Problem with the definitions: RandomlyDrops and: Money Spider

Randomly Drops is a trope about how difficult is to get some random drops. However most of its definition is about what a random drop is and the Fridge Logic about the enemies dropping things they shouldn't drop or not dropping things they should.

Money Spider shares a similar problem. The name and the first part of the description show it is (or should be) a trope about getting money from the enemies. However when the definition explains a bit about Vendor Trash it starts to ramble about random drops and the Fridge Logic about it too. Not only that, but it also suggest that Randomly Drops is the trope about random drops when, as I explained before, it isn't. It makes the trope a wall of text and it's a bit difficult to understand what it really is about. It came to the point that there are two images in the page, one about the money and another about the random drops.

That's why I want to propose making a trope called Random Drops and rename Randomly Drops to something like Rarely Drops, so we can fix the definitions and the former trope isn't confused with the latter. Any thoughts about it?

edited 23rd Dec '11 4:29:24 AM by DrMcNinja

I don't like the grammar of Randomly Drops — the title is a verb, but most tropes are nouns (they are things).

Aside from that, it does sound like there's a case of Randomly Drops being "Complaining About Random Drops You Don't Like".

edited 23rd Dec '11 5:09:37 AM by Stratadrake

I think this trope should be renamed (or transplanted) to Rare Random Drop, and that Random Drop should be a supertrope of this and Money Spider. Also, this trope has some negativity issues that should be cleaned up.

Money Spider should be only about creatures dropping items they shouldn't plausibly have (e.g. spiders carrying money, or roaches carrying longswords). Anything that isn't that should be moved to the supertrope Random Drop. For example, a moblin (sentient humanoid from Zelda) wearing a necklace is not a Money Spider.

edited 23rd Dec '11 5:25:35 AM by Spark9

The definition of Money Spider seems to be about "you slay a monster, you get money from it", not "how strange it is that the enemy dropped a longsword". That's a random drop, and that's what I'm proposing to do, a trope for random drops and make Money Spider what the name suggests: enemies dropping money upon death. It's a sister trope of Vendor Trash, and Vendor Trash would be a subtrope of Random Drop. We can mention that it's strange that enemies drop money and objects they shouldn't have in the tropes, but I think they are different enough to separate them.

Besides, the definition for the Random Drop trope can be easily got from Randomly Drops. More or less three quarters of it is explaining what a random drop is and the Fridge Logic behind it. The other quarter is the real meaning of the trope.

Note that "enemy dropping an item it couldn't plausibly have" is also a trope. Part of the header and examples on Money Spider are talking about that, so it should be split off somewhere.

Exactly, the header and the examples are talking about things that fall under Random Drop, and saying that a monster shouldn't be carrying missiles is part of the Fridge Logic behind a Random Drop. I fail to see how whether it's possible or not for a monster to drop something makes it a different trope than Random Drop.

There seem to be significantly more than three tropes spread out between Money Spider, Randomly Drops, and 20 Bear Asses.

• Monsters dropping things they have no reason to be carrying
  • Monsters dropping money
  • Monsters dropping things they shouldn't be physically capable of carrying (eg, rats dropping swords)
• Monsters dropping things that they should be carrying visibly (eg, a monster that attacks with a club dropping a sword)
  • Monsters not dropping things they are visibly carrying is (for the record) Unusable Enemy Equipment
• Monsters dropping things randomly
  • Monsters dropping certain things very rarely
  • Monsters randomly dropping things that should drop every time (like body parts)

Sounds like we need to completely reorganize the whole series of tropes. I'd say it should look something like this:

• Enemy Drop (supertrope for enemies that drop items when defeated)
  • Random Drop (when an enemy drop is randomized)
    • Rare Drop (when a specific Random Drop only drops rarely)
    • Random Body Part Drop (when an enemy drops a body part, but only sometimes)
  • Enemy Drop Generousity (when enemies drop things that are useful to you, but not to them — eg, a status-inflicting enemy drops status-curing items)
    • Money Spider (a nonsentient enemy drops money)
    • Enemy Equipment Drop (an enemy drops equipment that you can use, but they can't/don't for some reason. Needs A Better Name.)
  • Enemy Hammerspace Drop (an enemy drops items that should be visible on them before it drops and/or they shouldn't be able to carry at all — eg, a human-sized enemy dropping entire treasure chests)

Edit — huh, looks like Random Drop redirects to Randomly Drops. I'd say swap 'em.

edited 23rd Dec '11 7:07:12 AM by NativeJovian

My proposal is to make a trope called Random Drop for enemies dropping things, no matter what that thing is or the enemy carrying it, because that's how random drops work. In almost any RPG the enemies will drop things they shouldn't drop, but that's how the feature is. If a rat drops a sword then it's a Random Drop. If the rat drops a Rat Tail then it's a Random Drop. If the rat doesn't drop a Rat Tail then the rat tail is useless and the programmers didn't put it in the game because they simply didn't want to make an object called Rat Tail.

There aren't many tropes working here. Random Drop is a feature of the games that works with a large dose of Fridge Logic, and we shouldn't be trying to make many tropes out of it. Money Spider is the same but instead of goodies it's about money. It's as simple as that. There's no need to try to make infinite tropes of just one thing.

Except they aren't always random. If you get money, you pretty much always get money. I like the suggestion here, except I don't think we need a separate random body parts page just yet. That and rare drop could stay under Random Drops, unless the page would still be lengthy. I could be swayed, though.

edited 23rd Dec '11 9:22:59 AM by wanderlustwarrior

I like the idea, but it should be a bit less pages, I think.

Supertrope: Power-Up. Yes, we already have that one, and money counts (according to the definition used on that page).

• Money Spider
• Random Drop (enemies randomly drop stuff; enemies dropping body parts is noted on this page)
  • Rare Random Drop (the current page Randomly Drops, often part of Last Lousy Point)
• Unlikely Drop (enemies drop something they couldn't plausibly be carrying, either because it doesn't fit, or because why on earth aren't they using it). Probably needs a better name, and this often but not necessarily overlaps with Random Drops.
• Generous Enemy Drop (enemies that cause a nasty status effect drop an item that cures this status effect). Again, often but not necessarily overlaps with Random Drops.
• Unusable Enemy Equipment

I don't think so many tropes are needed. It could work just with Random Drop, Rare Random Drop (currently named Randomly Drops) and Money Spider.

As I keep saying a random drop is a feature from the games that works with Fridge Logic, so I don't see a point in trying to make so many tropes from it. We can explain those things in the Random Drop page. It's normal that enemies drop things related to their powers. It's normal that they drop parts of their body. And it's normal they drop totally unrelated things, because that's how random drops work. There's no reason to split the trope.

Rare Random Drop should be for extremely hard to get drops. And Money Spider about enemies dropping money, which is another game feature that works with Fridge Logic, and we should accept it as it is rather than trying to explain everything with tons of tropes.

edited 23rd Dec '11 9:39:49 AM by DrMcNinja

Generous Enemy Drop, which would need a better name, would also go in my Suspiciously Convenient Index alongside Boss-Arena Idiocy and Convenient Weakness Placement.

Anywho, that's a good plan.

Rare Random Drop is covered by Loot Drama, I think. It was previously named after some ridiculously rare MMO rare item.

No it isn't. Loot Drama is a MMORPG-only trope, while Rare Random Drop is a trope about any game where there are drops. Loot Drama would be a subtrope of Rare Random Drop.

Randomly Drops isn't about rare drops, FYI. It's about the game mechanic of having random drop tables.

Read the second paragraph, that expands the explanation, the laconic or the examples and you will see what Randomly Drops is about. And read where I said "three quarters of the definition in Randomly Drops is about what a random drop is rather than the difficulty of getting one of them", and you'll see the first paragraph fits.

I don't really see why Loot Drama should be limited to MMORP Gs, and I'm not a fan of that title, anyway.

Let's see, my map for this

• Loot Drops
  • Guaranteed Drop (100% drop rate.)
  • Randomly Drops (mobs can drop 2+ things in a Loot Table but only one will drop per kill some games allow you to modify your chances like FFXII's combo ability, XIII-2's get 5 stars on the battle +200% rare drop or an equipable accessory.)
    • Rare Drop (Rare item drop usually 5 or 1% drop may require Farming or Save Scumming to get said Rare item, might be an infinity + one item or component in one.)
  • Vendor Trash drops which only serve one purpose... Sell them for cash.
    • Loot Based Economy the only source of money is to do this (sometimes rare human enemies will drop cash.)
  • Money Spider: monsters drop money
    • Gold Golem: Rare monster that drops tons of money. (Maybe related to Metal Slime, Gold Slime s do exist too.)
    • Video Game Thieves: Thief type monsters that steal yours but kill them and they drop it back.
  • Trick based money and item drops, like more money the faster you complete a battle, chop off an arm it drops loot seprate from the rest of the boss.
  • Item Crafting based on drops.

God I could go on

Drama comes from the fact that people fight over this item and who gets it, it doesn't even have to be rare... Some items in World Of Warcraft for the Legendarys require a lot of them that drop 1-2 per boss getting 7+ per week guaranteed, doesn't stop the fights for who gets them.

edited 23rd Dec '11 1:23:03 PM by Raso

Ok, since everyone is so fond of lists, I'll do one myself to show what my proposal in the first message was, and some explanations added to prevent confusion with the other tropes that appeared in the conversation.

• Random Drop: Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Explanation about what a random drop is, including the Fridge Logic inherent to the feature. MST3K Mantra applies, you just got a sword from a rat, don't complain about it.
  • Rare Random Drop (right now called Randomly Drops): Very difficult to get drops. It's what the trope is being used for, and the description can be fixed if we create Random Drop.
    • Loot Drama: When the rare drops cause players fight between themselves.
  • Vendor Trash: Sister Trope of Money Spider. Drops that are sold for money.
• Money Spider: Enemies that drop money when they die. Again, just like in Random Drop, explaning that it's a game feature where MST3K Mantra should apply. We chop the parts of the description that fit somewhere else.

I want this done. Some of the proposals here can be done, Gold Golem for example seems good to me, but I want to know if we can agree to do, at least, the things I'm proposing.

edited 23rd Dec '11 1:30:20 PM by DrMcNinja

Loot Drama is an audience reaction trope, that's why it's different from Rare Random Drop (which is a game mechanic).

[1]: It needs a whack with the Tropes Are Not Bad stick, and it's full of whining, but yeah, rarity is not part of the definition.

From the definition:

Every gamer dreads these words, and they indicate you'll be spending the next hour or five fighting Random Encounters over and over hoping to grab the super-duper item or weapon that the enemy has a 1-to-127 chance of dropping. It's even worse when it occurs with bosses and you have to endure the same fifteen minute battle (and accompanying cutscenes) over and over again. If you're lucky, there'll be an item somewhere that increases your chances of getting these drops, but a 1-to-63 chance is still annoying.

From the Laconic:

Keep killing those rats, and eventually one of them will have a tail.

From the examples:

One of the most aggravating souls to get is that of Peeping Eye, whose equippable soul lets you see breakable walls. Even though it wasn't that rare in Aria, in Dawn its base chance of coughing up its soul is 1%.

Are you going to claim that it isn't about the difficulty of getting the drops? Because the trope disagrees with you.

edited 23rd Dec '11 1:52:28 PM by DrMcNinja

edited 23rd Dec '11 2:06:04 PM by troacctid

So you're saying the examples and everything I showed you is fluff, right? Why don't you go to the page and actually read it, instead of just the part that is convenient to you? Read the examples, please, to see what people think about the trope.

That bit of definition is what I'm trying to correct. That is a Random Drop, not what the trope is about.

edited 23rd Dec '11 2:10:01 PM by DrMcNinja

Hey, no need to take that tone.

It's what the name means, and the description backs it up. The examples look like a classic case of a trope that got derailed by a bad write-up.