History SpannerInTheWorks / VideoGames

* ''Franchise/FireEmblem''

* ''Franchise/KingdomHearts''

-->''Calculating an optimum course of action is simple. If two A.I. weapons are pitted against each other, the one with superior hardware will always win. Human misjudgements defy predictive models.''

* ''VideoGame/MegaManZX''

** ''VideoGame/Persona5'': [[spoiler:Akechi]] ends up being the fatal flaw in [[spoiler:Shido]]'s chain of operations once the team recalls he overheard a specific part of a conversation that he shouldn't have been able to hear. Which was [[spoiler:Morgana's ability to be heard by humans after being in the Metaverse]], allowing the team to outmaneuver his plans and trick him into revealing the name of his employer. [[spoiler: Ironically, his real goal was to bring down Shido himself from within, [[TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou and felt the team was getting in his way.]]]]

** The evil scheme of ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite'' goes off the rails the moment [[spoiler: Ghetsis's LaserGuidedTykebomb N discovers that {{humans|AreTheRealMonsters}} ''[[AvertedTrope aren't]]'' [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters bastards]], shaking his worldview and forcing him to reevaluate his cause]], purely by encountering the player character in the second town.

** In the sequel ''VideoGame/NeoTheWorldEndsWithYou'', [[spoiler: Beat once again throws a wrench into the plans of the Reapers. The Reapers had been distributing special Player Pins in the RG to drag living people into the Reapers Game, expecting to draw out Neku, unaware that for most of the game that he's dead and stuck in Shinjuku. Instead they draw in Beat, who in addition to saving the Wicked Twisters and giving them a fighting chance after Minamimoto leaves them, also kept in contact with Shiki and Rhyme, who both ended up instrumental to fixing everything on the Final Day.]]

* In the ''Franchise/{{Kirby}}'' series, the titular pink blob often plays this role if he's not being an UnwittingPawn; something will disturb his usual peace, he'll go out to find out why, only to run into the BigBad or their minions, and promptly derail or outright foil their plans entirely.

** Years later, VillainProtagonist Lazarus Herst controls both the Idol and the Brotherhood, and has used their power and influence to quickly ascend the ranks of society, [[TyrantTakesTheHelm seize control of civilian government, and install a totalitarian regime]]. Lazarus and his Order Party are mere hours away from overthrowing the monarchy and securing his power indefinitely, up until [[spoiler:Lazarus (actually Edmund Cloudsley under a new identity) takes a brief detour to abduct Mary and make her his bride as he intended to do years ago. Peter is once again his undoing: he [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill fires a cannon at the intruder]] in a drunken panic, reducing Lazarus to a charred corpse, reducing the Idol to scrap metal, and unravelling the Order Party's takeover by complete accident.]]

** It's implied that a [[InnocuouslyImportantEpisode seemingly innocuous]] spanner is thrown at that same dinner party: Edmund instructed one of his servants to slip a dose of LovePotion to wealthy heiress Mary so she'd fall for him. However, [[spoiler:his half-wit nephew Peter is a rival for Mary's affections, and bribed another servant to rearrange the seats so that Mary would sit next to him instead. In a later chapter, it's shown that Mary fell in love with Peter, and it's possible that Edmund's potion may have caused it.]]
** Years later, VillainProtagonist Lazarus Herst is in possession of the Idol, and has used its alchemical powers to quickly ascend the ranks of society, taking over the Brotherhood and using their influence and the Idol's powers to [[TyrantTakesTheHelm seize control of civilian government and install a totalitarian regime]]. Lazarus and his Order Party are mere hours away from overthrowing the monarchy and securing his power indefinitely, but [[spoiler:Lazarus (actually Edmund Cloudsley under a new identity) takes a brief detour to abduct Mary and make her his bride as he intended to do years ago. Her husband Peter [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill fires a cannon at him]] in a drunken panic, reducing Lazarus to a charred corpse, reducing the Idol to scrap metal, and unravelling the Order Party's takeover by complete accident.]]

* In ''VideoGame/MaxPayne 3'', Max was the perfect UnwittingPawn. A dumb gringo who'd been steered into making many enemies, he would be hopelessly lost at best, soon dead at worst. Unfortunately for the villains, good cop Da Silva showed up and gave him direction, and their plans started falling apart soon afterwards.

** In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar'', [[spoiler: Manfroy's StalkerWithATestTube plan to have the perfect SoulJar for EvilGod Loptyr]] ''did'' work… but was thrown off by [[spoiler: how the mother of said SoulJar gave birth to ''twins''... and the sister of the SoulJar actually had the [[HeroicLineage Sacred Blood]] needed to handle the perfect weapon to ''vanquish Loptyr away''. And then the girl was spirited away by her dying mother and later was ''adopted'' by LaResistance… led by her and her twin's older half-brother, a boy who ALSO has Sacred Blood ''and'' is getting ready to go against the Empire...]]

** In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening'', one of these appeared in the backstory. [[spoiler: The Grimleal aka the local ReligionOfEvil has carried a SuperBreedingProgram for at least four generations, trying to have a baby conceived with enough Grima blood in him/her to get the full mark and thus make him/her the perfect [[GrandTheftMe host]] for Grima. They didn't count, however, on the mother of the last baby ''and'' most perfected Grima prospect vessel running away with the baby. It's unclear if the mother was part of the religion or not.]] Thanks to this, [[spoiler: the prospect vessel grew away from the ReligionOfEvil... and became [[PlayerCharacter the Avatar]] aka ''the Protagonist of the game''.]]

** In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'' The Flame Emperor [[spoiler: Edelgard]] hires bandits to attack the Lord characters at the start of the game. However, instead of staying and fighting them off and being killed, Claude (one of the Lord characters targeted) simply runs off and he and the other two lords, Dimitri and Edelgard, will run into [[PlayerCharacter Byleth]] starting off the plot of the game.

* In ''Videogame/GodOfWarPS4'', it's implied that Kratos's very presence (due to [[spoiler: being a Greek God in a Norse world]]) in Midgard is causing some reality-bending and literal fate-defying issues, resulting in him breaking and changing prophesied events, to the shock of Aesir gods. So far, Kratos has been indirectly related to or directly responsible for: [[spoiler: the deaths of Magni and Móði (both of whom were fated to survive Ragnarök), the death of Baldur (not supposed to happen for ''hundreds'' of years) and triggering the start of Fimbulwinter (which heralds Ragnarök, having come hundreds of years too early).]]

* ''VideoGame/GrimGrimoire'' has TheArchmage preparing to break free from his SoulJar and take the philosopher's stone and menace the world, and the powerful devil he entered a pact with named Grimlet is about ready to break from being sealed inside the old wizard Gammel Dore. Neither of them could possibly predict that both of their plans would screwed up by one CuteWitch named Lillet Blann caught in a GroundhogDayLoop.

* In ''[[VideoGame/LaPucelle La Pucelle Tactics]]'' the plans of both Noir and [[spoiler:the spirit infecting Croix]] are foiled not by the Maiden of Light, but by Priere, a newbie priestess who is perhaps the least likely person you'd expect being a nun, though she has a mean right hook and an even meaner set of legs.

* Henry does this in the ''VideoGame/HenryStickminSeries'', disrupting others' schemes through his larceny.

* In ''VideoGame/HotlineMiami'', the fifth act reveals that [[spoiler: the Biker was one of these for 50 Blessings; he had grown bored of his repetitive job and was worried that they were going to come after him for disobedience, so he decided to track down the people who were behind the conspiracy in an attempt to shut the whole operation down]].

* This is basically all [[PlayerCharacter the Boss]] does in ''VideoGame/SaintsRow2''. The Brotherhood originally planned on bringing in a shipment of weapons to take over the city with. Boom, the Boss steals it all. Then they try to manipulate their friends out of jail. The Boss just kills all of them when they get out. The Sons of Samedi see their plans to sell drugs ruined by the Boss when he kills all their dealers, and when a lieutenant tries to trick the Boss into walking into traps, the Boss kills them too. [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Vogel]], meanwhile, planned to manipulate everybody into killing each other so he could take his place at the top, which worked fantastically when he was getting the Boss to kill people instead of getting people to kill the Boss, at least until the Boss turned their attention to ''him''.

** In ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts3DDreamDropDistance'', Axel manages to be a spanner again. He jumps in right when Master Xehanort is going to make Sora one of his thirteen vessels of darkness that he needs, resulting in Sora being rescued by Riku and King Mickey.

* ''VideoGame/GrimGrimoire'' has the TheArchmage preparing to break free from his SoulJar and take the philosopher's stone and menace the world, and the powerful devil he entered a pact with named Grimlet is about ready to break from being sealed inside the old wizard Gammel Dore. Neither of them could possibly predict that both of their plans would screwed up by one CuteWitch named Lillet Blann caught in a GroundhogDayLoop.

** Just before the climactic mission of the second game, ship's {{AI}} EDI discusses this trope for why it's important to have organic minds involved in decision making, to figure in the possibility of tactical and[=/=]or strategic errors:

** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'', it's Yotsuyu's burning hatred for her own countrymen that leads to Doma and Ala Mhigo's liberation. She had ruled Doma with a cruel and vicious fist, stomping down on her people in retaliation for the wrongs in her life. That meant that no one was willing to even lift a finger against their captors until the Scions arrive. When Zenos showed up in Doma, only Yugiri and the Warrior of Light were willing to challenge him, but their actions end up spurring up the rebellion Zenos hoped to crush during his visit.

* ''VideoGame/YesYourGrace'': At some point, a chalice of poisoned wine turns out to have killed someone else than its intended target because someone inadvertently switched two chalices while searching for somehting small among the items present on the table.

%% This page has been alphabetized. Please add new examples in the correct order.

** This is actually a {{Reconstruction}}. [[spoiler:Makoto's Spanner status comes from the fact that she never knew Noel never existed in this timeline up until Terumi's plans had already fallen apart. Other than that, she had proven through the entire story that she was capable of picking up on the world around her and using the intel she accumulated to formulate and rebuild her plans on a whim - one slip of the tongue by Terumi was enough for her to, with help from Bang's keen-eyed disciple, figure out that Relius was luring her into a trap and adjusted her plans just enough to defuse the problem and keep at work. Had she known about that missing fact any time before she ran into Tsubaki, she could have {{outgambitted}} Terumi instead.]]

* The ''[[UpdatedRerelease Full Body]]'' version of ''{{VideoGame/Catherine}}'' introduces Rin, a potential third romantic option. Rin is sweet, earnest, supportive, naive, and completely harmless. She's suffering from amnesia and has little idea of how the world works; she just wants to play the piano and make people happy. She's not directly involved with the main love triangle, and the other two women barely even notice her. [[spoiler: Even the BigBad thinks Rin isn't a threat to his plan, despite knowing they're from a race of AngelicAliens merely posing as a human. Given that the BigBad's scheme focuses on killing off uncommitted/cheating men, the fact that [[OtokonokoGenre Rin's human form is an androgynous male]] made it highly unlikely they'd be a problem. He even hires them to play at The Stray Sheep!]] She's open-minded and has some unusual - but profound - ideals: No one can tell someone else how to live their life, and that individuals are the only ones should decide what is important to them. If you choose to romance Rin, [[spoiler: this philosophy turns out to be ''exactly'' what Vincent needs to hear to take a step back from the whole Katherine/Catherine debacle and reassess his life.]] Not only does Vincent become a far stronger, more competent person, he [[spoiler: realizes [[IfItsYouItsOkay Rin makes him happy and that gender doesn't matter to him.]]]] This ''completely'' derails [[spoiler: Catherine's plan; [[DidntSeeThatComing she isn't even aware of Rin as a romantic rival until it's too late]], and [[KnowWhenToFoldEm just gives up]] when she realizes [[IncompatibleOrientation Vincent may not even be interested in being seduced by a woman.]]]] Also, the BigBad made a huge mistake by [[spoiler: hiring Rin as The Stray Sheep's pianist; their angelic power creates MagicMusic that slows down the Nightmare and allows its listeners to think of new opportunities and possibilities. Better emotional stability and less stress makes the Nightmare far easier to handle.]] By the end of the final challenge, Vincent and Rin's relationship is so strong, they [[spoiler: easily counter Mutton's homophobic rant with a heartfelt KirkSummation. And that's before Rin's Big Brother zaps him into submission in the True Ending.]] Vincent could've survived the ordeal on his own, but Rin was the one who made that victory inevitable.

*** In an odd case, the Dragonborn does this twice in the ThievesGuild questline. First, they and Mercer move to take down Karliah, only for the Dragonborn to be shot by her with an arrow laced with paralysis poison. Mercer takes the opportunity to stab the Dragonborn and return to the guild, leaving Karliah to rescue the Dragonborn and explain that the arrow was intended for Mercer, to take him back to Nocturnal for judgement - but the appearance of another person was unexpected, so she attacked the Dragonborn to save them from Mercer's [[Series/{{Firefly}} sudden but inevitable betrayal]]. This sets off a sequence of events in which the Dragonborn, Brynjolf, and Karliah all take down Mercer together. By being a spanner in the works for Karliah, the Dragonborn ends up being the one to undo all of Mercer's plans, just by getting being unfortunate enough to get caught up in his scheme.

** Before Shepard were the Prothean scientists on Ilos. They cut off all communication with the rest of the galaxy and put themselves into cryosleep when the Reapers attacked. After the Reapers retreated back into dark space, the scientist emerged from cryosleep and used the Conduit to travel to the Citadel and sever the connection between the Reapers and the Keepers. When Sovereign tried to signal the Keepers to open the relay to dark space in the current cycle, its signal was ignored. It was forced to try to find another way to open the relay which ultimately led to its destruction. The Reapers were forced to take the long way back to the Milky Way.