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{{trope}}
[[File:Portal_StupidityIsTheOnlyOption_891.png|link=Portal 2
{{quote|''"If it's a trap then it's a plot point and we '''have''' to [[Railroading|follow the plot]]."''|'''Karn''', ''[[
Sometimes a story requires the heroes to fail. They need to be captured by the guards, inadvertently [[MacGuffin Delivery Service|allow the villain to get the MacGuffin]], be betrayed, walk into an obvious trap, or free the [[Sealed Evil in
Thus, the game's only recourse is to [[Railroading|force]] the player to act like a moron. The game simply cannot progress until the player completes the necessary stupidity. Whether it's due to a [[Cutscene]] or [[But Thou Must!]], the player is not going to be able to prevent his character from making that obvious mistake.
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* In ''[[The Legend of Zelda Oracle Games|The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages]]'', the game begins with you meeting Impa, whose [[Glamour Failure|skin is inexplicably blue]], and having to get through a rock that only the Hero can push. Of course, it turns out that she's possessed by Veran. What makes this even stupider is what happens if you do it in a linked game, as Impa appears in ''[[The Legend of Zelda Oracle Games|Oracle of Seasons]]'' and yet seems to not remember you at this point in ''Ages''.
** In ''Phantom Hourglass'', when you board the Ghost Ship, you are asked by a creepy girl to help rescue her sisters. Even though all four girls are extremely suspicious (including doing their damnedest to get you captured by monsters), [[But Thou Must!|you have no choice in the matter]] and need to save them.
* Several times in ''[[
** The worst violation in Okami is when you find an artifact that is the only hope against evil and must not fall into evil hands. So what do you do? Turn it right over to the [[Evil All Along|secretly but obviously evil]] NPC.
== [[Action Game]] ==
* ''[[Harry Potter (
* At the beginning of ''[[God of War (
** The crowning glory is that the only reason you lose the sword is due to Kratos's [[Cutscene Incompetence]] - if Kratos had ''moved slightly to the left'' instead of gloating while the Colossus was falling, the entire game may have been avoided...
** In fairness to Kratos, the reason he trusted Zeus is because he thought it was ''Athena'' that took his god powers.
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* In ''[[Tomb Raider]] 2'', when Lara reaches the temple where the [[MacGuffin|Dagger of Xian]] is located, the floor directly in front of it is a trapdoor which opens when stood on. Although Lara could just jump onto the pedestal with the dagger on it, and there is enough room around it for Lara to stand next to it, she can't. At best you can use your prior knowledge to preemptively fall down the pit before the trap and put yourself in a safer position than if you just blindly ran into the trap.
** Knowing the exact position of the trap door and jumping over it will only land you on another trap door. You can jump to the left and right edges of the platform, but those are also trap doors.
* At the end of the 2008 ''[[
* In the beginning of ''[[
** Not to mention that [[Failure Is the Only Option|the containment unit will get damaged]] [[The Dev Team Thinks of Everything|even if the player fires from an angle that should logically only hit Slimer]].
* In ''[[Batman:
== [[Adventure Game]] ==
* Subverted in ''[[Touch Detective]] 2 1/2''. In the game's final chapter, in order to progress, you have to free the game's villain, the Cornstalker, from his cell. Despite this seeming to be an incredibly stupid idea -- to the point that Mackenzie, the main character comments on two occasions before it that there's no good reason she should... {{spoiler|nothing but good ends up coming of it}}.
* In the adventure game ''[[
** This is hilariously [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshade Hung]] in [[Now Where Was I Going Again?|April's Diary]]:
{{quote| I've been tricked! I should've known something was wrong with that old woman. I mean, she was drooling and slobbering all over me, she kept tripping over her words saying things like "prisoners" instead of "guests", and her teeth were abnormally large. But still! If you can't trust sweet old ladies who've hurt their leg picking berries in the forest, who CAN you trust? Hansel and Gretel, my heart goes out to you kids...}}
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* The climax of ''[http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/C/city-of-vice/game/bow-street-runner/game.html Bow Street Runner]'' is an [[Egregious]] example. {{spoiler|The mastermind behind all the events leaves a woman who supposedly opposed him bound and gagged in his hideout after fleeing. The woman offers to lead the player into his current hideout. Given that said mastermind has a way of killing anyone who opposes him, the set-up is obvious}}. Of course there is no way to avoid it; worse, the villain berates the player for falling for "the oldest trick in the book"...
* The only way to proceed to the second part of the Catacombs in ''[[King's Quest VI]]'' is by deliberately blundering into the one pitfall that doesn't kill you. Of course, you're boned if you aren't carrying a certain item at that point.
* In ''[[
* It could be argued that, initially at least, ''[[Fahrenheit (
* You have to microwave a block of ice containing a cowbell in ''Scooby Doo Mystery'' for Genesis. What's next? Nuking aerosol spray cans?
* In the adventure game ''[[Loom (
== [[Board Game]] ==
* In [[
== [[Fighting Game]] ==
* This is not about the fighting game mechanic, but in the story of ''[[
== [[First-Person Shooter]] ==
* The "walking into a scripted trap" seems to be a common trope since the dawn of FPS games to force your character to start from scratch to keep the game from getting boring after you've gained all the cool weapons and ammo. The earliest iteration of this that comes to mind was the segue at the end of Episode 1 of the original ''[[Doom (
* In ''[[Half-Life (
** Not really stupid, per se. Valve did a good job of making that doorway fairly innocuous and the subsequent capture does tend to come as a surprise. It's only really frustrating when you go back and try to figure away around it and figure out there isn't actually one. The example below of getting into the pod of ''Half-Life 2'' is a much better example because it looks like a stupid idea the first time you've tried it.
* ''[[
** What makes this a particularly ghoulish example is that there are two pods you can climb into. One leads to the plot, [[Press X to Die|and the other leads to your brain being cooked out of your skull by lasers.]] Gordon can clearly see the brain-cooking path, but he has no possible way of knowing that the other track doesn't have a lobotomy center right around the corner. The second instance in which you put yourself into a the pod is just as bad: by that point, the Combine are fully aware of your presence within the Citadel, and are almost certainly aware of how you infiltrated the heart of the facility in the first place.
* In many non-[[Stealth Based Game|Stealth Based Games]] that nonetheless possess a number of [[Stealth Based Mission|Stealth Based Missions]], the player will often sneak deep within the bowels of some heavily guarded location to accomplish some goal only to, upon reaching whatever you're after, be confronted with a shunt of absurd [[Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence|Insurmountable Waist Height Fences]] and [[But Thou Must!|But Thou Musts]] that force you to do some idiotic thing that you know will immediately blow your cover, raise the alarm and force you to fight your way back out in order to complete your mission. Prime examples would be ''Red Faction'', ''Return to Castle Wolfenstein'', and ''Medal Of Honor''.
** The ''MoH'' series gets special mention here, seeing as how your character always sets 10-second timers on bombs that he plants during stealth missions (and sets off remote-detonated bombs barely out of blast range), making it impossible to get far enough from the explosion to avoid immediate implication.
** On one stealth mission in ''Red Faction'', it's actually possible, if goddamn hard, to get into the Deputy Administrator's office without being identified. Of course, you still have to shoot your way ''out''. Part of the reason for this is that while you only came here to steal a key, the only way to do so is to kill the (heavily guarded) guy that has it.
* The ''[[
** Similarly, Private Allen in ''[[Modern Warfare]] 2'' is sent to infiltrate Makarov's terrorist organization to stop him from plotting attacks. Despite having a clear shot at the entire terrorist squad for the entire mission, Allen is forced to play along the entire time while they massacre civilians (read: perform exactly the sort of attack Allen was sent to stop). He has no option to attempt to subdue Makarov for capture. Naturally, at the end Makarov betrays you and pins the whole attack on the USA. {{spoiler|This is later explained that the [[Big Bad]] was Allen's commanding officer, but from Allen's and the player's perspective, it still comes off looking completely stupid.}}
** A more unique example from ''Call of Duty 2'': At one point in the Russian campaign, you are attempting to sneak through fuel pipelines to get past German soldiers and support allies at a heavily-defended station. The pre-mission journal entry even says that it's best to not let the Germans know you're in the pipe. So, naturally, as soon as you get to a hole in the pipe that would allow German soldiers to see you, one of your allies sent ahead ''blocks the path forward until the Germans in question discover you''. Naturally, said ally gets himself shredded by machine gun fire before he can exit the pipe, which shows you which path ''not'' to take.
* For a hardened criminal with opulent time doing experience [[Riddick]] does some surprisingly stupid things in ''Escape From Butcher's Bay''. Immediately upon his arrival to the slam some fishy dude with nervous voice and shifty eyes all of a sudden offers him a shiv (an illegal and relatively valuable item, mind you) completely for free. Although you can practically hear admiral Akbar shouting at that point, you have no choice but to go into the dude's cell and fall into an ambush.
** Later you must make him try to open a door with a retinal scanner, although him being an escaped inmate, it's clear from the start that it's not going to work but will instead trigger an alarm. Conveniently, the alarmed guards will open a necessary door for you.
* There's a level in ''[[Halo
** You're told beforehand that a pool of coolant has formed below the ship and that jumping will be safe, but that just begs the question as to why you have to jump in the first place. Sufficiently skilled players can just turn around and fight their way back, but the doors back have been locked, prompting you to take the jump anyway. You're pretty much forced into it.
* ''Vivisector: Beast Inside'' forces you to get into numerous obvious traps during the first third of the game, which is even more frustrating when said traps [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|are designed to make you into a sitting duck for wave after wave of enemy mooks]].
* ''[[
== [[Mecha Game]] ==
* ''[[
== [[MMORPG|MMORPGs]] ==
* In ''[[Phantasy Star Universe]]'', the second part of the Episode 3 story mission Ambition's End offers you the choice between taking one of four NPCs. Each one is effectively as useless as the others, but nevertheless each at least has some offensive potential, some variety of useful ability, and the potential to act as a passable meatshield when required. No matter which you pick, you are instead forced to take the most useless NPC in the game, a laughably weak liability named Lumia Waber who has pathetic weapons, inflicts pathetic damage, has absolutely no special abilities, dies if an enemy breathes on her too hard and who more often than not will choose to overwrite your level Awesome buffs with her level Useless ones.
* In the [[Harry Potter (
{{quote| '''Drake:''' You ''talked'' to the librarian? Didn't I instruct you not to? ...(sigh) You disappoint me.}}
* ''[[
** A particularly egregious (the word 'egregious' seems to crop up a lot on this page) example is the Priest in Peril quest, where your character is trying to find the missing priest Drezel in the temple of Paterdomus. The temple, as it turns out, has been taken over by a band of Zamorak monks who have imprisoned Drezel. When your character finds the front door locked, you are given the option to knock. The dialogue from the Zamorak monks is so jokey that it's hard to believe that the protagonist doesn't at least suspect that there's something up and it's not really Drezel telling him/her to kill the temple's guard dog. But you've got no choice but to do it anyway, and then be subjected to King Roald berating you for your stupidity. Otherwise, you'll never finish the quest, and never have access to Morytania and all its related places, mini-games, and quests.
** Other examples aren't quite as bad. A player who hasn't read storyline spoilers might believe that a certain character in In Search of the Myreque is an ally of the Myreque {{spoiler|and therefore be legitimately caught off guard when Venkstrom Krause is revealed as their enemy}}. Still, one would think the protagonist would become a bit more skeptical about certain things certain shady characters ask him/her to do, especially if the shady characters in question don't give a really good reason for doing those things.
*** But there are a lot of baddies who only have a [[Paper-Thin Disguise]] on. You'd think the PC would learn.
** And what's especially weird is that some quests would require the player character to have a bit of intelligence, at least enough to realize that some of the things they do in other quests are completely stupid.
* Gets used in a number of quest lines in ''[[
** In fairness, the incident with the Satyr is hardly stupid, since [[Fridge Logic|this is the only time in the game]] that the countless quests involving killing wild animals are ever portrayed as bad.
** And that's not even mentioning the Northrend quest-lines Horde players will pick up from the {{spoiler|Royal Apothecary Society}}, helping them to {{spoiler|perfect the plague they're planning to unleash indiscriminately against all sides}}.
* One of the missions in ''[[
** Another mission has you following the orders of an admiral of Starfleet Intelligence on covert ops mission. The admiral joins you for the mission and orders you to do more questionable acts in the pursuit of your objective, including killing innocents. Not once are you allowed to disobey orders or even question them. At the end, guess what? Your admiral was an evil shapeshifting alien spy using you for his own diabolical ends! [[But Thou Must!|You are given no choice]] but to carry the [[Idiot Ball]] for the entire mission until he beams up after a brief firefight and [[Karma Houdini|gets away scott free]].
*** A very recent mission has you doing an EVA on the hull of a space station, clomping around with magnetic boots. One section involves going through a damaged area with electrical discharged and burning plasma fired which you can easily just take another path to completely avoid, but the mission will not let you use a security panel you need to access unless you go through the hazards.
* Played straight many times in ''[[
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== [[Platform Game]] ==
* A few times in the ''[[
** In ''Metroid: Fusion'', there is a sequence in which Samus's escape route is blocked by rubble, forcing the player to find another escape route. The sole route available passes through a high security area for which you have no clearance. Several plot revelations later, you finally make it back to the main area to be informed that you will most likely be arrested for breaching a secure area.
** In ''[[
** Also in ''Corruption'' is a stage that requires you to call in your spacecraft to airstrike a shield generator. Said generator is surrounded by several blatantly obvious anti-aircraft cannons... but the doors leading out of the area are locked, and the game won't allow you to proceed until you actually call in your ship and get the crap shot out of it. At another point, you waltz into {{spoiler|a secret Pirate lab}} with {{spoiler|Metroids trapped in forcefield cages}}. When you find the local weapon upgrade, it's in a forcefield container. To get it, you have to disable all the forcefields, [[Hilarity Ensues|with predictable results]].
* Subverted in ''[[
** Raz still managed to do something unexpected by sealing off ''all'' the Censor outlets, though, because he admits that the Mega-Censor wasn't a part of the shooting gallery, and things got out of hand when it showed up.
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* One question in ''[[The Impossible Quiz]] 2'' reads, {{spoiler|"Press this button to kill yourself with death before the [[Timed Mission|bomb]] does!" The idea of pressing a large button that clearly reads "DEATH" sounds outright stupid, but guess what? Clicking it ''is the answer to the question''. And if you try to get clever and click the words "this button," '''you die.'''}}
** Since ''[[The Impossible Quiz]]'' 1 and 2 combine [[Schmuck Bait]], [[Violation of Common Sense]], [[Insane Troll Logic]] and [[Stupidity Is the Only Option]], this is extremely fitting for this game, though.
* Both ''[[Portal (
** In ''[[Portal (
** ''[[
* In ''13th Skull'', one of the games in the ''[[Mystery Case Files]]'' Ravenhearst arc, you experience the most blatant violation of the laws of common sense in the entire series. The player character receives confirmation that the people she's come to Louisiana to assist are {{spoiler|actually con artists, thieves and murderers. The librarian who gives her this intelligence even says "You've got to get out of there!" Instead, she trots off to the swamp to confront them, only to be forced at gunpoint into finishing the game.}}
== [[Real Time Strategy]] ==
* ''[[
* In ''[[
* In ''Haegemonia: Legions Of Iron'' you at one point receive an order from your supreme command to withdraw your forces to your home system. Upon arrival you learn that the order was falsified by the enemy who used the distraction to seize the system you were fighting them for. A neat trick, but how to ensure that a well-informed player doesn't ignore the false order? Simple. If you do that, then after some time [[Nonstandard Game Over|the game ends]] as you are deposed and court-marshalled for disobeying an order... a sort of [[Schrodinger's Gun|Schrodinger's Order]].
* The same but worse happens in ''[[Perimeter]]''. You start a mission with an objective to destroy the enemy base and half-way through you are suddenly ordered to withdraw from the area. Worse part is that you actually can ignore the false order and carry on with trashing the enemy...which will count as defeat.
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== [[Role Playing Game]] ==
* Near the beginning of ''[[
* In ''[[
* In ''[[
* ''[[
** There's a scene in Count Bleck's castle where the wizard Merlon shows up out of nowhere, and tells the player to hit a switch. Now, any player with a memory that works is going to know that it's really {{spoiler|Mimi, the Count's shapeshifting minion}}, but you can't advance without following directions. If you press the issue, and speak to Merlon multiple times, he'll eventually [[No Fourth Wall|say something about]] [[Event Flag|event flags]]. This particular event comes with a minor aversion, though. Earlier, this character asks you to fill out a survey of what you're most afraid of - and then fill up rooms with these things. You have the option of saying you have crippling aversions to healing items.
** Earlier in the game, you come across an urn resting on top of a coin block. There appears to be nowhere else to go, aside from a section above you that requires you to jump on the block to reach it. In short, there is nothing to do but jump on the block or hit it. Either way, the urn falls and breaks, and you are accused of breaking it and forced to pay back its value if you wish to proceed. The rest of the chapter consists largely of paid slave labor. This one was also Mimi's doing. Basically, this seems to be Mimi's gimmick. She sets very obvious traps that you have to set off to keep the game going. Such as the time in Sammer's Kingdom where the Sammer King suspiciously shows up about 1/3 of the way through the chapter to just ''give'' you the Pure Heart. Instead of just giving it to you, he tells you that it's in that totally unsuspicious treasure chest that was just left on the arena.
** Similarly, in ''[[
** In the original ''[[Paper Mario (
** Look back as far as the original ''[[
** After a [[Meaningful Name|Midbus]] fight in ''[[Mario and Luigi Bowsers Inside Story
* In ''[[
* ''[[Baldur's Gate
** The game features a painfully obvious [[Evil Plan]] user as its final villain, who you are able to interact with peacefully on multiple occasions. At no point can you point out her oh-so-obvious villainy to her or try to do anything about it, [[Just Eat Gilligan|even as she just stands right in front of you]].
** In another example from the same game, you later encounter your foster father and mentor Gorion, whom you saw die in the beginning of the first ''[[Baldur's Gate
** Another example from the first ''[[Baldur's Gate
* ''[[
** The next-to-last mission for the Fighters' Guild quest series has you infiltrating the Blackwood Company, the evil unscrupulous murderous puppy-kicking rival to the Fighters' Guild. Despite having been warned repeatedly that the Blackwood Company hires people out for any job, however illegal or unscrupulous, despite the fact that your sole mission in this company is to find any incriminating evidence against them, and despite the fact that you are handed a flask of what they ''tell you'' is a highly illegal berserker drug and ordered to drink it as part of your induction into the Blackwood Company. Needless to say, by the time you snap out of your drug-induced walking hallucination/berserker rage, you've helped massacre an entire village full of innocent people while under the delusion you were just fighting goblins. Well, hey, at least you got your evidence, right? Oh, wait. Your ''next'' mission is to now go back to the Blackwood Company hall (which you are now a deserter from, thus meaning you have to fight your way back in against ''the entire Blackwood Company staff in residence''), go into the basement, and destroy their drug production lab. Granted, it's possible to play out that first bit of the aforementioned example without killing the villagers yourself. You still have to go back in and shut them down though. More specifically, you can leave the village during the attack without harming anyone.
** Another ''Oblivion'' example is the sidequest "Where Spirits Have Lease". You're supposed to evict the spirit of an ''Evil Undead Wizard'' from a haunted house. When you find his tomb, he asks you to rejoin his hand to his body in order to give him rest. Any [[Genre Savvy]] player's first thought is, naturally, "Trap!" Naturally, you can't just toss his evil corpse into the river. You have to rejoin the hand, causing you to have to fight a very powerful lich in order to destroy the spirit. The spirit even lampshades your gullibility.
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** At the end of the Dark Brotherhood questline in ''Oblivion'' it's revealed that you've been following the assassination quests of someone else and not your leader, through "deaddrop" notes. The stupid part? It's completely obvious that the sources for the letters have been switched after the first two. The first two letters contain a clinical mission objective (such as "Kill so-and-so) whereas the fake letters are in a handwritten font and have more personalised orders (such as "so-and-so is wanted dead because they did such-and-such). You have no choice but to follow the instructions of the obviously fake notes until the questline's conclusion, getting your leader and half the Dark Brotherhood's Elders killed in the process. Worse, when you "discover" (in-character) the betrayal by finding the impostor's diary (and his mother's decaying head), you then meet with the heads of the Brotherhood, who have killed your boss thinking he was the traitor. The diary you've read (and could very well be carrying on your person) explicitly states that he wasn't, and that one of the other leaders of the Brotherhood is. Nonetheless, there is absolutely no option to mention this to the heads of the Brotherhood, no way to show them evidence of your boss's innocence or the fact that the traitor was still among them. Instead you have to go with them to the Night Mother's shrine, ''exactly as the diary said the traitor was planning on'', and allow the trap to happen. You can even take the decaying head out and show it to him. His dialog clearly shows that he is the only one affected by this, but you can neither tell the other members, nor do they notice his reaction.
** The main quest in ''Tribunal'', the expansion to ''[[Morrowind]]'', is ''made'' of this trope. To progress in the game you must complete a series of morally dubious quests for two different people, one of whom is clearly losing her sanity, while the other makes no secret of the fact that he tried to kill you (to be fair to him, given that he knows that the player character knows that already, admitting * might* be seen as making him ''more'' trustworthy, not less). The player is given zero motivation to side with either of them, and it's not even a 'choose the lesser of two evils' situation - an entirely possible alternative is simply to ignore them both and leave. Except, of course, that you can't complete the game that way.
* ''[[
* ''[[
** The game has a point where Ark meets a Mudman across a chasm who, once defeated, causes a causeway to appear and asks Ark to cross it in the creepiest voice possible in a text box, so he can give him something that clearly does not exist on the Mudman's abandoned side of the cliff. You have to cross the causeway, which the Mudman naturally causes to disappear again with you on it. And, in the beginning of the game, you are warned not to open a certain door. If you open it, what comes out will destroy your entire village. But if you don't, [[But Thou Must!|nothing will ever happen]].
** Also, at a certain point in the game, you have to sneak through a castle {{spoiler|in which Meilin creates an illusion of your childhood friend trapped in a dungeon (who had NO way of getting there). Shortly after being rescued, Ark falls into exactly the same trap AGAIN.}}
** At another point, you have to wake the evil [[Mad Scientist]] Beruga from his cryogenic sleep. If you don't, the plot stops advancing. If you do, Ark gets killed by Beruga's drones a minute later (but he [[Unexplained Recovery|gets better]] again afterward).
* The entire sequence of events leading up to and after the boss battle at Jupiter Lighthouse in ''[[Golden Sun]]: The Lost Age''. There are about a hundred things the hero could have done that would have been more intelligent than simply walking up to the bad guys with only half his party and bearing the [[MacGuffin]] they're after.
* A lampshaded moment from ''[[
* Few examples are more [[Egregious]] than one particularly bad scene in ''[[Wild Arms 1
** While handing them the Tear Drop was indeed a very bad idea, this isn't as bad as the usual [[MacGuffin]] trade. The demons were doing a darn good job of slaughtering townsfolk, and the fight you have with the demon boss makes it likely that they would have eventually destroyed the whole town, and the castle and gotten the Tear Drop anyway, Cecilia may have just prevented unnecessary loss of life. Of course, you spend half the game trying to get it back before it is used to restore the [[Big Bad]] to life.
* Probably every ''[[
** ''[[
** ''[[
** ''[[
** Also in ''Final Fantasy IV'', twice in the face of decisive battles, the party decides, "Let's make the women [[Stay in
** In ''[[
** ''[[
** ''[[
** ''[[
** In ''[[
** In ''[[Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time
* As a tactical game, ''[[
* ''[[
** The game features the four challenges of the Jungle Relic. The player goes in to test their skills but is repeatedly told not to complete the fourth challenge as doing so would cause some disaster to befall the region. After completing the three available challenges, which all involve capturing a tough Pokémon, your companion suggests that you look at - but not do - the last one. Once there, the villains ''announce their presence and tell you to capture a Charizard they found there''. The one up-side is that you try to leave, your companion will tell you to go back and help the Charizard so you can at least blame them when things go to hell.
** Also, in the sequel, any smart person would realize quickly {{spoiler|that Kincaid is one of the bad guys. Yet you still have to respect him and everything until 'officially' finding out}}.
* In ''[[
* In ''[[Grandia (
* In ''[[
* The First ancient temple of ''[[
* In ''[[Geneforge]] 5'' the player is given the mission to track down the origins of an assassination attempt of a ranking member of the government, with explicit orders not to let that attempt be revealed to anyone. The clues lead to a fortification commanded by a general with the arrogant discrimination and control-freak methods typical of the culture, but the game cannot progress unless the players reveal their purpose for being there to the guy in charge. In spite of being the hardass overseer type he knows nothing about what's going on in his fort in this case, but suggests that he couldn't possibly know anything that might be going on in a deathtrap that has been barred to everyone, leaving him as the only one with the authority to enter. Maybe you should look in there, hero?
{{quote| '''Guardian Makar''': I'm pompous and I hate you.<br />
'''Player''': Oh. Someone tried to kill Astoria!<br />
'''Guardian Makar''': Really? Well, you came to the right person! }}
* In the ''[[
* The only way to start the Devil social link in ''[[
* In ''[[
* At one point in the third chapter of ''[[
* ''[[
* In a fitting turn of events in ''[[
* In ''[[
* ''[[
** In the Silverite Mine in ''Awakening'', a large and conspicuous cement disk just inside the entrance would strike any seasoned adventurer as highly suspicious. There is plenty of space to navigate around it, but the game combines this trope with [[Gameplay and Story Segregation]] so that when halfway past it with clear intent ''not'' to step on it, a [[Cutscene]] is triggered in which [[Railroading|your character and party do exactly that]].
** In a lot of the sidequests in ''[[
* In the Knight chapter of ''[[
* This is a strategy in the ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'' games. If your opponent has a face-down monster on the field, you may be forced to attack it, despite this usually being a very obvious trap. If you don't destroy it, your opponent will simply flip it on the next turn, activating its effect, and then sacrifice it to summon an even stronger monster. Also seen with trap cards, where they're very obvious, but often time, if you don't set them off, you can't go any further.
* ''[[
* In ''[[
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== [[Sports Game]] ==
* In ''[[
== [[Stealth Based Game]] ==
* ''[[
* ''[[
** At the beginning of the game, Altair brazenly displays his [[Jerkass]]-ness by openly attacking Robert de Sable after announcing his presence, though this is to show just how over-inflated his ego is, as the rest of the game is about Altair learning from his mistakes and overcoming his own pride and hubris.
** Later, in Jerusalem, Altair ''has'' to walk into a trap {{spoiler|set up by Talal, the slave-trader he's been sent to kill.}}
** Toward the end of the game, Altair is once again sent to assassinate Robert de Sable, and in order to trigger the cutscene to enable the assassination, he must enter a funeral procession. The entire funeral is one big trap.
* In ''[[Thief (
== [[Survival Horror]] ==
* In ''[[
* ''[[
** We can only imagine how creepily obvious this was for the original Japanese gamers- as if it wasn't bad enough that {{spoiler|an additional floor has apparently appeared out of nowhere, in Japan hospitals never have a 4th floor (sometimes even skipping straight from 3 to 5) because in Japanese, [[Four Is Death]].}}
** The second game has an absolutely stellar example in protagonist James, who not only doesn't flee screaming from the eponymous town after being attacked by an acid spewing thing wrapped in his own skin, but whose reason for being there is searching for someone who {{spoiler|(he believes)}} has been ''dead'' for three years. This is deliberate however, being a fairly obvious hint that James is not exactly sane.
** The obvious example from the second game is the infamous scene where James reaches into the hole in the wall, a move that a more [[Genre Savvy]] character would do well to avoid.
** And then there's the series of seemingly bottomless pits that you have to jump into in order to progress through a later area of the game. And this is ''after'' James has found a note addressed specifically to him, warning him that very bad things will happen if he keeps up his search.
* ''[[
** There's also the hotel in which you stay on your first night in Innsmouth. The developers must have been worried that some players wouldn't pick up the atmosphere of "subtle" menace that suffuses the place, its proprietor, and every line of dialogue he speaks, so they helpfully included an easily accessible (almost impossible to miss, really) ''room full of hacked-up human bodyparts'', complete with a bloodstained journal recounting the hotel owner's murders. So naturally you go to your room and curl up for a good night's rest, [[I Can't Use These Things Together|unconcernedly talking to yourself]] about how you're not likely to find a better place to sleep. Guess who tries to do what to you later that night. (Although staying on the streets of Innsmouth at night is hardly a better option than the hotel.)
* In ''[[The Suffering]]: Ties That Bind'', in order to get to the Big Bad, you must {{spoiler|leap into a pit that just manifested not one, but two horrific demonic adversaries. Not to mention it being similar to other pits which have spewed deadly horrors. Belly-flopping into a three-foot deep pool of toxic sewage is just a goofy bonus}}.
* In the 2004 flash horror game ''Exmortis'', the protagonist reads ''two separate journal accounts'' of people who read the English translation of the Exmortis and were subsequently plagued by unspeakable horrors, their lives taken and ruined by supernatural forces. So naturally when you finally come across the book, the only option to move the game forward is to read it yourself.
* ''[[
* Subverted in ''[[Metro 2033 (
== [[Third-Person Shooter]] ==
* ''[[
* When you finally defeat the [[Big Bad]] in ''[[Rune]]'' at the foot of his evil patron god, [[Kill Him Already|instead of beheading him or something]] you allow him to stumble into [[Psycho Serum|Loki's blood]] and become a [[One-Winged Angel|nigh unstoppable undead fiend]] who leaps out of the chamber you're fighting in to taunt you and then tromp off to bring about [[The End of the World
* At one point in ''[[
* At the start of Chapter 3 in ''[[Max Payne (
{{quote| '''Mook:''' How stupid can you get, you were safe in there, you ''stupid fuck!''}}
** Less Stupidity and more Necessity: Max is ''trapped'' in the morgue, with no other exit, and he very clearly heard the mook outside the door calling for reinforcements to come and break the door down, and then kill him. They had no intention of capturing whatsoever. So, he does the only thing he can, and makes a break for it before the reinforcements show up.
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== [[Visual Novel]] ==
* ''[[Fate/stay
** In fact, Taiga even cheerfully tells you in the [[Have a Nice Death]] segments that you should be as stupidly heroic as possible or you're going to die. For the Fate route, anyway.
** It's worth noting that Shirou, the viewpoint/PlayerCharacter, has a spiritual/psychological complex which means that from his point of view, many of these things actually fit his motivations and morals. There's something to be said about playing the game in-character.
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== [[Web Comics]] ==
* In ''[[
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* ''[[Batman: The Animated Series
{{quote| '''Robin''': It must be a trap.<br />
'''Batman''': Must be. But what other choice do we have? }}
* ''[[The Spectacular Spider
{{reflist}}
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