Trope Description Improvement Drive

I have a question about Alliterative Name.

What is the narrative purpose of this trope? What makes it a trope? Looking at the description, it seems to me that the trope is saying that the narrative purpose is to make a character's name more interesting and catchy for the purpose of making the character memorable to the audience and is particularly important in works with Loads And Loads Of Characters because of this. If so, how would this be captured in examples? It has a great page quote which shows an in-universe reference to the trope, but I'm guessing that most works won't have in-universe acknowledgements of the trope.

As far as I can tell, the trope is currently being used simply to list any character name in any work that happens to start with the same letter, which is frankly PSOC. The trope itself points out how common it is for people to have names that carry the same starting letters. I'm also seeing some examples which are talking about the same sound and some that talk about the same letter. The trope description does not appear to care about sound except where the Japanese language is concerned, which it singles out for that reason.

So, my question is this: is the trope description clear or is this something to instead raise in TRS as a case of possible trope misuse/decay?

Edited by Wyldchyld on Jul 31st 2019 at 9:17:53 AM

TRS as possible chairs.

It's like the other Added Alliterative Appeal tropes.

The Author chose it, and it's an obvious way to make names stand out.

I guess they're usually tied into quirky characters or something, like Pinkie Pie.

Edited by Malady on Jul 31st 2019 at 2:00:22 AM

When the meaning of the trope can only be conveyed in the description and not the examples (some other name and title tropes have this problem), it's better to just cut off all examples of it.

Probably not those in the work pages though.

So no on page examples?

Well, yeah.

The description of Mascot Fighter doesn't really explain what defines the genre. The closest it gets is saying that it is "rarely a series in and of itself, and is usually based off another game or anime series, or is a Massive Multiplayer Crossover".

The laconic page actually goes into more detail than the main page, but it sounds overly restrictive: It says "Fighting game with a cast of mascots from other series.", which would exclude games where the characters aren't mascots or all come from the same series, and contradicts the part in the main description where it says that the cast can come from a single game or anime.

How about this for a rewrite?

This paragraph on the Scrappy Mechanic page has always bugged me:

• However, sometimes a scrappy mechanic is completely necessary to a game. Perhaps the most well known example is Mario Kart's Blue Shell.^note For the uninitiated, it's a projectile that zooms straight to the person in 1st place and explodes, temporarily stopping anyone caught in the blast. Nobody likes it when they are in the lead and suddenly drop that lead when someone behind them gets lucky with an item drop, but without the Blue Shell, the game becomes noticeably less fun; the person in the lead gets so far ahead of everyone that they are just driving through barren stretches of road with no frantic encounters with other drivers, and the person in the back has no chance of ever surpassing the current lead.

While one can make the case that Mario Kart is better with Blue Shells than without, I think calling them "completely necessary" is just wrong. Firstly, there are plenty of opportunities for Comeback Mechanics even if the developers get rid of Blue Shells. Secondly, it's subjective whether Comeback Mechanics — especially luck-based ones — are a good thing at all. See Casual-Competitive Conflict. The hardcore side would argue that the scenario where someone gets very far ahead or behind is not a problem because someone who's significantly better than the rest of the players deserves to win by a lot, and that this can be avoided by making sure the players are at approximately the same skill level. Thirdly, even if the absence of Blue Shells would make Mario Kart somewhat less enjoyable, it's still not "completely necessary" for the game.

I suggest fixing it by finding a game or genre where an annoying mechanic really is necessary. Maybe an arcade game where the mechanic that keeps skilled players from playing indefinitely is frustrating to deal with?

Edited by MathsAngelicVersion on Aug 4th 2019 at 10:38:02 AM

I'd also suggest changing the phrasing from "completely necessary" to something softer. "This mechanic that you hate is completely necessary" invites argument. "This mechanic that you hate has its advantages" is a lot easier to agree with in principle, even if you still totally hate that mechanic.

If that's done, I honestly see no reason to bother changing the use of Mario Kart (unless there's a way to get the concept across without mentioning any specific work).

I'm not sure the paragraph is strictly necessary in any case. It's one of those things that's true as far as it goes, but not really part of the trope's core definition. Might be better-suited for an analysis subpage than the main trope description.

I'm also not sure if we need to keep the paragraph on the main page. On the one hand, I don't think it's necessary. On the other hand, I think it's somewhat useful to mention that these mechanics may have silver linings. I want to write an analysis anyway, so maybe we should just replace it with a short paragraph about why Scrappy Mechanics mechanics happen and say "see the Analysis subpage for more info" when I get around to writing it? Here's what I suggest:

• So why do these mechanics make it into games? Maybe the idea was fine, but the mechanic was rushed to meet a deadline. Maybe Executive Meddling forced the developers to shoehorn in a mechanic the game didn't really benefit from. And sometimes the mechanic does have upsides that make the developers choose to put it in and keep it around. (See the Analysis subpage for more a thorough discussion.)

The analysis will try to answer the question "What mechanics tend to become Scrappy Mechanics, and why do they find their way into otherwise fun games?"). The mention of the Blue Shell will probably be something like this: "The casual side of the Casual-Competitive Conflict would argue that the infamous Blue Shell from Mario Kart is good because it keeps a skilled player from getting too far ahead, and may allow the weaker players an occasional victory."

Things like blue shell are only Scrappy Mechanic to some. I can name another one: X-Factor from Marvel Vs Capcom 3. Most SM examples tend to be accepted unanimously by the players.

Not saying that it's a misuse, but they're definitely distinct compared to other examples.

Can anyone here understand what the narrative significance of Not Their Birthday is supposed to be? I had originally set out to fix the description's many grammatical and stylistic problems, but I didn't feel confident rewriting some of the sentences because the description didn't give me a very good understanding of how the trope is used.

The laconic describes it as "Everyone thought it was a character's birthday, but it isn't.".

Well yes, I understood that much, but that still leaves me with a lot of questions about the details. Ideally, the description would clear things up, but, well...

Maybe the description is too broad? The first paragraph being in second-person isn't helping, either.

Edited by Crossover-Enthusiast on Aug 11th 2019 at 5:09:10 AM

Also, the page continuously misspells SpongeBob as Spongebob.

Also, I'm fairly certain that's Not A Trope. It's too general, covering literally any example of 'X thinks it's Y's birthday but Y says it's not'. If you want to take "Un Birthday Party", the concept poorly described in the opening of the description, to TLP, that might be better.

So Not Their Birthday needs to go to TRS, then?

With some rewriting, Not Their Birthday can be clear on what forms this could take.

I left it a little while to see if there were any further responses on Alliterative Name.

What's the decision on it? Should I take to the TRS?

I'd like to add Shaped Like Itself to this. I read the description and found it very tough to read because of the many parentheses and awkward paragraphs. I also think that the word tautology is used in a quite complicated way.

So do I have a go-ahead to take Not Their Birthday to the Trope Repair Shop? I couldn't find any other existing tropes about party-throwers getting the date wrong, but if that's indeed what the trope should be about, then it has a rather poorly chosen name.

Go for it.