Roleplay / Hopeless Loop

A Side-Game on r/DanganRoleplay which featured a game in which sixteen Danganronpa characters were tasked with identifying the villains among them in a Time Looping narrative. In a blending of Raging Loop and Danganronpa, Sixteen Teenagers awaken on a Jabberwock Island encased in a supernatural fog and forced to participate in a ritual that the mysterious Korekiyo Shinguji identifies as the Feast of the Yomi-Purge.

Korekiyo warns the assembled players that three of them have been chosen to be Wolves, tasked with killing the others each night. The rest of them are Humans, forced to find the wolves or die. The only way for the others to survive is to vote for a single player to be executed each day at a morning meet-up known as a Feast. The fog will only clear when either all the Wolves or all the Humans are dead.

With the supernatural fog threatening to punish any player who doesn't follow the rules of the Yomi-Purge, the sixteen players find themselves in a fierce battle of wits. And yet, even when the rounds come to an end, the sixteen players find themselves waking up at the beginning of each day with new roles. How long will they have to play this game before they find a way to break the loop?

Only Spoilers for the Final Chapter will be whited out. Any spoilers for the events of the various loops will be unmarked.

Tropes for the Game's Mechanics

• Alternate Continuity: The game takes place in one, with the players having not yet attended Hope's Peak Academy or received any Ultimate titles.
• Anyone Can Die
• Arc Villain: Three Wolves and one Badger act as this for each loop.
• Axe-Crazy: The Wolves violently murder a Human Player every night
• Balance Buff: The Spider Role receives one in later loops, being made unable to protect the same player twice in a row.
• Detect Evil: The Snake and Crow roles possess these abilities, with the Snake able to determine whether a player of their choice is a Wolf and a Crow being able to determine whether somebody who was executed is a Wolf.
• The Dragon: The Badger acts as an accomplice to the Wolves, although the Badger doesn't know who the Wolves are and the Wolves don't know who they are.
• Dwindling Party: The Wolves get to kill one player every night and, during the day, the players may choose one player to be executed.
• Face–Heel Turn: From the second night onwards, one Human Player receives the Badger role and becomes tasked with ensuring that the Wolves win.
• Fate Worse than Death: Korekiyo warns of something known as Corruption that awaits those who do not obey the Feast's rules. Rule Violators are violently torn apart by giant beasts and then seemingly tortured by the Yomi Gods responsible for the feast and forced to be their servants.
• Gotta Kill 'Em All: The goal of both sides, as the Loop cannot end unless the Wolves kill all the humans or the Humans kill all the wolves.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop
• Guardian Angel: The Spider Role acts as one, being able to protect any other player of their choice.
• GMPC: Korekiyo acts as one for the first Loop, explaining the rules of the game due to previously escaping from another game.
• Justified Tutorial: Korekiyo explains the ins and outs of the Feasts to the players, having already been through a Feast before.
• Killed Off for Real: Players who violate the rules disappear from the loop after being violently murdered, replaced with a new player.
• Luck-Based Mission: A dice roll system was in place during Daily Life Segments, as players rolled dice to determine whether they'd succeed in certain actions such as spying on players or secretly meeting up to determine whether anybody caught them in the act.
• The Reliable One: The two Monkey players are told who the other Monkey is, giving them each a player they can trust.
• Social Deduction Game
• Super Power Lottery: Among the Human players, there are a handful of players with a special role: the Snake, the Spider, the Crow, and two Monkeys.
• Terrible Trio: Three Wolf players act as the culprits behind each murder, cooperating together as a team.
• Undying Loyalty: The Badger to the Wolves, tasked with ensuring that they win despite technically being humans and needing to be killed by the Wolves in the end.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: The final chapter's feast ends abruptly with the fog dissipating early, allowing the survivors to investigate the island and learn the mysteries behind the game before a final feast ensues to identify the masterminds behind their predicament.
• The Unfettered: Wolves and the Badger are willing to kill anybody without remorse and even willing to die for their cause, being considered victorious as long as all the humans die by the end.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: The Wolves are given the freedom to be as sadistic in their murders as possible.

Tropes for the Game's Storyline

• Adaptational Heroism: While he is a Wolf in his only Loop, Korekiyo is not the serial killer that he was in Danganronpa V3 and only kills anybody because the rules of the game forced him to. He is still a murderer who killed over a dozen villagers after some Sanity Slippage, but he's a much better person than his canon counterpart. If anything, he's rather Affably Evil compared to some of the later wolves.
• The Bad Guy Wins: The Second and Fourth Loops both end with Wolf victories.
• Bad People Abuse Animals: Gundham's Four Dark Devas of Destruction prove not to be any safer than he is, often being killed by the Wolves.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Chihiro, Gundham, Toko, and Miu make up the team of Ultimate Despairs who created the Feasts.
• Cheated Death, Died Anyway: While the Third Feast ends with a definitive Human victory, the still-living Badger, Mondo, takes advantage of the game having technically ended to go on a killing spree, murdering Peko and Chihiro before being blown up.
• Crossover: Although the main game consists entirely of Danganronpa characters, Korekiyo's flashbacks featured unnamed cameos from the cast of Raging Loop.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Despite her ditzy nature, Akane proves to be a remarkably perceptive player.
• Death Faked for You: Kaede is a victim of this in the Final Loop.
• Defiant to the End: Despite having no reasonable way of winning when Kirumi comes forward as the Second Loop's Badger, Byakuya and Hiyoko choose to gaslight her into thinking that they're the Wolves instead of Kyoko and Peko and trick her into getting one last Wolf executed before they lose.
• Denied Food as Punishment: A skinny Hifumi shows up as a servant of the Yomi following his permadeath to imply this trope.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: Fuyuhiko suffers this fate in the first loop, being fatally stabbed by Korekiyo to die in Peko's arms.
• Doing In the Wizard: With the exception of the Final Loop, most of the events of the Feast take place in a Virtual World, explaining the supernatural phenomenon
• Dragon Their Feet: Mondo and Mikan as Badgers in Loops 3 and 5 outlive their Wolves to remain threats. Mondo is significantly more successful though.
• Driven to Suicide: Korekiyo chooses to die at the end of the First Loop by violating the rules with an illegal Fuyuhiko killing, no longer wishing to play the game that already destroyed his sanity.
  • Hifumi follows suit at the end of the third loop, choosing not to vote in order to be free of the game.
• Dying as Yourself: In the final chapter, Byakuya and Peko refuse the chance of being revived in another body, accepting Cessation of Existence.
• Eat the Evidence: During the final chapter, Gundham eats a piece of paper with information that incrimanated him.
• 11th-Hour Ranger: Mukuro arrives on the island in the final chapter to hunt her sisters accomplices down
• The Executioner: Peko usually takes up this role at the end of each Feast whenever she's alive.
• Failed a Spot Check: While searching for a missing Kaede, Mondo briefly mistakes a leaf in the pool for her.
• Flashback B-Plot: The story of Korekiyo's First Feast of the Yomi Purge is told in flashback as he, his sister, and Junko Enoshima go through their own time-looping nightmare in an isolated mountain village.
• A Glitch in the Matrix: Several happen throughout the fifth Loop, eventually requiring an AI observer to intervene and reset the entire program.
• Grand Theft Me: Maki is somehow taken over by Chihiro's mind in the final Loop, despite the real Chihiro acting like himself.
  • Following their execution in the Neo World Program as Ultimate Despairs, Miu's body is taken by the diseased Akane, while Chihiro and Kaede are taken over by AI versions of themselves.
• He Knows Too Much: Miu is punished with a Corruption Death despite the game being over after learning the secret behind the Time Loops.
• Heroic BSoD: After being forced to execute Fuyuhiko for being a Wolf, Peko doesn't bother to resist when Mondo suddenly goes on a rampage at the end of the Third Loop.
• Karma Houdini: Gundham and Toko successfully frame Mondo and Kaede as Ultimate Despairs and leave the island alive.
• Killed Off for Real: Korekiyo chooses to violate the rules at the end of the first loop to show the consequences of doing so to the survivors and avoid having to go through the same nightmare again. Hifumi follows in his footsteps in the Third Loop.
  • The Final Loop also reveals that the final game was taking place in the real world, meaning that Akane, Peko, Mondo, and Byakuya had all been legitimately killed.
• Kill the Ones You Love: Peko kills Fuyuhiko twice, once as a Wolf in the Second Loop and once as a human when he is exposed as the final wolf of the Third Loop.
  • Korkeiyo is also revealed to have killed his own sister in a mass poisoning, leading to a mental breakdown when the Loops ended afterwards
• My God, What Have I Done?: The Wolves and Badgers tend to react this way upon regaining their sanity in new loops, horrified by the things they did.
• Obliviously Evil: The Miu, Gundham, Chihiro, and Toko from the first five loops are all unaware of being Ultimate Despairs, as they are AI replicas of their original selves and the Despair versions of them are outside of the simulation observing the events of each Loop.
• Plot Armor: Due to her status as a Red Herring Kaede is abducted and imprisoned by Miu after being chosen by the wolves in the sixth Loop so that she can be an Ultimate Despair suspect in the Final Feast.
• Predecessor Villain: Junko plays this role as the former leader of Ultimate Despair who recruited the current Despairs to her cause and the mastermind of the game that Korekiyo played in the past. She's dead in the current timeline at the hands of Korekiyo's Sister personality.
• Sixth Ranger: Maki joins the cast in Loop 2 to replace Korekiyo while Kaede and Toko join in Loop 4 to replace Miu and Hifumi.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: While they don't go beyond Ship Tease, Peko and Fuyuhiko still suffer this as at least one of them dies in every loop. Often by the other's hands.
• The Summation: Fuyuhiko becomes known for his Fuyuthoughts where he explains his theories regarding the game.
• Team Mom: Kirumi, especially towards Chihiro and Akane.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: The Fifth Loop manages to give all the players who'd previously lost every game a victory when the final wolf is killed.