While busy searching for Goomnuts, Mario ends up falling into a hole he saw too late, stumbling into a cavern occupied by a hermit named Cheato along with several other quirky characters. The only presumable way out is through the Pit of 100 Trials, a dungeon filled with enemies and other traps to impede Mario and friends.
Paper Mario: Black Pit is a Game Mod of Paper Mario 64 prominently featuring TTYD's Pit of 100 trials as its focus, but with multiple Roguelike elements.
This ROM hack displays the following tropes:
- Alternate Continuity: Based on the partners first interaction with Mario, which suggests that this is their first meeting and they don't even know Mario beforehand, this story is seemingly disconnected from Paper Mario 64. Additionally, the Big Bad and Mario don't recognize each other.
- An Interior Designer Is You: For the "home base" of the Pit, Chuck can offer to decorate it, with the requirements being Classic Pit milestones, Challenges, and coins to unlock.
- Ascended Extra: Cheato was an optional NPC in the original. Here, he serves as Mario's guide.
- Bag of Spilling: The optional Rougelike Pit can only be entered with this caveat; all partners, upgrades and items cannot be brought into it, though they can all be obtained within, and Mario's HP and FP is reset until Mario leaves. Similarly, with the exception of coins obtained in battles and the Ruby King's Crown at the end, nothing obtained can be kept.
- Big Bad: Dimentio, who created the Black Pit for his own twisted amusement.
- Boss Rush: The Black Pit, the final area of the game, contains consecutive boss battles against facsimiles of ten bosses from the original Paper Mario.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Mistar, once freed from the Maze's curse, turns into his true form, a Dark Star Kid, but he turns out to be as much of a Nice Guy as Twink. The Ruby King also helps defeat Dimentio, the prayer snapping him back to his original personality.
- Internal Monologue: While still maintaining his Silent Protagonist role from the official Paper Mario games, Mario occasionally has moments of inner dialogue.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Several of the NPCs remark they have no clue how they ended up in the Pit, only largely remembering their time in the place.
- Obligatory Swearing: After being freed from the chest in the Classic Pit's 90th floor and joining Mario's party, Lakilester proclaims he's ready to "kick some ass".
- Rearrange the Song: An arrangement of the Ice King's boss theme is used for the battle against the Ruby King, the Rougelike Pit's boss.
- Suddenly Speaking: While normally a Silent Protagonist who at most throughout the ROM has moments of Internal Monologue, Mario suddenly speaks up after using his only option against Dimentio at his Darkest Hour: Praying.
- Time Loop Trap: After clearing a full Pit run, Mario finds himself falling into the cavern in the same fashion as the beginning of the game, with Mario having deja vu after waking up and talking with Cheato. It's not until he's gotten the awards for beating both Pits when Mario truly becomes aware of the loop.
- Wham Shot: Upon finally learning the truth behind the Pit, Mario and company enter a warp pipe to the titular Black Pit, on their way to confront the Big Bad behind everything... and discover the aesthetic of Castle Bleck on the other side.
