History GambitRoulette / VideoGames

* In ''VideoGame/ShadowOfDestiny'' the Homunculi arranged all the events in hopes of being free of the bonds of the game put on it leading to multiple endings including Discovering Eikre is actually the Alchemist from centuries ago, discovering the girl in modern times is actually the centuries old daughter and the real daughter was trapped back in time, and other things. However after all play throughs Eikre can use the players own knowledge and choose bonus ending A. Causing a paradox by making the homuncili touch the gem and destroying it thus ending it's Gambit roulette or bonus ending b Giving the alchemist the knowlledge and means to save his dying wife Either ending ends with Eikre fading away and then in modern times a man looking like him getting hit in the back like in the beginning of the game but instead of a knife he turns to see it's a soccer ball and the boy who kicked it turns out to be a descendant of the boy who was trying to kill him but now since none of that happened everyones happy... except the homunculi.

* Mephiles’ plan in ''VideoGame/Sonic06'' relies on Elise and Sonic forming an emotional bond so that Elise will cry when he kills Sonic, thereby releasing the Flames of Disaster so he can become Solaris again. He ''does not do anything'' to ensure this happens, and the only time he appears in Sonic’s story he wasn’t even aware Sonic was present. He spends his entire time in the story messing with Silver and Shadow seemingly just for shits and giggles while hoping neither of them nor Eggman clue Sonic in to what is actually going on.
* As it turns out, almost everything that happened during ''VideoGame/StarCraftI'' and Brood War was just one epic Gambit Roulette by The Overmind. The Overmind was created by the Xel'Naga to control the zerg swarms, but [[BigBad The Fallen One]] made sure it was made "with consciousness but without free will" and compelled to destroy the protoss. The Overmind (presumably by virtue of being a mountain-sized brain) had a vision of the future telling it that if it didn't do something to change the course of events then all its zerg children would become food for the menacing [[TheDragon hybrids]], so - it infested Kerrigan, the most powerful psychic it could find, to give her the potential to control the zerg, then engineered its own death so that the zerg would be released from its control and into Kerrigan's, but not before making its prophecy available for Zeratul to reach, letting Zeratul know that they needed to use [[MacGuffin the artifacts]] on Kerrigan so that she'd be freed from the same overriding compulsions that had ruled The Overmind, and also letting them know that they must not kill her. This would then rob the hybrids of their ability to control the zerg and use them to destroy all the other factions and bring about [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt the end of the universe]]. That's a pretty epic gamble right there.

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%%* [[MagnificentBastard Admiral Aken Bosch]] does this to both the [[TheFederation Galactic Terran-Vasudan Alliance]] and his own rebel organization, [[TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized Neo-Terran Front]]. The entire rebellion is just a smokescreen to hide his true goal of obtaining old documents and schematics from the archives of Galactic Terran Alliance to build a machine called ETAK capable of translating the Shivan StarfishLanguage, and then plundering Vasudan archaeology sites to acquire [[{{Precursors}} Ancient]] texts and artifacts so he can activate the Knossos portal and use his ETAK device to speak to the [[StarfishAliens Shivans]] and forge an alliance with them. And he actually ''succeeds'', because he also knows that the Alliance Intelligence ''wants'' him to succeed, meaning that several attempts to intercept him "mysteriously" fail. WHERE IS THIS FROM?

* In ''[[VideoGame/DotHackGUGames .hack//G.U.]]'', [[spoiler:[[MagnificentBastard Ovan]]'s]] plan is this. His plan relies entirely on getting Haseo to fight ''all'' of the other Avatars, something which could have been rendered impossible by any number of circumstances (What would've happened if an epitaph user simply decided to stop playing the game?). He even [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] this near the end; [[spoiler:when Yata asks him if everything that's happened was all part of his plan, Ovan responds that all of it was pure chance.]]
** Although it's mentioned in side materials that if an Epitaph PC is deleted by the user (ie, they quit the) the Avatar will simply find a new host. Furthermore, some of the plan requires no plotting at all. Haseo ended up fighting Endrance and Kuhn of their own volition, with no manipulation required.
** It was also not the first plan; [[GodzillaThreshold quite the opposite]]. He'd been trying for months to find some other method without any luck and eventually ran out of time, forcing him to take a massive gamble.

* ''VideoGame/LegacyOfKain''. Possibly justified in that most of the players involved either have access to time travel, or happen to be an omniscient squid god.
** Subtly lampshaded by Mobius. In ''Soul Reaver 2'', he tells Raziel that he's stupid for thinking he can pull one over on him, as Mobius is only man who has ''completely unfettered'' access to time travel and the ability to see through time; everyone else's ability in this regard comes from Mobius (usually intentionally) leaving behind his time-traveling relics in some places and time-viewing relics in others. In ''Defiance'', he tells Kain that he only ''thinks'' he understands the complicated nature of what's going on, and it's actually more complicated.
* Done in ''VideoGame/LordOfTheRingsOnline'' with the Broadacres plotline. One of the Thanes is secretly in league with Saruman and is betraying his own Reeve as well as his own country. One by one, the other servants of his liege, Reeve Frithild, are killed off until he finally secretly poisons Frithild and takes her position. This would be more impressive if it weren't for the fact that all of the deaths of her faithful retainers are happening right next to you ''in battle'' by random mooks. Meanwhile, the evil Thane Ordlac and his [[TheDragon Dragon]] Dudsig are *also* next to you helping fight the same mooks. So, he secretly instructed his goblins, orcs, Dunlendings etc. allies to specifically go after designated enemies and to leave he and his men alone while at the same time he was helping kill them? And no, there is nothing that you can do to stop the good guys from being killed. They are all targeted and one-shot by enemies that you can't kill off in time. You can't even come to the conclusion that he might be the secret traitor that you are specifically looking for even though there are about fifty different occasions where he or his men act suspiciously. It finally comes down to an NPC pointing out that he's the [[ObviousJudas evil traitor]].

** ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2'' can actually be seen as a sort of {{Main/Deconstruction}} of this trope. As the main plot pretty much tells you there's no way a Gambit Roulette can be executed so perfectly without some kind of meddling. The ending even reveals that the ONE factor that the bad guy couldn't predict and plan for, was actually planned by the real bad guys in advance and they just didn't tell the staged bad guy about it. At the end, the real bad guys (The Patriots) even reveal their goal was to find out how much they could manipulate events from behind the scenes before the main protagonists (meaning, the people they were trying to manipulate in story, [[MindScrew which could have plenty of meanings]]) start realizing they were part of a staged event. This went so far to the point that even the staged bad guy's (Ocelot) mind control was taken into account on their plans (As explained in Metal Gear Solid 4, the Patriots were trying to push the world into a staged war economy. They knew Liquid was gonna try to become a main player, so the Patriots allowed him to advance on the businness as he made the war economy stronger. It was only when they found out that Liquid wanted to control the S.O.P. system to kill them that they decided Liquid needed to be stopped).
** ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4'' is the pinnacle of this insanity, revealing the Liquid Snake "possession" was in fact an elaborate ruse by Revolver Ocelot (through self-hypnosis and nanomachines), who was working on bringing down the Patriots (A series of AIs) in order to free Big Boss. The kicker? From shortly after the end of [=MGS2=] until thirty seconds before his death five years later Ocelot's personality was completely dominated by Liquid's, preventing him from being able to alter any part of his plan once it was put into effect.

* ''VideoGame/BattalionWars II'' provides a fine example of this. In an attempt to recover a lost superweapon, Kaiser Vlad manipulates the news to cause the Anglo Isles to attack the Solar Empire. When the Anglo Isles retreats, the Solar Empire launches a counter-attack, and asks the Tundran Territories to help them. While everyone is busy with that, Vlad launches a full scale invasion of Tundra, fights his way to the far north, locates and mines the super weapon, and tries to run away. [[YouCantThwartStageOne Everything goes as planned,]] until that last step. The allied nations crush his armies, attack his mining spider, and in the end, Vlad and Kommandt Ubel end up trapped in a mine shaft. What's really maddening is that Vlad Doesn't invade Tundra until ''After'' they pull out of the Isles.

* ''[[VideoGame/NintendoWars Battalion Wars 2]]'' provides a fine example of this. In an attempt to recover a lost superweapon, Kaiser Vlad manipulates the news to cause the Anglo Isles to attack the Solar Empire. When the Anglo Isles retreats, the Solar Empire launches a counter-attack, and asks the Tundran Territories to help them. While everyone is busy with that, Vlad launches a full scale invasion of Tundra, fights his way to the far north, locates and mines the super weapon, and tries to run away. [[YouCantThwartStageOne Everything goes as planned,]] until that last step. The allied nations crush his armies, attack his mining spider, and in the end, Vlad and Kommandt Ubel end up trapped in a mine shaft.
** What's really maddening is that Vlad Doesn't invade Tundra until ''After'' they pull out of the Isles.
* A lot of [[BigBad Hazama/Terumi's]] plans come off this way in the ''VideoGame/BlazBlue'' series, but it's justified. Having lived through countless [[GroundhogDayLoop time loops]] and being able to force Nine to look into other possible outcomes, he knows the outcome before rolling the dice. Particularly, [[spoiler:with the time loop broken at the end of the third game and Nine free of his control, he promptly loses all control of the his schemes and has to resort to breaking personal taboos, brute-forcing the situation, and just plain letting the heroes fight and take down his rival villains before swooping in to reap the rewards.]]

* In VideoGame/{{Pentiment}}, theThread-Puller's modus operandi is to send letters to everyone who hates the intended murder victim to remind the recipient of the soon-to-be victim's crimes against them. As long as at least one recipient is angered enough to murder the target, the plan works.
* ''VideoGame/{{Persona 5}}'': The entire casino heist and everything after was all part of a plan by the Phantom Thieves to throw a SpannerInTheWorks of TheConspiracy that was hunting them. It involved a convoluted series of events that required Joker to turn Sae Niijima to their side, and fake Joker's death by tricking the traitor into killing a fake Joker in the Metaverse. By doing so, they could expose the traitor in their party, find out who the traitor's boss is, and throw the conspirators off the Thieves' trail for awhile, all at the same time. However, as everyone points out, nobody knew what would happen past Joker's capture, and the entire plan [[BatmanGambit hinged on Joker appealing to Sae's long lost sense of justice]]. Further, the interrogators drugged Joker, messing him up so much that he didn't even remember that there ''was'' a plan until just a few minutes before the end of his talk with Sae. That Joker still managed to pull it off in spite of all that [[WorthyOpponent even impresses the villains]].

** There's a [[http://youtu.be/ye7b3bOQ6lY famous video]] of a player using a convoluted method to turn [[JokeCharacter Magikarp]] into an [[LethalJokeCharacter overpowered sweeper]] capable of laughing off [[TierInducedScrappy uber-tier Pokémon]]. This method relies ''extremely'' heavily on the actions of his opponent (opening with Kyogre and not switching, to give Magikarp rain for its Swift Swim speed boost), and some utterly random factors (the duration of the sleep status effect). The video creator mentions this.

* Players of ''VideoGame/HearthstoneHeroesOfWarcraft'' may design plays based on a certain random number event happening, generally as a DesperationAttack (a low probability play that fails means little if you were going to lose anyway). Generally involves prayers said to [[RandomNumberGod RNGesus]].

* Gambit Roulettes are the entire ''modus operandi'' of the Alchemists in ''VideoGame/MeltyBlood'', to varying degrees of success. Apparently, all the really experienced alchemists planned so far ahead that they noticed the inevitable end of the world, and set about trying to stop it. However, everything they do just makes it worse (they've developed an impressive collection of doomsday weapons designed to stop all the other doomsday weapons that they themselves have made). It's implied that saving the world would require the realization of the impossible, which is why at least one alchemist (who managed to set up a Gambit Roulette wherein ''the particles of his soul would not-quite-randomly come back together after being scattered into the TheLifestream and bring him back to life every so often'') is seeking the 6th sorcery (sorcery being defined as that which realizes the impossible), which could save the world.

* A lot of [[BigBad Hazama/Terumi's]] plans come off this way in the ''VideoGame/BlazBlue'' series, but it's justified. Having lived through countless [[GroundhogDayLoop time loops]] and being able to force Nine to look into other possible outcomes, he knows the outcome before rolling the dice. Particularly, [[spoiler:with the time loop broken at the end of the third game and Nine free of his control, he promptly loses all control of the his schemes and has to resort to breaking personal taboos and brute-strengthing the situation.]]

* In ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts3DDreamDropDistance'', it seems at first in the endgame that Master Xehanort pulls this. Sora and Riku had traveled back in time a year or so in order to enter the Sleeping Worlds, piggybacking off the presence of their past selves the night the Destiny Islands fell. The only way Xehanort could've followed them was to have been in that exact same place and time already, and Yen Sid firmly believes not even Xehanort could've possibly planned things that far in advance. And in order to time travel there like the boys had, he would've had to leave his body behind... and then Mickey points out that Xehanort WAS without a body at one point, as the Heartless that possessed Riku. Yen Sid has a [[ThisCannotBe flabbergasted moment]], shocked that Xehanort could've actually predicted things this far not just a year, but a DECADE in advance before ever even meeting the boys. However, soon after, Young Xehanort clarifies to Sora that, no, he did NOT just arbitrarily predict everything that would happen. Rather, when he first became a Heartless, he got a sneak preview of the actual future through his host-to-be Riku (which included both his own failure with the Door to Darkness and his Nobody's failure with Organization XIII) and [[XanatosSpeed Chess set up his Young Xehanort comeback accordingly while he had the chance.]]

* The ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' series is known for being [[KudzuPlot rather complicated]], but ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts3DDreamDropDistance'' really takes the cake for how BigBad Master Xehanort apparently planned for seemingly random events. According to ''Dream Drop Distance'', everything in the previous games - which included three Keyblade students visiting a random island, his own Heartless trying to find Kingdom Hearts, and his Nobody creating Organization XIII - has somehow been AllAccordingToPlan via [[DiabolusExMachina secret, heretofore unmentioned powers]] that overlap AssimilationPlot with StableTimeLoop, all for the sake of recreating the Keyblade War, just to see what would happen. Given that other, more-straightforward methods to accomplish this have been demonstrated in a couple ''Kingdom Hearts'' games, one wonders why Xehanort didn't just look for them instead of working so feverishly on taking the harder option besides an apparent ComplexityAddiction.

* Lupin's scheme in ''VideoGame/SherlockHolmesVersusArseneLupin''. And then it turns out that the whole scheme- which took months to set up- was actually a [[KansasCityShuffle smokescreen to ensure that the whole of London's police force would be in the wrong place while he carried out his ''actual'' theft]]. This required a {{plan}} of its own. And then the ''game'' has been playing Gambit with you all along, and if you fall for Lupin's ploy it gives you a really disheartening ending. While you are given a hint to the real target at the beginning of the game, it is tempting to choose the obvious option when the clue to your final destination is "It starts with 'B' and ends with 'ig Ben'." Choosing Big Ben, however, results in a cutscene of Watson, Lestrade and the Prime Minister coming up with precisely nothing, and then you are treated to a screen explaining that, due to your incorrect choice, Watson and Holmes become estranged, Holmes retires because he's crushed by his failure, and Lestrade is demoted to traffic duty.

* Done in ''VideoGame/LordOfTheRingsOnline'' with the Broadacres plotline. One of the Thanes is secretly in league with Saruman and is betraying his own Reeve as well as his own country. One by one, the other servants of his liege, Reeve Frithild, are killed off until he finally secretly poisons Frithild and takes her position. This would be more impressive if it weren't for the fact that all of the deaths of her faithful retainers are happening right next to you ''in battle'' by random mooks. Meanwhile, the evil Thane Ordlac and his [[TheDragon Dragon]] Dudsig are *also* next to you helping fight the same mooks. So, he secretly instructed his goblins, orcs, Dunlendings etc. allies to specifically go after designated enemies and to leave his men and he alone while at the same time he was helping kill them? And no, there is nothing that you can do to stop the good guys from being killed. They are all targeted and one-shot by enemies that you can't kill off in time. You can't even come to the conclusion that he might be the secret traitor that you are specifically looking for even though there are about fifty different occasions where he or his men act suspiciously. It finally comes down to an NPC pointing out that he's the [[ObviousJudas evil traitor]].

* Done in ''VideoGame/LordOfTheRingsOnline'' with the Broadacres plotline. One of the Thanes is secretly in league with Saruman and is betraying his own Reeve as well as his own country. One by one, the other servants of his liege, Reeve Frithild, are killed off until he finally secretly poisons Frithild and takes her position. This would be more impressive if it weren't for the fact that all of the deaths of her faithful retainers are happening right next to you *in battle* by random mooks. Meanwhile, the evil Thane Ordlac and his Dragon Dudsig are *also* next to you helping fight the same mooks. So, he secretly instructed his goblins, orcs, Dunlendings etc. allies to specifically go after designated enemies and to leave his men and he alone while at the same time he was helping kill them? And no, there is nothing that you can do to stop the good guys from being killed. They are all targeted and one-shot by enemies that you can't kill off in time. You can't even come to the conclusion that he might be the secret traitor that you are specifically looking for even though there are about fifty different occasions where he or his men act suspiciously. It finally comes down to an NPC pointing out that he's the evil traitor.

* In the higher stages of ''VideoGame/{{Kirby}}'s [[VideoGame/PuyoPuyo Avalanche]]'', a computer will, despite all of your disruption tactics, somehow ''always'' manage to pull off an Avalanche (a chain of 9 or greater) if you don't beat them in [[HarderThanHard under two minutes]].

* The entire underlying plot behind ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemTellius Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance]]'' is a twenty-something year-old Gambit Roulette centered around Lehran's Medallion and channeling power into it by thrusting the entire continent into a war, so that Ashnard could release the Dark God.
* In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemRadiantDawn'', it is revealed that Ashnard was but a pawn in an even ''larger'' roulette than in ''Path of Radiance'', orchestrated by none other than Lehran, who turned out to be Sephiran, the Prime Minister of Bengion, and a major ally in Path of Radiance. He wanted the "Dark God," Yune (who's actually rather nice, if a tad rude) to be released, only because this would also wake up her sister, Ashera, the Goddess of order, who would then cleanse the world of all life.

* In the higher stages of ''VideoGame/{{Kirby}}'s [[SpinOff Avalanche]]'', a computer will, despite all of your disruption tactics, somehow ''always'' manage to pull off an Avalanche (a chain of 9 or greater) if you don't beat them in [[HarderThanHard under two minutes]].