Severe Misuse: Violation Of Common Sense

Making the really common ones subtropes would probably work well. It would keep them from outnumbering the other good examples and still keep things organized. We have subtropes for a reason.

A lot of the common ones already are subtropes over at Video Game Physics, which are screwy physics in games in general regardless whether they are helpful.

Likewise, there's You Fail Indexes Forever. Rocket Jumping is both Video Game Physics, although strangely doesn't appear to actually be listed there, and it's also You Fail Physics Forever.

Essentially all 'common' examples here are going to be tropes under one or both of those, or should be if they're actually 'common'.

But nothing stops us from listing them here, too, I guess. I don't think, strictly speaking, they'd be 'subtropes'...a TV show can be totally stupid about physics, too, even use Rocket Jumping, and that wouldn't be a subtrope of this.

Because a main component of this is that we, the players, have to figure the damn thing out, instead of just _watching_ something stupid, making it ten times more annoying.

Which is sorta why I'm in the 'common ones don't belong here', because you can figure out common ones easily. They are 'common sense', and hence aren't a violation of common sense, if you see what I mean.

But, since people would put them in anyway, we have to list the common ones anyway, if only to say 'Don't put every individual example of this common thing in the list. We know it makes no sense to jump on people's heads to kill them in a platformer.'.

I revamped the relevant descriptions, and also pruned Violation of Common Sense's examples. There were a ton of bad ones, so I just cut them instead of sorting them into the right trope. If someone else wants to go through the article history and sort them properly, feel free.

Yeah, looks much better. Now we must need to find some of the utterly crazy examples that were on the page months ago, but got removed as people confused this with Press X to Die.

Like the point in the HHGTTG adventure game that actually lampshades the fact you're doing something in violation of common sense...by making you remove your common sense first. I don't know if that was ever on the page, but it certainly should be.

the HHGTTG example was incredibly elaborate and very much an Invoked Trope.

First, there was a running gag that the inventory list always included a "no tea" item like this:

You have:

• no tea
• a splitting headache
• a gown
• a screwdriver

then, when you actually got the tea (very late in the game, i might add), you automatically drop the "no tea" item. You have to remove your own common sense in order to pick up "no tea" at the same time as having "tea" in order to impress a door with your superior philosophical skills by simultanously having tea and no tea.

Replying to something a page back, but the trick about reasonable expectations is that reasonable expectations can be affected by the player's knowledge of genre conventions. Rocket jumping is something that the player reasonably expects would work, because it's turned into such a staple of FPS games. So rocket jumping is Video Game Physics, and not any of the three categories. If it was not a genre convention but all of a sudden someone came out with a game that required you to use it to jump over something, it would be Violation of Common Sense. And if it wasn't a genre convention, but someone came out with a game that required that you use it because having your character injured and in the hospital is the only way to advance the plot, that's Stupidity Is the Only Option.

Stupidity Is the Only Option: player reasonably expects it's a bad idea, and it's treated as a bad idea by the game, but must be done to advance the game

Violation of Common Sense: player reasonably expects it's a bad idea, but it's treated as a good idea by the game

Note also that there's a difference between "treated as a bad idea by the game" and "isn't helpful when playing the game". Something could be beneficial, even necessary, for the player to do yet still be treated by the game as a bad idea.

edited 21st Nov '10 9:46:15 PM by arromdee

I agree, arromdee, that Violation of Common Sense should only include things that people can't apply a trope to figure out easily.

But people are going to include things that are video game conventions under this, no matter what, and if not stopped those examples would fill the entire trope. So they need to be here in groups, otherwise they'd be here individually!

Once we get enough of those on the page, we can break out a 'Video Game Physics' category that just takes those Video Game Physics that would be 'non-workable solutions', like rocket jumping and Not the Fall That Kills You…, where you're expected to jump off something and land in six inches of water or whatever, and explain why that wouldn't work, and point people to that trope for more information. (I.e., treat them like a child trope.)

And rename remaining stuff from the 'Examples' to 'Unique Examples', which I agree is the only real Violation of Common Sense, but there's functionally no way to have a page like that, and there's no real harm in the other category.

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