Ambiguous Name: Elemental Rock Paper Scissors

[edit]
As much as I'm tempted to keep that as a page-topper, let me add some context. :P

Fair.

A link to the crowner: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/crowner.php/SingleProposition/ElementalRockPaperScissors?open=all#egq884ks

[edit 2]
And hollered.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Sep 25th 2019 at 9:19:54 PM

And thank you in turn. ^_^

I think we have enough votes that the crowner can be called in favor of keeping the current name. The timestamp says the crowner has been up since the 18th.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Sep 27th 2019 at 7:22:10 AM

The crowner has only been hooked for a few days. I'd give it the weekend before officially calling it, even though it seems obvious.

Fair enough. Since I've been sick lately, I've been less active with TRS stuff, so I didn't keep track of that.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Sep 27th 2019 at 7:53:56 AM

I was thinking about that myself. It did seem that a number of votes came in before the crowner was hooked (perhaps people accessed it via the link in my original post, or possibly stumbled upon it elsehow), so it's been active for longer than it's been hooked. That said, it was also far less visible before being hooked, so I agree that it makes sense to leave it up at the least over the weekend.

Personally I think we are doing things out of order. Depending on how we change things with the supertrope and potential redefines, 'renaming' might be actually wanted here.

Hmm... I think that I was under the impression that we had a general consensus on that, by this point—that there was a missing supertrope, but that the trope itself was fine.

However, if there's significant disagreement on that, then indeed, it would make sense to address it.

(And my apologies if I did jump the gun!)

So, a call for opinions: where do we stand on the definition of this trope?

For myself, I'm fine with it as it is. (Aside from that, if we do keep the current name, then I'll likely want a clarificatory line added.)

How do others feel?

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Sep 27th 2019 at 3:48:29 PM

Renaming clearly isn't the best option, as the crowner indicates. 2 for, 12 against. But give it time.

Memers has suggested about splitting it into further subtropes:

• Only 3 elements present in an RPS style (e.g. Fire > Wood > Water > Fire)
• More than 3 elements, their relationship forms a cycle (e.g. Fire > Metal > Wood > Earth > Water > Fire)
• Pairs of elements are paired as opposites (Fire <> Ice, Water <> Thunder, Light <> Darkness)

I disagree about making them further subtropes, but I think it should be noted in the description that these are common styles of Elemental RPS. Perhaps it could replace the "western style-eastern style" section since most of the examples do their own thing anyway.

What is 'western style' and 'eastern style' in respective of this trope? Cause there really isnt anything, most works its completely arbitrary.

And soft splitting like that could work but only one type specfically would be a subtrope to Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors though.

Also probably need to add a section on balancing the elements as well as a section on Non-Elemental (an element that exists separately from this) and Infinity +1 Element (an element that beats em all).

Edited by Memers on Sep 27th 2019 at 11:36:23 AM

Can we just actually explain what definition we're even using for this trope? There's been so much back-and-forth here, so many long posts about RPG elemental mechanics that just ended up confusing me, that I couldn't keep up. Did we come to a conclusion about what this trope even is? And if not, can we please discuss without having more walls of text about the technicalities of game mechanics? IDK if it was just me, but they were really hard to process.

Elemental Rock Paper Scissors is a magic system where X element is weak to Y element and Y element is weak to Z element and Z element is weak to X element.

X > Y > Z > X

As a cycle.

It is a form of elemental balance so that bringing the right tool for the right job is an element of strategy and preparing for a fight. You might show up to a fight not being able to do anything to an enemy and they would Curb Stomp you or if prepared or lucky you have the advantage and Curb Stomp the enemy.

It is not a video game specific thing as an elemental balance is a thing in religions such as Taoism and western works like D&D. Also animes and such have Elemental Specialist which only use 1 element and thus can be completely countered or Counter someone as a plot element.

Make sense?

EDIT: we dont have a trope about someone who specializes in specifically 1 element when they dont actually have to be?

Edited by Memers on Sep 27th 2019 at 11:39:08 AM

I was referring to this entire section of the trope's current description:

This doesn't add anything in my opinion, since a lot of works make up their own elemental system without referring to these so-called "primary systems".

As for Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors, I've said that we should discuss this later when we've decided what to do with this trope. Even then, I've had my doubts whether Tactical Rockpaper Scissors require strictly 3 "tactics" either.

Basically, the current trope is perfectly fine. It's a relationship between elements where X beats Y and is beaten by Z (none of them are required by to be different elements). As its simplest, it's a very similar to standard RPS, for example Fire beats Wood, Wood beats Water, and Water beats Fire. At one of its most complicated, see this Pokemon type chart, where notably one type (Normal) doesn't beat anything, two types (Grass and Poison) beat each other, and two types (Dragon and Ghost) beats themselves.

Edited by TrueShadow1 on Sep 28th 2019 at 6:14:46 PM

Ahh yeah that, honestly toss the whole section on an analysis page imo. A single line about how Taoism bases it’s beliefs on it at most, save everything else for the religion folder example.

And yeah we currently have tropes for those that ignore the rules (Non-Elemental) and beats all (Infinity +1 Element). Pokémon wise Typeless would be Non-Elemental and Dragon would be Infinity +1 Element. The tropes need to be better distinct though at saying that and explaining the difference .

Edited by Memers on Sep 28th 2019 at 4:51:19 AM

If there's still uncertainty as to what definition we're using, perhaps we should discuss it, indeed.

In short, I agree with True Shadow 1.

To expand, my reading is this: "Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors" describes a system in which elements have a hierarchy amongst themselves, such that element A beats element B, element B beats element C, and so on.

This may or may not form a cycle, as in traditional Rock-Paper-Scissors. Cycles are fairly common, I believe (a cycle has the advantage of balancing the elements, so that no one of them is "the best"). However, there are other options: For one, it may takes the form of mutual disadvantage (i.e. Element A beats element B, and element B beats element A). For another, it may form structures other than just a single cycle: multiple connected cycles, linear strings of elements, etc. And there may be other options that I'm missing.

In the end, what it comes down to is that given two elements from the system, you can look at them and say "element A just straightforward beats element B".

I do still stand against the "as a cycle" requirement. I see that as common, but not necessary.

I still strongly disagree with this. But then, as True Shadow 1 says, that's a discussion for another thread.

I primarily suggest that we add to the description a section that indicates that the trope doesn't require a cycle, and doesn't require exactly three elements.

(True Shadow 1's suggestion, above, could work to this end: by indicating that those are common types of this trope, it seems to me that it implies that the trope isn't limited to just "three elements in a cycle".)

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Sep 28th 2019 at 4:51:51 PM

Before this trs is closed, I need some clarity on what this trope is about. Is this trope about how effective one element is against another? It's previously mentioned that there is a predictable rule to what element is effective against what, it's this trope, so if enemies are weak/resistant/etc. against an element on an individual basis, it doesn't count.

So, does it apply when an element's effectiveness against an enemy based on, say, its monster class? What about for examples where enemies are weak/resistant/etc. against an element on an individual basis, but there is general group of enemies that are weak to a particular element? I can't pin-point what line to draw when it comes distinguishing this trope from the missing supertrope.

I find the description page to be too long, but I'll be taking it to the Trope Description thread. Any objections?

Let's make sure that we have consensus before taking further action, I think. Once we're overall agreed on the definition, we can discuss improving the description.

I would say that one of the defining characteristics here is that the relationship is between the elements themselves, not the things to which they're applied.

So, if you have two identical monsters, but one has the "Fire" element applied while another has the "Earth" element applied (let's say via some sort of elemental-attunement spell), then the element that would be effective against those monsters would differ.

The fact that they're the same monster—and indeed, the fact of which monsters they are—is irrelevant. It's the elements in play, and the relationship between elements, that determines effectiveness.

So I would say that none of the examples that you listed would apply. None of them seem to indicate a hierarchy between the elements themselves.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Sep 28th 2019 at 5:25:25 PM

I see. So enemies have an element assigned to them, and based on that element, an enemy is weak again certain elements, resistant to another etc?

Broadly-speaking, yes.

I mean, it's not necessarily about enemies—I daresay that I could envisage some sort of weird element-based farming game that used the trope, for example—but I think that it's probably by far most-commonly applied to matters of combat.

Also, to clarify, it's not necessarily the case that each enemy has only one assigned element. (See for example Pokemon, in which I believe that characters can have at least two elements.)

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Sep 28th 2019 at 8:01:49 PM

Not just enemies though player characters too, everything is part of the cycles of elements.

Indeed; that was something that I was trying to get across, but your statement puts it more clearly and elegantly. ^^;

I worded it wrong and meant game characters in general-I had no intention of complicating it further over to whom it applies to.

Now that the renaming is out of the way, we can move onto addressing this trope as a sub-trope of Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors. After this, we handle the trope desciption next.

Since this trope does not need to form into a cycle, can we all agree to go ahead and fix all pages that treat this trope as cyclical? Affected tropes include:

• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors itself: Written itself as a sub-trope of Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors
• Rock–Paper–Scissors: Describes this trope as a similar "X beats Y beats Z beats X" situation.
• Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: Written Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors to be its sub-trope
• These Tropes Are Equal: Describes elements as having equal strengths and weaknesses towards one another.

Edited by Kindle4Light on Sep 30th 2019 at 10:00:03 PM