History Main / VanillaUnit

** The game has a wide variety of VanillaUnit cards. In a game where lots of weak Digimon have beneficial effects to give to their Digivolutions, this can be a downside, but they tend to shine in two main area. 1) VanillaUnit Digimon tend to have a higher printed DP than other cards of their level, especially 5000DP Rookies in a tier mostly consisting of 2-3000DP and 12-13000DP Megas instead of the more standard 11000DP. 2) Vanilla Unit Digimon tend to be cheaper, in terms of play cost and/or being lower-rarity.

** The basic lands are the simplest lands. They can tap for a single mana of one color. That's it. No bonuses and no drawbacks. Lands with additional utility or better mana abilities come with drawbacks like entering tapped.

** ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'': The humble [=GM=], the mass-produced version of the Gundam, is more than a match for their primary opposition the Zaku IIs, Goufs and Doms. However, unlike the Gundam they're made of regular titanium (except for their lunar titanium shield) and their beam spray gun has less range than the Gundam's beam rifle. In-universe, they're considered BoringButPractical, with a design that would continue to be used for decades with occasional improvements.

** Gastro Acid turns the target Pokémon into a vanilla by suppressing its ability, leaving it with just raw stats and moves. Weezing's Neutralizing Gas ability takes this further by turning ''every'' Pokémon on the field, save itself, into a vanilla.

** "Unique" units are campaign-only variations of a unit with improved stats corresponding to the unit's upgrade in the following era, e.g. the WWI German Soldier has the stats of a WW2 Marine but otherwise have no particular ability.

* ''VideoGame/{{Pokemon}}'': The majority of damage-dealing moves have a secondary effect, but there are some (e.g. Dazzling Gleam) that don't. They tend to have middle-of-the-road power -- stronger than moves with beneficial effects, and weaker than moves with drawbacks.

* ''VideoGame/WarcraftIIIReignOfChaos'':

** If Reimu has a needle-based shot type, it probably serves as the "vanilla" shot type: the needles only go forward and have no special abilities, but they have high power to compensate. However, there are exceptions, like ''VideoGame/SubterraneanAnimism'' giving the Needle Reimu shot type the unique ability to warp between the left and right edges of the screen.
** In ''VideoGame/DoubleDealingCharacter'', the weapons of the three protagonists are acting oddly. At the start of the game, you can choose whether you want to use the cursed weapon. Choosing not to gives you a more basic shot type.
** In ''VideoGame/WilyBeastAndWeakestCreature'', collecting five spirits makes you enter Roaring Mode. If you got three or more beast spirits of the same type, you enter Berserk Roaring Mode, which triggers a power depending on the type of beast spirit, as well as giving you some generic benefits like protecting you from one hit. If not, you enter the "vanilla" Roaring Mode, which only offers the generic benefits.

** Any of the generic "good stats for the cost" cards with no effect. The Hulk is probably the most major one, being a 12 Power body for 6 Energy. That's the most efficient stats-to-cost in the game with no downside, but there are cards that can combo to get bigger than that or do more to disrupt the opponent. The High Evolutionary unlocks abilities for all these units at the start of a game if he's in your deck, making them no longer vanilla -- ironically, that makes him a Virtual Vanilla since he has no other abilities that trigger over the course of the game.

** Any of the generic "good stats for the cost" cards with no effect. The Hulk is probably the most major one, being a 12 Power body for 6 Energy. That's the most efficient stats-to-cost in the game with no downside, but there are cards that can combo to get bigger than that or do more to disrupt the opponent. The High Evolutionary unlocks abilities for all these units at the start of a game if he's in your deck, making them no longer vanilla.

** The Wall-Nut is the most basic defensive plant, doing nothing but absorbing a large amount of damage from zombies. Other defensive plants have special effects, such as the capability to block vaulting or airborne zombies, health regeneration, damaging the zombies attacking it, knocking back zombies, or having a much quicker recharge time. The Wall-Nut still has more health than most of these and is cheaper than them at 50 sun.

** The Peashooter is the most basic attacking plant with low cost but no special abilities, compared to other Peashooter variants which have abilities like chilling enemies, firing more shots, attacking other lanes, or shooting backwards. Even the Cabbage-Pult, another plant with the same cost and no special effects, has the capability to hit submerged Snorkels and bypass Screen Doors and Ladders.

** The Wall-Nut is the most basic defensive plant, doing nothing but absorbing a large amount of damage from zombies. Other defensive plants have special effects, such as the capability to block vaulting or airborne zombies, health regeneration, damaging the zombies attacking it, knocking back zombies, or having a much quicker recharge time. Wall-nut still has more health than most of these and is cheaper than them at 50 sun.

** There is at least one fighter of this kind for each plant/zombie card class. ''Franchise/PlantsVsZombies'' being a pun-based series, there's even a unit that plays this in both the ''literal'' and trope sense -- The Smarty Class' [[https://plantsvszombies.fandom.com/wiki/Vanilla Vanilla]], a 3-cost 3/3 vanilla flower (and bean) with no special abilities.
** There are also several Virtual Vanilla units with "when played" effects and nothing else, although considering how devastating some of their effects are[[labelnote:For instance]]Pineclone turning all plants on board into 3/3 Pineclones, Cornucopia spawning random plants in every lane, Brainana removing all of the Zombie Hero's [[YouRequireMoreVespeneGas Brains]] for the turn, and Zombot 1000 destroying all plant units on the field[[/labelnote]], they're often never considered vanilla.

** There is at least one of these for each class. ''PVZ'' being a pun-based series, there's even a unit that plays this in both the ''literal'' and trope sense -- The Smarty Class' [[https://plantsvszombies.fandom.com/wiki/Vanilla Vanilla]], a 3-cost 3/3 vanilla flower (and bean) with no special abilities.
** There are also several Virtual Vanilla units with "when played" effects and nothing else, although considering how devastating some of their effects are[[note]]Pineclone turning all plants on board into 3/3 Pineclones, Cornucopia spawning random plants in every lane, Brainana removing all Zombie Hero's [[YouRequireMoreVespeneGas Brains]] for the turn, Zombot 1000 destroying all plant units on the field[[/note]], they're often never considered vanilla.

Vanilla units may seem boring, and they indeed tend to be BoringButPractical if they're playable at all, but there are still plenty of reasons to include them in a game. They're useful for keeping the level of complexity manageable, especially if a lot of units will appear in a match.[[note]]In particular, abilities that can churn out a lot of units will usually generate vanillas, both for balance and complexity reasons.[[/note]] Sometimes they're intended as easy-to-use units for beginners, and progression in the game involves replacing them with better ones. Sometimes they're there to serve as a useful basis for comparisons, or to challenge players to decide when the vanilla unit is better than a unit with worse stats and an ability. Vanillas are also a simple way to show you what to expect of a game's factions: the offence-oriented faction gets GlassCannon vanilla monsters, the defence-oriented faction gets StoneWall vanilla monsters, the most monster-friendly faction gets the strongest vanilla monsters, and so on. Also, the lack of rules text means a lot of room for FlavourText.

** Any of the generic "good stats for the cost" cards with no effect. The Hulk is probably the most major one, being a 12 Power body for 6 Energy. That's the most efficient stats-to-cost in the game with no downside, but there are cards that can combo to get bigger than that or do more to disrupt the opponent. %%The High Evolutionary unlocks abilities for all these units if he's in your deck, making them no longer vanilla.

** Any of the generic "good stats for the cost" cards with no effect. The Hulk is probably the most major one, being a 12 Power body for 6 Energy. That's the most efficient stats-to-cost in the game with no downside, but there are cards that can combo to get bigger than that or do more to disrupt the opponent.

* In ''[[TabletopGame/TheQuacksOfQuedlinburg The Quacks of Quedlinburg]]'', most ingredients have an effect in addition to filling the pot, which every ingredient does. The exception is the orange Pumpkin, whose only function is filling the pot by one space. To compensate, it's the cheapest chip in the game. The ''Herb Witches'' ExpansionPack adds a type of orange chip at the opposite extreme -- it's the most expensive chip, and it fills the pot by six spaces.

* In ''[[TabletopGame/TheQuacksOfQuedlinburg The Quacks of Quedlinburg]]'', most ingredients have an effect. The exception is the orange Pumpkin. Its only function is filling the pot by one field, which every ingredient does. To compensate, it's the cheapest chip in the game.

* ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies'':

* ''TabletopGame/DiceForce'': Many dice faces do nothing but give you Glory Points whenever you roll them. Also, some of the high-value Heroic Feats do nothing but give you a fixed sum of points.

[[AC:Parlour Games]]
* ''TabletopGame/Werewolf1997'':
** A vanilla player has no special abilities. They can vote, and they get the appropriate factional ability if there is any, but that's it. The most basic player is the Vanilla Townie, which has no abilities. These vanillas are important because a setup full of power roles is hard to balance.
** The Named Townie has no abilities. It's a Vanilla Townie in all but name, though the mere fact that it's named makes it easy for the player to confirm themselves as Town.
** False roles are vanilla players who were told that they had a power.
** There are a few power roles that interact with vanilla status, e.g. the Neapolitan (who can check if a player is vanilla) and the Vanillaiser (who can forcibly turn someone else into a vanilla player).

[[AC:Tabletop RPG]]
* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'':
** In 1st and 2nd edition Fighters were just good at attacking and soaking up damage. They didn't have any spells or special abilities. 3rd edition added a degree of customization with a bunch of bonus feats and later editions threw in subclasses with supernatural abilities but they're still best at hitting things.
** 3rd edition also added a series of barebone NPC classes to be assigned to the many unimportant NonPlayerCharacter background, none of them with any special abilities of their own. The Fighters of earlier editions were replicated as Warriors, city-guard grunts that can hold their own in a fight but little else; and joined in by the Adepts, that can cast a few spells but gain none of the other spellcaster abilities; Experts, with many skill points to simulate NPC professions of varying mastery and that's it; Aristocrats, the wealthy gentry often acting as quest givers; and most infamously, Commoners, who have the ''worst'' HitPoints and skill points and precisely nothing beyond that.

[[AC:Trading Card Games]]

* ''TabletopGame/{{Digimon}}'':

* '''[[BreadEggsBreadedEggs Virtual French vanilla:]]''' A unit that has an ability that triggers when you play it, and is essentially a French vanilla after that point.

[[AC:Strategy RPG]]
* ''VideoGame/FireEmblem'': Most weapons in classic games (up to ''Awakening'') have no special effects, which serves to make the ones that ''do'' have them feel more special. However, later games took the exact opposite approach by making all weapon have special effects (negative and positive) to balance out the absence of a BreakableWeapons system.

* ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies'': The Peashooter is the most basic plant with low cost but no special abilities, compared to other Peashooter variants which have abilities like chilling enemies, firing more shots, attacking other lanes, or shooting backwards. Even the Cabbage-Pult, another plant with the same cost and no special effects, has the capability to hit submerged Snorkels and bypass Screen Doors and Ladders.