Needs a better title: Bugger The Plot

Its just going in circles... I am out. IMO cutlist it and YKTTW the different tropes we have been discussing and stick them on Pacing Problems.

I'm not seeing your issue, Sean. Anything that sends the character off on a tangent on the way to accomplishing a goal is a detour. It might delay progress toward the goal or it might not. It might, by happy chance, hasten progress to the goal.

Put it this way: A character states (or implies) they are going on a Fetch Quest to save the day. On the way, between #2 plot coupon and #3, a trip must be made to save an endangered friend. That's a detour from the Fetch Quest.

It might be a delay, or it might be that the rescued companion happens to have the #4 plot coupon. Score! Fetch Quest is back on track. Just have to pick up #3.

edited 27th May '11 2:32:01 PM by FastEddie

Thank you Eddie.

edited 27th May '11 2:30:49 PM by Hadashi

Personally, if at least one person uses bold and/or caps more than once, it is heated.

We need one more opinion in this, since this is mostly a two-person agrument with the occasional drop-in.

Can you blame me? We have been talking about the same single thing for seven bloody pages without making much of any progress, it's giving me a headache.

The one good thing about this is that the Trope itself is looking much better now.

Correction: it was looking better. Eddie was a bit too brutal with the trimming.

edited 27th May '11 2:38:15 PM by Hadashi

No, I wasn't. It wandered, before.

I'm not saying it didn't need some stuff removing, I just think it is a bit too vague now. For example it sounds a bit like it's talking about a physical detour. I'm not going to revert it, but I am going to add some stuff. Not nesesseraly the same stuff.

edited 27th May '11 2:45:55 PM by Hadashi

I've added a bit, not much though. I would like to try and make the article slightly longer, but I'm happy for the moment.

I agree with this.

However, I'm still seeing the occurrence outlined in the "Delay The Plot" article as something entirely different from this. In your Fetch Quest example, player is sent off on a tangent that has arisen out of sudden circumstances outside the character's control. Conversely, when a character who has to open an important envelope but instead ignores it and goes for lunch; nothing is sending the character off on that tangent to get lunch. The character is willingly going off on that tangent on his own accord.

I don't want to sound like I'm arguing semantics here just for the sake of it; in my honest and most sincere opinion, I believe that there lies a very key difference. The character in one case is choosing to take a certain action on his own, as opposed to being forced to do something else when an entirely new problem presents itself while in the middle of another task.

edited 27th May '11 3:50:24 PM by SeanMurrayI

You've got it completly the wrong way round. It is the character who decides to go off and do something else. That 'something else' may end up being the right choice, but that isn't the point. The whole entire point of this trope is that the character decides to take an action that doesn't look like it will further the main plot and seems entirely counter-intuitive.

edited 27th May '11 3:55:09 PM by Hadashi

^ But that isn't even what Eddie outlined in his Fetch Quest example, which you've agreed with earlier.

Eddie's example outlines a moment where a new event arises in the middle of a small quest and the character has no choice but to take a detour and stop a small crisis that has arisen.

The occurrence in the "Delay The Plot" article outlines an instance where a character chooses on his own accord to put an important task on hold.

edited 27th May '11 3:58:04 PM by SeanMurrayI

You mean this?

Put it this way: A character states (or implies) they are going on a Fetch Quest to save the day.

On the way, between #2 plot coupon and #3, a trip must be made to save an endangered friend. That's a detour from the Fetch Quest.

It might be a delay, or it might be that the rescued companion happens to have the #4 plot coupon. Score! Fetch Quest is back on track. Just have to pick up #3.

edited 27th May '11 4:00:11 PM by Hadashi

If the character is endangering the main quest, it absolutely is a Plot Detour. However it is still one so long as the Character stops the main quest to do something else. They have a choice. If there is no other way then they are just following the main plot.

edited 27th May '11 4:03:16 PM by Hadashi

But the character doesn't have a choice. As Eddie put it, "[A] trip must be made to save an endangered friend." That's not the same as "a character has a choice to save an endangered friend or press forth with with his current task and chooses the former." The existence of an option to just leave the friend to his own fate was never mentioned previously—even then, it would just make such an example an Optional Side Quest.

edited 27th May '11 4:09:28 PM by SeanMurrayI

If the character got distracted, it is because the writer told him to. With or without a good reason. It's a detour.

Well I kinda presumed the End of the World Senario (Implied in the example), in which case rescuing the friend is a major detour.

However the definition remains the same: any prolonged and significant course of action that does not look like it will further the plot at the time. Preferably ones that involve the character ignoring the main objective for some period of time. In that respect the example in the article is far closer than the one he presented.

edited 27th May '11 4:18:36 PM by Hadashi

Come to think of it, isn't this a bit like a narrative version of Take Your Time?

Someone said that way back at the beginning, I think.

It was a 'compare' for a while. I don't think it quite matches up because this Trope still has a chance of furthering the plot in some unexpected way, and also because invoking this Trope is the character and author's choice rather than the viewer or reader. Take Your Time is, by nature, without consequences since it relies on the player triggering events.

I'll put it back in with a note though.

edited 28th May '11 5:42:24 AM by Hadashi

Bump for resolution.

There's a clear front-runner on this crowner.

Bugger The Plot been cutlisted a long time ago. It's now Plot Detour.

All we need to do is to request the former to be a redirect of the latter, and we're all set.

edited 26th Sep '11 8:51:05 PM by chihuahua0

Locking.