Ambiguous Name: Elemental Rock Paper Scissors

What I was think the super trope was.

An elemental weakness and resistance system. In Video Games its typically extremely structured with set types, some of which we have tropes for those specific things.

• Insta Kill, Revive Kills Zombie type effects with elements.
• Extreme Weakness, 4x damage
• Weakness 1.5x to 2.0x damage
• Normal damage, exactly what it says on the tool tip.
• Resistant .5x or .25x damage
• Immunity, complete No-Sell
• Repel, it reflects the spell
• Absorption, Elemental Absorption to power up or Feed It with Fire when it heals.

Games will usually display their status with this with some flavor of Enemy Scan. Works often have items and abilities that inflict a weakness or strength, occasionally temporary such as throwing a can of Oil at an enemy makes them weaker to fire.

Rarely works will throw 'Physical Elements' into the mix such as 'piercing' and 'slash' damage which can run the full gambit. (how one heals from a sword slash I will never know but Persona 3 does it.)

If a work has this and has an element that ignores all of these then that is Non-Elemental. If a monster's weakness makes sense in real life it is Logical Weakness, IE a water monster weak to lightning, Logical Elemental Weakness (possibly).

If a work has a static system of elements where anyone's weakness can be predicted by the rules of the system that would be Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors.

____

The last sentence is more going with the general direction this thread was going. I dont entirely agree but its workable.

I do think Logical Elemental Weakness should be a thing as Logical Weakness isn't quite written to our needs.

Edited by Memers on Sep 14th 2019 at 10:45:25 AM

Great, and thanks. ^_^

I don't know: "Elemental Interactions", "Elemental Tactical Interactions", and "Effectiveness Among Elements" all seem pretty general, to me.

But then, that's an argument for coming up with names via discussion before creating a crowner: that way we can come up with a list of names that we agree are generally fitting, and choose amongst those.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Sep 14th 2019 at 8:33:32 PM

Do you know whether there's supposed to be a specific set of rules for this trope? I thought that for this case, it would be what elements are weak/strong/immune etc to what other elements.

As I see it, this trope specifically covers the case in which there's a hierarchical structure of sorts between elements, such that certain elements "defeat" certain others. This hierarchy is often circular, but is sometimes complex or one of mutual-disadvantage.

In short, and roughly-speaking, this covers the case in which, given two elements, you can say "Element A beats Element B".

However, in many works you simply have characters with elemental vulnerabilities or strengths: "character X is weak to element A, while character Y is immune to element B", etc. There's no hierarchy between elements here, no structure—just tags applied to characters. That would then fall under the super-trope, not this one.

(But of course, I stand to be argued with on this!)

In most works Elemental Weaknesses are completely arbitrary, they are just there to enable the system. So 1 monster might be weak to fire and strong to ice and then the next fire weak monster might be strong to wind and you might have a monster that looks weak to fire but they absorb it.

A Palette Swap of the same monster for example would be enough of an excuse to make the elements different. Heck the same person but as a boss fight instead of being a player character can have them different too. Even subsequent boss fights can change the same thing's weaknesses or strengths.

Sometimes these weaknesses or strengths make sense such as a fish monster is weak to lightning though but other than that there is no system behind it and not every fish might be weak to lightning, especially as the game goes on, and there is no balance system.

However in some works Elemental Weaknesses and Strengths are static and a LAW of the setting and balanced appropriately, anything and everything is subject to said law. A Fire monster is always weak to Water and a Water monster is always weak to Grass, no matter what and no Contractual Boss Immunity. The player is always a part of this too as you need to protect your own butt from being exploited.

This kind of thing is very much this subtrope to above.

Edited by Memers on Sep 17th 2019 at 11:27:57 AM

An example This monster◊ is weak to fire but No-Sell Ice and Reflects sword attacks.

This◊ Palette Swap Nulls Light, Dark and Strike damage, strong vs fire, pierce and slash.

Same random enemy monster model with a slight color change but completely different everything. Completely nonsensical but the Elemental system is there.

Edited by Memers on Sep 17th 2019 at 12:46:40 PM

Okay, I feel like we've stalled a bit, so let's see whether we can get things moving again.

I think that we have a broad agreement on what the trope covers. (Although I do stand to be corrected, if anyone has any objections.)

So, I've made a new single-proposition crowner, asking the question of whether or not to rename the trope, and intend to holler for it to be hooked here in replacement of the name-selection crowner.

The crowner should be available here: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/crowner.php/SingleProposition/ElementalRockPaperScissors?open=all#egq884ks

[edit] And I've hollered.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Sep 18th 2019 at 3:59:20 PM

How about some variation of "super effective"? Like Its Super Effective or Super Effective Attack? Or maybe just plain old Super Effective (currently a disambig)?

I think that would more likely fit the proposed more-general super-trope than this one.

Alright, I added them to the crowner.

I've actually asked that the crowner be taken down—there seems to have be a broad consensus that it was a bit premature. I'm hoping that it will be replaced with the requested single-proposition crowner, which addresses the question of whether we do indeed want to rename the trope.

Presuming that the vote is then in favour of renaming, I want to gather names before putting up a new crowner.

Nevertheless, thank you for the suggested name! Please hold on to it until we're ready for name-gathering.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Sep 18th 2019 at 8:13:19 PM

Super Effective would be really REALLY broad and cover a bajilion things not connected to the Elements. Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors Attack Its Weak Point, Situational Damage Attack, and a bunch of other tropes.

Also it doesn't cover the opposite of that, Not Very Effective. This trope is a balancing act of both specifically, a system of both in specific ways that is one of the laws of the setting.

Edited by Memers on Sep 18th 2019 at 11:53:02 AM

I agree with that the "super-effective" name implies that this trope only covers elemental weaknesses and not the rest. Also, next time, don't throw all possible suggestions into the crowner; I prefer to keep the options small as possible.

Thank you; it's appreciated. ^_^

So now our course if action is to decide whether the trope needs a rename, right?

I think Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors is a perfectly fine name, if you're willing to expand the fefinition of "rock paper scissors" a bit, but I'm not that opposed to a rename.

Yup. I'm actually waiting for the mods to hook a single-proposition "rename"-crowner, which should allow us to vote on the matter.

I feel pretty much the same way: I think that "Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors" works well, given that tropes are flexible. However, if it's causing confusion or vexation, then I'm not opposed to a rename, either—and I daresay that a more-fitting name could be found.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Sep 21st 2019 at 5:19:25 PM

There must be a mistake in the OP, because TV Tropes didn't exist in 2003.

The "2003" note never actually said TV Tropes did exist at the time. And it's irrelevant anyway.

So what was it talking about then?

What are you specifically referring to? I don't remember saying anything about 2003.

I'm guessing that they're referring to the note in the second paragraph under "About This Thread", which begins with: "The original statement goes beyond 2003 ..."

Huh. I don't know why I recorded as some date as 2003 when the earliest edit was Aug 5th 2010. As for the other note, I got the year wrong, it's supposed to be 2013 and not 2003.

Edited by Kindle4Light on Sep 22nd 2019 at 11:13:17 PM

Should I holler again for the renaming crowner to be hooked, or wait a little longer?

I'd say holler