Gambit Roulette: Difference between revisions

** It should also be noted that every member of the initial party is somehow working for Yuuko or Fei Wong. All of them had been previously manipulated by the two [[The Chessmaster|chessmasters]] into the circumstances which led them to Yuuko's shop. Only one of them knows which side he's playing for from the beginning, but even his memories were changed to better serve the [[Big Bad]].

* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]''

** Later on, Yami Bakura's master plan comes up, which [[Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series|took over 200 bloody episodes]] to come to fruition.

** Furthermore, in just about every duel in the series, the opposing duelist is always thought to be a [[Chessmaster]], no matter how competent (or not) the duelist actually is. If I had a nickel for every time a duelist says something to the effect of "he was planning it from the start!" (with the only logical exception being Atem/Yami Yugi because he can control destiny with his wi), I'd be a very rich contributor.

* Both seasons of [[Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex]] tend to rely on both sides playing these against one another, with an [[Anti-Villain]] caught in the middle.

* Toua Tokuchi of ''[[One Outs]]'' is a frequent user of this trope, [[Magnificent Bastard|though he still manages to make it look pretty damn awesome.]]

* The entire plot of "[[Berserk]]" is one big [[Gambit Roulette]]. Justified by events being orchestrated by {{spoiler|an [[Eldritch Abomination]]}}.

 

* ''[[The Game (film)|The Game]]''. Although it's implied at the end that they had backup plans here and there, not to mention a detailed psych profile on Nicholas to figure out exactly how he'd react, it's hard to believe that CRS could control every detail so completely.

* The terrorist plot in ''[[Die Hard 2]]'' depends on a conveniently-timed severe (but not too severe!) snow storm on the day their leader was being transported. Perhaps there was a deleted scene featuring a weather machine.

* Subverted in ''[[Mystery Men]]'' in an exchange between Captain Amazing and Casanova Frankenstein that culminates with [[I Know You Know I Know|"I only knew that you'd know that I knew. Did you know that?"]]

* Eisenheim's plan in ''[[The Illusionist (film)|The Illusionist]]'' to fake his love's death and blame it on the Crown Prince of Austria has too many elements to have been coordinated and pulled off as masterfully as it was.

{{quote|''What is it with all these complex plots, huh? What is it? Is it a Swiss thing, is that what it is?'' (...) ''No, no, don't defend it, please.'' (...) ''Please, will you just admit it?'' (...) ''You're ridiculous. You are! I mean, you join the Q gland design team just so you can steal the design. You... you make me think Kevin's alive so I can lead you to some files that, hey, Buddy? You could have found on your own with a little research. Then you give me the flu so I can what? Wind up in some hospital room and you can take the gland out of me? Douche. Rube Goldberg has got nothing on you, pal.''}}

* Lampshaded by the National Security Advisor in the Season 4 finale of ''[[The West Wing]]'': the terrorists' entire plan to kidnap the daughter of the President of the United States hinged, first, on her taking some of her boyfriend's Ecstasy (which had been laced with GHB) and, second, on her deciding to use the bathroom in the club before leaving.

* Boyd Langton's plan in ''[[Dollhouse]]''. The goal is to have Echo repeatedly imprinted, so that her resistance to imprinting will leave chemical markers in her spinal fluid, which he can then harvest and use to create a vaccine against imprinting. To this end, he installs himself as Echo's handler on a long-term basis, without anyone else in the Dollhouse knowing who he really is. During this time, Echo is sent on several engagements that nearly get her killed, as well as one or two that nearly get ''him'' killed, and he really has no reason to be so sure that she will survive. Not only that, but he's simultaneously testing Topher and Adelle to see whether or not they're worthy to be among his 'family' that will survive after the mind-wipe apocalypse.

** Keep in mind, he didn't ''just'' want Echo for that---he admitted he really did love her and wanted her as part of his "family" too. He mentions that he had wanted all of them to "grow" through the challenges he presented. And of course, as Adelle commented: he is ''spectacularly'' insane.

** Potentially a subversion. At first glance, the Scuba Diver does seem to rely on an uncontrollable event and a second person performing a [[Plan]] of their own, but neither are really required. Barney did not specifically need to steal that particular girl, Lily regularly has set up Ted on dates, and any one of them could have started his plan. Lily's plan wasn't actually required, she could have just grabbed the book out of his hands and ran and Barney's plan still would have worked. Barney baited her to launch the gambit, but he didn't actually need it.

* An interesting justified version happened in the first episode of [[Sherlock]], where the murder victim used Gambit Roulette to lay out a trail of clues to help the police identify her killer. Yes, it was a roulette, but considering that she had to concoct and execute this plan within the last hour or so of her life while under the watchful eyes of her killer, it makes sense that it wasn't planned out better.

* Happens in ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' episode ''The Most Toys''. Collector [[Complete Monster|Kivas Fajo]] wants to add Lt. Data to his collection. To succesfully kidnap Data and fake his accidental death, he poisons the water supply of a Federation colony with Tricyanate, making it look like a natural disaster. Because the only antidote, Hitridium, is extremely unstable, he's the only merchant in the region selling the [[Green Rocks]] needed to solve this catastrophe. Said green rocks cannot be beamed, thus they must be be shuttled over because they are highly volatile, resulting in a good cover-up for any accidental explosion of the shuttle. His plan, however, hinged on the fact that Picard would send Data on the simple job of ferrying things back and forth, and this is nothing the collector has any control over. Furthermore, Data is not even the crew's best pilot (that honor goes to Riker), and being a high ranking member of the crew, he could very well not have been available to do this ferrying job. Furthermore, the Enterprise has HUNDREDS of crewmembers Picard can choose from. Thankfully, it seems fate threw him a bone and Picard decided to pick Data for the job that day.

** Not to mention it leaned heavily on the Enterprise being the closest ship in the sector to respond to the distress call from the colony.

** Speaking of which, in the actual game it is possible to pull off one of your own with Genesis (not tournament-legal) and a green/white Kamigawa deck that contains among other things, Kodama of the Center Tree. Just discard Genesis, and have enough green and white lands to summon most cards. If your foe has enchantments or artifacts, cycling one of the spirit cards destroys them (there's even one to prevent damage, Kami of the False Hope). If your enemy relies on multiple attackers, you can soulshift Kodama of the Center Tree to pull them out of your grave. If you need to have a heavy hitter, you can pull Kodama out of your grave. Then you can use Genesis to put it back in your deck. There are random outcomes that can cause you to lose (the opponent has a speed deck, you don't draw genesis or enough lands), but normally no matter what you do or is done to you, you can have some option to win.

* The Quori in ''[[Eberron]]'' frequently pull off this kind of plan, and the game offers a really good explanation as to how: in addition to being super-intelligent [[Eldritch Abomination|Eldritch Abominations]], the Quori frequently return to their home plane to plot, where [[Year Inside, Hour Outside]] is in effect. This essentially means that they have ''weeks'' to plan their next move while a single night passes on the Material Plane.

 

 

* ''[[Star Fox Adventures]]'' has Andross's plan to revive himself. As explained at the end, he learned of the power of the Krazoa spirits on Dinosaur Planet, as well as Krystal's ability to channel their power, then had her trapped a crystal so that as Fox returned the other spirits, their power would be channeled through Krystal to revive him. So he had to [[The Man Behind the Man|manipulate]] General Scales into pushing Krystal into the Krazoa spirit's breath's path, which trapped her in a crystal that would channel the spirit's energy, and more importantly somehow know both that Krystal would arrive on the planet and that she had the ability to channel energy... although of course, we have no idea how omniscient evil ape ghosts really are.

* As it turns out, almost everything that happened during ''[[Starcraft]] 1'' and Brood War was just one epic [[Gambit Roulette]] by The Overmind. The Overmind was created by the Xel'Naga to control the zerg swarms, but [[Big Bad|The Dark One]] made sure it was made "with consciousness but without free will" and compelled to destroy the protoss. The Overmind (presumably by virtue of being a mountain-sized brain) had a vision of the future telling it that if it didn't do something to change the course of events then all its zerg children would become food for the menacing [[The Dragon|hybrids]], so - it infested Kerrigan, the most powerful psychic it could find, to give her the potential to control the zerg, then engineered its own death so that the zerg would be released from its control and into Kerrigan's, but not before making its prophecy available for Zeratul to reach, letting Zeratul know that they needed to use [[MacGuffin|the artifacts]] on Kerrigan so that she'd be freed from the same overriding compulsions that had ruled The Overmind, and also letting them know that they must not kill her. This would then rob the hybrids of their ability to control the zerg and use them to destroy all the other factions and bring about [[The End of the World as We Know It|the end of the universe]]. That's a pretty epic gamble right there.

* [[Umineko no Naku Koro ni|Kinzo's]] ability to use magic seems to rely on this.

** As EP7 reveals, Kinzo's true plan with the epitaph is that it was ''made'' to be solved by one person - Yasu. It was all a big gamble in order to get Yasu to forgive him. There's a ''reason'' why the inscription above the chapel says "You will only be blessed at a probability of a [[Million-to-One Chance|quadrillion to one]]." [[Spanner in the Works|Except he probably didn't count on any of the siblings being able to solve the epitaph's riddle.]]