SO! If we tropers got trapped in a video game...

Yeah, I was playing Spirit Tracks the other day, feeling pretty Genre Savvy about what things would happen next, when I thought about this. If we were in something like a Video Game land, what would it be like for us? Would it be like a deconstruction, or would our genre savvyness save us every time?

Depends on the video game. I imagine if we got trapped in, say, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., we'd all die quickly.

Except for those of us trained in the use of firearms. I imagine the Militaries we have would do better than most of us.

Killed by the first goomba due to an inability to jump high enough.

Knowing my luck, I'd be the guy teleported into the Sims.

I'd start throwing X scrap metals and X circuit boards onto a big heap until it transforms into a mecha.

Depends on the genre, really.

Presumably, however, many of us will die when combat actually starts. You know, unless we have Player Character powers and plot armor that magically saves us from getting owned, which is unlikely at best.

The first thing i'd do was find the weakest creature type around and kill them ruthlessly and constantly until i became stronger. I would then purchase a small but loud stereo system so i could blare Dragon Force and JAM Project whenever i needed a little boost in fighting power. I would also rifle through any bestiaries i could find to see what the land's particular Demonic Spiders are and set my things in order so i could kill them specifically. So yeah, i'm one for the "Genre Savvy conquers all" camp. Well, either that or i'd run screaming away from anything and everything. I'm not exactly known for my courage or skill.

Although i do wonder what the ramifications would be on the world. If the NP Cs aren't robots anymore, what WOULD happen to the socioeconomical stability of any nation that was suddenly given an influx of thousands of lvl.1 adventurers? How many tropers would be willing to risk their actual life adventuring? Would our presence tip the balance of power and trigger global conflict? Am i thinking about this too hard?

edited 1st Jan '11 8:15:42 AM by ShirowShirow

I'd probably try to assemble a posse and get well armed before I started adventuring.

I'd cling to a hero for dear life.

In your average video game, I would survive about, oh, five seconds. In a first-person shooter, two seconds. Survival horror, immediate suicide as a means of (possibly futile) escape.

1. ^,^,v,v,<,>,<,>,B,A
2. ???
3. Profit

edited 1st Jan '11 9:32:59 AM by DarkDecapodian

I'd relegate myself to Mission Control.

I'd obviously be a quest giver.

...Well okay, maybe not obviously, but for some reason I see myself as one.

I'd go crazy, of course. The specifics vary.

In a platformer, I'd try to build a perpetual motion machine by using the simple physics model. In an RPG, I might try to introduce concepts like international trade, public healers or maybe even roads between cities. (The middle one shouldn't be too hard. You give a guy Cure 1, then have his clients enter battle, skip turns while he spams the spell, and flee.) I could revolutionize the world.

Since I'm not Padway, I'd probably end up trying to spread superstitions about men with prime numbers of HP.

edited 1st Jan '11 10:21:25 AM by Kizor

Hope we don't get trapped in an RTS as the units. We're pretty much fucked there.

edited 1st Jan '11 10:24:53 AM by VutherA

Dammit, Dark Decapodian, you took my idea!

I'm going to get some stuff that's useful and sell it to people who look like heroes. The merchant is unkillable. Usually.

edited 1st Jan '11 10:28:11 AM by RadicalTaoist

What would I eat? Games with food tend to involve fighting. Unrealistic fighting my puny human frame couldn't hope to survive.

If I was somewhere relatively safe, Project Gotham, Tony Hawk Pro Skater, animal crossing, Wii sports, I'd be fine. I think I'd die in Noah's Ark.

Find some ridiculously weak enemy to repeatedly kill for hours on end, build houses with the crappy items they drop and rent them out to weary travelers, use that money to buy absurdly overpowered equipment, then repeat the last process until I've got my own empire built on the corpses of small furry animals and the contents of their digestive tracts.

If it were Quake II, we'd have to jump around killing Strogg and trying to survive. I'd probably be the one who craps themselves, though.

@Vuther: Even worse if it was the Tiberian Universe.

edited 1st Jan '11 12:54:10 PM by RocketDude

If it were a 2D platformer, I'd use my knowledge of the 3D plane to simply walk around all the enemies.

Or fall off the edge of the world.

No idea how I'd do in any of the rest of the stuff, but at I'd avoid a lot of these.

I'd probably be the team's strategist and a walking Enemy Scan. As much as people tend to bitch about "X was so hard!" I've usually found a way to kill it without much trouble, or at least found the most reliable pattern to do so.

edited 1st Jan '11 1:13:52 PM by Pykrete

(*Dies after attempting and failing to find a diplomatic solution to avoid fighting enemy mooks*)

I would climb over every Waist High Fence I could find.

It really depends on the genre. If I were in an FPS, I'd probably die right away. If I were in an RPG, I'd just keep wailing on the weakest enemies until I might be strong enough to be of use to The Hero...if I ever met them.

Identifying the genre should be easy anyway.

Chest high walls everywhere? HUG ONE, QUICKLY. IT'S A THIRD PERSON SHOOTER!

A plucky girl suddenly pops out of nowhere and you start talking for hours with magical talking animals in the background and looking at yourself in the mirror you notice yourself as looking a lot more androgynous than you should? JRPG, START TO GRIND.

Everyone looks like a hideous freak and talks about mudcrabs? BETHESDA!

And so on.