"...I don't like this exercise."
— Wiitney
Tropes from the second gimmick round of Dangan Roleplay.
This round provides examples of:
- Allegory: Everything in this game — the murder camp, kidnappings, even the limit that the characters have to have appeared on a Nintendo system and the majority of them needed to be first- or second-party — leads up to Ganondorf and Eggman's war, which is outlined, especially in the final execution, as representing the Console Wars from The '90s.
- Astral Finale: The ship the survivors find lifts them up into space.
- Automatic Level: The final week's ship sails itself after a while, even lifting itself out of the ocean and into a new world.
- Backup from Otherworld: Everyone who's died in the camp, when they drain the Triforce before Ganondorf can use it.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Clair is tsundere for the world, but especially Yomiel. Likewise, he plays his Jerk with a Heart of Gold side. Eventually, the two's fighting managed to blossom into a relationship of sorts, though both of them seem confused as to where it'll end up.
- Big Heroic Run: In the final trial, Luigi and Hinawa race to hit the switch and activate Ganondorf's execution.
- Bound and Gagged: Clair while she and Yomiel are being executed.
- Call-Back: To the canon rounds in the finale; among those listed as rejected murderschool candidates are nearly all the characters from canon rounds who would be applicable to Smash, plus Adachi, whose canonmates are applicable though he is not (as he wasn't in Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth). Many of these characters also appear as part of the rescue party. The final trial also features prominent NPC mentions of Round 1's and Round 2's masterminds by important enemies, and the Announcer Guy was killed the exact same way that Round 2's Cecil was.
- Came Back Wrong: Week 5's motive. Monobear brings the dead characters back to life with Shadow bugs to torment the still living characters.
- Character Development: The survivors who fit the expected roles grow into them from something very different; it's a major theme of the round. Luigi becomes The Hero by learning to be braver and more dependable instead of always following others or hiding, Hinawa avoids her walking deathflag fate to become a true heart, Wiitney starts as a naive blank slate but exposure to a harsh world and learning from her close CR turns her into the cynic, and Alastor sees that he's making his way to Decoy Protagonist and actively works to help Luigi become a hero.
- Children Forced to Kill: Because of the tendency for Nintendo properties to focus on Kid Heroes, the minimum character age limit is relaxed for this round.
- Continuity Nod: To the canon rounds, with Clarice being a Team Flare grunt.
- Convection, Schmonvection: One of the worlds is a Lethal Lava Land.
- Dead Guy on Display: At the end of the hiking trail in World 2 is a peaceful glade... with statues of dead characters portraying the exact moment of their deaths.
- Distress Call: The mocking "HELP!" in Dark Pit's execution acts as an accidental one, calling the Elite Beat Agents to investigate.
- Epileptic Trees: Ashley immediately theorizes that their captor's motivation is just plain boredom. Luigi thinks it might be more like Bowser's usual motive on a larger scale.
- Easter Egg: Monobear's profile starts to change, first disliking property damage, then having that changed to disliking the communal showers and his favourite food changed from salmon to marshmallows.
- Face Doodling: Alastor draws on Monobear when he goes unresponsive in the third trial.
- Forceful Kiss: Clair to Yomiel in a fit of tsundere rage.
- Forbidden Chekhov's Gun: As in every round, the characters are warned early on against attacking Monobear. Late in the game, they get him to revoke the camp rules and mob-attack him.
- Gender-Equal Ensemble: The closest a cast has ever gotten, with a 7:8 ratio not counting Monobear.
- Give Me Your Inventory Item: Just like in its canon, the Hand in the Toilet asks for paper in exchange for hints. However, you can avoid giving it your own stuff; Luigi substitutes the roll of TP from the next stall over.
- Grave Robbing: The second victim's corpse goes missing after the trial, with the grave the students made dug up.
- Green Hill Zone: World 1 is a green, bright tutorial level in the form of a summer camp.
- The Hero Dies: Not Luigi, but it happened in a previous game.
- Heroic Sacrifice: On a meta level. Clair's self-vote is confirmed to have given Nephenee her spot in the survivor pool.
- Hero of Another Story: Goombriel Goombaldi was recognized as the protagonist of the previous Smash Life of Mutual Killing. Unfortunately...
- Hijacked by Ganon: Actually pulled twice. Crazy Hand usurps Master Hand partway through Yomiel's trial, though the cast doesn't learn that until endgame, where Crazy Hand itself is betrayed and usurped by... who else?
- I Have Your Wife: The first motive has characters' loved ones held hostage. They turn out to be fakes made of Shadow Bugs.
- Kick the Dog: The Shadow Bug duplicates wreaking physical and emotional havoc on the camp and the survivors. Seriously, sucker-punching Hinawa?
- Kill the Cutie: On a regular basis. Optimistic Little Mac is the first one dead, the two kids are out in short order, and the others don't look hopeful.
- Last Kiss: Ashley to Pittoo before he's dragged off to be executed.
- Levels Take Flight: The pirate ship the party commandeers in the final week starts sailing into the sky a few days into the journey.
- Make a Wish: Ganondorf's goal is to get the Triforce and wish himself into power. Dark Pit beats him to the wish instead and uses it to contact the living.
- Marathon Boss: The third and fourth trials both broke Dis-1's 14-hour record, both lasting into Sunday.
- The Men in Black: The Elite Beat Agents are this world's equivalent of the Future Foundation.
- Mistaken for Servant: Callie initially thinks Luigi is the camp's janitor, and Wiitney mistakes herself for a camp employee because she goes weeks thinking that she's still on Wuhu Island.
- Mythology Gag: Luigi is placed in room 2 on purpose due to his history of being always second-best and invented as a Player 2 character.
- Lon'qu's cabin is surrounded by cabins occupied with girls. Appropriate considering his fear of them.
- Neutrality Backlash: Seems to be headed this way with the introduction of Resetti (and, to a lesser extent, the Hand), who doesn't want to "side with" either Monobear or the students... making the latter understandably angry. Turns out that Resetti and his brother were on the students' side all along, though the Hand in the Toilet is still a toss-up.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: In mocking the first culprit at his execution, Monobear inadvertently makes a distress call to the Elite Beat Agents.
- The Omnipotent: The second motive tempts the cast with a cheat device that would effectively make them this.
- Only the Leads Get a Happy Ending: Yes, the survivor pool gets a happy ending, so do the dead, and the multiverse yet seems well... mostly. However, the Triforce is drained into the afterlife and may never be used again, and we all know what that leads to.
- Please Wake Up: Wiitney addresses the statues of the dead and tells them to please come back.
- Poke the Poodle: When Shadow Bug Clair's Despair Gambit isn't working on Luigi, she shapeshifts into Mario to try and get at him... but her impression leaves something to be desired, as she's cribbing it entirely from the horrible live-action movie.
- Power Glows: Shadow carries a Chaos Emerald that barely glows, indicating that the camp's power nullifier works on it just as on the campers. The same effect is used for the drained Triforce.
- Source Music: Like another video-game-based DWRP, there's background music piped in around the camp.
- Together in Death: Ashley dies two weeks after her boyfriend, and Clair votes for herself when Yomiel's guilty.
- What Measure Is a Mook?: Explored with the First Smash Life of Mutual Killing, where the class was composed entirely of generic enemies.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: The first execution involves transforming the culprit into a walking eggplant and then slicing him to bits in a manner that, had he not been transformed first, would have needed a Gory Discretion Shot.
- You Should Have Died Instead: Ashley tells this to Luigi when she rejects his offer of friendship.
