Often misuses for equipment that is just ugly,: Rainbow Pimp Gear

The trope is easily defined by the first sentence

The idea that players equip stuff that was never meant to be worn together because it gives the best bonuses.

The page however has become ripe for with examples of image who are just "I find this armor suit to be ugly" or "X has clashing colors" or "X has bright colors. It's full of complaining.

Examples of misuse on the page itself:

• The blue outfit in The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past. The red one is not that disastrous, but still weird compared to the green tunic.
• The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion
  • The strongest armour sets (Daedric and Glass) in both categories (heavy and light respectively) look incredibly ugly. Daedric armour basically looks like a suit welded together from mismatched pieces of metal in various states of rust, with no concern for fitting together, and with added spikes, while Glass has a radioactive green glow. Tragic since the last game, Morrowind had both of these sets look presentable, if not incredibly badass.
• And, while not as garish as most examples, both games have the Bloodworm Helm and the Helm of Oreyn Bearclaw. Both helmets resemble giant dinosaur skulls, which would be rather neat, had the jaws not been open and your character's face peeking out. The fact that they make your head look too big for your body doesn't help.
• The amber and madness armors as well as the golden saint and dark seducer armors from the Shivering Isle expansion are not much of an improvement either. You can avoid this by using the mage guild enchantment laboratory to give your armor a combined chameleon rating of slightly over 100%, so you do not have to look at it (not to mention the rather amusing reactions enemies seem to have when they are hit. Hooray for infinite sneak attacks.)
• Mass Effect
  • Played straight with the "Death Mask", unfortunately. Faceless, looks like an elephant head, and somehow makes your paragon/renegade speech scores higher.
• Inverted by Slaaneshi cultists in Warhammer 40,000: their clothing (what little of it there is) tends towards hideous clashing colors which produce a stronger reaction than any sort of protection. The Emperor's Children are a Slaneeshi Legion whose armor is painted pink and black because it's one of the few combinations that still attracts their attention.

So what is the basic point of this trope, to help get a better name. Is it basically that certain equipment makes itself visibly distinct? If so, then the current name is just one possible result of this trope, not the trope itself.

It's the idea that players choose items on what they do, not how they look.

Say there's a red set of armor, a blue one, and a green one. The player doesn't look at the color, he'll look at the stats, and end up mix and matching, rather than wearing the full, matching set of armor.

But would this apply if equipment wasn't visibly distinct? And do we have a trope for that aspect already?

Nope it wouldn't. And I don't think we do.

Well since user behavior is subjective, would it be better to repurpose it to that?

Repurpose it to what exactly?

Informed Equipment covers the aspect about weapons/armor not being actually visible on the character who wears it.

To being about equipment that is visibly different.

This would be the opposite, when equipment actually shows itself, rather than an unchanged character model.

That would be an aversion of Informed Equipment. Also, not a trope due People Sit On Chairs since different piece of clothing do look different irl. It has no special meaning.

edited 14th Jan '12 12:13:13 PM by Ghilz

In a video game, where you have to render any change to a character, meaning changeable clothing and equipment would exponentially add to the work, it sure as hell is a trope.

edited 14th Jan '12 12:21:24 PM by DragonQuestZ

That something require works doesn't make it a trope. Plus, the page's examples would be "Any Work that isn't on Informed Equipment". It's part of the reason we aren't supposed to make pages that just "Trope X, but Averted", because they become redundant.

Yes, making equipment visible is work, but that doesn't make it a trope. Anyway, I think we are getting off topic

We do have Opposite Tropes, which include tropes how you described.

And requiring work is why the other trope is more prevalent, but also makes the actual use of different equipment significant, since it required developers to go the extra mile. It's the same reason that Costume Porn is a trope. Actually, this would be a Sub-Trope of it, due to the effort.

EDIT: And you're misusing averting here. That means you simply not do the trope. It does not mean something that requires several times the effort. This is actually a dual solution thing. Informed Equipment is one solution. Making equipment visible is the other solution. Neither is an aversion to the other. They are different answers to the same problem.

edited 14th Jan '12 12:41:15 PM by DragonQuestZ

Opposite Tropes are two ends of a spectrum. You can be neither. So they aren't redundant. (You can have a female character who is neither Action Girl, or Shrinking Violet) Also, both tropes are different. Shrinking Violet isn't just an aversion of "Action Girl", it is its own trope with its own conditions and description.

Here any game that has equipment would be one trope, or the other. They aren't opposites, they are redundant because one is "Averted Informed Equipment".

And again, completely off topic since the discussion is about Rainbow Pimp Gear. If you want to make a new trope, use YKTTW.

Equipment that shows on the body is for sure a trope, there are even different grades of it such as

• weapons only (Final Fantasy)
• weapons and shields, (Final Fantasy X)
• different item specific ones (Like Dragon Quest VIII or Dragon Quest III where only a few pieces of equipment will change the character model.)
• Weapons (or even gear) that only show the one you have equipped in battle cutscenes only show their default or nothing at all. (Final Fantasy XIII)
• Full on show everything (Dragon Quest IX) when these still let you mix and match its Rainbow Pimp Gear.

Some avoid Rainbow Pimp Gear and Informed Equipment by going with equipping only weapons, shields and accessories too.

edited 14th Jan '12 12:47:26 PM by Raso

That is a good point. If still off topic. (Seriously, can we get back to that?)

My point to the relation was brought up in the first few posts.

And you're wrong. If anything, Informed Equipment is the aversion trope, since it just avoids the extra work of making new sprites/models for new equipment on a character.

DBZ, Raso, that is not the tropic of this thread. If you want to propose tropes take it to the YKTTW. Please stop proposing tropes in unrelated TRS threads.

Ugly armor sets is not this trope and YMMV chop and throw out the window.

That Mass Effect one though is still the trope just needs to be rewritten to say it really clashes with the spacy armor

I would argue that it is very much on topic with this trope and with the first few posts.

edited 14th Jan '12 1:37:05 PM by Raso

I'll restate what I wrote earlier, and try to clarify. This trope, as it is, is a player reaction. It's subjective. Yes, some players would put on equipment regardless of how it looks, but that is not something In-Universe to the work. It's entirely up to the audience to do this.

My suggestion was to convert this into an objective trope, but making it the actual cause of this reaction, which is that equipment actually be visible.

And the reason it cannot merely be an aversion is that Averted Trope means a trope simply isn't done. This is actually a second solution to a problem. In a video game, memory and processing will of course be taken up by making equipment visible. Thus there are two possible solutions. Either just put the equipment in words and stats, or do a lot of work to make the equipment visible. Claiming that's an aversion is the same as claiming taking the left fork in the road is averting the right fork.

But again, I'm proposing making the current subjective trope into an objective one, by making it about the use of making equipment in a video game visible on character models.

That's not a new trope. It's re-purposing one of the Audience Reactions, when it doesn't need to be an audience reaction.

edited 14th Jan '12 1:00:57 PM by DragonQuestZ

No, it is not. The purpose of this thread is to decide what to do with this page. We need to decide if this is an audience reaction or if it's an objective trope. We need to figure out how to define this objectively if it is objective. We need to figure out a way to cut the complaining about styles of armour people don't like.

What we don't need to do is propose other unrelated tropes.

edited 14th Jan '12 1:02:02 PM by shimaspawn

How is it unrelated, when the first line of the description notes that visible equipment on the character models is the cause? Have you even read the page?

EDIT: Sorry if that second line seemed rude, but calling this unrelated is objectively wrong, as the trope page itself states why this is related.

edited 14th Jan '12 1:02:39 PM by DragonQuestZ

I have read the page. That's how I know what you're proposing isn't a simple tweak.

Turning this into the trope you want DBZ is not a conversion of this trope. It is a completely new definition with a completely new name and completely new examples. That is not fixing a trope. That is proposing a brand new one.

It's not brand new. It's redefining a subjective effect into the objective cause.

And last I checked, trope repair includes major changes. It does not restrict to simple tweaks. If the need is there to change a trope into what works about it, we have done that before.

edited 14th Jan '12 1:05:01 PM by DragonQuestZ

Unrelated? Have you read the page? This is the game shows character models and mix and match gear as a result looks gaudy but people wear them because of their stats contrasted by Full Set Bonus with Full Armor Sets give you a bonus for wearing all of the pieces thus giving stats and looking good.

We already have Rummage Sale Reject and Impossibly Tacky Clothes.

Ok ninjaed.

edited 14th Jan '12 1:10:00 PM by Raso