I would guess it's the broader name applied to a narrower concept that's caused this shift. Earliest snapshot of the page
shows the intention from the start was video game specific, and the portion about other media was added sometime in 2013.
With that kind of name, I guess it's only inevitable non-game examples that don't fully fit the concept will appear.
I feel like it is suffering a similar issue to what Strength, Sorcery, Finesse did that caused the split to create Combat, Magic, Trickery Trio. Back when it was named Fighter, Mage, Thief, half of the page's examples were not of games.
Some people say I'm lazy. It's hard to disagree.I don't think there's any reason why it couldn't have non-videogame examples. The only key point is that it has to be the character getting temporary early access to a level of power that they're going to have later on.
Glancing at the first few entries in the non-videogame examples list, there are some that seem to fit (the Dandadan, Digimon, and Fairy Tale examples, which all note that it's the character getting temporary access to end-of-story powers early on) and some that don't (the Mazinger Z and My Hero Academia examples, which just seem to be a temporary power boost.)
The Naruto and Mookhyang examples are slightly unclear - the latter vaguely alludes to the fact that the character has to "start over", which probably enough to fit the trope as long as they're clearly progressing back towards where they were at the start, but the Naruto examples are more about the viewer getting to see the sorts of fights that will dominate the end of the series early, rather than characters themselves getting temporary access to endgame power. This is a case where the videogame aspect matters; in a videogame, it would qualify if the player temporarily controlled those characters but probably wouldn't otherwise?
But the Danadan, Digimion, Fairy Tale, and possibly Mookhyang examples all seem like straightforwardly the same trope as the one seen in videogames - I'm not sure it'd make sense to spin that off into a new trope, since the elements are basically the same. (Ofc Digimon is a pretty videogame-y show to begin with, but there's a lot of shows like that nowadays, enough that some "videogame" tropes are going to have non-game examples from those no matter what - ie. even a trope explicitly and unambiguously limited to videogame examples by fait, with a big VIDEOGAME EXAMPLES ONLY label at the top, can still reasonably have LitRPG examples.)
Edited by Aquillion on Oct 23rd 2024 at 12:19:47 PM
I think an expansion could work.
On that note — ~DRCEQ — be sure, before a TRS, you’ve done a proper wick check (I’d check video game vs. non video game examples here). I also recommend using the TRS Queue once you’re done - there’s indeed a big backlog, but it will be hard to get a thread without it (and we’ve been making a little more progress too as of late).
Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper WallWell, I'm seeing two main courses of action (if I'm going to take any), and one of them is absolutely the easier.
1. I create a separate trope for non-vg examples. I would probably need help brainstorming a title for it though.
2. The trope's laconic gets tweaked to imply that it doesn't have to be a video game player character.
The latter does not require TRS, and is probably the best course of action.
I mean, look at the "good" non-videogame examples I pointed out - they look like they serve the same narrative purpose as videogame examples to me? They serve to keep the initial episodes interesting and to give the viewer a sense of how the power system will work later on.
The context is slightly different but not enough to turn it into a separate trope; most tropes change in meaning, implementation, and application at least a little bit between radically-different mediums, but the basic idea and purpose remains the same here.
There's clearly a lot of cleanup necessary in the non-videogame section, mind you. But I think that good examples do exist.
Yeah, I agree that the basic definition of the trope is identical whether it's a video game or not. This is something we can do by consensus here, I think.
Trust me, I'm an engineer!Well, it should be determinable from the entry in the list; if not, that means there's not enough context. The ones I mentioned at least indicate the basic beats of "early preview of powers the protagonist will get later", though. Quoting them:
- Dandadan: Momo herself notes that when her Psychic Powers first manifested during the fight on the Serpoian Flying Saucer, she was a juggernaut of destruction, but now it's all she can do just to keep a lid on Okarun's curse from Turbo Granny. Her grandmother says she needs to practice and learn to draw her full power out again, and she indeed gradually improves.
- Digimon Fusion: In the first episode, Taiki somehow manages to create a strange spectral incomplete variation of Shoutmon X3 from just Shoutmon and Ballistamon, which is powerful enough to cause severe damage to MadLeomon's forces. They wouldn't be able to properly form Shoutmon X3 until numerous episodes later, when Dorulumon finally joined Xros Heart. Also the very first DigiMemory he summoned was Leviamon, the Demon Lord of Envy.
- Digimon Adventure: (2020): At the very end of the second episode, in order to defeat the Ultimate-Level Algomon, Greymon and Garurumon fuse into Omegamon, way too early for them to logically be allowed to be capable of becoming a fused Ultimate/Mega Level at will. Sure enough, it is later revealed that neither of the Digimon involved in the fusion have any memory of it, and it's heavily implied that it was straight-up granted to them by the holy Digimon both then and during the battle against Nidhoggmon.
- In Mookhyang: Dark Lady the titlar man is a Master Martial artist of incredible power transported to another world. For the first few dozen chapters Mookhyan all but unstoppable compared to nearly everyone in his new world due to having obtained massive Qi and enlightenment in his previous world. However, Mookhyang is cursed to change his body into that of an incredibly annoying little girl priestess. Since one's Qi and muscle tone are determined by the body one has, Mookhyang then has to start from square one all over again.
Those, as described, seem to broadly be the same trope as it is for videogames.
I guess the problem is that non-interactive media may have power escalation, but it has no need to be entirely linear and gradual or even well defined. Whereas videogames, if they have progression systems, need them to be regular or they lose their point. The character may get temporary boosts or losses in power (that's the trope in question), they may suddenly jump ahead or sometimes lose levels (but that is very rare nowadays), but there must be a strong overall trend to gain power with regular, discrete intervals. In any other medium, there is much less reason to be this strict.
Stories don't tell us monsters exist; we knew that already. They show us that monsters can be trademarked and milked for years.

I wanted to discuss this one before taking any TRP measures.
The laconic is: "The Player Character is given short lived access to mid-to-late game levels of power near the start."
Sounds good enough for a Video Game-specific trope... but there's also an entire second half of that trope page dedicated to non video game examples... Perhaps those should be its own trope? or should the trope itself be expanded to "Player Character/Narrative protagonists"?
Something just doesn't feel right about that. I know tropes are flexible, but the description seems adamant on being a video game trope.