Wounded Gazelle Gambits in Video Games.
- In the third Ace Attorney game, Dahlia Hawthorne milks this trope for all it's worth. Thankfully, Mia Fey is not easily fooled.
- In the third case of Ace Attorney Investigations, Lance Amano, having supposedly escaped from his kidnappers, collapses in front of Edgeworth and the others investigating. Not only did Lance fake his own kidnapping so he could pocket the ransom, but he is also the murderer, and manipulated his girlfriend into thinking she had shot the victim (while feigning disbelief that she could do something like that) when he was already dead.
- Played with in Apollo Justice: Alita Tiala tries to get out of being accused by showing a wound she got from the case's victim, claiming that because of the attack she was unconscious when he died. He did attack her, but it's her that killed him.
- Again in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies: after Phoenix accuses Detective Bobby Fulbright of being the phantom, he tries to claim that he's being blackmailed by the phantom into working for him, not the phantom himself. When he's pressed, however, he can't even decide which of his relatives is the hostage, and no one takes it seriously.
- In Among Us, If you're an Impostor, you can pull this off by reporting your own kill, but it can backfire easily if you do it at the start of the match or do it in front of someone.
- In Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, Mary Read pulls one of these on some guards, so that they'll open the doors. She promptly kills them.
- In Baldur's Gate III, Astarion will pull one upon meeting the Player Character and claims to need their help to kill an intellect devourer. How successful it is depends on the dialogue choices you pick, and a perception check.
- In Chrono Cross, Pierre tries this tactic to get the guards to open the gates to Viper Manor. Since he is the comic relief character, he tries feigning sick after already having talked to the guards once, collapsing right in front of them, hamming it up to an unbelievable degree. The guards don't buy it, but they open the gates anyway just to get rid of him.
- This was a strategy in single-player Civilization III. If a civilization was an aggressor in war, it suffered a penalty in diplomacy (the idea being that an aggressor can't be trusted). However, the AI was generally too stupid to distinguish between a provoked and unprovoked declaration of war—the only issue that mattered to the AI was which civilization declared war, not why the civ did so. So a smart player could provoke an AI civilization they wanted to beat up into declaring war by making unauthorized incursions into the AI civ's territory—and, when the AI civ justifiably declared war, suffer no penalty in diplomacy. This was particularly amplified once gameplay reached the Industrial Age, when Mutual Defense Pacts became available—with a pact, you could ally yourself with the neighbor of whichever civ you wanted to fight, provoke the civ into declaring war on you, and then—because your enemy had declared war on you and not the other way around—your allied neighbor civ would automatically declare war on your target. All of a sudden, your target is fighting a two-front war (and we all know how those turn out), and as long as you leave enough scraps to keep your ally satisfied and haven't completely underestimated your opponent, victory is all but guaranteed.
- This is actually a viable strategy in Civilization V as well that's even truer to the text. If you deliberately leave your military somewhat weak, many computer opponents near you won't be able to resist taking the bait and declaring war on you. However, since it's much easier to fight a defensive war AND the computer is TERRIBLE at fighting battles, it's not too hard to get yourself set up in a situation where you can rapidly upgrade your defenses to fight the opponent off, and the humiliated opponent will sue for peace often offering you a city of theirs in return. You've just expanded your empire, annihilated their troops, given your troops some valuable experience points, and they are the ones who have taken the reputation loss. Bonus points if you can trick an enemy into doing this while having the Great Wall and/or forcing them to march through rough terrain just to approach your cities while you gleefully pick them off at range.
- Havelock does this in Dishonored's Low Chaos ending. If you make yourself known to him in the final confrontation, he will surrender peacefully and tell you where the key to the room where he's holding Emily is, while also claiming he will let Corvo have him arrested if he so chooses. If you take him up on his offer, he'll reveal his "surrender" was a ruse and attacks you. Cue Final Battle.
- Dragon Age: Origins:
- Queen Anora pretends to be in danger of her life in order to gain the protagonist's sympathy and force the Warden to eliminate one of her enemies. (She was locked up and in danger of losing power, but not actually in danger of dying. She just thought that sounded more likely to get a hero's help.) Depending on how events play out, she may later claim to others that you were kidnapping/threatening her, so that she can get their sympathy. Twice. However, it is strongly implied Howe was planning to kill Anora and frame the Warden for it, so she may have genuinely been in danger, but just didn't know it.
- In dialogue, Morrigan can mention that on one of her earlier journeys out of the Korcari Wilds, a Chasind recognized her as a witch. She acted innocent and frightened, and the Fereldans looking on (who didn't understand Chasind) thought he was the mage and was trying to curse her.
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim:
- There is a quest in Whiterun where you are asked to find a redguard woman in town (never mind that there are several redguard women in the city and you don't get any closer description). When you find her, she tells you that she is chased by assassins because she said something bad about the Thalmor, and asks you to kill them. When you enter their lair, they will tell you that she lied and that they want to capture her because she sides with the Thalmor. At this point you can choose to help either of them. While you can't verify who is actually telling the truth, if you side with the assassins they actually take her alive and gives the "don't trust a pretty face" aesop, suggesting that it is actually this trope.
- While exploring the Rift, you might run into a man named Telrav lying seemingly-wounded at the side of the road who claims to have been ransacked by bandits and left for dead. He then begs that you help escort him to his nearby camp, but of course it's all a setup and he and his bandit gang try to ambush you once you reach the camp. Notably, if you sneak into the camp and kill off the other bandits before finding him he won't even bother with the ruse and attacks you straightaway.
- In the Fatal Frame II remake Deep Crimson Butterfly it's revealed that Mayu fell off the cliff, permanently injuring her leg, on purpose to ensure that her twin sister Mio would feel guilty enough to never leave her.
- Firefall: Most of the time, that wounded bandit who is begging for mercy will ask for medicine in exchange for crystite, only to reveal that the medical supplies are a homing beacon. Cue "Big Brother", the dreadnaught with a rocket launcher. Then the little guy will pretend he's sad about the death of his "big brother" and give you co-ordinates and a key to a loot crate — which may or may not work. Occasionally, it really is medical supplies and the wounded bandit will give you the map and key out of gratitude... or to make you look the other way while he runs.Wounded Bandit: Guess what? We're going to rob you!
Big Brother: Guess what? We're cannibals! - In FTL: Faster Than Light, distress beacons will sometimes be pirates who pretend to be in trouble just so they can lure you in and attack you. You should still try to go to every beacon you can, since if it's a genuine distress signal, you'll get a nice reward for helping (some Scrap, some fuel, maybe even a new weapon), and if it's a trap, killing the pirate who set the trap will still get you some Scrap.
- Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep has Master Xehanort feign being captured by Braig in order to motivate Terra into loyalty.
- In The King of Fighters: KYO, this is how Chris manages to capture Kyo's girlfriend Yuki while she's waiting for her boyfriend for what was supposed to be their last date before the tournament. He pretends to feel ill and asks Yuki for help, and when the girl's guard is low enough he seizes her and brings her to his teammates so they can use her as a Targeted Human Sacrifice to resurrect Orochi.
- In King of the Castle if the Doppelgänger scheme, to which multiple factions have access, reaches its final objective, the nobles can vote to orchestrate a famine in their region which requires a personal visit by the King. If the objective succeeds, the King will be murdered and replaced by a lookalike during the visit.
- Downplayed in King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow: Alexander acts all Emo in the Pawn Shop and pretends that all hope is lost without Cassima while pretending to cry, and fakes suicide by drinking the "Drink Me" potion. This gambit is an effort to trick Shamir and the guard dogs into lowering their guard for entry into the castle.
- In The Last of Us, while driving on the highway Joel and Ellie come across a man hobbling in front of them asking them to stop. While Ellie's all for helping him out, Joel sees right through it and tries to run him down, causing the man to drop the act and pull out a gun. Joel later states that he's been on both sides of that trick.
- The Witch from Left 4 Dead: her crying can be heard long before you even come across her. However, the characters already know to stay away from her (and will warn the others when they hear one) and it's even one of the tips you can get on the loading screen.
- In The Legend of Zelda series:
- In A Link to the Past, one of the dungeon bosses tricks Link by disguising himself as the innocent maiden who Link came to rescue.
- In Phantom Hourglass, the four creepy sisters you have to rescue on the ghost ship do this to you. They act frightened and innocent and do their damnedest to get you killed, including alerting Phantoms by screaming and directing you to make bad decisions.
- Dr. Wily of Mega Man has done this a total of 11 times to make sure the main character doesn't maim him, send him to jail, or flat out kill him. Not that Mega Man can anyway, no matter how hard he's tried. It runs in the "family." Bass does it in Mega Man 7 to gain entry to Dr. Light's lab and steal the Super Adapter.
- Sonya defeats Kano this way in the storyline of Mortal Kombat 3 during a rooftop battle, pretending she's hurt to lure him close in order to grab him with her scissor kick and throw him off it.
- No More Heroes: Bad Girl, the number 2 ranked assassin, sometimes collapses to the ground and starts crying. Sometimes, she's genuinely crying, meaning you can get some free hits in. More often than not, though, it's a facade, and if you fall for it, she will One-Hit Kill you. The trick is to see if she's holding her bat: if she is, steer clear, and if she's not, go nuts.
- Planescape: Torment features a version where a woman on the street is covered in blood and cries out for help against assailants. If your mental stats are high enough, her story and disguise unravel. If they are not, or you go along with her anyway, her allies try robbing you in an alley. Mugging the Monster ensues.
- Pokémon:
- Mawile's gimmick revolves around this. Its "Fake Tears" move lulls its foes into a sense of complacency with its adorable face, leaving the foe wide open for a bite from its big steel jaws. Any Pokémon with Fake Tears can do something similar.
- The moves Growl, Tail Whip, Charm, Tearful Look and Baby-Doll Eyes are also centered on this.
- This is Tatsugiri’s main gimmick. It will often hide in a Dondozo’s mouth and pretends to be a helpless worm that’s ready for an unsuspecting predator to devour, but once the prey gets close, Dondozo goes in for the kill.
- In Red Dead Redemption, there are optional escort missions involving helping civilians in need, in the neighborhood of 'Can you give me a ride to [place]?'. Sometimes these civilians are actually bandits and they are indistinguishable from the real deal until either the guns come out or they make a run to steal your horse.
- Resident Evil Village: When Ethan first encounters Lord Moreau, he begs for Ethan not to take his flask, acting very piteously... only to laugh and reveal he's sealed off the reservoir's exits while Ethan stood and listened.
- RosenkreuzStilette: Iris Sepperin is incredibly fond of this trick in the game, when she uses it to manipulate her dad into war and imprisoning Karl because He Knows Too Much and in Grollschwert, made Grolla look like the bad guy in front of her superior Sichte, and, being a Mega Man clone, she does the whole "Please don't kill me" thing. By the sequel, Freudia doesn't buy it and froze her for eternity for all the trouble she caused.
- Shantae and the Pirate's Curse: Rottytops pretends to have been bitten by a giant spider in order to get Shantae to carry her home, betting that Shantae's Chronic Hero Syndrome wouldn't allow her to leave someone behind. It works, and Rottytops admitted it was a lot of fun, in her own way.
- Skyforge has the Love Goddess Thais deliberately provoke Sea God Protheus when he's trying to tell the player about her secret plots — when he lashes out at her, she sports a Smug Smirk as the player takes up arms against him.
- In the human campaign of Starsiege, once the Cybrids begin their war of extermination in earnest, there is a series of O-Web transmissions between Harabec Weathers and a little girl stranded on a Europan colony, Melanie, who claims to be the only survivor of a Cybrid attack. In the Cybrid campaign, it's revealed that the Cybrids got to her first, removed her brain, and installed a Cybrid infiltrator unit in its place as part of a "Siren Program" to lure human forces into traps.
- Occasionally in Streets of Rage, hitting certain Electras (a female whip-using enemy) will cause her to scream and drop to her knees, no longer attacking you. Turning your back on her at this point, or just leaving her alone for long enough, will make her get right back up to try and catch you by surprise.
- Valkyria Chronicles has Selvaria pull off a very convincing one. After her defeat, she feigns exhaustion and surrenders; one of the soldiers doesn't buy it and pistol-whips her, with General Damon pointing out that she could still be dangerous; Welkin and Alicia are shocked and appalled at Damon's apparent mistreatment of a prisoner, but the matter is out of their hands. A few hours later, Selvaria obliterates the entire army in a Suicide Attack, which she had been ordered to do before the battle at Ghirlandaio even started.
- The first game in the Wing Commander series features an object lesson on this in the manual, which is treated as a copy of Claw Marks, a news magazine published on-board the carrier TCS Tiger's Claw. The reader learns that two fighter pilots aboard the ship, Captain R.A. Skinner and Lieutenant Larry Dibbles (a cartoonist for Claw Marks), were taking part in a strike on a Kilrathi destroyer. They encountered two Jalthi fighters—one adrift in space, the other with intermittent thruster power. Lieutenant Dibbles took the bait, disobeyed orders and abandoned his ringleader for easy kills. The result: two good pilots dead, no more cartoons for Claw Marks, and in their place a stern lecture by one of the resident top aces, Major James Taggart.
