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Excuse Plot: Difference between revisions
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[[File:baddudes.png|link=Bad Dudes|frame|Secret Service? National Guard? Army? Useless wimps. Your ''badness'' has been ''questioned''.]]
{{quote|''"Story in a game is like a story in a [[Porn Without Plot|porn movie]]. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important."''
|'''[[John Carmack]]'''}}
▲{{quote|''"Story in a game is like a story in a [[Porn Without Plot|porn movie]]. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important."''|'''[[John Carmack]]'''}}
Some video games have epic, sweeping plots that could easily have been made into an action [[Miniseries]] instead of a video game. Others just seem to have a plot because people feel a little silly doing things for no reason, even if the real reason they're playing is [[Rule of Fun|because it's fun]].
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{{examples}}
== Film ==
* The plot in ''[[An American in Paris]]'' is just there to connect the [[George Gershwin]] numbers.
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* The Cheapass Games board game ''Devil Bunny Needs A Ham'' has a story, which, in all seriousness, goes as follows: "You and your fellow players are sous-chefs working in the town of Happyville. For no apparent reason, you decide to race to the top of the tallest building in town. Devil Bunny thinks that knocking you off will get him a ham. Perhaps he is right. Perhaps he is not." A purer example of an Excuse Plot has yet to be generated.
** The Excuse Plot for ''Fight City'' is purer. "It's a city, and they fight."
* ''[[Clue (game)|Clue]]''{{'}}s plot is essentially - "Mister Boddy is dead. Find out whodunnit." There is no explanation of who Mister Boddy is, why would anyone want to kill him, or who the guests are and why they're at the mansion.
* ''[[Candy Land]]'' has a backstory about the King being kidnapped by Lord Licorice and only two children from our world being able to find him, with gingerbread men (the playing pieces) acting as guides. Even as a child, did any of this matter when you were actually playing the game? No.
* There was a popular ''[[Planescape]]'' module called ''The Great Modron March'' where the event in the title begins decades before it is supposed to, and the PCs are supposed to help the modrons. They'll probably never learn just ''why'' the event is happening early, and there are a variety of hooks as to what motivation they have (like being hired as bodyguards by people interested in it) but [[Word of God]] admitted that the real reason the PCs are going to want to help the modrons is because it's ''[[Rule of Cool| just so cool.]]'' (And admittedly, it is.) {{spoiler|Of course, the ''actual'' reason was pretty serious, but it was part of a plot of a different module (which could be used as a sequel to this one if the PCs ''do'' find out.) Primus, the ruler of the modrons, had been murdered, and his throne usurped by a "mysterious shadowy entity" who ordered the March early to search for something. The entity was actually Orcus in his guise as the undead demon Tenebrous, who was trying to find his Wand. Orcus' return became the main plot of the epic two-part module ''Dead Gods''.}}
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