Trope Description Improvement Drive

• Control Room Puzzle: Multiple objects to interact with. Only the correct sequence works, incorrect one does normally resets the puzzle. The solution is typically given somewhere.
• Tile-Flipping Puzzle: Multiple intractable that switch state. Interacting with one also triggers other objects. There are no hints, you just click on them until all are in the correct state.

They are distinct. Implying they are not would imply other Stock Video Game Puzzle are the same because they require "finding the right combination", which is effectively a definition of any puzzle.

Thanks, ya'll! I was already fine with the current state of things about 6 hours ago. I wouldn't have finished crosswicking Tile-Flipping Puzzle otherwise.

Sorry for making all of you go through all that trouble just because I wasn't clear on that!

So, to change the topic:

What's In It For Me? is just:

Should we expand on it somehow?

Edited by Malady on Feb 12th 2024 at 3:04:13 AM

No problem, and I apologize for my impatience.

As for the description for What's In It For Me?, it should include a reference link to Dude, Where's My Reward?, as sometimes the character does not get the reward he was promised.

Some time ago, Phoenixprominence expanded the description of No Party Like a Donner Party to say that humans cannot live on a diet of only meat, and thus survival cannibalism may lead to "death by malnutrition".

I deleted the part talking about "malnutrition" as pointless because the trope is about people opting for cannibalism when they are threatened by starvation. Starving to death is death by malnutrition. Disregarding the ethical dilemmas, survival cannibalism will probably not reduce a starving person's chance of survival (even if it may not increase it all that much).

Phoenixprominence then, without giving an edit reason, re-added the remark on how eating only meat can lead to malnutrition, with only the wording changed.

I pm'ed them about the edit and asked them what was their argument for keeping it. The reply was a line that did not really address the argument.

So I'm submitting this to the judgment of this thread. To me, this "malnutrition" warning reads like we're warning our readers to never eat only human meat for an extended period of time because they might accidentally starve to death. But if they eat a plate of veggies with every cannibalistic feast, they should be fine. Good advice no doubt, but the trope is about people turning to cannibalism because they are starving and don't have a plate of veggies to begin with. Or am I somehow reading it wrong?

Edited by LordGro on Feb 15th 2024 at 11:34:16 AM

Unfortunately, Phoenix has edit-warred, so this is probably an Ask The Tropers matter.

Well they did rephrase their edit, even though I am not sure if that was a reaction to my edit reason or not.

Shameful Shrinking starts with an overly specific Example as a Thesis. Cut the first paragraph?

On the Laconic Description Improvement thread here, Coachpill raised a concern about the description on the main What Happened to the Mouse? page. According to part of the troper's quote:

The main page edit Coachpill's referring to can be found here. Given that, I wonder what we should do about this particular trope's description. Any ideas?

Edited by gjjones on Feb 17th 2024 at 2:11:40 PM

Can we get any opinions on the No Party Like a Donner Party case, specifically the bolded sentence in the following paragraph?

Note that, in a real-life survival situation, this isn't all that helpful. The meat of a starving human, by definition, does not contain the necessary nutrients to support a starving human. (See fat starvation.) Also worth noting is that digesting meat requires certain vitamins that can't be replenished through meat alone, potentially leading to serious malnutrition if not supplemented by other food.

These were apparently unilateral changes and should be reverted. Major characters or storylines being dropped are their own tropes (Chuck Cunningham Syndrome, Aborted Arc.

The bolded part doesn't really add anything in my opinion.

It's not really germane to the trope that's about fictional depictions, so it's not "worth noting", IMO. I'm fine with the bold part getting cut entirely.

I agree, though I think the whole paragraph (not just the bolded part) would be a better fit for JustForFun.Television Is Trying To Kill Us than the main trope page.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Feb 18th 2024 at 1:35:47 PM

(x6) Sounds fine to me.

(x5) They should be reverted since they were unilateral changes.

(x4) I feel it's unneeded so I agree with removing it.

This has just been added to Argentina Is Nazi Land -

The troper who added it hasn't use the forums for a couple of years, so it looks unilateral, but it's not changing the trope scope itself. Any thoughts? Keep?

my first thought was revert

I'd say move to analysis.

I don't have a problem with it. I guess it could be moved to Analysis, since the last few sentences don't seem all that relevant to the trope as used in fiction.

So over the past few months, one user, artman40 has been adding a few things to the description for Narm. Nothing major, just a few sentences here and there.

This is one I take issue with, though.

"In video games, untimely graphical or even audio glitch can also turn a serious and dramatic scene into something comical instead. "

I feel like a glitch is kind of the opposite of Narm, since glitches are, by definition, unintentional.

There's also this sentence (which is much older, not sure who added it)

" Dated special effects during dramatic scenes can cause Narm for younger audience members who were raised on nothing less convincing than the Phantom Menace. "

First of all, the special effects for Phantom Menace have flaws of their own. Second of all, the Phantom Menace came out in 1999. If you saw it when you were, say...12, you'd be in your late thirties now.

Narm is about unintentionally funny scenes, and glitches are unintentional, so not sure what's the issue. Unless we're saying Narm is about scenes planned in advance.

Yes, for 30 year old viewers Phantom Menace can look silly?

Edited by Amonimus on Feb 21st 2024 at 7:48:20 PM

Narm is about specific narrative moments. If a glitch can be tied to something like that, always, it might count.

But just something like "your player sometimes clips through the floor" doesn't rise to the level.

I think the sentence is talking about viewers "raised on the Phantom Menace", meaning...30 year olds. (the "nothing less" than is natter)

And referring to them as younger viewers—it's just tangent anyway. Besides which, i don't think it fits all the way. Yes Narm is subjective, but it has to be a bit more than just "these are old effects." Plus, don't we have an item for FX failures?

I don't think that we should compare special effects to The Phantom Menace or any other work. Either remove the entire sentence or just the comparison. I'd just remove the sentence, as dated special effects don't make a scene inherently silly. We have other tropes such as Special Effect Failure or Conspicuous CG for that.

Yes that was my thinking as well. Ill trim it.

A while back I stumbled across Somebody Set Up Us the Bomb and thought the name had to be some sort of typo because it made absolutely no grammatical sense. I've since learned that it's a meme or something, but the thing is, that's not mentioned anywhere in the description. As a result, the page indirectly "acts" like the name is perfectly normal and reasonable, when to someone not in the know it's anything but.

Since we generally try to avoid Fan Myopia, is it okay to add a line or something explaining where the name comes from? I know that would have saved me a lot of confusion trying to figure out what the heck it was supposed to mean.

All Your Base Are Belong to Us is also named after a memetic line from the same game, and it has this at the bottom of the trope description:

Do you think it would be a good idea to put that at the bottom of Somebody Set Up Us the Bomb?

Edited by chasemaddigan on Feb 23rd 2024 at 7:15:41 AM

I'm good with adding that note; the title is too obscure otherwise. ("All your base are belong to us" at least has the benefit of being well-known.)

Edited by jandn2014 on Feb 23rd 2024 at 7:17:12 AM