Gambit Roulette: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

== Anime/Manga ==

** Including such utterly unpredictable details as a cop Light didn't even know prior to the [[Memory Gambit]] missing when he shot at the temporary owner of the Death Note. The plan required Light to kill Higuchi while holding the Death Note, so that he could reclaim ownership of it and make the memory restoration permanent. Had the bullet been just an inch to the left, Higuchi would've died too soon and whoever picked up the Death Note first (most likely the cop who shot him) would become its official owner. And Light's memory of being Kira would be gone forever.

* In ''[[Bleach]]'', most of Sosuke Aizen's ridiculously longwinded plans rely on this, which is odd given that he's easily powerful enough to get what he wants via brute force. Later on, this gets brought to its logical conclusion: Aizen claims ''the entire plot'' (or at least Ichigo's role) has apparently been ''exactly as planned''. It's never fully expanded on, so it's possible he was just lying to mess with Ichigo. Also, Kisuke Urahara engages in Gambit Roulettes as well, to the point where the series can be reduced to these two [[Chessmaster|Chessmasters]] dueling one another in a case of Aizen's "just as planned" attitude versus Urahara's "just as expected" attitude.

** 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]].

** Dartz, the leader of the Doma Organization, used this to recruit his followers; except for Mai, Haga, and Ryuzaki, all of his servants' past troubles that eventually lead to their joining the Organization were orchestrated by Dartz himself just so he could inflict a rage against humanity in them and use [[More Than Mind Control]] to cajole them into signing up.

** 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.

* In the anime and manga ''[[Spiral]]: Suiri no Kizuna'', the ability to ravel and unravel [[Plan|Plans]] and Roulettes is, although it's not stated quite so baldly, a superpower many characters possess. Most of them assert that everything in the plot is a giant Roulette planned by the protagonist's older brother.

** Or the circumstances of his early life and his growing infamy keep him surrounded by people with really obvious buttons to push, and (like some real-life sociopaths) he fails to even notice the existence of anybody he can't easily play with, some of which feeds back into the camera's Gaze. It's questionable if most of the time he ''has'' any real plans for the future, or if he's just amusing himself with whomever's handy, and the existence of organizations seeking to use him keeps him moving enough to escape capture. He's smarter than most people, but he misses a lot.

* The titular character in the manga/anime ''[[Akagi]]'' used a Gambit Roulette on the blind player Ishikawa that came out of nowhere so fast, that despite everything adding up, it is still hard to believe that everything was on purpose, especially considering his inner thoughts seemed rather random during the match.

* While ''[[Code Geass]]'''s main draw was the [[Gambit Speed Chess]], there's the time Lelouch checkmated Schneizel. Earlier in the series, he'd recorded a fake conversation to make Mao think Lelouch was really speaking to him. It worked, mostly because it was broadly focused. Lelouch never went into any specifics and Mao was too obsessed with C.C. to fully focus. Lelouch just had to say things about C.C. that would rile Mao. But when he did it again with Schneizel, Lelouch somehow knew [[The Tape Knew You Would Say That|the first thing Schneizel was going to say, how he'd respond to any of his statements, the exact timing of the responses, and even the moment Schneizel would]] ''[[The Tape Knew You Would Say That|interrupt him]]''.

* In ''[[Fairy Tail]]'', Jellal reveals his [[Gambit Roulette]] after the Magic Council fires a magic laser for the purpose of destroying his aim to resurrect an evil mage. When the dust clears, it's found that it had been his plan to do so all along, as some special crystals have absorbed all the magic fired, giving him the power source to resurrect him. One could say that it was more of a [[Batman Gambit]] considering he planted an astral projection of himself in the council in order to guide them to that point, but there was no guarantee they would use the magic laser, hit the tower straight on, and the crystals would absorb all the magic, and that he wouldn't be found out...etc.

* A frighteningly good Roulette is used in, of ''all'' the Gundam series, the [[Super Robot|much-less-serious]]-[[Real Robot|than-usual]] ''[[G Gundam]]''. Neo-Japan's previous Gundam-Fighter and now military advisor was behind the intrigue to claim the Devil Gundam in order to use it to rule the world. Therefore he blamed Kyouji and removed Domon's father from the scene. He even used Domon to get his hands on his toy of destruction. In the end he can foil Neo-Hong Kong's prime minister to get his hands on the Devil but it is (of course) of no use to him.

** Then of course, we have ''[[Gundam Wing]]'', where Milliardo Peacecraft takes over leadership of [[La Résistance|White Fang]] and says that in order to bring peace, he's going to destroy the source of all conflicts - the Earth. Cue his former best friend Treize Khushrenada, who assumes command of the [[The Federation|World Nation]] and vows to fight Milliardo to the last man. It's subtly hinted in the anime, and outright stated in the manga, that they're faking it, and their '''real''' intention is to scare the world towards peace by showing them a horrible and pointless war - so subtly that, unfortunately, many dismiss Milliardo's actions as a hamhanded retread of ''[[Chars Counterattack]]''.

*** This is because Milliardo either needed to act convincing enough to seem realistically motivated (thus fooling the audience as well as his cohorts) or he actually believed in destroying the Earth like Char. Milliardo goaded Treize into retaking leadership of the Romafeller Foundation as a means to ensure that someone would play off him, since he knew Relena wouldn't be able to. But the whole battle feels more like an elaborate abstraction of chess ala [[Morton's Fork]]. This is best hinted at during the scene in which Treize almost sacrifices himself charging Libra in a [[Thanatos Gambit]], where immediately afterwards, White Fang realizes the whole incident was a farce to get them distracted from Treize's commando troops.

*** Shoenberg's case makes a bit more sense when you consider he put the quantum supercomputer VEDA in charge of running the plan after his death. It's not so much him anticipating things that would happen centuries after his death as VEDA (through Celestial Being) playing [[Gambit Speed Chess]] with the world.

* [[Inuyasha]]'s father, who died before the series began, is to be the driving force behind most of the series, having set it all up so that his sons would get stronger.

** Sabrina [[What the Hell, Hero?|calls her on this]], of course...and boy, is she pissed, [[Lampshade Hanging|having noted]] that same [[Fridge Logic]]. Blue nervously justifies it saying she had to make it look convincing to Lorelei or she'd lose the element of surprise that ultimately did Lorelei in.

* In ''[[Houshin Engi]]'' it turns out that the entire houshin project was really there to destroy an omnipotent being, who was in turn manipulating history. The main character turns out to be the same person as a major villain, the person whom they were, was a member of the same race as the first omnipotent being, and he had predicted the whole series of events hundreds of years earlier.

* In ''[[Project ARMS]]'', the ultimate plan of Keith White ends up being this.

* [[Magnificent Bastard|Hiruma]], the quarterback of the Deimon Devilbats, of ''[[Eyeshield 21]]''. Most of the quarterbacks, actually. Takami of Ojou White Knights and Hiruma once had a "Is that what you thought I'd say?" battle in the middle of an intense play.

* ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion|Evangelion]]'' is, ultimately, a subversion: the convoluted plans of nearly all factions have as their crux being able to control Rei Ayanami, which, right at the last minute, turns out to be untrue thanks to [[The Power of Love]].

* Oto x Maho has Konata, Kanata's mother, having in the first chapter, what appears to be a [[The Plan|legitimate plan]]. Later, in a flashback scene, we find out that it was only the last stage of a [[Gambit Roulette]] years in the making, which included nothing happening to her and her son, her finding a "supervisor"(A sort of messenger for a [[Magical Girl]]), a bad guy showing up at PRECISELY the right time, her being physically stronger than her son when it ends, not to mention everything else that is purely in the realm of chance. Of course, because of [[Unspoken Plan Guarantee]], it goes off without a hitch.

* 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.]]

* [[Darker Than Black]]: Amber's ultimate plan to save the contractors is never explained. It involves numerous decoys and sacrifices, as well as planning ahead and taking into a account a ton of random factors and different characters. It ''would'' be a [[Gambit Roulette]]. But it's actually justified because Amber can not only see the future, but she can also rewind time if she messes up.

* In the series ''[[Daredevil]]'', Vanessa Fisk was the [[Chessmaster]] behind the sinister events that transpired within the first two arcs of writer Ed Brubaker's current run on the title. Every player acted and every scenario unfolded with near-perfect precision, the one hitch being the confrontation with Matt Murdock occurring earlier than planned.

* In the original ''[[V for Vendetta]]'', the hero seems to imply that he killed a man knowing that this would drive the man's wife to assassinate Mr. Susan. On top of that, it was a fight V could not possibly have foreseen that he would have the upper hand in. Made bearable by the fact that V never brags about doing this explicitly, but rather only hints at it. Discussion [http://www.shadowgalaxy.net/Vendetta/mtreuthardt.html#three here]

* In Volume 9 of ''[[The Sandman]],'' it is revealed that everything that happened, not only in that volume, but everything that came before to bring everyone to that point, was all Dream's doing. The reason for doing this is revealed shortly after, but that's not even the strangest part. It is implied that he was doing it ''without even knowing it.''

* In ''[[Superman Red Son]]'', Lex Luthor evokes this trope when, after a epic battle between the Superman-controlled communist world and his country, the USA, they are forced to join skills against a Brainiac that reveals itself to be evil. He says "It's almost as if it was planned to the tenth decimal place forty years ago."

* Some of the plots that [[Jack Chick]] imputes to the Vatican fall squarely into this.

* Illyana's plan in the latest volume of ''[[New Mutants]]''. Going back in time, she rescues Legion from another dimension and brings him back to earth. She then appears on Utopia, and warns them about Legion's plan to kill Dani and Karma. This causes the reforming of the old [[New Mutants]] team and the capture of Legion. Eventually, Project Purgatory arrives back on earth and kickstarts the events leading up to her return to the past. The team is defeated and captured, allowing the summoning of the Elder Gods. But this is all according to plan, as Illyana has Karma release the REAL Legion and he uses his full powers to destroy the Elder Gods. As part of a still-unrevealed bargain, he then returns Illyana's bloodstones to her and completes her revenge plot against the Elder Gods. All according to plan. And all set up with only a dying warning from Magma to let Illyana knew what was coming.

* In ''X-Men Noir: Mark of Cain'', it's eventually revealed that O*N*E had employed Cain Marko, who in turn employed Thomas Halloway's "X-Men", to steal the Crimson Gem of Cyttorak - so they could bargain it back to Prince Baran of Madripoor in exchange for an extraterritorial prison to be used by Professor X to develop hardened criminals into covert operatives. ''Whew''. However, Halloway later puzzles out that Xavier involved (and killed) Marko in the first place solely to lure Halloway out of hiding. He intended, as a psychiatrist, to study Halloway and his curious [[Chronic Hero Syndrome]].

* How about Lex Luthor's plan in ''Superman Batman Generations''? He uses Gold Kryptonite on Superman's unborn son Joel, forever robbing him of super powers. Then several years later, he goes to Joel and plays off his inferiority complex to turn him against his family, all of which hinged ''entirely'' upon Clark and Lois having another child, one who would have powers and take up the Superman mantle. Then he posed as Lois' doctor and helped fight her cancer so she could see her daughter's wedding day - at which point Joel, who has powers thanks to Luthor, kills his sister while Lex snaps Lois' neck. Then, back at his base, Lex tells Joel about all his lies while admitting that his powers are killing him, meaning Superman's immediate family is all dead now. And the plan's '''still''' not done yet...

 

 

== Fanfiction ==

* At the end of the [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3137871/1/Hero_High Hero] [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3875254/1/Hero_High_Earth_style High] [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4267279/1/Hero_High_Sphinx_Academy Series]. The main villain Pharaoh Alexander Sovereign nee Tempus reveals that his entire plan that he has practically set up throughout the series, was to stop his mother's crazy plan, revealing her to be the true villain. Or at least the eviler of two evils. He was also known to being infamous for his plans within plans, as well as fully understanding what a person is likely to do in the situation he presents them.

 

 

== Film ==

* Jigsaw, the main villain of ''[[Saw]]'', is the textbook writer on this. Not only does he manage to contrive up elaborate traps (some of which can easily be thwarted in the end), but he also can somehow pick out the best people to inflict these on, and figure out exactly how they're going to reach to further his aims. And he does this all while being bedridden. And later, ''dead'', and still able to accurately predict everything that will happen in the world several years after his death, down to the tiniest of details.

** In particular, the heist in ''Ocean's Thirteen'' relies on a [[Gambit Roulette]] within a [[Gambit Roulette]], with a third [[Gambit Roulette]] thrown in for good measure. By the end of the film, the plan becomes so circuitous that it almost qualifies as a subversion itself.

** Subverted in [[Oceans 11|the original]]; all of their gambits seem to have payed off, but a small oversight results in them losing the money in the end.

* In ''[[Wild Things]]'', Suzie plots to kill the dirty cop who killed her ex-boyfriend and get rich in the process. The full plot is too complicated to explain, but involves relying on everyone being willing to betray everyone else, before then discovering that they've been betrayed themselves. And [[But Wait! There's More!|as if that's not enough]], in the final scene, the defense lawyer from the rape trial, chosen from the phonebook, implies that he was somehow in on it all along.

** Most of it does rely on people behaving in [[Batman Gambit|character-predictable ways]] rather than sheer insane chance, especially as the plan meant that anything that looked coincidental was usually a result of then-unrevealed plotters working the other side and delivering the right evidence exactly on cue. It's still ludicrously complicated.

* 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.

* And in ''Die Hard with a Vengeance'' the terrorist plot requires that John McClane solve a series of riddles and puzzles. McClane would not have been able to solve any of the riddles without the help of Zeus Carver. Which the terrorist could not possibly have foreseen.

* 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?"]]

* [[Star Wars|Darth Sidious]]- see the main page.

** The protagonists' plan to rescue Han Solo from Jabba the Hutt in ''Return of the Jedi'', definitely. How courteous of Jabba to put all the players exactly where they were needed--especially the droids--and not [[Combat Pragmatist|just shoot any of them when he had the chance]]. And how courteous of Boba Fett and the guards [[Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy|not to hit any of the protagonists]] when they try. Admittedly, getting fed to the Rancor probably wasn't part of the plan, but Luke solved that hitch with a little [[Indy Ploy|improvisation]].

* ''[[Down With Love]]''. The entire plot turns out to be one of these by Renee Zellwegger's Doris Day-esque heroine to get Ewan McGregor's Rock Hudson-esque guy to fall in love with her, as Zellwegger explains in one really long, fast-spoken monologue. It works perfectly, but subverted in that the side-effects of her campaign lead her to (temporarily) lose interest in him.

* [[Ben Affleck]]'s character in ''[[Paycheck]]'' pulls one of these on himself when he trades a ridiculously huge paycheck for a manila envelope full of odds and ends before being mindwiped. He must figure out how to use them, where, and when, in order to prevent his own death and global destruction. Justified in that he had access to the future-seeing machine he was hired to build in the first place.

* In ''Wicker Park'', one character, Alex, is single-handedly manipulating the three other main characters in a desperate attempt to be with Matthew. She convinces Lisa that Matthew is cheating on her and leads Matthew to believe that Lisa has abandoned him. Also, she dates Luke for the purpose of pumping him for information on Matthew and Lisa.... among other things. Although it appears that most of her plans are made up on the spot, her schemes do seem to generally work masterfully in her favor. That is, until Matthew discovers enough information to force her to admit everything she did.

* J.R. Ewing claims to have planned ''every frickin' little thing'' in the ''[[Dallas]]'' movie.

* While ''Chaos'' is a good movie, it suffers for being completely made up of hundreds of [[Gambit Roulette|Gambit Roulettes]] in order to advance the plot. 1: The banker pressing the alarm, thus sending in the police. 2: Conners being made the negotiator, thus shutting down the power. 3: Conners shutting down the power, thus giving the virus free game. 4: Conners failing to stop SWAT from entering the bank, thus making the mooks escaping the bank. 5: The mooks not being caught on camera while escaping the bank with the hostages (granted, this one was admitted failed in movie). 6: The female cop's phone going off, thus making the cops entering that building. 7: The fact that the whole idea of letting Conners pretend to be dead was based on the idea that out of 2 guys, 1 body is found, and just because it has Conners badge on it makes the cops take for granted that it's Conners body, while not bothering to look for the MISSING SECOND BODY!)

* In ''[[Push]]'', Nick's plan to save Kira relied on knowing exactly what lie Agent Carver would tell her. Of course, that's just the most obvious sneak in the plan; the whole thing was so convoluted that psychics couldn't tell what was going on. Ultimately, the entire movie was planned, predicted, and orchestrated by Cassie's mother. There's a reason why she's known as the best Watcher in the world.

* The remake of ''[[The Wicker Man]]'': every ten years or so, a woman is sent from her isolated island community for the mainland, to find a man, make him fall in love with her, get impregnated, and then take off back to the island. Then, ten years later, they will contact the man, betting on the off-chance that he's still in love with her, and ask him to come to the island in order to search for her missing child (that she only later informs him is his ''own'' child). Why do these women participate in this rather odd sequence of events? Well, it turns out the honey-bees aren't doing their job properly, and they need a human sacrifice with a blood connection to offer up to the fertility gods.

** The original Wicker Man had shades of this as well. Lord Summerisle explained at the end of the film they needed a person form the mainland who wouldn't stop looking for the girl, and assume he has command over the islanders, and who also would totally resist even the most blatant of sexual advances. Aside from knowing all that about Howie personally (he mentions "painstaking research"), or that Howie would be sent to the island to investigate, he was able to jerk Howie around, assumingly with the cooperation of the entire island. There was certainly no way of knowing Howie was going to dress up as The Fool by stealing someone else's costume. The only really direct way he kept Howie in line was sabotaging his plane so he couldn't leave.

* ''[[Arlington Road]]'': the general convolutions of the plot supply [[Roger Ebert]]'s page quote. It has since changes now, but to quote the opening paragraph of his review: "Later, thinking back through the film, we realize it's not just the ending that's cuckoo. Given the logic of the ending, the entire film has to be rethought; this is one of those movies where the characters only seem to be living their own lives, when in fact they're strapped to the wheels of a labyrinthine hidden plot." It is definitely a Batman ploy taken to Roulette levels to the point of being a [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog]] story.

** The best part of this is that Lang actually says to Faraday in the middle of the plan unfurling "Did you really think I would leave anything to chance?" even though his ENTIRE plot relies on several unlikely scenarios to all have to happen one after the other.

* ''[[Se7en]]'' in which John Doe's master plan hinges on Mills deciding to just shoot him, though he did take measures to increase the likelihood of it happening. John Doe explained in his phone call to Mills that he was "stepping up" his agenda. His final two kills (Wrath and Envy) were originally planned for somebody else, but Mills provided a better opportunity. It is impressive that he was able to pull it together in time.

** Another Roulette would be orchestrating how the cops find Victor, the "Sloth" victim exactly one year to the day after John first captured him. He had to kill the attorney (Greed), plant Victor's fingerprints behind the painting, assume the cops would get the clue to the lawyer's wife, know that the cops would ask the wife about it at the right moment, and know exactly how long it would take them to match the prints with Victor in order to bust into the apartment at the right moment.

* ''[[Children of Men]]'', while a brilliant film, contains a pretty major spin of the wheel in the bandit attack: it turns out that Clive Owen's character, Theo, is travelling with a terrorist group that's decided on a bit of regime change. Julian's death during the attack was part of the plan to bring Luke to the leadership of The Fishes. But that means the plan involved a perfect pistol shot, taken from the back of a speeding motorcycle, into a very small car containing not only the pregnant girl who could be the last hope of humanity, but the would-be leader as well. In a realistic film like this it's hard to imagine a plan so dangerous even being considered.

** The antagonist did have a remote trigger for the bomb, so he could have just ordered the bus to speed. Maybe...

* The end of ''Ninja Champion'' is especially (in)famous for this.

* ''Reindeer Games'' would be completely forgotten if it wasn't for the twist ending that's so insane that it pretty much defies all logic.

* Alexander Pearce's plan in ''[[The Tourist]]''. He tells his wife to board a particular train at a a particular time and randomly select a passenger of his height and build, whom she will then pretend is him in disguise. It turns out that the guy she picked really ''is'' him in disguise. But, wait, go back and read that again: she's to pick a guy at random. Well, what if she had picked a different guy? It's not like there's only one man of his height and build on that train. In fact, she almost ''does'' pick someone else, but it turns out he's traveling with someone. Could have gotten a bit sticky if he'd been alone, no?

* [[Deconstructed]] in [[Evil Genius Trilogy|Evil Genius]], a young adult novel by Catherine Jinks. Although the hero, Cadel, is very good at manipulating people, when he attempts a [[Gambit Roulette]], it gets out of his control very quickly, leading to the death of several characters.

* The [[Evil Overlord|Shadow Lord]] in the ''Deltora'' books made it clear: "I have many plans. Plans within plans..." And indeed, by the ''beginning'' of the series, he had them set in place so that he was prepared for any conceivable contingency. Except dragons.

** In ''[[Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows]]'', Dumbledore had orchestrated or manipulated almost every major event that had taken place in Harry's life since about the halfway point of ''The Half-Blood Prince'', with the ultimate purpose of Voldemort's destruction.

** Also in ''Deathly Hallows'', Dumbledore's method of getting Harry to find the Hallows relies on random encounters - for example, Hermione only recognised the symbol in her book because she happened to meet Luna's dad at Fleur and Bill's wedding. The same goes for Harry finding out {{spoiler|he is a Horcrux}}; if he hadn't been there when {{spoiler|Snape died}} he would never have {{spoiler|made his [[Heroic Sacrifice]] and Voldemort would've stayed immortal}}.

** In ''[[Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire]]'', Voldemort and {{spoiler|Barty Crouch Jr.}} devise a complex and convoluted [[Gambit Roulette]] to manipulate Harry into a position where Voldemort can capture him, kill him, and {{spoiler|use his blood to regenerate his body}}.

* Successfully executed by [[The Chessmaster]] of ''[[The Assassins of Tamurin]]'', but without pushing [[Willing Suspension of Disbelief]], due to the years of effort she puts into it and the fact that she's crazy.

* Avrell Torrent, the [[Big Bad]] of Orson Scott Card's ''Empire'', has been setting up a massive Gambit Roulette that would make Palpatine envious for decades.

** Leto then continues the trend in the next book, which picks up at the end of his 3,500 year reign as God Emperor and details an incredibly complicated plan whose final goals are to produce a breed of human who is immune to prescience and to wean humanity off of its dependence on oracles. Furthermore, the product of this breeding program is intended to kill him in such a manner as to guarantee the continuation of the sandworms and the spice. He succeeds on all counts.

** The gambits of Miles Teg and the Bene Gesserit in ''Heretics of Dune'' and ''Chapterhouse: Dune'' take on a similar flavor, resulting in yet another [[Gambit Pileup]].

** [[The Film of the Book]] does away with the silliness with the result that the killer's plan ultimately fails, and the last two intended victims survive.

** There is another [[The Film of the Book]] (USSR, 1988) which repeats the book with one exception: in the end the killer, instead of wiping away all clues, just shoots himself/herself.

** The plot in ''Evil Under the Sun'' is another example. The murderer/s not only rely on synchronizing their movements according to a very precise schedule, but also arrange for the body to be "discovered" before the actual murder takes place, while the unsuspecting intended victim is hiding nearby. There are a number of ways that could have gone wrong...

* A lot of early detective fiction relies on [[Gambit Roulette|Gambit Roulettes]] to the point where Raymond Chandler discusses it as a failing of the genre in his essay "The Simple Art of Murder".

** Jake's plan to infiltrate and capture the Yeerk pool ship is a complex [[Batman Gambit]] that includes the manipulation of no less than eight separate factions, brilliantly executed by a sixteen-year-old kid of average intelligence.

** The true [[Chessmaster|Chessmasters]] in the series are the Ellimist and Crayak. The Ellimist's backstory begins with his favourite game being to achieve world/system domination by proxy in a simulation by changing just one factor. In the game he decides to have the clouds on a moon part to give the inhabitants the urge to travel (he loses the game though). Everything that happens in the series (including the creation of at least two highly advanced races) is implied or outright stated to be the result of his subtle moves in his overall game against Crayak.

* [[Tad Williams]]' fantasy trilogy ''Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn'' uses this to good effect. The nebbish protagonist gets embroiled in a standard fantasy plot, complete with magical swords and ancient prophecies about what to do with them. However, the [[Big Bad]], who's been around since forever, '''made''' the prophecies to trick the heroes into bringing the swords right to him. He doesn't do a single thing throughout the book until the end.

* Apparently, everything [[The Pendragon Adventure|Saint Dane]] does is part of his grand plan for Halla. A lot of which is manipulating Bobby (and Mark and Courtney) to do exactly what he wants them to do without realizing it. And then stepping in to show Bobby how horribly he's been defeated [[Hope Spot|just after he thought he won.]]

{{quote| Man raises his middle finger at a passing car; the driver ponders it, wondering what he'd done to offend the stranger, misses his route home while distracted, and collides with a van, killing the driver who was the real target of the exercise. The simplest of scenarios, but the setups could be so elaborate and huge they shaped the course of history.}}

** One of her ''simplest'' manipulations involves watering the lawn in front of the Acrobats' tent; when one of them left the tent, he slips on the wet grass, and angrily blames [[Monster Clown|the pranksters in the Clown Division]]. He then steals a crate of fireworks to take revenge on the clowns, only to leave it by the Circus Funhouse, where one of the local dwarfs uses it as a target in a cigar-flicking game: the resulting explosion takes out half the funhouse, and forces the management to start relying on Shalice for help again. {{spoiler|Or at least, it ''should'' have.}}

** In the first, everything is set up by Gesar in order to rewrite Olga's fate in order to reinstate her connection to the Twilight and give her back her magical powers so that he and she can be equal. Some of this may be justified in that they are magicians of great power who have been alive for thousands of years and have the ability to peer into the possibilities of the future, but there are still moments when the reader (and the characters) is left wondering what is [[Gambit Roulette|planned]] and what is just [[Gambit Speed Chess|taking advantage of the situations as they arise]].

* In [[Michael Crichton]]'s novel ''Rising Sun'', pretty much the entire Japanese nation is portrayed as Gambit Roulettists in garish contrast to stupid Americans who don't seem to know their noses are actually on their faces, much less than they're being led around by them. The implication is that the murder of the girl in the novel was set up right from the beginning simply to embarrass another Japanese family, right down to knowing which officer was on duty that night, that John Conner would become involved as a result, and that events would go very much as planned.

* In Fred Saberhagan's [[Book of Swords]], and companion series Book of Lost Swords, the character of The Emperor is shown to be very nearly omniscient in his plans, including fathering several children to various otherwise unimportant women around the known world, some 10 years before the events of the first book. Justified since the Emperor is {{spoiler|G-d}}.

* In ''[[Daemon]]'', by Daniel Suarez, Matthew Sobol, through his Daemon AI, manages to accurately predict and control events throughout the book, even after Sobol's death. While there are humans in the Daemon apparatus, they are not depicted as being in controlling positions. Either Sobol was a master at the Gambit Roulette, or his AI was a master at Speed Chess.

* Used and lampshaded in the ''Bad Blood'' chapter of the ''[[Trainspotting]]'' novel, where the HIV-positive character Davie pulls this on Alan Venters, the man who gave the HIV to the former's girlfriend by raping her, thus leading to Davie's own contraction of the virus. His plan is to make friends with a dying Venters, so that he is allowed to visit him in hospital, and also with the mother of the rapist's only son so that one day she may trust him enough to let him babysit for her. When this happens Davie drugs the child with a sleep-inducing substance and takes pictures of him, making it look like he violently raped and murdered the boy. Then he shows the pictures to Venters on his deathbed and suffocates him with a pillow, thus filling his last moments in life with immeasurable suffering. Of course, this entire plan depended greatly on random chance (most significantly on Venters staying alive long enough for all the pieces to fall into place), a fact that Davie is well aware of.

* In ''[[The Saga of Darren Shan]]''- in the last book Darren and Steve find out that they are sons of Desmond Tiny (Destiny) and that their entire life, the wars they fought in, the losses they suffered...it was all planned by Mr.Tiny. It was all a game for Tiny that in the end would in the end come down to only Steve Vs.Darren- which would then proceed to get rid of the weaker of the two.

* Kronos in ''[[Percy Jackson and The Olympians]]'' earned his nickname, the Crooked One, for excelling at this. ''Whenever'' his plans are thwarted, he or one of his minions says something along the lines of "we planned it that way". While he's still rotting away in Tartarus, he assembles an army, brings a dead girl back to life, kidnaps a goddess, and plans an invasion. After finding a way to possess Luke's body, he becomes almost unstoppable and is barely defeated in the end. Apparently the one thing he didn't plan for was Luke regaining control of his body just in time, resulting in [[Redemption Equals Death]] for Luke and [[And I Must Scream]] for Kronos

* A heroic version of Gambit Roulette is found in ''Master of the Five Magics'', by [[Lyndon Hardy]]. The fate of the world depends on a thaumaturge solving the puzzle of a castle in order to find an alchemical solution which will lead to a magical sphere which, when completed, will lead to the study of sorcery. After that, he has to come close enough to the chamber of a wizard in suspended animation to recognize the location, then awaken the wizard. Among the things that make this truly roulette: alchemy is a magical gamble, where one thousand starts can end in two successful potions, or none; getting the magical sphere correct depends on recognizing a faint difference, correcting the ritual for it, and finishing the crafting before the sphere explodes; the only reason Alodar is anywhere the tomb is because the ship he's on sinks nearby; and the plan finishes with what amounts to, "Hopefully, this person can save the world."

== Live Action TV ==

* In japanese drama ''Uramiya Honpo'', almost every plan Uramiya uses to punish her victims is a Gambit Roulette. The most blatant exemple being the second movie special, 'Mind Control No Wana'. In the last episode of the first season, we were introduced to Kiyomi, a woman who looked exactly like Uramiya and has been institutionalized since her family was murdered before her eyes when she was a child. In 'Mind Control No Wana', it is revealed that the murderer is Sunstone, an insane guru who is also {{spoiler|her real father (he raped her mother)}} and intends to marry her on his 55 birthday. After discovering the truth, Kiyomi hired Uramiya to help her avenge her family's death. Uramiya's plan was {{spoiler|to disfigure Kiyomi with acid so her face could be rebuilt into an exact replica of Uramiya, so years later, Sunstone will kill Kiyomi, mistaking her for Uramiya.}} And it worked!

** Not to mention that the football codes are worthless unless you are the President and even then he can't launch alone unless we are already at DEFCON 1. It takes 2 people, the President and the Secretary of Defense (if he is kidnapped or compromised, another approved official) to launch unless at DEFCON 1. Also, the President's nuclear codes are to activate the Single Integrated Operational Plan (now known as OPLAN or CONPLAN), not any single missile.

** To be clear, the terrorists would have wanted the code to the Permissive Action Link (PAL) mechanism on the warhead, which is not known by the President, but would only be accessible to a senior officer (at least O-6) responsible for those weapons. And even then, PAL code lists (usually six digits) are (supposedly) split between commands, so any one person or one location will only have half of any particular PAL code until the code is relayed in a nuclear release order.

** On the other hand, Habib Marwan's plan is a little more flexible than many Gambit Roulettes, in that overall success or failure did not ''require'' every single sub-plan to succeed. Sure, Bauer and CTU foiled a lot of his plans, but he accomplishes quite a bit - destroying a train, kidnapping the Secretary of Defense, shooting down Air Force One and [[Bus Crash|apparently killing the President of the United States, or at least forcing him out of office.]], causing massive fear and terror, and all in one day. The guy's ''at least'' the most successful terrorist since Osama bin Laden, and no doubt a revered martyr among the Islamist radical community.

** Let's not forget that the heroes had to make some staggeringly stupid decisions for the plot even to advance as far as it did: Federal Agents arrive to arrest Jack in the middle of trying to arrest Marwan and refuse to let him finish, allowing Marwan to escape. A defense contractor worries that that the Secretary of Defense's future son-in-law might find incriminating information, so they start torturing him to find out what he knows. When Jack threatens to get away anyway, they ''set off an EMP in downtown Los Angeles'' and fly in a team of mercenaries they apparently had on standby for murdering CIA agents. Many other examples.

** They specifically have: 1) a guy who can see the future; 2) a little girl who can tell them exactly where any human being in the world is at all times; 3) a telepath capable of reading people's minds over long distances and probing their deepest memories. And, initially, 4) an agent capable of total ''mind control'', being able to order anyone she can talk to to do anything and then make them forget about it. All this makes the villains' prescience at least a '''bit''' more plausible. Really, the dizzying array of assets the Company has at the outset of the series tends to make their '''failures''' less believable than their successes. As is frequently said about the RPG ''[[Exalted]]'', with characters this powerful, if they haven't remade the world in their image by the end of the campaign, you must be doing something wrong.

** Used straight on a smaller scale, when Nathan's crusade is about to be shut down by an appalled Homeland Security agent (and acquaintance of the currently imprisoned Tracy), Nate's [[Psycho for Hire]] [[The Dragon|second-in-command]] manages to rig Tracy's restraints, so she'd break free, try to escape, and show just how dangerous she really is... just in time for the agent (who'd just returned with an armful of Cease And Desist orders) to see her freak out and kill someone (something Tracy hadn't done in a while because she had actual control of her powers now). This whole scenario ''only'' works if Tracy panics and kills - something she hadn't done in months. Not to mention the chance that the agent shuts the place down anyway and insists Tracy be tried for murder, publicly.

** Supposedly the reveal would have been that the Seventh Doctor was playing the [[Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure]] game. His future self was setting things up so his past self would succeed ... which, of course, meant that he couldn't cheat his way out of having to play [[Gambit Speed Chess]], since his future self would remember his past self's difficulties and be unable to prevent them. It's hinted at vaguely in "Survival" and blatantly in "Battlefield," but the series ended before it became explicit.

** Though we haven't quite seen all of it yet, the plan of the Silence over series 5 and 6 of the new ''[[Doctor Who]]'' is very much turning out to be a case of this. Much of the plan is coherent. YMMV if this is a gambit rather than a roulette.

** The odd thing is of how little importance to her actual plan was the stuff that she was obviously directly responsible for. It's revealed that she is the master of the Beast, the demon that came to LA to slaughter a group of mystical beings in order to black out the sun and cause LA to become a haven for vampires and force the gang to release Angelus to deal with the Beast, only to have to deal with the trouble of re-ensouling Angelus after the whole ordeal. And this is all AFTER she has possessed Cordelia and has a vessel to release herself to Earth. The excuse given is that this is all a distraction so no one notices that she has possessed Cordelia, [[Fridge Logic|when in fact she could've just ran off somewhere for the time being before giving "birth".]]

*** They do mention that she claims all the disasters she had caused where in fact "a higher being's birth pains", and the people claiming that this was "all part of the plan" were either working for her, or came out of her mouth. In other words, [[Unreliable Expositor]].

* Many of the schemes in ''[[Veronica Mars]]'' verge into this territory, most notably the plan to kidnap her boyfriend's baby, which had as linchpins one character opening a letter addressed to someone else, her phone being tapped, and the sheriff driving all the way to Mexico without looking in his trunk.

* ''[[Mission Impossible]]'' did this weekly for years.

* An episode of ''[[Fringe]]'' had an FBI agent who was infected with a life-threatening parasite which was cured at the very last second. Turns out he apparently infected himself, and the entire episode was a plan to get his wife to overhear a secret discovered by other FBI agents while they were trying to save him. But if even a single thing in the episode had gone differently - including the fact that an attempt to catch a suspect had been botched - then the plan would not have worked. Note that if the heroes were even five minutes too late, the plotter would have been dead, and if they had gotten the necessary information just a few minutes prior, the wife would not have been in the room.

** Fringe writers seem to enjoy justifying this trope. in the episode ''Plateau'', the villain Milo gained [[The Plan|super plan making powers]] by taking a drug. He orchestrated peoples deaths by setting a pen on the ground and creating a chain reaction ending in a traffic accident. In the most recent episode its been revealed that the observers are crazy good at these, but that's justified by time travel or by the fact that time isn't even linear for them. They can see ''all points of time at once.''

*** In the case of Milo, it was subverted by the episode's end. Olivia managed to avoid the subtle death trap Milo planned, because she ignored the "air quality" warning that was crucial to her getting distracted for a split second, like all the other victims. The reason? {{spoiler|This took place when Olivia in our universe was manipulated into believing she was the "other" Olivia in the alternate universe. Fortunately for her, minor details didn't quite get through to her, so she wouldn't have recognized the "air quality" warning everyone else did}}. Needless to say, Milo was quite surprised when Olivia didn't fall for the trap.

** It precedes this, as Dark Frontier has the Borg Queen essentially say that she orchestrated 7 of 9 being taken in by Voyager and integrated into the crew, so that she could later coerce her into returning to the Collective. This required the following - Voyager to attempt to ally themselves with the Borg, then ask for a representative, then for the cube to be destroyed allowing 7 to get onto Voyager and then, despite the Borg stabbing Voyager in the back, 7 surviving and being taken into the Voyager crew.

* In one episode of ''[[Scrubs]]'', Elliot Reed is mad at JD and punishes him by telling his girlfriend not to sleep with him. After finally acquiescing to her demands (to admit they weren't even) she writes him a note saying that he may sleep with her. He [[Shaggy Dog Story|spends the rest of the episode]] trying to catch up to his girlfriend, only to realize the note actually says "Now we're even." The problem? At no point is the note concealed from anyone but the camera. It was handed to JD unfolded and face up, and remained that way the entire episode. Yes, this entire dastardly plot would have been thwarted if he'd looked down.

** It could be argued that even if he had read the note earlier, Elliot's plan would still have worked - she'd have gotten her revenge on J.D. one way or the other.

** Of course, Holly being Holly, it's most likely just made up to make himself sound smart. Or because he felt like saying it, said it, then realised it would make him sound smart, so stuck with that story. So maybe not an actual Gambit anything.

*** In an earlier episode, Holly impersonates another AI and leads the cast through a complete adventure where Holly Dies at the end. It's actually completely possible that Holly is orchestrating the entire series to keep Lister distracted and that pretending to be computer senile is part of it.

* God does this in ''[[Joan of Arcadia]]'', but then - God. Omniscient.

* ''[[Wonderfalls]]'' has the same overarching theme, with God's big Rube Goldberg device.

{{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.

* 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.

** Also, a lot of Moriarty's plans depend on this. The second series finale is the best example, with many elements apparently coming down to luck, and absolutely ''hinging'' on the police being incredibly stupid.

** 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.

** The fact that Data is the only android crew member might be part of why he was picked for this mission. He's a stickler for procedure, thus eliminating the possibility of "pilot error" that might result in a Hitridium explosion.

== [[Multiple Media]] ==

* Spoofed in an episode of the [[The Frantics|Frantics]]' sketch comedy show ''Four on the Floor''. Burglars are breaking into an office building. As they close in on the safe that is their target, the ringleader accurately predicts a series of improbable events including the night watchman having a fatal heart attack, a flying priest passing the office window, and a door-to-door dynamite salesman happening to be in the area. Each time, the leader smirks and tells his cohort, "Just like I planned it!"

** Indirectly lampshaded when he discussed the matter with Vakama: "Little Toa, you have not yet begun to see even the barest outlines of my plans. I have schemes within schemes that would boggle your feeble mind. You may counter one, but there are a thousand more of which you know nothing. Even my ... setbacks ... are planned for, and so I shall win in the end."

** Well, he hasn't planned for ''every'' possible setback, but instead tended to adapt to the situation. Throwing the fight against Takanuva was likely improvised as a way to get the heroes off his back. Getting crushed by a huge gate at the end of that confrontation was definitely ''not'' part of The Plan, according to [[Word of God]] but it didn't hurt too much as he was going to abandon his body in the end anyway.

 

== Mythology ==

** ''[[Oedipus Rex]]'', in which everything that has happened to Oedipus has been one of several possible outcomes all to the benefit of Apollo, who is implied to have orchestrated the events of the play from minimally as far back as Laius's rule before Oed was born and even as far back as Cadmus's searching for his sister Io and founding Thebes in the first place. Then again, Apollo is not only a god, but specifically the god of prophecy.

*** Oedipus was part of a plan to make another war (with Thebes as the main participant) to finish what the war with Troy started.

 

== [[Professional Wrestling]] ==

* In [[TNA]], the recent Eric Bischoff / [[Hulk Hogan]] angle paints the both as cunning schemers of Machiavellian levels though many elements of their scheme ([[Jeff Hardy]] being able to make it to the World Title Tournament finals & Dixie Carter foolishly signing a contract without even ''looking'' at it) would completely unravel the scheme if it had not gone precisely in their favor, requiring the conspirators to either be insanely lucky or nigh-omniscient.

** There is also the fact that they had plenty of opportunities to get the World title on either [[Jeff Hardy]] or Abyss that were much more convenient than the Triple Threat match at ''Bound for Glory''. For example, at ''Victory Road'' 2010, there was a Fatal Four Way match involving Jeff Hardy vs. Abyss vs. Mr. Anderson vs. [[Rob Van Dam]], or at ''The Whole F'n Show'' where they had Abyss vs. [[Rob Van Dam]] with Eric Bischoff as the guest referee.

** And yet they're still not as bad as their employers. The Maidens of Fate seem to order baffling orders to their servants, who just go along with it because [[A God Am I|who's going to argue?]] [[Organization Index|The Bureau of Oversight]] is just as bad, often giving Sidereals assignments like "Make sure the princess is wearing white at the ball next Thursday" or "replace a rose in a garden with a lily" or "move the chair four inches to the left."

*** Both of these groups, however, have the supernatural powers and influences to make sure they can see the full consequences of these gambits in advance, and/or adjust fate itself to pre-ordain them. It's a gambit roulette to outsiders, but fairly predictable daily business for them.

* The Great Dragon Dunkelzahn, an important metaplot NPC in the Shadowrun universe, manages to orchestrate plans that required the ability to predict {{spoiler|volcanic eruptions causing new islands to form, massive stock market transactions, an insane AI taking over an archology, and pretty much every major event even those happening over a decade after his death}} and still manages to influence all of them in some shape or form, even causing some of them..

** This is [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] many times by the Shadowtalk commenters and handwaved by others speculating Great Dragons possibly having divination powers. This is done for any of the massive plots of any of the Great Dragons...though how the immortal elves managed THEIR roulettes...

** 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.

== [[Video Games]] ==

* In ''[[Shadow of Destiny]]'' the Homunculi arranged all the events in hopes of being free of the bonds of the game put on it leading to multiple endings including Discovering Eikre is actually the Alchemist from centuries ago , discovering the girl in modern times is actually the centuries old daughter and the real daughter was trapped back in time , and other things. However after all play throughs Eikre can use the players own knowledge and choose bonus ending A. Causing a paradox by making the homuncili touch the gem and destroying it thus ending it's Gambit roulette or bonus ending b Giving the alchemist the knowlledge and means to save his dying wife Either ending ends with Eikre fading away and then in modern times a man looking like him getting hit in the back like in the beginning of the game but instead of a knife he turns to see it's a soccer ball and the boy who kicked it turns out to be a descendant of the boy who was trying to kill him but now since none of that happened everyones happy... cept the homunculi

* ''[[City of Heroes]]'' has a Doctor Doom-esque villain named Nemesis who takes this to an extreme in almost every encounter. In a single story arc, he tricks the hero into defeating some neo-fascists that ''looked'' like they were going to take over his infrastructure, just to save himself the bother; predicts that your contact will believe Nemesis's real plan was to take over the neo-fascists' robot army and send you to prevent that, while he proceeds with a kidnapping; and wraps it all up by having you supposedly ''[[Not Quite Dead|kill]]'' him - even though, as a superhero, you may have never killed anyone else before (and indeed are explicitly prevented from doing so by the game mechanics), and despite his well-known use of countless robot doubles. Your Contact actually comments on this, noting that his death should have been impossible, speculating that Nemesis's real objectives were twofold, first to throw the heroes off his trail by faking his death, giving him breathing room to implement ''more'' plots, and second and most importantly, to get ahold of the technology from the kidnapped person to enable him to create perfect mechanical duplicates of ''his own mind'', resulting in the annoying prospect of having to deal with an endless supply of super-intelligent mechanical jackass villains. Finally, many heroes might have preferred Nemesis's power-base to be taken over by virtually anyone that wasn't quite so good with the [[Gambit Roulette]]. (It should be noted that this is far from Nemesis's most convoluted scheme.)

** Oh, it gets better when you find out that he engineered the Rikti war.

** One of the [[Loading Screen]] hints is "Everything is a Nemesis Plot." Another hint is "Not everything is a Nemesis Plot." Also he was apparently Emperor of the US after [[World War II]] (his reign was brief, however.)

*** More recently, following Issue 14: Architect: "If it's not already a Nemesis plot, you can use the Mission Architect to make it one."

*** It's beyond that in complexity. Ocelot actually pretends that Liquid's arm took over his personality by self-suggestion in order to trick the Patriots into believing he was a similar threat as Liquid Snake in ''Metal Gear Solid 1'', so the Patriots would pull their own [[Plan]] to use Snake to defeat Ocelot, which is what he exactly planned for, as they became so focused on defeating Ocelot that they failed to realize that [[Mind Screw|in the course of defeating him Snake would also end up destroying the Patriots]].

* Bian Zoldark from ''[[Super Robot Wars]]: Original Generation'' tried this. It was subverted by the fact that he was able to do it while still in control of his organization, but once he died as part of his master scheme, his own group fell to factional in-fighting and nearly doomed it.

* The entire underlying plot behind ''[[Fire Emblem]]: Path of Radiance'' is a twenty-something year-old [[Gambit Roulette]] centered around Lehran's Medallion and channeling power into it by thrusting the entire continent into a war, so that Ashnard could release the Dark God.

** And in the sequel, ''Radiant Dawn'', it is revealed that Ashnard was but a pawn in an even ''larger'' roulette, orchestrated by none other than Lehran himself, who turned out to be Sephiran, the Prime Minister of Bengion, and a major ally in Path of Radiance. He wanted the "Dark God," Yune (who's actually rather nice, if a tad rude) to be released, only because this would also wake up her sister, Ashera, the Goddess of order, who would then cleanse the world of all life.

* In ''[[Jade Empire]]'', Master Sun Li, the Glorious Strategist, pulls off a twenty year Gambit Roulette to put himself in power by training the main character so that only he knows how to kill him/her, yet keeping him/her loyal, letting him/her kill the emperor after baiting him/her to that point, and then killing the main character and taking the throne. If you replay the game you can see all the points where he was manipulating things. Also lampshaded by the Spirit Monk while talking to the soldier in Tien's Landing when s/he comments that "he couldn't possibly have known that the flyer was going to crash here" (or something to that effect).

* In the higher stages of [[Kirby]]'s [[Spin-Off|Avalanche]], a computer will, despite all of your disruption tactics, somehow ''always'' manage to pull off an Avalanche (a chain of 9 or greater) if you don't beat them in [[Harder Than Hard|under two minutes]].

* Master Albert from the ''[[Mega Man ZX]]'' series may have broken a record for the longest-running single [[Gambit Roulette]] (in video games, at least), in order to reset the world and ''[[A God Am I|become its god.]]'' He even threw a couple of gambits into the mix. And it all conspired over a couple of centuries. It didn't quite work out, considering {{spoiler|he was fighting his great-great-great granddaughter/spare body, with the biometal with the same powers as he}}, but even then, he doesn't seem to care anyway.

* Chzo of the titular ''[[Chzo Mythos]]'' was able to pull this off, due to being omniscient (and only on one day of the year, too) and able to see the past, present and future at the same time. He got what he wanted, but how much was exactly the way he intended is up for debate.

* In ''[[Sherlock Holmes]] Versus [[Gentleman Thief|Arsene Lupin]]'', Lupin's entire scheme pretty much exemplifies this trope. And then it turns out that the whole scheme- which took months to set up- was actually a [[Kansas City Shuffle|smokescreen to ensure that the whole of London's police force would be in the wrong place while he carried out his ''actual'' theft]]. This required a [[Plan]] of its own. And then the ''game'' has been playing Gambit with you all along, and if you fall for Lupin's ploy it gives you a really disheartening ending. While you are given a hint to the real target at the beginning of the game, it is tempting to choose the obvious option when the clue to your final destination is basically "It starts with 'B' and ends with 'ig Ben'." Choosing Big Ben, however, results in a cutscene of Watson, Lestrade and the Prime Minister coming up with precisely nothing, and then you are treated to a screen explaining that, due to your incorrect choice, Watson and Holmes become estranged, Holmes retires because he's crushed by his failure, and Lestrade is demoted to traffic duty.

* ''[[Nintendo Wars|Battalion Wars 2]]'' provides a fine example of this.In an attempt to recover a lost superweapon, Kaiser Vlad manipulates the news to cause the Anglo Isles to attack the Solar Empire. When the Anglo Isles retreats, the Solar Empire launches a counter-attack, and asks the Tundran Territories to help them. While everyone is busy with that, Vlad launches a full scale invasion of Tundra, fights his way to the far north, locates and mines the super weapon, and tries to run away. [[You Can't Thwart Stage One|Of course, everything goes as planned,]] until that last step. The allied nations crush his armies, attack his mining spider, and in the end, Vlad and Kommandt Ubel end up trapped in a mine shaft.

** What's really maddening is that Vlad Doesn't invade Tundra until ''After'' they pull out of the Isles.

*** Jack being [[Bomb Throwing Anarchist|Jack]], it's quite possible he's just stirring up chaos [[For the Lulz]]. Even if LaCroix doesn't get blown up in his moment of truimph, he's still got every faction running around in a panic shooting at each other, which he likely finds ''[[Deadly Prank|hilarious]]'']].

*** There's no evidence that Caine had any interest other than as an observer; Los Angeles is still just a small corner of the world. And Jack may have been playing a [[Xanatos Gambit]] instead, planting the sarcophagus to answer the question whether La Croix is powerhungry enough to commit diablerie, on a Methuselah no less, and solve the problem in one go. If La Croix hadn't attempted to open the coffin, Jack could be content that while the Camarilla in general and La Croix in particular are nuisances to the anarchy status quo, at least their professed enlightened self-interest isn't a dangerous sham.

** Wilhelm, and the Four Testaments, are based on the figures of the Demiurge and his Archons from Gnosticism. According to the Gnostics, Sophia, a female aspect of the true god that created the universe, an ancient word for wisdom, and analogous to the human soul, is an Aeon, an emanation of this god and, according to some traditions, she attempted to emanate as the true god did and failed, which caused her to fall out of what is known as the Pleroma, the Fullness or Oneness of the true god which is composed of all the aeons. During this exile, she gives birth to the Demiurge, and being ashamed of this, encloses him within a cloud and gives him a throne. The Demiurge who is sometimes called YHVH, also known as Ialdabaoth, is oblivious of Sophia but apparently knows of the true god's existence, and creates the material world, encasing the power he has from Sophia in matter. To ensure that the souls trapped in matter remain so, he resorts to the eternal recurrence which is, as was mentioned before, a universal time reset button. To go back to the Pleroma, one must learn the Gnosis, the secret knowledge, which was spread by Jesus, who is another Aeon. The seven Archons are the servants of Ialdabaoth and can be compared to the angels and demons of other religions, and represent the seven sins which further distances the human from returning to the Pleroma.

*** Now Xenosaga makes a lot more sense.

** The plan's actually more simple, if you assume it's [[Xanatos Speed Chess]].

*** Overmind develops Kerrigan to replace him. Problem: He's still controlling her.

**** Solution: Make himself vulnerable. She takes over, she can defy the hybrids. Unfortunately, she's still an evil bitch.

**** After death, the spirit of the Overmind lives on...and lets Zeratul know the plan,, and reveals the artifact.

* In ''[[.hack GU Games|.hack//G.U.]]'', {{spoiler|[[Magnificent Bastard|Ovan]]}}'s plan is this. His plan relies entirely on getting Haseo to fight ''all'' of the other Avatars, something which could have been rendered impossible by any number of circumstances (What would've happened if an epitaph user simply decided to stop playing the game?). He even [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] this near the end; {{spoiler|when Yata asks him if everything that's happened was all part of his plan, Ovan responds that all of it was pure chance.}}

* In ''[[Rainbow Six]] Vegas'', Gabriel Nowak--one of your allies--turns out to be the mastermind behind an assault on the entirety of Las Vegas by an army of mercenary terrorists, in order to distract the authorities and assault a hidden military complex under a dam suspiciously like Hoover Dam, in order to steal prototype weaponry. How does he convince the good-guys he is on their side? He participates in an operation where he is captured by terrorists. In the first game, after being captured, he is rescued by other members of Rainbow. In the middle of the escape, the team gets into a firefight, then leaves him behind, later revealing that he is the bad-guy when he manages to steal a Rainbow helicopter and is either shot down or just crashes it. In ''Vegas 2'', he apparently was released before his "rescue" in order to masquerade as an NSA agent supporting ''yet another'' Rainbow team--two members of which were in the team that rescues him--before going back to the casino where he is "held captive", then goes back pretending to be an NSA Agent in order to fool his former mentor and fellow Rainbow member, Bishop and bump off an underling, one of the terrorist leaders. In addition to being a heist plan who's complexity surpases that of something cooked up by Danny Ocean, it requires absolutely ''everything'' to go exactly to plan. And all the while, he is simultaneously at huge risk for getting mistaken as an escaped hostage or an NSA Agent and shot by his own mooks, getting blown up in his own capture or dying in the helicopter crash (you can just shoot it down, but if you don't it seems like he did it intentionally). It's also worth mentioning that he also did the attack on Vegas to take two scientists from the WMD project hostage, ''knowing'' they would be rescued so they could be sent back to the compound under the dam...to be taken hostage ''again'' in the attack on the dam! The odds that he would not get killed trying to do this--never mind getting away with it--are astronomical. But he ''does''...nearly. But hey, it's [[Viva Las Vegas|Vegas, baby]]!...*sigh* [[I Need a Freaking Drink]] after typing that...

 

** On the non-[[Eldritch Abomination]] front, Terezi is good at this as well. Though again, somewhat justified- she's [[Blind Seer|the Seer of Mind]], so she can predict the outcomes and effects of the choices of individuals.

* Freefall: Sam Starfall's favorite master plan is to simply imply he HAS a master plan, then let his victims make up the details....

{{quote| '''Magus:''' [[Lampshade Hanging|Wow, I really am desperate for a plan]].}}

** Chaos has more of these (and in fact was involved in some of Magus'). Justified in her case, since she's practically omniscient and ''[[Prescience Is Predictable|bored]]''. She wants things as random as possible because its more fun that way.

== [[Web Original]] ==

* Played with in [[The Defrosters]]. In episode 9, Pixel Girl implies that she is working on a [[Plan]] to stop Pixel Boy from playing World of Warcraft. She and James even mention TV Tropes as they debate the differences between a Gambit Roulette and a [[Xanatos Gambit]].

{{quote| '''Zhao:''' (Speaking of Zhao's denial of use of the Yu Yan Archers) Well darn, it looks like I'm out of luck barring a sudden promotion, like the one arriving right now.<br />

'''Colonel Shinu:''' What!? There's no way you could have timed this down to the second!<br />

'''Zhao:''' Of course I can. I went to the Light Yagami School of Strategy. I can practically predict the future. }}

* Mentioned extensively in [http://www.cracked.com/article_16848_6-most-pointlessly-elaborate-movie-murder-plots.html Cracked.com's 6 Most Pointlessly Elaborate Movie Murder Plots].

* [http://www.seventhsanctum.com/gens/evilplot.html This webpage] lets you create your own plots which can easily become Gambit Roulettes, for example: Your unstoppable plot: hone your psychic powers, easily allowing you to summon a powerful spirit, easily allowing you to kidnap a popular singer for a huge ransom, easily allowing you to force your minions to make a super battleship, so you can create an evil temple, so you can acquire an unstoppable mega-tank, which allows you to kidnap the prime minister so you can replace him/her with an imposter, so you can force your minions to make a high-tech submarine, easily allowing you to summon a demonic force, which sets the stage to seize control of a legion of golems, which sets the stage to build a clone machine, which sets the stage to pillage the hemisphere which will slake your dark need for power!

* In the early days of the [[League of Intergalactic Cosmic Champions]] The Man In Black would claim that things were going exactly as planned, even if there was no way he could have planned it.

** It's also got God in on the act. "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."

*** Well he ''is'' God...

* In the infamous ''[[South Park]]'' episode "Scott Tenorman Must Die", Cartman devises an extremely intricate plan to exact revenge on Scott Tenorman for cheating him out of $16.12. The plan relies on several red herrings and on Stan and Kyle's betrayal and culminates with Scott eating chili that is made of his own parents' ground-up remains and subsequently crying in front of his favorite band, Radiohead, who then mock him for being a "crybaby".

* The Pixies' "thirty-seven year plan to take over Fairy World" in the [[Musical Episode]] of ''[[The Fairly Odd Parents]]'' is so hilariously convoluted it possibly defies description. After it ultimately fails (for apparently not the first time), they wonder if they should try a six-week plan this time.

** It gets even crazier in the season 4 finale, when it's revealed that EVERYTHING outlined above was in fact orchestrated by General Treister to expose and eliminate Doe and Cardholder, who were actually moles for the Guild of Calamitous Intent; then install Hunter as the new head of the OSI. In other words, Treister's roulette depended on somebody else perfectly orchestrating and executing their own roulette, which quite possibly makes him the true master of this trope.

*** Meanwhile Mol infiltrates SPHINX as "the rookie" (unsure if she's always been or just sometime before the season finale) in order to (possibly) place her Blackhearts as prostitutes that Dr. Venture orders for Hank and Dean's home school prom in order to distract Brock while she gets away with her SPHINX captured and doped up love, Monstroso (who may be a decoy). Or maybe the Blackhearts thing was a lie. Complicated doesn't even hit ''the tip'' of the iceberg.