History Main / OffTheRails

* ''Literature/VillainessLevel99IMayBeTheHiddenBossButImNotTheDemonLord'': The protagonist Yumiella is a college girl who died and reincarnated in a game world that is a mix of RPG and Otome game as a villainess who becomes its {{Superboss}}. Her actions done with this knowledge are causing the story to veer far away from how it was supposed to. She notices this the first time when the game's heroine, Alicia, has already become friends with the three male leads way earlier than in the game. Later Yumiella starts to suspect Alicia is also a reincarnated person from another world just like her, although she later concludes that her own actions indirectly pushed Alicia closer to the male leads. The love interests inadvertently stunt Alicia's growth by protecting her all the time instead of allowing to face hardships that would help her.

* ''[[Literature/TheScumVillainsSelfSavingSystemRenZhaFanpaiZijiuXitong The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System]]'': Shen Yuan, after being transmigrated into the body of Shen Qingqiu, a StarterVillain from a poorly-written webnovel series who got brutally killed by the protagonist Luo Binghe, seeks to change enough of the webnovel's plot to avoid being killed. Along the way, he not only saves several characters who were supposed to die (with both [[IOweYouMyLife positive]] and [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished negative]] consequences) but also unintentionally causes Luo Binghe, who had a harem of hundreds of wives in the original webnovel, to become so smitten with him that he completely ignores all of the women who were supposed to become part of his harem in favor of single-mindedly pursuing him instead.

* In ''Film/BackToTheFuture'', Marty tries to stage a DateRapeAverted scenario so that his father, George, [[RescueRomance can "rescue" Lorraine]], Marty's mother, but the plan is subverted when Lorraine is doing the advances. [[FromBadToWorse But when Biff takes over]] and [[AttemptedRape tries to molest her for real]], that's when George delivers the badass quote, "Hey you, get your damn hands off her", which was originally meant as part of the play, and then [[https://youtu.be/ts3lE3hNduw punches Biff out]] when he doesn't listen.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'': Syndrome's master plan is [[EngineeredHeroics letting loose a robot to attack a major city which only he is able to control with a remote, thereby "saving the day"]], to show that superheroes, [[EvilIsPetty specifically Mr. Incredible/Bob Parr]], are unneccessary. However, [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters the robot manages to figure out that Syndrome's using that remote to control him, so he shoots it out of his hands]] [[CurbStompBattle and easily subdues him]], and it's up to the Parr family and Frozone to stop the robot themselves, [[NiceJobFixingItVillain thereby restoring the public perception of superheroes after years of scrutiny and distrust]].

%%* ''Fanfic/BaitAndSwitchSTO'' started with only a slightly modified version of ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'''s continuity, but jumped off the rails midway through the Iconian War due to the authors' disgust at the CutsceneIncompetence and HollywoodTactics of the official questline.

* Parodied in ''WebAnimation/ScoobyDooAbridged'', where the writers are terminated for making Fred say an IncrediblyLamePun. The gang then has to deal with the robots through improvising, before a new writer comes in to HandWave continuity issues.

Clive tells Juliana that his problems with Team Star include their "actively destroying the very fabric of Paldea." Juliana asks if he means this figuratively, only for Clive to say that he's being literal; he believes the various bizarre phenomena occurring around the region have something to do with the team's actions.

* ''VideoGame/WarioWare'' ''Gold'' includes a feature to dub some most but not all of the cutscenes in the game. You can choose to follow the script...or [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5HDDhcugR4 go completely off-script.]]

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' features a humorous InUniverse instance of this with the Golden Saucer date sequence. If the player is with Tifa, they'll end up going to the amusement park's stage show and get cast in that night's play as the brave knight and DamselInDistress. However, if the player keeps making stupid choices (such as claiming he's there to rescue the dragon rather than the princess), Tifa will get so pissed off that she [[DopeSlap smacks Cloud upside the head]] and defeats the dragon herself with a flying kick, causing the other actors to declare that ''the princess'' is the hero of the land.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIIRemake'', on the other hand, [[spoiler:handles this trope much, '''much''' more seriously. Starting with [[BigBad Sephiroth]] appearing far earlier than he did in the original game, the plot begins to diverge in ways both [[AdaptationExpansion small]] and [[SparedByTheAdaptation large]]. This causes mysterious specters called the "Arbiters of Fate" to appear and try to force the story back onto the "train tracks" as much as possible, but the game ends with the protagonists [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu slaying the Arbiters]], signifying that the story will '''[[StealthSequel not]]''' just be a beat-for-beat retelling of the original. This is best emphasized by the final cutscene showing Zack Fair's LastStand from ''VideoGame/CrisisCore''...except this time Zack ''lives''. And to make matters worse, it's implied that Sephiroth engineered the whole thing because he knew he was destined to lose, so he tricked the heroes into [[ScrewDestiny destroying destiny]] to give him another chance to fulfill his plans.]]

* The infamous debut of [[Wrestling/FredOttman The Shockmaster]] in WCW went off the rails from his planned character. A prop malfunction combined with a difficult to see out of mask led the wrestler to trip over the set during his debut on live TV. The character was hastily rewritten from being a complete bad ass to being a somewhat clumsy comedy character.

* ''WesternAnimation/AsToldByGinger'''s HalloweenEpisode revolves around a school play of a story reminiscent of ''Theatre/TheCrucible'' - about an innocent girl accused of witchcraft. [[BetaBitch Miranda]] conspires to replace Ginger as the lead by framing her for defacing a school statue. Once a photo of Miranda doing it reaches Ginger, she crashes the play with the photo - and she and her friends change the ending so that the lead character ''is'' a witch and is found guilty.

* In both ''Fanfic/HalkegeniaOnline'' and ''Fanfic/FaeIsFoul'', [[LightNovel/TheFamiliarOfZero Louise]] summoning the entirety of [=ALFhiem=] Online ends up causing about .75 Hendersons to nearly a full Henderson of damage to the ''The Familiar of Zero'' plot and completely destroys the ''Literature/SwordArtOnline'' plot.

* ''Literature/UnLunDun'' seems like your average "ChosenOne goes to another world and goes on a quest that is also a ComingOfAgeStory in between all the {{Fetch Quest}}s" story. [[spoiler: [[AntiClimax Then]] the ChosenOne gets bonked on the head, and it's up to her friend (who was, according to the prophecy, the "[[PluckyComicRelief funny sidekick]]") to go on the long, epic, FetchQuest-filled journey. Except, after the first one, she decides (Correctly) 'I don't have time for this shit,' gets the Un-Gun, and becomes the UnchosenOne]].

*** And only reason he knew to request the duel was because he was involved with some Romulans earlier in the book; the simulation noticably lagged while trying to deal with going off-script. One of the officers running things admits to needing to watch out for 'unexpected life experiences' like that in the future.

* ''Literature/TheWizardTheWitchAndTwoGirlsFromJersey'' is an AffectionateParody about two teenage girls getting sucked into an EpicFantasy... and accidentally killing the ChosenOne within five minutes. One of the girls is a long time fan of the book who knows the plot like the back of her hand, and the other is an AlphaBitch who doesn't willingly read anything but magazines. Guess which one is mistaken for (and must replace) the ChosenOne and which one is thought to be her handmaiden?

* The ''Franchise/FateSeries'' has the horrible, horrible events of the Third Holy Grail War that shaped many of the awful circumstances that would later haunt the protagonists of the [[LightNovel/FateZero Fourth]] and [[VisualNovel/FateStayNight Fifth]]. The Edelfelt sisters cheated using their Ore Scales ability to summon two Sabers. It ended with the sisters defeated, one of them running away from Japan. [[LightNovel/FateApocrypha Darnic Prestone]] attempted to steal the Greater Grail with Nazi help. It ended with the Imperial Army duking it out with the Nazis in Fuyuki. The Einzberns tried to cheat by summoning a GodOfEvil. It ended tainting the Grail with All the World's Evils. [[ShaggyDogStory And in all the hoopla, the Lesser Grail was destroyed.]]

---->'''[[TinCanRobot Satan's Robot]]:''' Citizen of Earth, surrender! Do not resist!\\

*** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E3ElementaryDearData Elementary, Dear Data]]", Geordi invites Data to a ''Literature/SherlockHolmes'' holo-novel, only to find out that Data had read all the books -- so he solves what's supposed to be a feature-length case in minutes. Geordi tweaks the simulation to have the computer pastiche elements of the novels, but Data can see right through it and still solves the case in minutes. On his third attempt, Geordi intends to ask the computer to create a simulation that can beat Holmes, but accidentally tells it to beat ''Data''. Cue virtual Moriarty, a [[RefugeeFromTVLand self-aware]] holodeck construct [[GameBreaker capable of interfering with the ship's basic systems]]. The rest of the crew [[OhCrap starts freaking out]].

** On ''[[Series/StarTrekVoyager Voyager]]'', Seven of Nine has issues comprehending the challenge of a holodeck simulation and tends to throw things off the rails by CuttingTheKnot.

---->'''Robot:''' Citizen of Earth, surrender! Do not resist!\\
'''Seven:''' I am Borg. ''[rips out wiring]''\\
'''Robot:''' ''[deactivating]'' Surrrennndurrr...

---->'''Janeway:''' Master da Vinci doesn't like visitors after midnight.\\
'''Seven:''' He protested. I deactivated him.

*** In "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS04E10OurManBashir Our Man Bashir]]", Bashir's holodeck character, a ''Film/JamesBond'' pastiche, [[ItMakesSenseInContext helps the villain destroy the world]], and the poor computer almost has a nervous breakdown trying to keep the simulation running. That's probably why they came up with the "Vic Fontaine" holoprogram, which is designed to operate off the rails.

** The climax of the Grand Galloping Gala arc features ''the author himself'' going off the rails. [[spoiler: His plot ending up diverging so far from the show that he could not illustrate it with actual screencaps, and was forced to get a friend to make many pages of ''fake'' screencaps to allow him to show his final battle.]]

* There was an episode of ''[[WesternAnimation/GarfieldandFriends U.S. Acres]]'' where Orson tried to read ''Literature/{{Rumpelstiltskin}}'' to Booker and Sheldon. The boys keep asking Orson to change the characters into things like ninjas or monsters, but Orson puts a stop to that for the most part. Then Wade (who played the miller's daughter) butted in and [[GenderFlip had the daughter be changed to a son]], and as a result, the price to be paid became the son's VCR. Things really got crazy and devolved into a SummonBiggerFish duel when the miller's son was about to guess Rumpelstiltskin's name because Roy (a Super Hero-style Rumpelstiltskin) tried to alter the ending in his character's favor, much to the protest of Wade and Orson:

* The plot of the ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'' DLC ''Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep'' is a game of "[[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons Bunkers and Badasses]]" that threatens to do this multiple times. Sometimes this is because the DM Tiny Tina is unprepared (she sets a scene in a sunny day when it's supposed to be Eternal Night, tries to make a powerful boss one of the first encounters, and allows Mr. Torgue into the game to destroy the town's surveillance blimps). And other times it's because the players act unexpectedly (wander into an area Tina hadn't balanced yet, kill the dwarven king who was supposed to become their ally, and drop a die onto the miniature of an NPC, destroying him). To say nothing of Tina continually wanting to halt the game until Roland shows up [[spoiler:even though she should be fully aware he's dead]] and Lilith, Brick, and Mordecai's shock and outrage at this. Eventually the players realize that the whole game is a way for Tina to [[spoiler:process her grief over his death]], become more understanding, and the story reaches a triumphant conclusion.

*** In the episode "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS5E1Night Night]]", Tom Paris invites Seven to his "Captain Proton" simulation and has her play a DamselInDistress who gets captured by Satan's Robot. Seven just does what she thinks is most logical and [[AreTheseWiresImportant pulls out the robot's wiring]].

*** In the episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E20Qpid Qpid]]", Q drops Picard in the middle of a RobinHood-like fantasy world and tells the captain that if he doesn't rescue Maid Marion (who is his love interest, Vash), she's going to be executed by Sir Guy of Gisbourne. Both Q and Picard are quite surprised when the eminently practical Vash agrees to marry Sir Guy, as it makes more sense than some [[HonorBeforeReason stupidly heroic rescue plan]]. Q had stated that he had given the fantasy "a life all its own, so I have no more idea what's going to happen than you do."

*** Kira, while playing Queen Guinevere in a Myth/KingArthur scenario, punches out Lancelot after he comes on to her. Makes sense for her character, though; she ''is'' a married woman.

* In the ''VideoGame/RuneScape'' quest, "Kindred Spirits". [[BigBad Sliske]] puts the player character, his undead slaves, and some other prisoners through a series of games involving [[SadisticChoice sadistic choices]]. During one of the games, the player character accidentally knocks down a wall and is able to escape into a part of Sliske's lair that they were not supposed to enter and discover information about Sliske's true plans as well as [[spoiler: the knowledge that the player character's name had been spoken by a man driven mad by an EldritchAbomination long before the player character was born]]. When the player fails to show up at the start of the next game, Sliske decides to skip the game and [[YourSoulIsMine steal the player character's soul]], but while he is extracting the player character's soul, he sees the player character's memory of what they did, and [[BerserkButton he goes berserk]], [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness completely losing his normal]] FauxAffablyEvil peronality. He then gives the player a massive beating, [[spoiler: [[RewardedAsATraitorDeserves turns Linza into a wight after revealing that she had made a deal with him]]]], and then kicks the player character and the other prisoners out of his base and also [[RevengeByProxy threatens to kill the player character's loved ones.]]

* In ''[[Literature/DreamPark Dream Park: The Barsoom Project]]'', Game Master Larry Wells has to do this ''twice'':
** Early in the Fimbulwinter Game, a monster goes off its programmig (the first sign that something is very wrong in the Game). It was supposed to kill out an actor because his role in the Game is done, but instead it chases and kills a Gamer. Wells bets the actor that he can kill him out without breaking the rules, with the stakes being the actor's pay: if Wells wins, the actor gets zip, but if the actor wins he gets ''triple'' his agreed-on pay.

*** Chekov tried to save his crew by ordering an evacuation of the ship, before charging and destroying the Klingon ships in a kamikaze attack. Unfortunately, the test overseer points out that the massive explosion would have not only obliterated any escape pods, it would have made the area untraversable for the next century.

** Montgomery Scott attempted a {{technobabble}} trick that worked fine on paper and therefore apparently in the simulator, but was impossible in reality. The computer essentially declared RocksFallEveryoneDies, and Starfleet Academy rerouted Scotty from command track to engineering, [[AllAccordingToPlan which was what he wanted all along]]. (And a funny thing about the RocksFallEveryoneDies scenario is how long it would have taken: Scotty would need to sleep ''eventually''....)

* A recurring trope in the ''Franchise/StarTrekExpandedUniverse'' is for captains to come up with creative solutions to the KobayashiMaru simulator from ''Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan''. The simulation is intended to [[UnwinnableTrainingSimulation railroad the officer taking it into death]] to see how they react under pressure, but sometimes unusual things happen that the programmers didn't think of.

* A recurring trope in the ''Franchise/StarTrekExpandedUniverse'' is for captains to come up with creative solutions to the KobayashiMaru simulator from ''Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan''. The simulation is intended to railroad the officer taking it into death to see how they react under pressure, but sometimes unusual things happen that the programmers didn't think of.

* The "Lawn Wax" episode of ''VideoGame/YouDontKnowJack'' ends up this way. The interns have only six questions written out of ten when the game starts. It all spirals out of control as the staff races to get questions done in time for the the rest of the show, each one less prepared than the last. The tenth question is just a bit of trivia that Cookie reads off of a Snapple cap, and it doesn't even have a category name. Chad quickly puts together a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17O8i6E5qFI "minimalist, back to basics"]] Jack Attack for Cookie very quickly, and initially Cookie's elated. It's when he reads the category: [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "Do What I Say and We'll Get Through This Together"]] that he starts to realize what Chad has actually done: [[spoiler: In a take on ExactWords, Chad put what you want to match "in quotes" and you want to hit your buzzer when that phrase comes up.]]

* ''Film/{{Mallrats}}'' has [[TheStoner Jay]] knocking out two of the contestants intended for the game show ''[[FollowTheLeader Truth or Date]]'', so as for Brodie and TS to replace them as part of their ZanyScheme for TS to try and win Brandi back. During the show, Brodie pretty much hijacks it, aiming quips at the third contestant [[ButtMonkey Gil]] and launching into a story about his [[Film/{{Clerks}} Cousin Walter]] [[ADateWithRosiePalms jerking off on an airplane]] (much to the amusement of the audience and the TV execs). After that, it culminates in a SexTape being played on the monitor banks, implicating [[TheBrute Shannon Hamilton]] in [[PaedoHunt underage sex]].

* ''Anime/Overlord2012'':
** In an attempt to get his demihuman minions to better understand PunyHumans and thus stop defaulting to "kill the worthless humans", Ainz holds a game session with a strictly barebones campaign (a village chief asks the heroes to get rid of a nearby goblin tribe) with premade characters. It starts with Albedo declaring she attacks the quest-giver for being a human and goes downhill from there (resulting in one of the funniest moments in the entire series).

* In the ''Side: Future'' portion of ''Anime/Danganronpa3'', the game is thrown off-course by Chisa [[spoiler: killing herself]] and setting Munakata off with the revelation. Among other things, this causes him to go berserk, start treating ''everyone'' as an active Despair agent, and attempt to kill everyone in the building. [[spoiler: He somehow manages to kill the mastermind in the process of this rampage.]] Much later, the mastermind reveals Ryouta wasn't even supposed to be participating, throwing off their plan to [[spoiler:use him to brainwash everyone into Ultimate Hope.]] All this meddling also screwed with the original endgame for them, which would have resulted in [[spoiler: everyone except Ryouta dying.]]
* The world of ''LightNovel/GoblinSlayer'' is run by a pair of divine beings named [[KillerGameMaster Truth]] and [[BornUnlucky Illusion]] who act similarly to the GameMaster of an RPG. Goblin Slayer's being CrazyPrepared makes him [[ImmuneToFate immune to the effects of the god's dice]] and his crusade against goblins has completely changed the world's tone into something far LighterAndSofter than what it was intended to be. It turns out that TheChosenOne was destined to have a DarkAndTroubledPast, but Goblin Slayer killed the goblins that would've caused it, and the drastic reduction in the number of goblins made saving the world relatively easily. [[{{Jerkass}} Truth]] and [[NiceGirl Illusion]] are both annoyed and fascinated respectively with Goblin Slayer for messing up their intended story.

--->'''Robot:''' Citizen of Earth, surrender! Do not resist!\\
'''Seven:''' I am Borg. ''(rips out wiring)''\\
'''Robot:''' ''(deactivating)'' Surrrennndurrr...

--->'''Janeway:''' Master da Vinci doesn't like visitors after midnight.\\

*** In the episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E20Qpid Qpid]]", Q drops Picard in the middle of a RobinHood-like fantasy world and tells the captain that if he doesn't rescue Maid Marion (who is his LoveInterest, Vash), she's going to be executed by Sir Guy of Gisbourne. Both Q and Picard are quite surprised when the eminently practical Vash agrees to marry Sir Guy, as it makes more sense than some [[HonorBeforeReason stupidly heroic rescue plan]]. Q had stated that he had given the fantasy "a life all its own, so I have no more idea what's going to happen than you do."
*** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E3ElementaryDearData Elementary, Dear Data]]", Geordi invites Data to a ''Literature/SherlockHolmes'' holo-novel, only to find out that Data had read all the books -- so he solves what's supposed to be a feature-length case in minutes. Geordi tweaks the simulation to have the computer pastiche elements of the novels, but Data can see right through it and still solves the case in minutes. On his third attempt, Geordi intends to ask the computer to create a simulation that can beat Holmes, but accidentally tells it to beat ''Data''. Cue virtual!Moriarty, a [[RefugeeFromTVLand self-aware]] holodeck construct [[GameBreaker capable of interfering with the ship's basic systems]]. The rest of the crew [[OhCrap starts freaking out]].
** In the GrandFinale "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E24AllGoodThings All Good Things...]]", Picard is flung into the past, landing when he first took command of the ''Enterprise''. He senses that something's wrong when Starfleet orders him ''not'' to head to Farpoint Station like he had in the pilot episode "Encounter at Farpoint".

*** In "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS01E07QLess Q-Less]]", Q creates a scenario pitting himself against Sisko in a boxing match. Q is his normal chipper self, toying with his opponent -- until Sisko gets annoyed [[ShutUpHannibal knocks him to the floor]]. Q, used to fighting Picard, is stunned:
--->'''Q:''' You hit me! Picard never hit me!\\
'''Sisko:''' I'm not Picard.

--> [[DontExplainTheJoke "I see what your problem is! You're confused by their names, because they all sound like questions!"]]