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In the second level of Dangerous Dave, you can see gems floating above fire and water. Does the game allow you to jump down and claim them? Why, yes... if you don't mind losing a life for trying.
Dark Souls:
- Dark Souls:
  - Players can leave messages on the ground with the soapstone item, which can be seen by other people who happen to be both online and in the same locations. This unsurprisingly leads to players telling gullible bystanders to take Leaps of Faith into Bottomless Pits.
  - The first game has Trusty Patches, who will generally reward the appropriate level of (clearly misplaced) trust by dropping you into a pit. Twice.
  - The Darkroot region is made of these. One side path has a small room with the glow of an item at the far back. A savvy player will note the top foliage of the Nightshade creature that lurks right in front of it. A quick grab and dash, yes? Oops, going into the room causes two more Nightshades to drop at the entrance, while the obvious third also attacks. The area is small enough that all three can hit you with any attack, or even worse, get you with their grab attack animation. The prize? A Purple Moss, an item that you get from farming Nightshades.
- Dark Souls II:
  - The end of the Pate/Creighton sidequest, regardless of whom you choose to ally with, will send you to the same room containing a booby-trapped exploding treasure chest.
  - On his own, Royal Sorcerer Navlaan is imprisoned in a laboratory, alternating between a scared young mage and an Obviously Evil dark wizard who bribes you to kill innocent NPCs. The Schmuck Bait comes into play with the nearby lever, which is preceded by a hallway full of signs warning you to not touch it and leave. Pulling the lever releases Navlaan, who will invade you multiple times throughout the game, but if you leave him in his cell and do his hits (or make him think you did), then he will become a merchant that sells some items you can't get anywhere else.
  - The Smelter Demon has a very slow, telegraphed Sword Plant attack that is extremely easy to avoid and has it stand still for several seconds afterwards. It certainly looks like the perfect opportunity to run in and get a bunch of hits on it, and sometimes it genuinely is. Other times, it will follow the attack with a highly damaging shockwave that has a large radius. There is no way to tell whether it will do the shockwave or not, leading many players to get baited into taking a shockwave to the face.
- Dark Souls III: The setup for the boss fight with High Lord Wolnir. You are transported into an endless dark abyss where the only illumination is the faint glow of an item on the floor (a Pyromancy tome). Approach, and Wolnir will burst forth out of the darkness and attack. It's a brilliant Jump Scare.
Dawn of War: There are two ways to get into the enemy base during the Dark Crusade Imperial Guard stronghold mission. The first is a long, brutal slog across the entire map through several forward bases, while the second is a seemingly lightly-guarded trench which leads straight into the heart of said base. You do wanna take the former though, unless you want to walk through terrain that slows your units down and lowers their defense, and have all your forces annihilated by the Hellstorm Cannon at the base of the trench. Ignoring those aforementioned bases means you'll have enemy forces heading to your main base to send you packing.
In the Dead Space series, the Markers are literally bait that the Brethren Moons use to lure entire civilizations into becoming willing sacrifices. Space is "dead" because every race that preceded humanity fell for the same trap, at least in the Milky Way.
- Subverted in Dead Space; the player can encounter both a shooting range aboard the Valor and a Z-Ball^note court aboard the Ishimura. You'd think stopping to play a game or practice your shooting aboard a ship crawling with Necromorphs would be a disaster waiting to happen, but in fact you're encouraged to play, because getting the highest score in each will unlock various useful prizes, capping out at a precious Power Node needed to upgrade your gear. Furthermore, outside of the Enhanced Lurkers already wandering the Z-Ball Court when you get there, you'll never get attacked as you play.
- Played straight in the 2023 remake: when you start the Shooting Range, it'll play straight at first, and then suddenly youll be locked in and attacked by a horde of Necromorphs, though your reward for surviving is the bounty of goodies and an achievement. Likewise, the Z-Ball Court is initially empty, but will spawn a couple of Lurkers if you start a game for the first time, but once they're disposed of you can play for real in total safety.
Near the beginning of Deadly Rooms of Death: Journey to Rooted Hold, the Slayer sets up a stupidly obvious trap, in which hitting an orb will lock you in the room. His companion tries to tell him "The Delver can't be that stupid." However, falling for the trap is the only way to progress, and the Slayer gives him an "I told you so".
The Deadpool game gives you the option to use a toilet in his apartment. You might think you're going to get a quick quip about that option, but no, he sits down and uses the bathroom in real time and calls you a freak for choosing this option.
In Dengeki Gakuen RPG: Cross of Venus, Dokuro-chan positively reeks of this trope in the Toradora! world. After all, why would her first action after leaving the room you just landed in be to casually flick a switch that releases poison gas in the first floor of Taiga's apartment? And then she pulls every switch at the beginning of each subsequent floor (despite everyone's protests, even), though these do demonstrate the traps waiting for you there. (Thankfully, she doesn't touch the four levers at the end of each floor, three of which initiate battles.)
Some levels of Descent have a trap at the end. Sometimes you'll notice a switch inside the exit tunnel. Shooting it will do one of two things: unlock a nearby secret (which is usually obvious) or open up a Monster Closet right over your head (which is usually not obvious). The devious part is that the first few times you encounter this, the former happens, so you're not as likely to suspect the trap before hitting that switch.
Detarou's escape-the-room games almost always have at least one schmuck ending. Sure, go ahead and press that Big Red Button on a conspicuously darkened wall. Why, of course approaching that Finish Line is the way to finish the game, even though half of your inventory is still full. And you should definitely go in the direction that nice-looking panda is pointing in or pull that rope he really, really wants you to pull. You totally won't fall into a Trap Door and get a Bad Ending screen with Evil Panda laughing over your stupidity!
Deus Ex Universe:
- Deus Ex: Human Revolution:
  - At one point your augmentations start glitching and you are instructed to go to the nearest L.I.M.B. Clinic for a emergency replacement biochip. If you've been paying attention to the game or are suitably paranoid, then you'll have picked up on the numerous hints that the "unforeseen" glitches and biochip aren't what the Illuminati-controlled news media is telling you. Even the opening cutscene has The Omniscient Council of Vagueness talking about this plan before it goes into effect. Sure enough, if you get your biochip replaced, then one of the Big Bads uses a killswitch to disable your augmentations before a boss battle.
  - A few computers and breakable walls will be placed in view of non-patrolling enemies. These are specifically placed to catch out any player foolish enough to take the bait, putting themselves within eyesight of a guard and subsequently getting shot.
- Deus Ex: Mankind Divided continues the tradition of having technically breakable walls and hackable computers and consoles in view of enemies or police. As an additional twist, don't pick up any loose credit chips you find in the apartments of an arms dealer. Doing so inside the casino of a notorious mob boss, however, seems to raise no eyebrows.
Diablo III:
- There are plenty of times the player character sees obvious traps and calls them for what they are. They're willing to play along and "stumble into them", since they're powerful enough to blow through whatever comes along.
- Invoked by Urzael in Reaper of Souls. There just happens to be an unguarded chest, sitting in a garden? When the lid flips open, the gates slam shut and enemies spawn in. He even leaves a note inside, calling you greedy.
Digimon World 3: After the suspiciously easy fight with the Suzaku City leader, he tells the player character to go into the next room to receive their reward, rather than just giving it to him. Surprise, it's a trap! The city leader, and all those tamers in identical uniforms, are the A.O.A. and they've taken over the city.
Divekick has tips from Uncle Sensei in the loading screen, and more often than not, they fall into this territory. One of his suggestions is to delete your operating system to free up hard disk space.
At the end of Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest level Glimmer's Galleon, there are a few puffer fish enemies, which usually swell up and move around or explode into shrapnel. There is also one that isn't swollen and doesn't seem to react to you, and right above it is a Banana Coin. If you go for the coin, the fish will immediately swell up and float upward, causing you to take a hit.
In the Don't Escape series of games, the object is to, well, not escape. The third game is set on a spaceship, which has a clearly marked escape pod which the player is perfectly free to use. It is obviously not a good idea to use it, but why you wouldn't want to is not immediately clear.
Don't Shoot the Puppy. Every level is a new kind of Schmuck Bait designed to get you to fire that gun by mistake.
Doom:
- Doom:
  - See that big health kit on the middle of this large, perfectly circular, and otherwise completely empty room? You are free to take it. If you are ready to fight huge waves of monsters that will appear the moment you pick it up from camouflaged trap doors on the walls, that is.
  - Somewhat common among the modding community of Doom are what are known as "Terry traps", troll levels that start out looking normal, but at a certain point teleport you into a place with obscene imagery, armies of monsters that can insta-kill you, ear-splitting sounds, and/or seizure-inducing flashing. At least one such level even included (through on-screen text) a link to this trope's page.
- Doom³: You'll find rooms that seem perfect for an ambush with a large medkit in a corner, but nothing will happen. However, there's also a vacant hallway with a small stimpack in an opening in it, and touching that causes an Imp to appear behind you and maul your spine away.
Dragon Age: Origins:
- There's a great example during the "Nature of the Beast" plotline. There is a treasure chest near the Keeper of the elven village. Touch it once and you get a mild warning. Touch it again and the Keeper's apprentice now hates your guts. Though this has absolutely zero effect on anything.
- There are 9 Revenants scattered around the game that will appear if you touch the wrong item and can easily mudstomp an unprepared player. The game does give ominous clues that the items (black vials or gravestones) shouldn't be touched.
Dragon Fin Soup allows you to attempt to eat or drink anything in your inventory as a standard action. Should you try doing this with an item that isn't meant for human consumption (like, say, a shotgun), you're likely to lose a ton of HP in the process, possibly even killing you.
Dragon Quest:
- Dragon Quest III has the Golden Claws. You managed to find the secret chamber on the first trip to the Pyramid? Neato! You've found the best weapon for the Martial Artist in the game, period. But guess what; you're not leaving with them. From the moment you collect the Golden Claws, every single individual step you take in any direction will trigger a monster encounter. And magic doesn't work in the basement of the pyramid, so you can't escape easily. Or heal with magic. The only feasible way to get them and get out safely is extensive preparation. This also causes additional problems depending on the version of the game: in the NES/Famicom version, once you get back to town, you can sell the Claws and you'll be fine. In the Gameboy version, the Claws will be uncursed as soon as you take them out of the pyramid. In the iOS/Switch version, the Claws will only increase the encounter rate in the pyramid, but getting rid of them won't remove the curse, and you might still need to get the Magic Key. Good. Luck.
- In many games, you can find a sign in the middle of a toxic swamp that tells you to keep out of the swamp that you have to cross just to read the damn sign. Even funnier in Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride; when the hero comes across one, he's a six year old who can't read yet.
A potion in one of the rooms in Dragon's Lair that says "Drink Me" on it. In a castle where everything you can think of is magically enchanted to kill you. If you do let Dirk the Daring drink it, it "poofs" him into dust and takes a life.
The Dumb Ways to Die video game:
- There's a level asking you not to push the Big Red Button.
- The sequel has a level asking you not to lick a pole.
The "Maze of Madness" scenario in the online game Dungeons & Dragons: Tiny Adventures opens with the finding of a jeweled scepter, engraved with a "Keep out of the Maze!" warning. Naturally, your immediate conclusion upon finding it is that anyone who uses jeweled scepters to send warnings must be loaded...
In Dust: An Elysian Tail, half-crazed sidequest giver Reed asks you to find a mysterious box and repeatedly warns you not to open it if you find it... only for Fidget to do so when you're not looking.
Dwarf Fortress:
- Sometimes, you'll find open rooms full of treasure in Adventure mode. These rooms are often either trapped or belong to someone.
- Schmuck bait can be used against NPCs by exploiting their programming. A popular trap is the "goblin grinder"; an invader enters through one side of an open hallway that leads into the fortress, activates a pressure plate that blocks their exit, and makes it to the end of the hall... only to activate another pressure plate that blocks this exit, and opens the first one. Invaders will run back and forth in the hallway trying to get out. And of course the floor is covered in Spikes of Doom.
- Your dwarves may attempt to retrieve corpses or the belongings of corpses with absolutely no thought into how they became corpses. This may lead to them getting killed the exact same way, only for another dwarf to try and retrieve their corpse.
Dynasty Warriors 3:
- The game has the famous line "Don't pursue Lu Bu!" regarding an optional miniboss in the Hu Lao Gate stage... who in every incarnation of the series as a beat 'em up is actually more powerful than the actual stage boss.
  - Alternatively, "Don't route Diao Chan". Killing Diao Chan makes Lu Bu's anger skyrocket and empower him to a much greater threat level than the one he had at Hu Lao Gate.
- The AI points out something strange? It's up to you to check and reveal that it was a Schmuck Bait... for the AI! It's even worse when you can't do a thing to prevent it.
  [The Wu Units are behaving suspiciously]
  [Cao Cao started a fire attack!]
- Pang Tong makes this clear sometimes. He knows a place is perfect for an ambush and he falls for it just so you have to save him. Actually, this could be him underestimating the enemy's strength, or it could be he is not very good at fighting at all, but...
  Pang Tong: This forest is a perfect place for an ambush!
  [Wu Units came out of hiding]
- You are close to reaching the Enemy Commander and then...
  [Enemy Ambush Troops appeared!]
  Allied Commander: What? An ambush! They are smarter than I expected!
  [Enemy Units are moving towards the Allied Main Camp]
  [Enemy Commander is moving towards the Allied Main Camp]

Ecco the Dolphin:
- Among the things said by his podmates in the harmless first lagoon is "How high in the sky can you fly?" Trying to answer that triggers the abduction of your pod by aliens and the start of the game.
- The reboot has a level ("Chance of Reckoning") that drops the player right in front of the Big Bad, who is holding the MacGuffin between her giant fangs... which are wide open just enough that a stupid player might be tempted to dart between them and grab the MacGuffin. Don't.
Ed, Edd n Eddy: The Mis-Edventures: A switch in the Kankers' trailer in level 6 with an obvious trapdoor under it is pulled by Eddy, thinking it will lead to his jawbreakers. It doesn't.
Stupid Kankers. I'm way too smart for them.
Elden Ring:
- After leaving the tutorial, you'll probably quickly find a large knight on horseback patrolling the area outside. There's no fog gate indicating a boss fight, so you might assume he's a normal Limgrave enemy and attack. If you do, surprise! He's the Tree Sentinel, and you've just learned about field bosses!
  - Just to twist the knife a little further, this particular Tree Sentinel has a scaling level double that of his surroundings, so even if you beat a few other nearby bosses and think you can take him, you're probably wrong.
- The Dung Eater's questline. His Astral Projection won't talk to you until you've found a Seedbed Curse, upon which he gives you a key and tells you to free his real body so he can kill you and defile your corpse. If you do as he says, he'll invade you to do exactly that, and if you beat him there, he'll ask you to help him create a cursed Mending Rune that will spread his defilement to the entire world. Can't accuse him of being dishonest, at least. Though if you pursue his quest to the point where he asks you to defile him to create the Mending Rune, and then force-feed him Seluvis's potion to turn him into a puppet, you get him as a summon. He's quite powerful, so initiating his quest can be profitable and have no negative effects if done at the right time.
The Elder Scrolls:
- Morrowind:
  - Daedric shrines typically have a large statue of the Daedric Prince they are dedicated to at the center. Usually, one can find all sorts of offerings at the foot of these statues, ranging from a few gold to gemstones to even weapons and armor. However, one item is almost always trapped so that when you pick it up, it summons a Dremora behind you, who will immediately attack. That's what you get for stealing from the Daedric Prince of Destruction or Domination or Madness.
  - The area immediately around Seyda Neen serves as a Green Hill Zone to help with Easing into the Adventure. Enemies are limited to low-level mudcrabs, kwama foragers, and scribs, available side quests are quite easy to tackle (only one involves combat and the opponent is unarmed), and the nearby Noob Cave smuggler's den Addamasartus only contains level one opponents. Should you choose to pass on the silt strider and walk to Balmora, things remain fairly easy. Sticking to the main path, you'll pass by another smuggler's den, Zainsipilu, which you'll probably enter bursting with confidence...only to meet a messy death. The enemy NPCs range in level from 5-9, a few are armed with ranged weapons which have the tendency to "knock down" low Agility starting player characters and a few others are armed with hard-hitting battle axes which can dish out a quick One-Hit KO. It serves as a harsh lesson about the game's almost total lack of Level Scaling, especially for players coming from one of the later games in the series.
- Oblivion has two cases of Schmuck Bait.
  - The first one is Dive Rock, the highest point on the map, with an incredible view of the game world and a very long drop. Yes, you can indeed dive off Dive Rock, achieving nothing but a messy you-shaped splatter on the ground below. Naturally.
  - The other is attacking Sheogorath, Daedric Prince of Madness, which goes as well as you may think...
- Skyrim:
  - Bard's Leap is an outcropping of rock channelling a stream a looooong way down into a pool of water. Jumping down the waterfall and surviving nets you a speechcraft level from a bard's ghost, a man who also took the bait but didn't survive.
  - There's also the Riverwood Chicken. At the very beginning of the game, just after you escape from captivity and learn how to fight, you come across your first village. The first thing you see is a chicken sitting right in the entrance gate. Do not, under any circumstances, attack that chicken. You will get a bounty for property damage, and everyone in the village will pull out their weapons and proceed to wafflestomp you into the ground. You can pay off your bounty, but this requires you to travel to the next town and get arrested there, because any nearby guards will unhelpfully cheer on your attackers instead of letting you surrender and pay the 40 gold.
  - When you enter the minidungeon Rannveig's Fast and progress into the main hall, it's largely empty, save for a Word Wall and a large treasure chest. The path to said chest features a large panel which turns out to be a trapdoor, and, if you fall in, you'll land in a cell with corpses at the bottom, revealing that a necromancer uses it to trap foolish adventurers and thieves for magical experimentation. Of course, it's pretty easy to jump up onto the ledges next to the trapdoor to bypass it, though the chest itself is empty.
  - The sidequest "A Daedra's Best Friend". Barbas, canine companion and external conscience to Clavicus Vile, Daedric Prince of trickery, asks you to help him reunite with his master, and warns you not to accept any offer Clavicus makes. Clavicus himself is reluctant to take Barbas back, but tells you that if you retrieve an axe for him (that the Daedric Prince claims to be a weapon of great power), he'll agree to let Barbas return (if only because his power has waned since Barbas left and he'd like to be back at full strength). When you return with the axe, Clavicus makes his offer: use the axe to kill Barbas, and you can keep it. If you do choose to kill Barbas, you'll find that not only is the axe vastly underpowered, it doesn't actually count as a Daedric artifact^note, unlike the reward you get for insisting that Clavicus keep his word and take Barbas back. Hey, what did you think would happen when you made a deal with the Daedric Prince of trickery, especially when he's separated from his conscience?
In Elona, one of the first interactable objects a player will find is the piano in the inn in Vernis. Said building also contains Loyter, a high level NPC. By Elona's rules, higher level NPCs are harder to please when playing a musical instrument and will easily throw rocks at the player to make them stop. And Loyter being strong enough to one-shot a low level player with a thrown rock, this means playing the piano will result into an instant death.
In Elroy Goes Bugzerk, Elroy is instructed to not chase the chickens. Until you find an egg, a chicken will appear on most screens to taunt Elroy. Chasing it leads to a Game Over.
Epic Battle Fantasy:
- Epic Battle Fantasy 3: "Hey! Let's prod this chained demon we found with the business end of our weapons! What could possibly go wrong?!"
- Epic Battle Fantasy 5 lets you capture the Final Boss in a New Game Plus after the Version 2 update. Its summon power is listed at 9,999 and the description of its move is an ominous "Deletes current simulation." Using it will kill every enemy and player character, stripping away Morale and Auto-Revive and guaranteeing a game over. And then it gives a Jump Scare image of Snowflake and forces the game to close itself.
In Escape Velocity: Nova, you have the option of buying cheap versions of certain ship upgrades that seem like a good deal, until their timers run out and they either break, disable your ship in space, or blow it up. Also present is the Auroran Drop Bear Repellant, which claims to prevent the random Drop Bear attack, which is a real possibility for non-Aurorans in their territory. Buying it will actually ensure that you will get attacked at some point.
In Etrian Odyssey, beware of any enemy that is weak to all physical attack types. Most of these enemies have some way to capitalize upon this, such as inflicting the Curse status ailment so that whoever attacks them takes as much damage as they inflicted, which will certainly be a One-Hit Kill for the attacker in addition to their target in this case, or using some sort of Last Ditch Move to debilitate your entire party with status ailments effectively mandating that you kill them last (thankfully, Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth and onward cure status ailments at the end of each battle).
EVE Online:
- A common tactic: a lone player will often wait somewhere off the stargate or station in low/null security space. When other unsuspecting players start shooting at them, not only do they find that said player has a strong tank, but several of their friends have warped in and/or decloaked.
- The Amarr have several ships that are specifically Schmuck Bait, especially the Maller and Prophecy, both of which are minimal threat but insanely hard to kill for their size and cost. Bonus points go to the Imperial Navy Augoror, which is a faction cruiser and thus an automatic high-priority target for new fleet commanders, but if properly fitted is tougher to take out than a fleet battleship, while being less dangerous than a frigate. Seeing any one of these three ships by itself minding its own business is almost always a new player or an ambush.
- There used to be an unintentional form of player bait. Pressing Ctrl + Q at the same time quit the game back to the desktop. Many a new player, when asking in a public chat channel how to, for example, open the galaxy map or launch all their drones at once, would often receive the answer "press Ctrl + Q". This has since been removed.
Eversion. A cute, cheerful platformer? Just how could this be "not for children or those of a nervous disposition"? It is a very popular game to get Let's Players to do a blind run of.
Parodied in Evil Genius, with the trap "Do Not Touch Button". It's a literal schmuck button, and anyone touching it (including your own minions and/or Henchmen) will have their hand crushed and their Smarts lowered for their trouble.
Your very first challenge in The Evil Within is to swipe some keys from a hulking, monstrous butcher called the Sadist, and sneak away undetected. Coming up behind him in a low position gives you a button prompt to take the knife you just found and jam it in the Sadist's back. Do this, and he'll No-Sell the effort and immediately turn around to show you a very innovative way to instantly lose about ten pounds.
In E.V.O.: Search for Eden, in the fish level, you can attempt to go on land before beating the boss. Guess what there's none of in the air yet? Oxygen.
Eye of the Beholder 2:
- If you are advised to not enter the little room filled with higher-than-normal magic items (including magical plate armor) in a dungeon expressly made to kill you, guess what you should not do. Go on. Guess. Doing so causes the room to seal behind you as you release a pressure plate that said magic armor was holding down, resulting in your party being trapped and dying from starvation (no matter what kind of party you have, including clerics high-level enough to make food and water).
- A very literal one also happens in this game. At one point, you receive a message from your mentor that the Big Bad is preparing a spell that will completely destroy your party, rendering you impossible to raise again. To foil the scheme, you have to go into the next room and let yourself be killed by the monsters. It is the Big Bad impersonating your mentor. If you do get yourselves killed, he'll mock you for your gullibility. If you don't, and slay the monsters, he'll just reveal himself and rage at you for not being a total schmuck.

In FAITH: The Unholy Trinity, near the end of Chapter 1 the demons leave John a rifle with One Bullet Left and the message "KILL HER" in blood after he fails to save the possessed Amy. Following their advice results in John being arrested for her murder.
Fallen London:
- Some options contain a remark to the effect of "Don't do this, it's a bad idea." Those curious enough to take this option will invariably find out that the remark was truthful.
- Seeking Mr. Eaten's Name is an ongoing storyline composed of nothing but Schmuck Bait of the Lovecraftian sort that will destroy your character's stats, inventory, connections, pets, friends, health, soul, and sanity. The Failbetter Games staff member responsible for most of the idea wrote it as an experiment on the crazy lengths players will go to complete a sidequest for no reward beyond learning what happens next.^noteAn idea facilitated by the fact that players who seek the name are generally willing to keep mum on the plotline's story, making very little information regarding it (apart from the costs, that is) available even on fan-managed wikis. For a very long time, it wasn't even finished, and this was common knowledge, and people played it anyway. Now that it is finished, it's equally common knowledge that the ending deletes your character and bricks your account — and people play it anyway!
  - One particular portion of the Seeking leads to a point where you can choose between two dialogue options. One offers you a seemingly free, automatic success, the other is expensive and offers you a vanishingly small chance at success. Which should you pick? The first. The devs were banking on players getting this far in the Seeking to believe that everything that looked too good to be true was... except this time it wasn't.
- While Seeking as a whole is bait, one option is particularly famous for taking it up to eleven. It costs 50 Fate (roughly 10 real-world dollars and significantly more than many of the lengthy storylines that also cost Fate), and comes with a prominent warning: "THIS WILL DESTROY YOUR CHARACTER FOREVER AT A COST OF FIFTY FATE AND FIVE CARNIVAL TICKETS. THERE IS NO TEXT WORTH READING BEHIND THE BRANCH RESULT. IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO PLAY THIS BRANCH TO CONTINUE THE STORY. DO NOT CONTACT SUPPORT TO COMPLAIN IF YOU ARE RASH ENOUGH TO CLICK THIS BUTTON." One player was curious enough to take the option, and somehow it didn't delete his character, to which he filed a very polite bug report. It currently does not actually make your character unusable, but anyone doing this will be rewarded with the unique quality Scorched by the Sun.
  Alexis Kennedy: If you like, think of it as an alternative to Molyneux's "Curiosity", except instead of tapping on a cube you're gradually peeling your own skin off.
Fallout:
- In Fallout 2, during the main quest to infiltrate the Enclave's Camp Navarro you're met with Drill Sergeant Nasty Dornan, who orders you to retrieve a suit of Powered Armor and report back to him. You only need to speak to him once to have free reign of the place, but actually reporting back to him rescinds that as he'll order you to stand guard forever and actively start looking for you if he sees you're not at your post, turning the entire base hostile if he catches you three times.
- In Fallout 3, it is possible to find a Garden of Eden Creation Kit (The G.E.C.K.) — and you may activate it. Trying to do so will warn out that it will destroy everything in a several-mile radius for raw materials — whereupon you may confirm that you'd like to activate it. Wouldn't you know it, it also destroys you as well and causes a game over.
- Fallout: New Vegas:
  - The main questline asks you to get to New Vegas, which is directly north of the starting town of Goodsprings, but tells you that you should follow the highway east first. Anyone who tries to go north anyway runs into a Beef Gate made of the very fast Cazadors and Deathclaws, with no hope of survival or escape.
  - The final chamber of Vault 11 is locked by a terminal which can only be accessed through a password, which itself is at the far end of the explorable space in the Vault. Everything you've read up to this point tells you this chamber is bad news, as in the "not compatible with continued living" kind of bad, but chances are you're going to go there anyway simply because you have to know what the fuss is about. The game awards you with a decent amount of XP for doing so, since it's an unmarked quest... if you survive the surprise.
  - The game uses a double-trap all the time with land mines, since it knows that you will never pass up the opportunity to disarm a useful, valuable mine and add it to your inventory. There are many areas where a prominent mine is placed within the detonation radius of one that is hidden. One example is just outside of Nipton, where the developers have placed hidden frag mines under the traffic cones near some not-so-hidden mines, such that stepping within range to disarm the obvious mines will activate the others. If you survive the first explosion and panic, you'll inevitably run into all the others and set off a chain reaction.
  - Early on, you're directed to travel to a town via a winding highway going south and looping back around. The town itself is a comparatively short distance east. Which provokes the obvious question: why not just go as the crow flies and cut across the desert? Scorpion Gulch, that's why. Remember the Giant Radscorpions in the previous game? Hideous to look at, but not so tough? Well, they're back, except that they're much bigger, their poison is far more deadly and drives you mad, and shooting them with the weapons you will likely have at hand just pisses them off. And in Fallout 3, you only had to deal with one or two at a time; Scorpion Gulch is crawling with the things, you may be attacked by a dozen at a time, and even if you somehow manage to kill them, more will just come out of holes in the canyon walls. Many players tried the "simple walk east" and quickly learned a valuable New Vegas lesson: unless you are armed for Deathclaw, stick to the damn roads.
  - Fallout 3 only has two types: Deathclaws and Enclave-controlled Deathclaws (as the name implies, they are enslaved by the Enclave and won't attack them). New Vegas, on the other hand, has a whopping seven types of Deathclaws: standard Deathclaws, young Deathclaws, Blind Deathclaws, Deathclaw alpha males, baby Deathclaws, mother Deathclaws (who become frenzied if you hurt or kill one the babies), and the Legendary Deathclaw (possessing double the health and attack power of the normal Deathclaws). All but the Legendary and Blind Deathclaws can be found in the Quarry between Sloan and Black Mountain as part of an unmarked quest. The Lonesome Road add-on also has two types of Deathclaws: normal and Irradiated (Deathclaws capable of dealing radiation damage: in other words, a combination of Deathclaws and Glowing Ones).
    
    Blind Deathclaws are a bait themselves. Any player would, after seeing their name by either targeting or going into V.A.T.S. mode, obviously try to sneak around them. This is generally the first of many kills in their hands, however, because this type of Deathclaw have an impossible amount of Perception. Not a lot. Not max. Literally impossible, more than the player can ever hope to achieve (in an unmodded game, of course). As in, by the time a Blind Deathclaw spawns in the map, they're already homing in on your position.
  - In Dead Money, you are explicitly told (before you have an opportunity to do so) that if you read "Sinclair's Notes" on the terminal in the Sierra Madre Vault you will become permanently trapped inside. If you do so, you'll get a Non-Standard Game Over where you starve to death. That said, just because you know about the trap doesn't mean you can't spring it on someone else...
  - In that same expansion, the gold bars in the Sierra Madre vault are immensely valuable. You really don't want to leave without them... but picking up more than just a few will break your carrying capacity, slowing you to a crawl and ensuring that you won't get out of the vault before your bomb collar goes off.^note Death by Materialism is a major theme of this add-on.
  - The Toaster in Old World Blues offers you a super-rare Mojave snowglobe, if you stick your hand into his bread slot. What do you think happens when you stick your hand into the bread slot of a psychopathic, murderous toaster? Though you aren't actually given the option to do that.
- Fallout 4 gives you a chance to set up your own Schmuck Bait with the Wasteland Workshop DLC. One of the new things the DLC adds is the ability to build traps for various wasteland critters, including Raiders and Gunners. Their traps are large boxes with "Free Chems!" (for Raiders) and "Free Guns and Ammo!" (for Gunners) written on the sides.
Fantasy Quest gives a whole series of options like "bang your head against the rocks". All kill you, but the game lets you undo each fatal move.
From the Fatal Frame series:
- Many ghosts in the series will just stand or sit there, doing nothing, and never disappear. But get close to them or take a picture of them and they'll re-appear right in your face.^note
- A shiny blue object is a valuable item ready to be picked up. But in Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse, Deep Crimson Butterfly, and Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water, some pale hand may grab your arm as you grab the item.
Fate/Samurai Remnant: When Iori and Saber walk into her territory, the first thing Circe does is offer them a welcome feast. Saber is intrigued, but Iori repeatedly warns them not to take the bait. But Iori is the one who falls for it after she presents him with a bowl of kykeon along with what's implied to be a bit of mental suggestion magecraft, turning him into a pig.
Fear & Hunger: As you explore the dungeon, you may come across a toilet covered in blood, which you get the option to jump into. Doing so causes you to land in a giant, manure-filled pit, with no way out short of suicide or returning to the title screen.
Fear & Hunger: Termina: Just like in the first game, you can jump down a toilet hole in the Old Town village. If you were stupid enough to do so, there is clearly no way out of the toilet, leaving you with the only option being to take your own life or reload a save.
Felvidek: A few minutes into the game, a miscreant offers you a suspiciously lucrative chance to join his ranks and obtain unimaginable power. Accept and he leads you into an 8-on-1 battle that is practically impossible to win.
Final Fantasy:
- Final Fantasy IV:
  - When you first reach Mysidia, you'll find a scantily-clad woman at the bar who offers to dance for you. Before you accept, you should remember the protagonist was part of the army that massacred the people of Mysidia shortly before the game began, and the other locals make it clear they haven't forgiven him for it. Saying "yes" results in a dance... and Cecil falling unconscious and waking up behind the bar with the Pig status.
  - The Trickster/Lil' Murderer. First of all, it's an imp. Secondly, the thing comes along, doesn't attack, and casts Scan on itself, telling you it has a weakness to Lightning; it never does anything else. You know it's a trap — this is the Very Definitely Final Dungeon and you've just fought your way down like 10 levels of dragons, dinozombies, and ninjas just to get this far; there's no way it's this easy! But you can't resist finding out what happens, and cast a lightning spell on it. The scan's not lying — he is weak to Lightning — but that same spell just powered him up. A lot. Oops.
  - In Cecil's Trial in Lunar Ruins, there's one trial which involves you standing still on guard duty while a fellow guard has to make an urgent leave, and he warns you not to get distracted. Of course, some things will happen before your eyes and tempt you to check things when you should not, which will make you fail this challenge... Except that, even in Game Boy Advance, it was a bit glitchy, and you could move during some "events" within this challenge. Oops!
  - Cecil's Trial has you battle an imp in one of the challenges. But if you're in a rush, you'll kill the imp instead of waiting to listen to it, failing the challenge.
- In Final Fantasy V, while exploring in a cave, you may come across a narrow pathway where you seem to randomly pick up 10 Gil. You move on, and, on your next step, you pick up 20 Gil! And then 40! Wow! You're picking up double the previous amount every step! Surely no ill could come of this... If you do tempt fate, you'll wind up facing Gil Turtle, a horrible, undead turtle that is very, very difficult to kill.^note
- The way to recruit Yuffie into your party in Final Fantasy VII is to have a random encounter with her in the forest areas. Once you defeat her, she'll show up on the floor next to a save point, and if you go talk and say the right thing to her, you can recruit her. However, if you decide to use the save point before instead, she will steal money from you and run away. Considering how the game trains you to use a save point as soon as you see one, many players would take the bait without even thinking.
- Final Fantasy IX has several friendly monsters that ask you for an item; they will give you tons of AP for it, and their battle theme is different to show that they're friendly. However, there's a monster called the Gimme Cat that tries to trick you by demanding a Diamond, and if you give it one, it runs off with it and you leave with nothing. However, since the normal battle theme plays, that should tell you "do not listen to this monster". Be careful fighting it, because it attacks with the powerful Comet spell.
  - The battle with Soulcage in the Iifa Tree. It's a giant tree covered in verdant greenery, it's visibly made of wood, and scanning it reveals it has a Fire weakness in case you were still uncertain. An obvious weakness, but actually striking it with a fire attack will also set it on fire and allow it to start using the far more powerful Fire Blades attack against your entire team unless you put it out again with an ice attack.
- In Final Fantasy XII:
  - Near the beginning, when you are taking the very first hunt, you will see a green T. rex (Wild Saurian) lounging about in the first area of the first dungeon of the game. The Wild Saurian spawns docile, like the nearby Cactites, so it won't attack you if you don't strike it first. If you have a shoot first, ask questions later mentality, you will quickly learn the unfortunate truth that the gamemakers made it docile for a reason: the Wild Saurian has over 6,000 HP and level in the double digits, several magnitude above your probable level at the time, and will certainly KO you in one hit if you aggro it. What is more, it can also cannibalize the Wolves and level up to maximum, so it will only grow stronger the longer you remain in the area. To give you an idea, you are supposed to confront it after completing the fifteenth dungeon of the game.
  - There are also Entites and (to a lesser extent) Elementals, which, like the Wild Saurian, spawn docile. They appear alongside normal enemies, but the latter are level 25 and have 15,000 HP, while the former are level 45 and have 48,000 HP. The first Entite can be encountered just before the end of the first act even though it is on par with enemies from the second-to-last dungeon in the game. What makes them even more frustrating is that they can also be aggroed if any magick is cast nearby (regardless if it is from you or other enemies, or if it is harmless or harmful), an unpleasant surprise for newcomers.
  - After you defeat the Rocktoise mark in Bhujerba, the Moogle who gave you the quest will ask you to go to the shop where she works to get her diary, and tells you not to read it. Whether you read it or not doesn't matter, but what you tell her when she asks you if you did does.
- Final Fantasy XIII: So you've just reached Pulse, now you can finally go anywhere you want! Hey, look at those gigantic tortoise-things! Surely they give massive CP! No need to worry, we just defeated a fal'Cie, we're badass enough to handle this thing... No, no you're not. Have a Nice Death. Though they really DO give massive amounts of CP, and drop some amazing items, but by the time you're ready to fight them, you'll probably have maxed everyone's Crystarium anyway.
- What's that? You've just finished the tutorial to Dissidia 012: Duodecim, and think you're some kind of bigshot? You'll learn.
- In Final Fantasy XIII-2, you gain access to the Archylte Steppe very early on, in which, under sunny conditions, a Long Gui spawns. You can fight him more or less right out of the gate. You won't last ten seconds.
Final Girl has an option to take a bath at one point, but mentions it's an obvious trap.
Fire Emblem Engage: Chapter 19 takes place in an almost literal Ghost Town (full of The Undead), and you're explicitly told in story dialogue before the battle that the town was recently attacked and there were no survivors. There are still houses you can visit, which on most other maps would get you items. Try it here and all you'll get is more Corrupted spawning. (Though some do carry items, so you get something out of it. But you'll have to work for it.)
Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator: It's possible to buy Lefty before it can be salvaged, but 1) it only costs $5 while everything else from the same store costs several ten thousand dollars, and 2) its danger level is a full 9. If you buy it early, not only are you robbing yourself of the potential cash you'd get from a successful salvage, but you'll have one big Demonic Spider that might force you to restart the game due to its sheer difficulty.
FTL: Faster Than Light has the slug race, who in random encounters will frequently scam the player in any way possible, be it the promise of loot, upgrades, or weapons. Accepting these will almost always result in a punishment and a battle.
- FTL: Faster Than Light Multiverse takes this even further with one slug tricking a bunch of leeches into paying him scrap to run their ships into asteroids, destroying them instantly. The player can also take him up on the offer, with expected results and an achievement.
Suicide Booths in Futurama: The Game. Walk inside. Press the button. Restart from last checkpoint. Turns out they function just like they did in the series. Who would have guessed?

Schmuck Bait / Video Games: D to F

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