Duplicate Trope: Excessive Steam Syndrome

There's Excessive Steam Syndrome and Steam Vent Obstacle. While Steam Vent Obstacle is listed as a video game trope, both are about steam vents as an obstruction, so I suggest a merge under Steam Vent Obstacle (since it seems like a pretty straightforward title) and maybe changing the description so it's not video game only.

I think there's an argument for video games to get their own trope, if its a puzzle obstacle that the player has to overcome. But seeing that the Excessive Steam Syndrome page has exactly one media example that's not from a video game, sure, let's merge them.

Wow, Excessive Steam Syndrome has been around since at least 2010, according to Wayback, and in all that time, it's managed to gather five whole examples? And 14 wicks? There seem to be multiple problems here.

eta: OP's proposal sounds like a good one to me.

edited 8th Jul '12 7:17:04 PM by Xtifr

I disagree. This trope isn't restricted to video games, and I think it means:

• Steam only for Rule of Cool
• Very leaky steam pipes
• Steam pipes that suddenly end and as a result, emit a lot of steam
• More steam than should be there (leaky pipes don't count there)

Stanley Steamer Spaceship is this trope, inside a spaceship.

edited 8th Jul '12 9:01:37 PM by spacemarine50

So Steam then?

Sounds like a good candidate for redirecting to an actual trope.

Steam is something else. Steam as a trope, as in just plain steam, would be People Sit On Chairs.

Steam Vent Obstacle is a trope about steam being an obstacle in Video Games

Excessive Steam Syndrome is a trope with a half-Example as a Thesis about the obstacle effects of hot steam being ignored for Rule of Drama. Compare the following line: A term coined by Iain Banks in his novel Dead Air. It refers to ludicrous hazards and difficulties that appear added solely for dramatic effect no matter how spurious or counterproductive.

Stanley Steamer Spaceship is about steam inexplicably appearing in large amount on presumably more advanced spaceships.

Perhaps Steam Vent Obstacle should be broadened to not just include video games?

I don't quite understand spacemarine's response. Which trope isn't limited to video games, and how does saying that one (whichever it might be) isn't limited relevant to the question of whether these should be merged? If Steam Vent Obstacle (the only one that mentions video games) isn't limited to video games, then I fail to see any difference between these tropes. (Although that's in part because Excessive Steam Syndrome is so vague.)

Excessive Steam Syndrome has serious problems, whether or not it's a duplicate of anything else. Steam Vent Obstacle looks like the same, except limited to video games (or so it seems to me, unless spacemarine can elaborate). It's also not doing very well. (It's better only in the sense that it has more total examples—it's totally lacking in cross-wicking.)

One trope says, "this is a common thing in video games". The other says, "this is unrealistic". But otherwise, they both seem to be describing the same thing, and I'm not sure the distinction is enough to justify two tropes when we only have a handful of examples between the two. I'm not a lumper, but when you have a trope that's only gathered five examples in two years, you may be splitting too finely.

edited 9th Jul '12 11:48:10 AM by Xtifr

The Alien example is already an example for Stanley Steamer Spaceship, and other than that example, they're all for video games (except for the real life example which always gets the short end of the stick anyhow.)

Maybe Steam Vent Obstacle can stay being a videogame only trope?

Edit: To clarify, I meant the Alien example on the Excessive Steam Syndrome page.

edited 11th Jul '12 12:39:41 AM by MSPachina

Did you read Steam Vent Obstacle? It's really damn videogame specific. You'd need to give it an entirely new definition to make it general. It's about a specific type of video game mechanic obstacle.

This seems like one of the really bad uses of "syndrome."

Whoops. I got my tropes my mixed up. Just ignore this.

edited 10th Jul '12 8:21:49 PM by David7204

I think it can be used for non-games, if the steam is actualy used as an obstacle.

I support a merge, by the way.

Excessive Steam Syndrome (the name, not description) seem to imply just having a lot of steam for the mood of the setting. Which also is a trope. Stanley Steamer Spaceship is just specific about it being sci-fi.

Excessive Steam Syndrome is pointless, merge it, problem solved.

Steam Vent Obstacle should be enlarged to include steam (or steam-like cryogenic) vents used as an obstacle in any media, not just games — I don't think it'd be that difficult. The description is pretty short and to the point, and though it talks about glitchy hit detection, it would be easy to change it to say, "When encountered in video games..."

I think Stanley Steamer Spaceship is fine too; it seems to be about steam as a visual effect in places where it's not really logical to have steam flying around. Those may or may not be a Steam Vent Obstacle — somtimes they're literally JUST the visual effect and nobody has any problem walking through the vision-obscuring curtain. (In fact, in scifi that's probably far MORE common than steam/cryogas that's actually treated as dangerous.)

edited 11th Jul '12 7:39:45 AM by Escher

Moved the examples over, changed the wicks, and put Excessive Steam Syndrome on the cutlist.

Now I guess someone's gotta write a new description for Steam Vent Obstacle. I saw one non-video game example (Doctor Who), so that's a start.

Edit: Sorry, didn't know. Thank you for fixing it.

edited 20th Jul '12 2:51:15 PM by MSPachina

And you forgot to...

• Make the note on the discussion page
• Redirecting the page for the 30 inbounds

We apparently still need an expansion to non-video game specific on Steam Vent Obstacle here.

EDIT: And the cut was declined. We have a mess here.

edited 30th Aug '12 10:50:10 AM by ccoa

Stiiiiill waiting here.

The best thing to do here would be to revert the whole change so far. Steam Vent Obstacle really doesn't sound like Excessive Steam Syndrome.

I don't see enough of an overlap to warrant a merge. Excessive Steam Syndrome does not need to be an obstacle, and Steam Vent Obstacle doesn't have to be in an improbable or nonsensical place.

The way Excessive Steam Syndrome is written, it is an obstacle, even if the hero "somehow manages to dash his way out." And all but two of the examples on the page are video game Steam Vent Obstacles.

Excessive Steam Syndrome is where the obstacle serves no story purpose and makes one wonder why it was installed and why the heroes got past it so easily.

^ Exactly: it's not really an obstacle at all.

I think we can merge Excessive Steam Syndrome with Stanley Steamer Spaceship. The latter is just a more specific version I'm not sure is needed.

Steam Vent Obstacle does sound like its own trope, since it has a different purpose. It's meant to be an obstacle first and foremost, while the other two tropes are about setting the mood. However, I don't think it should be strictly limited to Video Games, since a Steam Vent Obstacle is an obstacle made of a steam vent whether it's in a Video Game or in a film or book. A variant can be the very high-pressure airflow I've once or twice seen in submarine stories when a pipe leaks, and the airflow is dangerous enough to cut through the broom they're always showing how dangerous it is with. Invisible, but the same trope.

Just because they look the same doesn't mean they serve the same purpose in the story, and that's what matters for tropes. Otherwise it's just Steam Comes From Chairs.

We probably also need to separate the examples properly, as I'm sure there are at least a few misuses.

edited 3rd Nov '12 12:35:48 PM by AnotherDuck