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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''The Assyrians were the first people to start using iron weapons instead of bronze which, to put into a modern perspective, is sort of like showing up for a knife fight with the [[Star Wars|Death Star]]. Using iron made the Assyrians so near-invincible that, really, the other guys might as well have been swinging around bananas.''
|''[[Cracked.com]]'' [http://www.cracked.com/article_16972_5-most-terrifying-civilizations-in-history-world.html article].}}
A controversial element of gameplay that unexpectedly trumps all others. It is not cheating, depending on who you ask. A '''Game Breaker''' is a legit element of the game used in an unintended way, resulting in [[Gameplay Derailment]]. Contests are decided less by a player's skill and strategy, and more by whether they use the Game Breaker in question.▼
▲{{quote|''The Assyrians were the first people to start using iron weapons instead of bronze which, to put into a modern perspective, is sort of like showing up for a knife fight with the [[Star Wars|Death Star]]. Using iron made the Assyrians so near-invincible that, really, the other guys might as well have been swinging around bananas.''|''[[Cracked]]'' [http://www.cracked.com/article_16972_5-most-terrifying-civilizations-in-history-world.html article].}}
▲A controversial element of gameplay that unexpectedly trumps all others. It is not cheating, depending on who you ask. A Game Breaker is a legit element of the game used in an unintended way, resulting in [[Gameplay Derailment]]. Contests are decided less by a player's skill and strategy, and more by whether they use the Game Breaker in question.
A Game Breaker can boost a pre-existing strategy or character and make it overwhelmingly powerful against things it would normally be balanced against -- [[Scissors Cuts Rock|Scissors crushing Rock]], [[Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors|so to speak]]. One fan term for it is "cheesing."
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Another example is the potentially convoluted win/make-then-sell exploit, which is common in games with [[Item Crafting|customizable items]]. A borderline example may be the trick of saving your game before a [[Randomly Drops|random item]] appears and reloading until you get the item, also known as [[Save Scumming]].
Patches will often seek to rectify this. However, this often leads to an [[They Changed It, Now It Sucks|outcry among players]] who favored the original tactic. Worse, sometimes the [[
Game Breakers are often controversial and subjective. Rarely do people actually agree on what is and is not game-breaking. Heated debates ([[Flame War|or worse]]) over Game Breakers spread like wildfire on the Internet, or even around the house. It's obvious that the extremes of the [[Munchkin]] or the [[Scrub]] are wrong. However, there are techniques whose power is hard or even impossible to call.
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The upshot is that you should probably take most of the below examples of multiplayer games with a grain of salt.
Unlike video games, many [[Tabletop RPG
Compare [[Disc One Nuke]] and [[Sequence Breaking]]. A [[Lethal Joke Character]] may be one of these, as will the [[One Man Party]] if the game's balance is easily skewed. Some [[Boring but Practical]] moves/tactics may border on this, as may some [[Awesome Yet Practical]] ones too. [[That One Attack]], when available un-nerfed to players, usually becomes this. Contrast [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard]], as well as [[Skill Gate Characters]] that appear this way to newbies but can be taken apart by experts. The dramatic equivalent is [[Story
A powerup that would be a game breaker, except that it only appears when the game is essentially over, is an [[Infinity+1 Sword]] or a [[Bragging Rights Reward]]
Note that this is not another word for 'overpowered'. To be a true
Not to be confused with [[Game Breaking Bug]], for when you can literally "break" the game by crashing the underlying software or leaving your saved game in an [[Unwinnable]] state.
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{{examples}}
== Universal ==
* Any game with a finite number of states and which does not make use of too much recurring randomness may be [
** In checkers, like in Tic-Tac-Toe, it's relatively simple to force a stalemate.
** Chess and Go, arguably [[Smart People Play Chess|the quintessential games for genuises]], are both theoretically solvable for a sufficiently advanced computer, as both games have a finite board and no random
{{examples on subpages}}
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Competitive Balance]]▼
[[Category:Tropes of Legend]]
[[Category:
[[Category:
[[Category:YMMV Trope]]
▲[[Category:Competitive Balance]]
▲[[Category:index]]
▲[[Category:Trope]]
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