Duplicate Trope: Porn Without Plot

No Plot? No Problem! is about works that contain no plot, because this is not expected of the genre in question.

Porn Without Plot is about works that contain no plot and are porn, because a plot is not expected of the genre in question. So that's the exact same trope, except limited to porn. Since we don't generally do media-specific or genre-specific subtropes, and since neither page is particularly long, I suggest we merge PWP into NPNP.

No Plot? No Problem! is usually rather uncommon, while Porn Without Plot is often expected from porn.

Also, NPNP all talks about setting to me.

edited 1st May '13 9:59:36 AM by SeptimusHeap

NPNP is common for many retro games, such as any tetris/breakout/pacman/boulderdash clone. I don't see a problem with adding "99% of all porn movies" as a straight example on the NPNP page.

I also note that most of the "straight" non-game examples on NPNP actually belong under Excuse Plot instead.

edited 1st May '13 10:00:27 AM by Spark9

Porn Without Plot is a pre-existing term.

No Plot? No Problem! is a gaming trope misused for other media.

Why would it be a games-only trope, though? We don't generally restrict tropes to one particular kind of media. I'm suggesting that we should broaden it.

edited 2nd May '13 1:47:04 AM by Spark9

We have lots of tropes that are games only. Take Regenerating Health. People can regenerate health in movies, but Regenerating Health is for the gameplay mechanic by which the player regains health over time.

No Plot? No Problem! is Gameplay Without Story, like Pac Man or FPS multiplayer maps. That doesn't translate to to non-gaming media. You can't have a movie where there's no plot - if you're tempted to say "there's no plot," you really mean "there's barely any plot" or "there's not much plot progression" but there can't be no plot. Unless it's some bizarre statement against plot in general such as a whole movie of someone eating a sandwich in silence. Even two people sitting and talking is a plot.

An exception is porn. There can be zero dialog or plot but just people screwing each other for literally no stated reason and that's fine because that's all you're here to see. Porn Without Plot.

Now that I look through the wicks of No Plot? No Problem!, I see that there's hardly any misuse - people correctly use it exclusively for games.

I'm not seeing any difference, trope-wise, between a game (that has no plot) and a movie of people screwing (that has no plot), or for that matter a Stick Figure Fight animation (that has no plot) or a Word Salad Lyrics song (that has no plot). Why should we have to make a third page for non-game non-porn works that have no plot?

But while we're on the subject of examples, I think that pretty much every non-game example on this page itself is misuse, and so are the so-called inversions (because "a third party making a parody trailer for a plotless game" is a completely different trope), so I suggest we start by cutting these.

Because "Porn without plot" is a very entrenched concept that is different as such from No Plot? No Problem!.

^^ Those are all quite different, but we don't need a third page for non-plot works because "no plot" isn't a trope. It doesn't say what the work is; it just says what it isn't.

However Gameplay Without Plot is a type of game. Plot Without Porn is a type of porn.

I cut the bad examples, but I'm happy to say there was little misuse. Most of the other media examples were just referencing this video game trope.

The inversions are more like parodies, but this seems the best place to list them.

Adding a Me Too! to everything Amy Gdala and Septimus Heap said.

I don't see a reason to merge.

There might be an argument for renaming No Plot? No Problem! to something like Gameplay Without Plot just to clarify the trope. However, there is no evidence of enough misuse, either on the page or the wicks, to require a rename. Also, with 230 wicks and 169 inbounds, I would say that it is a healthy trope.

This may be a case of a Missing Supertrope.

Good point.

I've seen Porn Without Plot as a specific term in fanfic—a fic with sex scenes and little to no pretense of anything else. (Fanfic *usually* has a plot, thought PWP is a subgenre.)

^^^ Yeah, if one is games and the other porn that would make these sister tropes.

No Plot? No Problem! is the name of a book on how to succeed at Na No Wri Mo, and I think the book came first... At the very least it's a misleading name for a trope that's supposed to be just about gameplay.

So how does taking the name No Plot? No Problem! and turn it into the supertrope for "this thing has no plot but you don't mind" and adapting the very to the point Gameplay Without Story for the game-specific subtrope sound?

edited 4th May '13 12:43:24 AM by arbiter099

People might treat such a supertrope as YMMV or use if for Excuse Plot, even though both the current tropes are objective.

edited 4th May '13 1:08:38 AM by AmyGdala

People already use NPNP for Excuse Plot sometimes.

I thought they would, but a quick check turned up virtually no misuse.

So, what do we need to do here? Looking through this topic, "nothing" seems to be an answer.

I suggest a page action crowner. And yes, "do nothing" is a possible outcome thereof.

Between which options? I am only seeing one good proposition and that would be "do nothing".

Merge the two; ensure NPNP is not a videogame-only trope; rename NPNP since it shares a title with a work; I'm sure there's some other suggestions above.

Short stories typically have no actual plot—just the characters moving around and the main character thinking a lot. Like in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart", a character is murdered before the actual narration, then the murderer discusses how he moved the body—also before the story begins. The only things that actually happens during the story is the murderer sits in a room talking to himself, then some cops show up; they sit down and the murderer admits to the crime on the spot.

I think Wick had it spot on that this could use a supertrope. It could at least go in the crowner.

edited 20th May '13 11:38:10 AM by DunDun