I think this trope should be renamed "Kobayashi Maru Test" after the Star Trek test quoted at the top.
Hide / Show RepliesNo. That's a completely opaque name.
That was the amazing part. Things just keep going.So you've never been a fan of Star Trek then? Lots of names in TV Tropes are, as you call it "Opaque" to people who aren't fans of the source of the trope name. That's why there are "Trope Namers", after all. Star Trek is well known enough to a large enough portion of the population to make it work better than the neutered name it now has.
"Kobayashi Maru" is what I would have guessed for a trope name, but also what I would have hoped it wasn't simply because it's so hard to spell...
Compared to "hanging a lampshade", which I only know through TV Tropes, "Kobayashi Maru", widely known among Star Trek fans, is fairly well known.
I still wouldn't want it as the trope name, but only because, like I said, I don't know how to spell it.
Edited by rmsgreyTelcontar's point was that Kobayashi Maru Test is a Bad Trope Namer, because the only way the reader could know what the trope is about from it is if they are familiar with the Kobayashi Maru test in Star Trek works.
We want anyone who reads a TV Trope title to have a reasonable chance of figuring out what it is (and remembering it) from the title alone. This is specifically stated in numerous Administrivia pages, including Clear Concise Witty, Naming a Trope, Trope-Namer Syndrome and Everything's Worse with Snowclones.
Edited by ArivneThe trope is called "Unwinnable Training Simulation", but much of the description talks about a character failing a simulation because of a particular flaw, then overcoming that flaw. The name doesn't fit this.
I think this trope needs a little pruning. Quite a few of the entries seem to miss the whole "no-win situation" part, meaning the page is filled up with examples that are just simulations that look real at first. Maybe the latter could be budded off into its own trope, if one doesn't already exist?
The following Film examples have been commented out because they are Zero Context Examples. They need more information about how they fit the trope. Please don't uncomment them unless you add enough context, as adding Zero Context Examples to a page can result in being suspended from editing.
- Apollo 13: "If I had a dollar for every time they killed me in this thing (the simulator), I wouldn't have to work for you, Deke."
- The virtual reality wargaming scenes in Avalon.
Edited by Arivne