesting to say about the work. Common for works that are So Okay, It's Average or bad in a boring way. Alternatively, the reviewer may feel that the work has been discussed to death already and that throwing in their take wouldn't really add anything.
The reviewer doesn't feel like they are capable of giving the work a fair review due to a lack of familiarity with its genre/culture/etc., or due to their bias against major elements of it.
The review show has a theme and the reviewer feels that the work doesn't fit.

Notes for a potential trope about criticism and reactions to backlash to it

This comes in many flavors:

Vanilla: Just a simple statement like "I'll probably get backlash for this, but...".
Apologetic — critical edition: The reviewer apologizes for criticizing the work in the review, likely in the hope of pacifying its fanbase, if only just a little. Often accompanied by an "if you disagree with me, that's perfectly fine"-type disclaimer. Factors that make such an apology more likely include the work coming from a series the reviewer normally likes, the work being made by a creator the critic has a lot of respect for or at least sympathises with, and the work being very important to many of its fans.
Apologetic — praising edition: The reviewer may make sure to describe the work as a Guilty Pleasure. If the work is seen as having Unfortunate Implications, they will likely either argue that the work doesn't have those unfortunate undertones or emphasize that they are aware of them and like the work desspite of them.
Hear me out: The critic makes a plea to the audience to hear them out, such as by emphasizing that they are not bashing the Sacred Cow just to be contrarian and get attention. They may also take a jab at the type of defensive fan who will leave dislikes and/or angry comments without even bothering to look into the critic's points first.
Bring it on! The critic makes flippant comments like "if you want to send hate mail, my email address is in the description", presumably in an attempt to show that they will just shake off your hate comments if you bother to write some. Alternatively, the critic may be hoping to receive idiotic hate mail they can laugh at later, which can even be used as material for future episodes. Can also be parodied by having the critic say, "send your hate mail here", while showing an address that clearly belongs to their rival.
Unfollow me, thanks! The critic tells people who disagree with them, or at least a subset of them, to stop watching them, stop posting comments, or so on. This often gives the impression that the critic can't handle disagreement. With that said, it does have legitimate uses, such as telling people to stop watching your videos if they clearly don't care about your points and have nothing better to say than "you're a moron for liking/disliking That One Show!" It's also a common response to (mis)use of the Don't Like? Don't Read! card.
I know many of you won't like this, but I'm right and you're wrong: The critic aims to expose a popular work as garbage, and insists (or at least implies) that this is the "correct" view of the work. For obvious reasons, this is very likely to lead to backlash.
I'm sorry, I was too hard on it: Sometimes, a critic will admit that a He Panned It, Now He Sucks! reaction was fair and that they were too hard on the work. Maybe they expected the wrong things of it because of hype or unfamiliarity with the work's genre and origin. Maybe they misremebered things or got their facts wrong in a way that made the work look worse than it was. Maybe they failed to give the work a fair chance because the Bias Steamroller got the better of them. (The reverse situation is rarer because He Didn't Pan It, Now He Sucks is a rarer reaction. However, a reviewer souring on a work they liked seems more common than them warming up to one they hated, likely because there are so many films in the world that rewatching one you hated the first time around usually makes less sense than trying a new one or rewatching an old favourite.)
You soured me on the work: While most fans who give a critic bile are presumably hoping for an "I'm sorry, I was too hard on it" reaction, it's far more likely that they'll get this, if anything at all. After all, most people won't think more highly of a work if they associate it with harassment. Lukewarm feelings can turn into hate, and even a work the critic enjoyed (only to get bile for not praising it enough) can be soured by angry reactions. Even if the fans aren't outright malicious, the critic may still get frustrated at them if they keep complaining about the negative review, especially if they do things like posting counterarguments that were addressed in the actual review, which suggests that they decided to complain about it without watching it first.

Examples

Diamond Axe Studios Music: In the "Worst Hit Songs of 2020" video, Sean laments that some music fans are so obsessed with promoting their favourite artists and shutting down criticism that they have threatened him and his family. The harassment he has received from the fanbase of a contributing artist was one of the factors that put his #1 pick at the top of the list, as he felt that it was not just a bad song, but representative of everything wrong with the culture surrounding music in 2020.
Todd in the Shadows:
- He was worried about putting Blackpink's "Ice Cream" on his Worst of 2020 list because of the K-Pop fandom's reputation for reacting negatively to criticism.
  Todd: I live in fear of K-pop stans in general. I don't know if I should fear the Blackpink fans specifically. I expect I'll find out soon enough!
- In the Trainwreckords episode on Witness, Todd mentions that many of his negative pop song reviews got backlash from the artists' fandoms, singling out Nicki Minaj's as particularly vicious. He then mentions that this did not happen when he criticized Katy Perry's music, and uses this to back up his theory that Katy lacked the kind of loyal following that could sustain her career once the hits dried up.

Category 6: Assorted trope ideas

Trope ideas

Highly Specific Synergy
- The synergy counterpart to Highly Specific Counterplay.
- Making game pieces that only work with each other greatly decreases the chance of creating an unintended game-breaking combo.
- Overdoing this can stifle players' creativity and homogenize the metagame.
- . Moreover, if the game pieces are worthless without each other, it can be irritating to be stuck with only one of them.
Poison Is Feminine
- In real life, poison murder is still male-dominated, but the split is much closer to 50/50 than for murder on average.
- It works well with the idea that Women Are Delicate, as poison requires no physical strength to use, and unlike most murder methods, the perpetrator doesn't have to stick around for the messy aftermath — if there even is a messy aftermath, as death by poison is fairly easy to romanticize. Moreover, a woman serving a poisoned meal is a twisted version of a woman's traditional role. It also plays into negative stereotypes of women as manipulative and untrustworthy.
  - In Magic: The Gathering, all three cards with "Poisoner" in their names represent female characters.
Antisymmetric Effect
- - In Magic: The Gathering, the theme of the Praetor cards is that they give you a bonus, and saddle each opponent with an opposite punishment. For instance, Elesh Norn's first card gives your creatures +2/+2, and everyone else's get -2/-2.
Extremely Long Turn
- When someone in-universe takes an extremely long turn in a board game or card game.
- Multiple flavours:
  - Someone makes a long combo
  - Someone thinks for a long time

Games can be listed if...

the rules were changed to address the possilibility of Extremely Long Turns
a high-profile example of an Extremely Long Turn happens (e.g. in a major tournament)
Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft: The Shudderwock loop
Chess introducing time limits.

Worker Placement
- Definitely tropable. I just don't know if I want to write this page or feel competent enough to do it. :p
- Examples:
  - Agricola
  - Everdell
  - Lost Ruins of Arnak
  - Mint Works
  - Viticulture: Notable for the grande worker, who can be placed on an occupied spot.
Inconveniently Ingested Item
Parental Help Mockery
- Mocking someone for receiving help from their parents.
- In Renato Carosone's "Tu vuo' fa' l'americano", the narrator mocks the "you", who wants to be cool, by asking them if their mother pays for their cigarettes.
Beginner-Friendly Character
- Importantly, many of these hold up surprisingly well at higher levels. Otherwise the trope would just be a clone of Crutch Character
Acquired Taste (YMMV)
- A work that people often dislike at first, and later come around to.
Best Enjoyed in Small Doses (YMMV)
- Opposite of Acquired Taste. A work that's fun at first, but drops off quickly.
- Example: T.I.M.E. Stories. It's pretty common for players to start off with a great impression due to the writing and flavourful "Groundhog Day" Loop... and then get sick of the game because said mechanic comes off as Fake Longevity on repeated plays.

The "Player Count Series"

Duel Variant

Laconic: A game originally designed for three or more players is reimagined as a two-player game, or tweaked to work better for two players.

Alternative title: Two-Player Variant, to cover the rare Co-Op Multiplayer examples.

7 Wonders Duel is a game for 2 players in the world of 7 Wonders, the best-selling boardgame.
It uses some of the main mechanics of its older brother,
but offers a new challenge, especially adapted for one-on-one games.

Many people want to play board games against just one single opponent. After all, finding one other person who wants to play with you is much easier than arranging a larger meetup. This setup also has gameplay advantages such as Kingmaker Scenarios being impossible by default, that you can fully concentrate on beating one opponent, and that you can concede a hopeless game without messing it up for the remaining players. However, many games include designs that suffer or break down at such a low player count. This is where the Duel Variant comes in.

The Duel Variant is a variant or reimagining of the game specifically for two players. It can be an included variant or part of an Expansion Pack, but it is often a standalone game. If it's a standalone game, don't be surprised to see something like "Duel", "Duo" or "Rivals" in its title.

If the Duel Variant is an included variant, it'll probably include rules tweaks to adapt the game for 2 players without changing the overall rules much. In particular, drafting games tend to play normally except for the inclusion of a dummy player to create a pseudo-3-player game, as this lets the players have one additional hand in play, and the 3rd player can often be exploited to deny your opponent something they want.

If the Duel Variant is a standalone game, expect bigger changes. The game can lean more into player interaction, as there's no longer a concern about players ganging up on each other to hinder a leader (which drags out the game) or just out of spite. The game also has more freedom to experiment with mechanics that don't scale well. With that said, some Duel Variants play very similarly to the base game, and just shrink the original game to make the size more suitable for two players.

Note that despite the name, a Co-Op Multiplayer game can get the Duel Variant treatment as well. In that case, it could be called a Duet Variant.

Sub-Trope of Player Count Expansion.

Examples

7 Wonders is a 3-7 player game based around traditional "pick one card and pass the hand" drafting. The original game can be played with 2 players, though it's an "expert" variant that requires them to keep track of what is essentially a dummy player they take turns controlling. The spin-off 7 Wonders Duel was tailored for two players, most notably by having the players draft from a shared card structure.
Agricola got a 2-player version in Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small.
Bananagrams is a word game where you try to arrange your letter tiles into a crossword-like structure the fastest. It has a 2-player-only spin-off in Bananagrams Duel!, which uses letter dice, and has a variant with the added rule that one of your words must fit a certain theme.
Blokus is designed for four players, with each player starting in one corner of the square board. The original game has a 2-player version, which gives the players two opposing corners each, essentially having them play for two. The later release Blokus Duo has a smaller board designed for two players.
Catan has a 2-player version in Rivals for Catan.
Codenames: Playing it normally requires 4 players to form two teams of at least two players each. It's possible to go down to 2 players, which turns the game into a one-team, Co-Op Multiplayer version of itself. Codenames Duet has similar gameplay as the original, but adds the twist that instead of one player having complete information about the board and giving hints to the other, both players have incomplete information and take turns giving hints.
Monopoly: The two-player spin-off Monopoly: Rivals Edition has a smaller board to be more manageable at 2 players. Also, sets of properties consist of two properties instead of the usual three, which makes it easier to obtain monopolies without having to trade for them — trades are rather useless at 2 players, as they will favour one player, and no one wants trades that disfavour them unless they're desperate to speed up the game.
Splendor: The original can be played with 2 players, but the spin-off Splendor Duel adds some mechanics to make the draft more interesting for 2 players. For instance, you now draft gems from a 5x5 board where their positions matter (replacing the original's simpler rules).
Sushi Go! can be played with two players by either playing normally or playing with a "dummy" 3rd player who the players take turns controlling. The expanded re-release Sushi Go Party! introduces the "Dinner for Two" card selection, which is tailored for two players. It also ditches the "dummy player" variant.
Tokaido: The original's two-player mode requires a dummy player. The dedicated 2-player spin-off Tokaido Duel instead gives each player multiple characters.
Wingspan: The Asia Expansion introduces Duet Mode, a dedicated 2-player mode that adds some game elements. Despite the name, it's still a competitive mode.

Indexes:

Tabletop Game Tropes

Player Count Expansion

Laconic: A game gets a variant or re-imagining to allow for wider player counts, or improve the experience at uncommon player counts.

Sometimes a playgroup is smaller or larger than a game was made for. Or maybe the game can be played at the desired player count, but it's considered less than ideal. The Player Count Expansion aims to fix this by tweaking or re-imaging the game to support additional player counts. These additions often come in Expansion Packs, but they can also be stand-alone releases or variants in the base game.

The most common type is the Expansion Pack that adds support for another player or two. These usually add game pieces to make sure there's enough for everyone. They may also feature other rules tweaks to smooth out games with high player counts.

This trope is mostly limited to board games. A multiplayer video game generally doesn't need to bend over backwards to accommodate for unusual player counts. Even if you do have a fixed playgroup that doesn't fit the recommended player count, playing online means that the game can split the group and/or fill up any vacant slots with outside players or AI players if necessary. With that said, Party Games and games with a "party" appeal to them may still use this trope for similar reasons as board games, as they play a similar role as board games when people have physical meetups.

Super-Trope to Duel Variant. See also Player Count Preference.

Examples

Board Games

7 Wonders: The original game supports 7 players at most, but the Cities Expansion Pack adds an 8th player.
Blokus is designed for four players, with each player starting in one corner of the square board. The original game has a 3-player version, which gives the players one corner each and have them take turns controlling a fourth dummy player. They later released Blokus Trigon, which has a hexagonal board designed to work better for three players (though it's also suitable for 4).
Catan: The original game supports 3-4 players, and the Catan 5-6 Player Expansion adds enough materials for up to two more players. The only rules change is that it adds a building round at the end of each turn in which any player can build.
Codenames: Playing it normally requires 4 players to form two teams of at least two players each. There's a 3-player variation that has one player playing both sides.
Pandemic: The original game supports up to 4 players. The On the Brink Expansion Pack adds rules for a 5-player game and some additional event cards to support them.
Res Arcana: The base game's player count maxes out at 4. The first Expansion Pack Lux et Tenebrae introduces the flexible Inscription magic item (in addition to the more situational Illusion) and changes the set-up to make the number of Monuments and Places of Power depend on the player count. These factors allow the game to go up to 5 players without the pool of shared game pieces running too low. (It also makes the 2-player game more cutthroat, as this player count ends up with a lower number of Monuments and Places of Power to fight over.)
Sushi Go!: The original's player count maxes out at 5. The expanded re-release Sushi Go Party! introduces the "Big Banquet" card selection, which is designed for 6-8 players.
Villainous: The Expansion Packs can be played as standalones or mixed with each other. Each expansion contains three villains and thus support for three players, but you can include more players by combining multiple expansions.
Wingspan: The base game's player count maxes out at 5. The Asia Expansion expands the maximum player count to 7 by including two extra player mats and adding the new Flock Mode rules, which cuts a lot of potential downtime by letting two players take their actions at once.

Trading Card Games

Magic: The Gathering was originally designed for two players, but the Commander format was later introduced to allow for multiplayer games. Although it started as a grassroots format, it is now recognized by Wizards of the Coast, who make dedicated products for it and design cards for it.

Video Games

The first three games in the Super Smash Bros. series support up to 4 players. Super Smash Bros. for Wii U introduces the new mode 8-Player Smash, which doubles the player limit and is restricted to stages deemed suitable for these higher player counts. Many of the stages are modified to make them less compute-intensive. Ultimate integrates 8-player Smash into the normal Smash modes and automatically tweaks the game (mostly by scaling up Final Destination and the Omega Form stages).

Player Count Preference (YMMV)

Laconic: Some games support a variety of player counts, but players find some counts considerably more enjoyable than others.

Playgroup sizes vary. Game publishers want to appeal to as many people as possible. So if a game is optimized for 3 or 4 players, but can also be played with 2 and 5, they will put "2-5 players" on the box rather than "3-4". This often works out fine, but sometimes the players will think some suggested player counts work considerably better than others. Even when the game does play well with each player count on the box, players may still find a few that stand above the rest.

This can happen for several reasons. Interaction-heavy games may suffer at low player counts because there are fewer people to interact with. Turn-based games low on Out-of-Turn Interaction get a lot of downtime at high player counts. Drafting games want you to see see each hand a reasonable-but-not-too-high number of times. Several types of game just have an arena size or game piece count that's too big for lower player counts, or too small for higher ones. A common rule of thumb is that the middle player counts will be the best.

Solo modes using a Tabletop Game A.I. are often considered worse than the normal game, as they tend to be tacked on after the normal game has been designed, and fighting a real opponent is just more interesting to most people. Similarly, Duel Variants with a dummy player are often derided for being clunky (though some players enjoy using the dummy player to block their opponent).

This audience reaction is mostly tied to board games. A multiplayer video game can just exclude player counts that don't work well. Even if your playgroup does have such a size, playing online means that the game can split the group and/or fill up any vacant slots with outside players or AI players if necessary. With that said, Party Games; and games with a "party" appeal to them may still include less-than-ideal player counts for similar reasons as board games, as they play a similar role as board games when people have physical meetups. Moreover, competitive play will often use a standardized player count they feel is the most competitive even if all player counts are enjoyable.

Compare Player Count Expansion, as some of these exist to salvage disfavoured player counts. See also Misbegotten Multiplayer Mode for when single-player video games don't work well for multiplayer.

Examples:

Board Games

7 Wonders supports 2-7 players. While it's considered to work well for 3-7 players, 4-5 is considered ideal. On the other hand, the 2-player version uses a dummy player and is not very popular.
Blokus is designed for four players, each having one starting in one corner. In the two-player variation, each take control of two colors at once, which is considered okay, but not as good as at four. In three-player, the fourth color is a "dummy" player shared among the three (but does not count for points) by alternating turns placing a piece, which is awkward and often leads to two players ganging up on the third (usually the poor sap who doesn't end up next to the dummy player). Blokus Duo and Blokus Trigon were eventually made to accommodate these respective player setups (though Trigon is also considered good at 4 players).
Catan: Online and tournament play default to four players instead of three. One reason is that the confined board gives decisions higher stakes and incentivizes trading. Additionally, since the dominant strategy is to specialize in either ore-wheat-sheep (cities and development cards) or wood-brick-wheat (roads and settlements), players will generally be pushed into two races of two, rather than two players going for each others' win condition while the third cruises to a victory.
The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine is a collaborative trick-taking game. The manual recommends at least three players, but describes a two-player variant where one player also plays as "JARVIS", who has an open hand of cards. Players agree that the game is better at 3-5 players, with 4 as the sweet spot.
Monopoly: The recommended player count is 4, as it does the best job of distributing properties and giving players the chance to use trading in interesting ways. Indeed, this count is used in tournaments. At 3 players, the trading mechanism becomes less useful, and at 2 it's useless because of its zero-sum nature. At 7-8 players, the game starts to suffer from excessive downtime as well as spreading the properties thin.
Most players think 4 is the best Pandemic player count, as it allows for the most interesting uses of the variable player powers.
The general consensus is that Root 4 players to be at its best, with 3 being okay and 2 being disrecommended. This likely contributed to two of its Expansion Packs adding Tabletop Game A.I. players.
Sushi Go! is a drafting game that works the best at four players. Playing it at 2 is possible, but recommended against (something the Board Game Arena outright warns you about if you try) because you have to either use a dummy player or play it normally even though it wasn't designed for it. With that said, Updated Re Release Sushi Go! Party added a set-up tailored for two players (without the dummy player). This effort was successful - while four is still considered the best player count, it did salvage the 2-player mode.
While Trouble works fine at every player count, players overwhelmingly think the maximum of 4 is the best, as it has the most chaos on the board and the highest chance of pegs being captured and sent back home.
Villainous can be played at 5 or 6 players, but it's not recommended due to the amount of downtime. The best player count is 3, which makes the player interaction interesting while not adding too much downtime.
Werewolf (1997) can theoretically support any player count above 2. However, players tend to prefer at least 7-10 to ensure that the game doesn't end too soon, and to give the players more information over the course of the game. On the other hand, too many players leads to issues like it being hard to keep track of everything, messy discussions and the unfortunate combination of long games (unless they add many killing roles) and early Player Elimination. Players tend to draw the line somewhere in the high 10s or low 20s.
Wingspan starts to suffer from a lot of downtime once you reach 5 players, as it's a low-interaction game whose downtime scales linearly with the number of players. The ideal count is considered to be 3, as it strikes a good balance between minimizing downtime and making the "piggybacking" pink bird powers work. It also allows the bird feeder and card tray to rotate at a comfortable pace.

Video Games

While the Super Smash Bros. games are fun at any player count in casual play, competitive play sticks to 1v1 and 2v2 to keep matches fair and not too messy.

Other assorted stuff

Dissonant Aesop Analysis

Taken from the history of this TLP.

These tend to crop up fairly often in a few common flavors: Resurrection Rum and Raisin, Time Travel Lemon Twist, Robot Raspberry Revolution, Mango Magic Mishaps, Eternal Life By Chocolate, Superpower Sour Grapes, Vampire Blood vs. Holy Water Swirl, and Definitely Divine Ambrosia Delight.

Resurrection:
- Failed Metaphor: A resurrection spell would bring the loved one back without trouble, but the characters act as if it wouldn't, often for no reason other than "death is a part of life and must be accepted" when they use magic to solve problems every day.
- Arbitrary Rules: A resurrection spell has horrible side effects that makes those resurrected come back wrong, so it's better to accept what cannot be changed. But in the real world, it can't be changed because it can't, while in the fictional world, it can't be changed because of some arbitrary problem the writer made up to ensure it can't be changed. Alternatively, resurrecting a person may require harming or killing someone else.
Time Travel:
- Failed Metaphor: Time travel exists, but the characters think they shouldn't use it to benefit either themselves, loved ones, or humanity in general because, like Resurrection: "It isn't natural, you should accept the past for how it is."
- Arbitrary Rules: ahem: Godwin's Law of Time Travel, Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act, Clock Roaches, Butterfly of Doom, and Rubber-Band History.
Robot Revolution:
- Failed Metaphor: Using the metaphor of "Robots are like human slaves" (as Karel Čapek did when he invented the term "robot"), with the Aesop that if you don't treat them like equals you will face the wrath of machines who have Turned Against Their Masters. However, the fictional robots are different from human beings in a way that makes it much more justified to treat them as dangerous or makes it much more likely they could successfully revolt; human workers don't have Death Rays or an infinitely respawning population (well, not the way those robots do). Also, human slaves are sentient. Robots may not be. Then again, maybe everybody acknowledges this and therefore programs the robots not to revolt, leading to a utopian future where everyone is served by willing slaves. Go thou and do likewise, viewers!
- Arbitrary Rules: The authors have arbitrarily given the robots so many human qualities that anti-robot sentiment and discrimination is obviously like doing the same thing to human beings... making them not very much like robots. It's not like every robot needs to have the same level of intelligence, or even be capable of genuine thought like, well, none are at present.
Magic and Powers:
- Failed Metaphor: The superpower or magical ability the hero has is quite potent, perhaps story breakingly so, but is never as good as old-fashioned, character-building hard work. So the hero must never use her powers for self-gain, or even just baking a pizza. Why? Because that way lies Jumping Off the Slippery Slope and villainy. Never mind that Adam Smith has different ideas about using your talents to help yourself and others, if it's a power, it's only good for beating stuff up. Alternatively, the powers work great and make everyone's life better; so today's moral is that you should go get yourself some superpowers.
- Arbitrary Rules: Same as above, using powers for self-gain is bad, except this time it's not because of any corrupting influence... but because it never works. Useless Superpowers are the order of the day, Reed Richards Is Useless and the poor witch is really Blessed with Suck. Chores done with magic are sloppy, things made with super powers lack heart, and in general "laziness" begets problems. Particularly common for Teenage Witches and pre-teen Super Heroes. Perhaps this Broken Aesop can be repaired, if this trope variant were ever to be subverted with the message that "Just because magic is no substitute for good hard work doesn't excuse you from putting in some good hard work practicing your magic!" With sufficiently refined skill and subtlety, even super powers that were once only good for beating stuff up could realistically find broader application with an artisan's approach to spell craft.
Immortality
- Failed Metaphor: Immortality works as advertised, but characters should not seek it because, well, you wouldn't really want it anyway, trust me (even though the author has no actual experience with immortality, somehow they just know it would suck). Oddly, even in worlds where immortals aren't indestructible, they never simply choose to commit suicide if they really decide that 1,000 years is enough.
- Arbitrary Rules: Immortality exists, but you can only get it by draining life from other people, or selling your soul, or some other obviously bad method. See Immortality Immorality.
Never Be a Hero:
- Failed Metaphor: Normal people can be and are heroes without having powers, which are superfluous to true heroism. However, ordinary civilians should act like Innocent Bystanders and let the ~~real~~ Super Heroes do all the work. Anyone trying to get powers, keep those they get, or otherwise "encroach" on the hero's work is thus being a dangerously irresponsible Jerkass (even if a hero started out this exact same way, there's only one Chosen One after all). Falls flat because people don't spontaneously become paramedics and firemen in Real Life. "Emergency room training, ACTIVATE!" Another possibility is that this metaphor works a little too well: "Civilian training can make you a superhero! Enroll in college today so you can become Batman!"
- Arbitrary Rules: Getting and then using superpowers to emulate a superhero is never advisable for the former Muggles. The Phlebotinum may be dangerous or addictive, only the hero can wield the Empathic Weapon, or there will be accidents while learning to control their powers. Essentially, only the hero can be The Hero because he's a Born Winner, no one else can even try.
Silly Reason for War
- Failed Metaphor: The differences between two groups are not trivial, and in fact a case can be made for treating those involved differently. Like a vampire needing human blood to "live", or an alien feeding detrimentally on another's emotions. While the author would like us to consider this as a clear metaphor for racism, sexism, or other forms of segregation, the situation shown is less about trivial surface differences and more substantial. On the other hand, maybe the author acknowledges these differences and that Violence Really Is the Answer therefore. Today's lesson? If your enemy is a race of psychopathic vampire space monsters from Hell, then genocidal racism is perfectly justifiable.
- Arbitrary Rules: The author provides a means for both sides to live together easily and/or render the core of the dispute moot (artificial blood for vampires, for example). This breaks the Aesop of not fighting others for trivial differences because now the differences that they were fighting over are effectively gone. Though if the Aesop is instead centered on the protagonists putting forth the effort to find said peaceful solution when everyone else has accepted that Violence is the Only Option, it can still be valid.
Faith:
- Failed Metaphor: In many fantastical settings, gods, demons, souls, the afterlife, and Santa Claus are all very well-documented phenomena. As a result, believing in those things is not so much a deep question of self-actualization or worldview as an accepting of incredibly obvious truth, and therefore kind of meaningless. It makes no sense to question believing in Crystal Dragon Jesus when his existence is about as debatable as that of Samuel L. Jackson. If anything, denying his existence would seem closer to faith. Alternatively, everyone completely accepts and never questions those elements. The lesson is that the supernatural is definitely real and totally obvious, and you should always believe it when you see it.
- Arbitrary Rules: The spiritual elements of the world require active belief or devotion to keep going, and might even grant powers to the faithful, giving good reason to stick to belief so strongly. Only now, you don't question Crystal Dragon Jesus because you doubt your faith in him, you question him because Platinum Angel Muhammad down the street is offering a better deal.

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The "Player Count Series"

Alternative title: Two-Player Variant, to cover the rare Co-Op Multiplayer examples.

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Other assorted stuff

Taken from the history of this TLP.

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