Gameplay and Story Segregation: Difference between revisions

'''Forms of [[Gameplay and Story Segregation]] include:'''

* [[Arbitrary Headcount Limit]] <br />Arbitrary requirement that stops you from having too many characters in a party or unit.

* [[Canon Shadow]] <br />A character or item that seems to be in the party, but other than giving stats, doesn't affect the plot at all.

* [[Commonplace Rare]] <br />When a seemingly common item takes an excessive amount of effort to acquire.

* [[Fight Like a Card Player]]<br />The story has almost nothing to do with cards, but a lot of the gameplay revolves around them.

* [[Follow the Plotted Line]] <br />You somehow always end up where the plot says you should be, no matter how little sense it makes that you should be there.

* [[Menu Time Lockout]] <br />The inventory menu allows you to pause the game and change your armour and weaponry to immediate effect in the middle of a battle.

* [[Overrated and Underleveled]] <br />A character introduced as being really powerful ends up, statistics-wise, as being weaker than the main character.

* [[Schrodinger's Player Character]] <br />The game offers multiple characters to choose from with various backstories, but only the character you choose as your PC ever appears in the game.

* [[Selective Condemnation]] <br />The slaughter of a single NPC is a tragedy; the slaughter of [[What Measure Is a Mook?|one thousand]] [[Mooks]] is a [[A Million Is a Statistic|statistic]].

* [[Simultaneous Warning and Action]] <br />Enemy [[NPC|NPCs]] will always attack you, even when they yell things that indicate they're going to arrest you.

* [[Solve the Soup Cans]] <br />A puzzle with bizarre and disconnected elements included in a game purely to serve as an obstacle to the player.

 

=== [[Adventure Game]] ===

 

=== [[Beat'Em Up]] ===

** This may actually reflect a lot of developments from the Attitude Era and subsequent years, and the popularity of superstars such as Eddie Guerrero, who would "Lie, Cheat, and Steal" but still be a fan-favorite because he was amazing in the ring and could convince the crowd to eat out of the palm of his hand.

** Another, more pernicious thing WWE career modes like to do is every now and then have you beat an opponent, and then have them get back up and pin your wrestler in the following cutscene, or some such thing. It should be a normal part of kayfabe, except that you're then stuck with a ''real'' loss that goes on your wrestler's statistics record, even though you put in the effort of winning the friggin' match. Grr.

** Also, no matter how hard you lay the [[Curb Stomp Battle|curbstomping]] on Hazama/Terumi in Arcade Mode, he is still just warming up.

* In ''[[Mortal Kombat]] vs [[DC Universe]]'' after a game of [[Let's You and Him Fight]] Superman and Raiden finally put aside their differences, realize there's a greater enemy to face, and turn, together, to fight Dark Khan in unison. You then proceed to fight him alone, your ally having mysteriously vanished without a word of explanation.

* The 1998 PC game ''[[Sin]]'' has this in spades. A number of bizarre gameplay elements include: the main character (John Blade) being turned into a half-naked mutant late in the game, then being changed back to his original human self, weapons, armor and all; not being able to walk into a testing facility early on because you have police attire on, but the moment you switch into a work uniform, the few employees at the building won't recognize who you are; the opening two levels revolve around an unsuccessful heist to retrieve a document, but if the player finds the item wanted by the terrorist, it is simply an empty envelope that doesn't factor into the rest of the story; walking into a building and being captured, even if you have full health and enough ammunition to waste its entire group of occupants; falling into a trap door in a random room at a secret base that only serves to dump you into a meat cart for the final boss battle, and many other minor infractions.

* In ''[[Metroid Prime]] 3'', Samus must ultimately find at least 7 Galactic Federation energy batteries in order to activate enough doors on a wrecked cruiser to get a code that unlocks the last area of the game. However, she's ''working for'' the Galactic Federation. And at the end of the game, they're ''waiting on her'' to do this. Surely, she could just let them know that she needs a few batteries. No, she must scour the landscape of four worlds for batteries from Federation installations, crashed ships, and the like.

*** Chief, and pretty much all the SPARTAN-IIs are a lot faster, stronger, and more durable in the books than ingame, where the Chief (regenerating shields notwithstanding), is only marginally superior to the basic soldiers surrounding him.

*** Although they are shown as being very powerful in the books, the SPARTAN-IIs are more tactical; the energy shields they have are only capable of take a handful of plasma fire, and it overall can only protect you for a short time (although that time could mean the difference between life and death). It's even more apparent with SPARTAN-IIIs, who have no shielding at all and rely on active camouflage for most of their protection. The SPARTAN-IIs demonstrate how incredibly powerful they are with the IIIs however; {{spoiler|Kelly}} managed to take out nearly two teams of them and punched one in the chest hard enough to dent the armour.

* This trope is pretty much universal and constantly active in [[MMORPG|MMORPGs]] - typically in the "infinite-lives bosses", the "what do you mean, resurrect spell?", ''and'' the "we desperately need level 1 fighters even though we have level 70 shopkeepers" varieties.

* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' is rife with this trope, but one of the more nonsensical examples is in the Caverns of Time dungeons, where PCs are sent back in time by the Bronze Dragonflight to various famous incidents in past ''[[Warcraft]]'' titles. In many cases, most of the current playable races could not have been present for various reasons (Horde characters in particular, but also Night Elves and Draenei). So in those dungeons, those characters get hit with a illusion buff that disguises them as a Human for the duration of the dungeon. You would think this would make it an inversion of the trope, except that it also applies to Blood Elves--who all would have been Alliance High Elves in those days, and so could have been present for all these events. Turning them Human is just odd, when a simple eye color change would suffice. It's especially nonsensical in the Culling of Stratholme instance, where you see a variety of Warcraft 3 units represented at the front gate of the city, one of which is a ''High Elf Priest''. It turns specially weird when you take into account that classes aren't disguised in any way, so you can have Warlocks and Death Knights helping Thrall escape from Durnholde, shapeshifted Druids running about, and Humans casting Shaman spells. But no High Elves.

* ''[[City of Heroes]]'' has a rather glaring example of this in the Freedom Phalanx. The premier superheroes of the setting, akin to Superman, Batman, Captain America, and other A-listers....sit around waiting to give you quests, and generally do absolutely nothing else, with poor excuses for why they never fight at your side. In the few times you DO team up with them, they're generally as bad as any of the other NPC allies, and die in short order, while their villainous counterparts will kick your butt all over the surrounding environs, generally being some of the most dangerous bosses in the game. Even more confusingly, when you face the same heroes in ''City of Villains'', you can face the same heroes in single combat, and they're now, like their counterparts, the hardest bosses in the game. Apparently the only time the game can give these people the powers they're storyline-wise credited with is when they're beating on you instead of random [[Mooks]].

** This was mocked/played with on the games forums, when a player asked the developer that plays Positron why he never helps players during Rikti Invasions and they gather at that characters feet in Steel Canyon. He responded that the Rikti 'con grey, so I wouldn't get XP.'

** For those who don't play, when your character is 5 or more levels higher than an enemy, its name turns grey and you don't get any experience for kiling it.

*** There is another layer of humor to this statement - Rikti summoned during the invasion events always con even-level to whoever is fighting them, regardless of level. Positron's statement is that he's +5, minimum, to even-level enemies.

** If you carry actual weapons on your avatar, none of them can be used. This is [[Justified|explained]] in the prologue "manga" to the game; regular weapons just plain ''don't work'' on the Animated. You have to use the rings and their powers to fight them. In the "manga" a powerful and popular knight tried to kill an Animated with "My '''''ANCIENT KATANA!'''''"... and got torn to pieces because it failed to harm it; and yet there's a Ring that creates a katana, which ''does'' work.

** Here's some [[Fridge Logic]]: It's called "Ancient" For a reason, you know...

** With regard to Super Nova, it's implied/theorised that the spell is actually an illusion, and the damage is caused by [[Your Mind Makes It Real]]. This explains why it can be cast multiple times during the fight, and why it only does percentage-based damage (as presumably, an illusion wouldn't be able to actually kill anyone).

* In ''[[Crisis Core]]: [[Final Fantasy VII]]'', much of the [[Level Grinding]] takes place through a menu-based 'SOLDIER Mission' system, where you undertake various missions for Shinra Inc at any save point. However, you're still able to use this system during the latter leg of the game, where Zack is on the run with Shinra Company hunting him down and gunning for his blood. In fact, it is completely impossible to avoid this segregation by finish all the side missions early. There are missions released only ''after'' the Nibelheim incident.

** You can even be demoted in the few areas where you only control Rinoa, the only member of the party who isn't working with SeeD, near the end of Disc 1.

** Anyone remember when {{spoiler|Rinoa was fused with Adel for [[That One Boss]] so you tried Junctioning Rinoa to absorb an element of your choice, then tried summoning the GF of that corresponding element? Yeah, it didn't work when I tried it either.}}

* During one cutscene of ''[[Atelier Iris]],'' [[The Stoic]] swordsman asks to talk with the main character while the cook is making dinner. They go out to the woods where the swordsman [[Hopeless Boss Fight|"tests"]] the main's progress by beating him within an inch of his life. They then return to have dinner, and the other characters calmly ask what the two were up to. They accept the response that they were "taking a walk", and no one seems to notice any distress or injury from the character. Given the [[Hyperactive Metabolism|various common ways]] one can heal in the game, and the fact that the main character is an alchemist who can produce [[Healing Potion|healing potions]], one might generously think that perhaps he healed himself to avoid worrying his friends... except that after the cutscene, he's still at 1 HP. Apparently in this world, no one bleeds when they get hit by swords.

* Generally, lots of things that the Pokédex in ''[[Pokémon]]'' says directly contradict gameplay:

** Abra is said to sleep through most of the day, teleporting away from danger in its sleep, yet [[Standard Status Ailments|the Sleep status]] affects it just like everything else.

** Cubone is said to lose its mother as it is born and wears its skull as a memento. Breeding for a Cubone, however, doesn't cause any ill effects for the mother, whether or not it is a Marowak.

* ''[[The World Ends With You]]'': In Another Day, {{spoiler|the game takes place in an alternate timeline where Neku, Shiki, and Beat are not part of the Reapers' Game, and do not know each other, yet you can battle like it's any other day. Also, when you unlock the [[New Game+|chapter select feature]], you can use ANY character on ANY day, even if, in the chapter you select, the character has not met Neku yet or has vanished.}}

* ''[[Vampire Bloodlines]]'' is based on the tabletop RPG ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade]]''. Of course, for gameplay reasons, disciplines work differently in the game than in the RPG... ''except in cutscenes.'' For example, in one scene, Beckett uses his Protean discipline to change into a wolf, which is a perfectly valid usage in the tabletop RPG but something you can't do even with maxed Protean in-game. Later on, a vampire uses Presence to seduce a mortal: Again, perfectly valid in the RPG, but in the game Presence is entirely useless to you outside of combat.

* Big one in ''[[Valkyria Chronicles]]'' after having taken Marberry Shore {{spoiler|During this and all other missions your troops can take an anti-tank round to the face at point blank range and be rescued by a medic, but in the cutscene Isara takes a shot in the back and neither the medic nor ragnaid is a benefit. It's all very FF 7}}

** It suffers from this in a lot of ways. There's the above example, of course, but there's also the mission where Alicia sprains her ankle and must hobble around the map to find a plant that Welkin can use to gradually heal it. The player can still use Ragnite to heal the wounds she gets during the mission, but it does nothing for the sprain. The teamwork themes occasionally suffer, since the game can't predict whether or not any of Squad 7 may die, so it's likely that many of the player's favorite squad members have no impact on the plot and don't appear in cutscenes. And then there's {{spoiler|Alicia after she becomes a Valkyria}}, when she has an existential crisis over her new ability to kill enemy soldiers and tanks... except she's a powerhouse on the field, and can easy rack up a higher body count than most of your shocktroopers because of her extremely high accuracy and headshot rate, which means she's apparently okay with taking Mooks down execution style, but not with a laser.

** For that matter, half the stores in the game sell an item that has the same effect (Chimaera wings,) so it wouldn't necessarily have to be the hero who could go alone. Heck, they could find a random guy who's been to the city and pay him to transport them there. If the game's plot considered this, though, then keeping borders secure would be nearly impossible.

* The opening scene of ''[[Phantom Dust]]'' has a team of espers scorch scores of monsters with single attacks when two of said monsters would be challenging to the player. This may be justified by the fact that some of the monsters look a little more sickly they do in the game proper. Another example is characters performing feats like telekinetically hurling what appears to be half a sky scraper at you when the player, who is easily the most powerful esper in the game, has no such abilities.

* Used very painfully in ''[[Baten Kaitos]]'', where almost all the characters have wings and are shown to be fully capable of flight over reasonably short distances [depending on their wing shape] in cutscenes. There are still a lot of [[Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence]] and [[Broken Bridge]] puzzles, at heights and distances that cutscenes and battle animations (and ladders in ''Origins'') show that the characters are perfectly capable of flying over. The series does have some good moments of [[Gameplay and Story Integration]], but not enough to balance out the wings problem.

* Magneto is one of the [[X-Men]]'s most powerful foes, who can control all metal at whim. Yet in games like ''[[X Men Legends]]'', ''[[Marvel Ultimate Alliance]]'' and most other Marvel games, he can end up getting his ass kicked (as a playable character or boss) by the likes of Colossus, Crimson Dynamo, [[Iron Man]], Lady Deathstrike, Ultron, War Machine and [[Wolverine]], when story-wise they shouldn't be able to move, let alone fight.

** Likewise, in nearly every game in which he appears, you can make Juggernaut stop charging and fall over by hitting him enough. Nothing stops the Juggernaut... except a punch or two.

* In the [[Baldur's Gate]] series and other Infinity Engine games, there are a number of resurrection spells and items that can bring your group members back from the dead. However, when the plot calls for a character to die, they die... and the option of resurrection is never even brought up.

** Irritating example: The background fluff in [[Baldur's Gate]] claims that lots of people prefer carrying handy little gems instead of weighty gold coins. For the player, the utility is reversed: Gold is weightless and its value is precise, while gems' values are unknown and they clutter up your limited inventory space.

* In ''[[Ace Combat]] 6'', it's possible to spend most of the mission running for your life, calling in Allied Attacks or Allied Cover against all the other planes, and yet reinforcement pilots can still claim that the protagonist was responsible for shooting down everyone.

* In ''[[Syndicate]] Wars'' you control your agents from an airship. The last levels are in a space station and on the Moon, but don't mention how you see them.

 

=== [[Sports Game]] ===

** What about the puzzles? Fooling with the city's power grid ought to cause a few problems.

*** At that point in the story, the city's power is really the least of their problems.

* In [[Dead Rising]], but really in every game that involves zombies just about, the zombies can grapple with your character, and if you don't button mash to get way fast enough, they bite you, which has no effect other than lost health. and yet, in cutscenes, a bite is certain infection.

** Actually {{spoiler|It turns out Frank does get infected if you progress to Overtime mode. Though then Gameplay and Story Segregation kicks in in the opposite way: Even if you spend the entire game not getting injured once, you're still infected.}}

* In ''[[Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri]]'', it is possible in gameplay to completely wipe out the native flora and fauna. But when the story calls for it, suddenly the fungus stands poised to wipe out your massively powerful post-singularity civilization and only a dose of [[Applied Phlebotinum]] can save it.

** The flora and fauna is said to also live deep underground. It is effectively unkillable, except for the [[Applied Phlebotinum]] version and {{spoiler|the fact that it is so massive it cannot energitically sustain itself, just like it already happened several times before. And yeah, it also is a [[Hive Mind]]}}.

* In ''[[Fire Emblem Tellius]]: Radiant Dawn'', it turns out that two characters acted the way they did because they were bound by magical contracts that would kill everyone in their respective countries if they disobeyed. The only way to render such a contract null and void is for the physical contract to be destroyed and one of the signers to be killed by a third party. In the endgame, the player gets to kill the man who forced the other characters to sign the contracts; however, it is entirely possible to have him killed by one of the signees which should render the contracts unvoidable, but if this happens, it plays out the same as if he was killed by anyone else.

** Two characters out of a massive cast of seventy three, mind you.

*** In ''GTA 2'', when you got arrested, you respawned riding in the back of a cop car, and you had to jump out and run away from the cops.

** In ''[[Grand Theft Auto San Andreas|San Andreas]]'', the player can willingly murder hundreds of cops (and get away without even being killed/arrested), yet all cutscenes still portray the player character as innocent. In fact, as the plot goes on CJ is shown in a more and more positive light and seems to be trying to "get away from" all of the illegal activity in order to start a good, honest life...And as soon as these cutscenes finish, the player can get back to [[Video Game Cruelty Potential|throwing hand grenades off a highway overpass to see how far cars can drive before they explode]].

*** Hell, what about the guy who worked at the pizza place? There's at least a dozen witnesses if you decide to kill him and take his shotgun.

*** There's also the money issue: cutscenes show CJ being poor, dead broke actually after 'Green Sabre', yet you can actually have millions of dollars and a lot of property even at this early point of the game (and without cheating).

** ''[[Saints Row: The Third|Saints Row the Third]]'' also has a bit of this, most notably in the final act, where {{spoiler|zombies continue to inhabit one of the Luchadore-controlled islands even after you do the mission wherein you remove the source of the virus}}, and {{spoiler|the ability to call in Shaundi, Viola, and Burt Reynolds as homies even if you [[Multiple Endings|skip rescuing them from the bomb at the statue to chase after Killbane]] in the final mission}}.

* In ''[[The Godfather (video game)|The Godfather]]: The Game'', after {{spoiler|Sonny's death}} Don Vito calls a truce with the other four families, saying that unless pushed he will not be the one to break it. This doesn't stop you as Aldo Trapani from continuing your quest to take over businesses for the Corleones and kill enemy mobsters.

** Averted in the sequel, however, where Alex has done a [[Face Heel Turn]] and the new main character is aparently not too good either.

 

* The ''[[Half-Life (series)|Half-Life]]'' series and its long love affair with [[No Sidepaths, No Exploration, No Freedom]] is a major element of the plot, representing Gordon's complete lack of control, whether it's because of the GMan, the Vortigaunts, or the player.

** ''[[Half-Life 2]]'' and its Episodes begin with Gordon not at full health, due to him being injured from a scene in the previous game.

 

=== [[MMORPG]]s ===

* Similar to ''[[Planescape: Torment]]'', ''[[Fallout]] 3'' gives you a few occasions where a sufficiently high Strength stat allows you to intimidate certain NPCs into submitting to your will.

** There is also the Terrifying Presence perk, which gives you the option to frighten NPCs in dialog by reminding them how tough you are.

** ''[[Tales of Vesperia]]'' gives a good explanation for the world's [[Ghibli Hills]] and all their [[Random Encounters]]; all the towns in the world are shielded underneath giant energy shields that keep monsters out, and only highly trained professionals (like the party members) are allowed outside.

** In ''[[Tales of the Abyss]]'', when you use [[Waif Prophet|Ion's]] extension of Luke's first mystic arte, he'll waver and collapse instead of just disappearing. If Anise is in the party, [[Guilt Based Gaming|she calls for him, and he stutters "I-I'm... fine..."]].

*** Additionally, if you don't have Luke and Jade in your party, when Anise uses Final Fury, she yells "I'll kill you bastards!" Instead of the usual "O ravaging tragedy!"

** A minor but rather powerful aversion in ''[[Tales of Symphonia]]'': When Colette loses her voice for plot reasons, she stops [[Calling Your Attacks|Calling Her Attacks]] in battle as well, and the victory quotes for her aren't shown.

* The influence system in ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]] II'' is the gameplay manifestation of an ability that the main character is revealed to have. That is, the main character has the ability to subtly manipulate people that they're close to. As a consequence, the more influence you have with a party member, the more their alignment mirrors your own. And vice-versa.

** However, all situations where you can gain/lose influence do not take that into the considerance - so, during such checkpoint, good party member turned evil by the high influence of the evil player is still going to be displeased when said player commits an evil act.

* ''[[Final Fantasy IX]]'' opens with a play: the fight scenes are done using the battle system, and the characters have the battle command "SFX" with the help menu description of "uses powerful, deadly magic", a damage output of zero and no mana point cost. Of course the party leader gets to cause the biggest blast.

** Further averted with all of the character's classes being highly integrated into the plot. Vivi's ability to shoot stuff with fireballs with black magic becomes very important, the hidden Summons inside Garnet are a [[MacGuffin]] unto themselves, and Freya, a dragoon, is able to leap to the tops of roofs effortlessly in cutscenes as easily as she can leap into the sky to use her "Jump" ability. Sometimes even their ''personality traits'' become gameplay mechanics; Zidane, the [[Chivalrous Pervert]], has a "Protect Girls" skill that lets him jump in front of a female party member to protect her.

** Also when Dagger loses her voice in the plot. During game-play, her ability to cast spells is impaired: every couple of turns will fail with a "Can't concentrate." [[It Gets Better|She gets better.]]

*** Most characters will also skip their post-battle victory poses during plot circumstances that concern them in some negative way, including Garnet losing her voice described above.

** And then there's her mana supply - or rather, the "lack" of it. Lucia is a pure spellcaster, and doesn't possess a physical attack - at the worst she'll chain-cast a single-target damage spell on an enemy. However, her MP supply reads "null", just like any pure physical-damage warrior. And then you realize... oh yeah, she's a [[Physical God]], ''her mana supply is'' '''''infinite'''''. The game doesn't bother tracking it ''because she'll never run out''.

* In ''[[The Elder Scrolls]] III: [[Morrowind]]'', Dagoth Ur's rising power doubles as [[Anti-Grinding]], with stronger ash creatures and blighted fauna appearing more and more as you keep leveling up.

* A rather funny, though subtle aversion occurs in ''[[Persona 4]]''. [[The Woobie|Yosuke]] is incredibly unlucky, with him getting kicked in [[Groin Attack|the nads]] within minutes of the game starting for breaking his friend's CD. He ends up falling off of, and crashing whilst on, his bike BEFORE he's even named, and to top it all off, {{spoiler|his crush gets killed very early on}}. If you check his stat profile, you'll notice that he has [[Lampshade Hanging|the lowest Luck stat of any of your party members]].

** The same goes for the Hero of [[Dragon Quest V]].

* This trope is THE argument on ''[[Mitadake High]]''. If you play normally, you will be called a terrible rper and shunned. If you play well and properly in the character of an [[Ordinary High School Student]] then you WILL be killed off fast and laughed at as a noob. The two sides of this argument are [[Broken Base|rabid.]]

* ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'' has the infamous scene in which {{spoiler|nobody thinks to try using a Phoenix Down to revive Aeris despite the presence of "Death" spells that can be reversed with the very same item.}} However, you later discover that when Zangan rescued Tifa during the Nibelheim incident, he kept casting Cure spells on her to stop her from bleeding to death. Even later on in the game, however, Cloud's seething hatred of Sephiroth causes his Limit gauge (something that normally represents the character being annoyed at taking gameplay damage) to gradually fill at the beginning of a short battle just quickly enough that the player doesn't have enough time to select anything but his Limit Break command, and if he hadn't learned Omnislash yet... well he has now.

* ''[[Tales of Phantasia]]'' averts it multiple times and plays it straight twice: Averted near the start of the game, where Cless is betrayed and captured by a group of soldiers; you are quite weak and have low-powered equipment at the time, so it's very reasonable that you can't fight back as you probably would get slaughtered. Played straight when Cless is poisoned (and knocked unconscious) by an attack from a creature that you killed tons of as fodder just five minutes ago, and they were incapable of poisoning you then. Later, you get captured again, except this time you are much more powerful, as well as having a party, and could probably take them just fine (although they are actually the good guys, so you could assume that the characters just didn't want to cause a fuss). Averted by your encounters with the [[Big Bad]]; when you first meet him he is shown literally vaporising people in cutscenes with some sort of [[Death Ray|laser beam]] attack and a [[Sphere of Destruction|shockwave explosion]], and you are sent away to become more powerful so you can beat him. When you finally do get around to fighting him and are much MUCH more powerful than you were before, he casually throws these attacks around in battle and you can shrug them off just fine (and the storyline gives them no further prominence), although they are still his most powerful attacks and kill you in a few hits. Also averted in various small instances where characters use things like healing spells outside of battle.

* ''[[Geneforge]]'' is perfectly integrated in some respects, but not at all in others. On the one hand, you're warned that [[Upgrade Artifact|Upgrade Artifacts]] can affect the mind, and if you use too many you'll start to go into rages and attack people you could have negotiated with. Very high usage can even get you a bad ending. On the other hand, it's no longer legal to use [[Our Dragons Are Different|drakons]] as [[Mons]], but nobody says anything about it if you have one in your party.

* In ''[[Lost Odyssey]]'', the main character and several other party members are immortal, and revive within a few turns of being KOed. However, cutscenes and background material depict them as completely indestructible, which is ''not'' the case in gameplay, and the active party being KOed still results in a Game Over regardless of circumstances.

* In ''[[Dragon Age]]'', the [[Our Orcs Are Different|Darkspawn]] carry a highly-contagious virus in their blood that can easily kill and/or [[The Virus|corrupt]] anyone who contracts it, with the only cure being to become a Grey Warden, who are immune. Despite the fact that your non-Grey Warden party members can get waist deep in darkspawn blood, this is never really a problem for them. In fairness, [[What Could Have Been|there were plans to integrate story and gameplay by having the entire party contract the disease and become Grey Wardens for the endgame, but these plans were cut for a number of reasons.]]

 

=== [[Survival Horror]] ===

* In ''[[Dead Rising]]'', during the second boss fight an [[NPC]] ally can withstand dozens of hits from a rifle that, in real life, is known to be able to tear a man in half with one shot, without dying. In the cutscene immediately after said fight he is shot in the leg with a pistol and unable to walk, and the very next task set for the player is to acquire a first aid kit to treat him - for a ''fever''. Which becomes '''lethal''' if you don't find the first aid kit in time.

 

=== [[Tabletop Games]] ===