Tropes N to S / Real Life

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Nameless Narrative: Everything is nameless when introduced, but will receive a name if it sticks around players for long.
Names to Run Away from Really Fast:
- Players in the Criminal class can have these.
- Some players and groups in the Musician class, especially those specializing in Heavy Metal, might have names that appear to be these, but barring the occasional exception they are generally Non-Indicative Names.
- A number of animal mobs have names of this sort — that's what happens when you let the player base name creatures.
  - Wolf-trap seadevil.
  - Assassin spider.
  - With prehistoric creatures, we have Tyrannosaurus rex (tyrant lizard king), Daspletosaurus (frightening lizard), Tarbosaurus (alarming lizard), Torvosaurus (savage lizard), Megalodon (big tooth), Lythronax (king of gore), Carcharodontosaurus (shark-toothed lizard), Sarcosuchus (meat crocodile), Carnotaurus (meat bull), Deinosuchus (terrible crocodile), Deinonychus (terrible claw), and the winner: TERATOPHONEUS (MONSTROUS MURDERER).
  - The tarantula hawk wasp. Yes, that is one animal, whose name is three different animals you would never mess with combined.
  - Vampyroteuthis infernalis, whose name means "the vampire squid from hell", is pretty harmless.
  - On the other hand, Cnidoscolus stimulosus, whose name translates to "feels like you've been hurt with a whip", isn't harmless at all.
  - The Asian murder hornet, which appeared in the West in 2020 and was then silently dropped.
Naval Blockade: If there's been a war at sea, it probably had one of these at some point.
Nerf: Guns, typically, unless one belongs to the Soldier, Mercenary, or Armed Policeman class. There are some exceptions; the United States server allows any player to obtain almost any gun in the game provided they don't violate a few basic rules but this means Player Versus Player is potentially much more deadly on this server. Additionally, on many servers, it's possible to obtain a full-strength gun, but this is considered cheating and carries severe penalties if discovered.
- Note that the effectiveness of the weapon does not change, but the wielder's effectiveness with the weapon is the only thing that differs.
Negative Space Wedgie: Black holes, most notably.
Nervous Wreck / Nerves of Steel: Fears are autoassigned at birth, however some fears are more common than others. Common fears include snakes, spiders, the dark (for children), heights, fire and death. In addition, life experiences can add or remove fears. This means that some characters are more easily afraid than others. Other characters will remain calm in many situations, including their own death.
New Game Plus: According to religions that believe in reincarnation, if your Karma Meter is high at death, you're more likely to start with access to money at rebirth. If your Karma Meter is low, you consequently more likely to start with a large handicap at rebirth. You don't get to keep your skills, items, or even the aforementioned Karma Meter from a previous game and you have to start from 0. An exception is made for characters who get the "Enlightenment" upgrade, who are rumored to get access to a secret Golden Ending, although this takes an insane amount of Level Grinding.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The best intents of mice and men... have nasty unplanned consequences. Notably, the environment, since humans have more power to alter it than any other species, and with great power... well, you know. Thus we get hunting to extinction, overly efficient forest firefighters, and invasive alien species (no, not that kind). In the non-environmental arenas, we have medical malpractice, authority figures taking sexual advantage, and many more.
Nintendo Hard:
- Many, many examples, from high-level school and college courses to job-hunting during economic recessions, to (for some people) figuring out how the dating mechanics work, to simply trying to survive in war-torn countries. In short, life isn't fair. Nevertheless, some players have been known to play for over 100 years on one continue.
- The rules for connecting to other servers can get complicated. At the very least, the "passport" inventory item is required. To switch servers permanently, players are often required to have high wealth and skills stats. Some players manage to sneak onto servers, but the mods usually kickban the offending players when they're discovered.
No Bisexuals: Zigzagged. While there is bisexual erasure to the point where some players are quoted as saying things such as "you're either gay, straight, or lying," it's more commonly accepted that some characters are bisexual.
Nobody Poops: Massively averted. Although some players try to deny it, it's normal that everyone poops, pees, burps, farts, sneezes, coughs, and so on - but not every body acts out these functions the same way. This trope may be played straight, nonetheless, for characters that develop medical conditions, such as digestive complications like constipation.
No Continue Run: Mandatory. However, if you have friends with enough points in the CPR and resuscitation skill tree, it's possible to get a single extra continue. (Some players, through a combination of very good and very bad luck, have managed to get more than one this way.) Continuing is Painful however, as your lifespan gauge won't be refilled, and you'll likely suffer penalties to several stats plus a permanent decrease in max hitpoints. If the Game Master (should one exist) takes a shine to you, and you have a lot of luck points, it's possible to get a continue, or rarely two.
No Fame, No Wealth, No Service: In particularly snobby places, players may be refused service or even entry unless their Status stat is sufficiently high or they're able to pay significant in-game fees.
No-Holds-Barred Beatdown:
- The universe can seem like this to most, if not pretty much everyone at some point. This also happened to the Native Americans and Australian Aborigines, to the extent that they have yet to fully recover.
- Averted by surviving members of the Jewish religion in Europe, who suffered one of the worst beatdowns in the history of the game during the World War II arc, only to establish (or reboot, according to many, although the debate on this is acrimonious to say the least) the Israel server and form one of the most highly-regarded Military guilds in the history of the game in response.
No Indoor Voice: Many examples, including cicadas, howler monkeys, parrots, and humpback whales (yes, those "songs" are deafening up close, what did you expect from a creature bigger than a bus?)
No Periods, Period: Averted. This is one of the primary differences between the Female and Male character types.
Non-Indicative Name:
- Greenland, while sporting some coastal vegetation, is almost entirely covered in glaciers.
- Iceland, while containing the odd glacier, is almost entirely covered in vegetation.
- Fireland, which is an archipelago (a collection of islands) near the Antarctic, a server which is covered in even more glacier than the aforementioned Greenland server.
- The Canary Islands are named for the Latin "canus" as in dog.
- And since the factory ceased production, Sugarland, Texas.
  - While on the topic of Texas town names, Old Dimebox is surely worth a mention. And Marble Falls doesn't have anything resembling its name since they built the dam.
- "Canada" means "Village." It's the second-largest country in the world (geographically-speaking).
- Any of several People's Republics of Tyranny.
Non-Standard Game Over:
- The death penalty.
- Getting a life sentence in prison. Well, you are still technically playing, but you're not going to be doing much for a long time. Unless you escape.
- And when you get to do something the only option is "Die".
- Locked-In Syndrome. Consciousness is maintained, and you can blink, but that's about it. Likewise, Persistent Vegetative State.
- Coma can also be this for some, as many players who fall into one never wake up. In recent years, however, this has become notably less common.
No OSHA Compliance: Trope Namer. While usually averted, it is played straight occasionally. A great example of this is the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory episode between the second half of the Industrial Revolution arc and the World War I arc.

"Not So Different" Remark: It has becomes so common in the past several seasons to do this to characters who criticize other characters that it's basically a Memetic Mutation.
Not-So-Harmless Villain: Many characters, although prominent examples include Adolf Hitler, an out of work ex-soldier wannabe artist turned fascist dictator, and Osama Bin Laden, a quiet, religious boy from a moderate, prosperous family turned mass-murdering terrorist mastermind. The recent revelation that Kim Jong Il's faction has obtained nuclear weapons was a major plot twist that, thankfully, so far has gone nowhere.
No Title: At least, not that we know of. "Real Life" is just a colloquial name for it.
Novelization: Biographies, textbooks, and a whole bunch of other stuff.
NPC: Robots. Most of them won't even try to have a conversation with you, and the ones that do always give very scripted answers.
Nuclear Torch Rocket: Not quite yet, but the Tech Tree items currently being Researched:
- A common idea, called a "Nuclear Thermal Rocket," is to use the heat of a conventional nuclear reactor to heat hydrogen gas (any other fuel isn't worth it; hydrogen gives the best returns for its weight but is a nightmare to store and carry around) as with N.E.R.V. and Project: Timberwind. Some theoretical designs have a reactor added to a conventional rocket, to be turned on for interplanetary travel, which is called a "Bimodal nuclear thermal rocket." This has proved problematic for both political (most players and servers mess their drawers at the word "nuclear") and practical (the darn thing needs a few tons of shielding to keep from frying the astronauts, the fuel is constantly trying to escape, etc) reasons. A few were tested, but never used on anything. The USSR claimed to have solved the shielding problem, and China states they have one capable of reaching Mars inside of a week, but how much this was/is commie propaganda remains to be seen.
- Theoretical designs purport to use fusion reactors with a hole in the Containment Field leading to a rocket nozzle made of superconducting wire, which works to stretch the field so that the plasma doesn't actually touch any of the physical components. The fusion reaction can be squeezed very tightly (something called a "Zeta Pinch"), and then allowed to flow through the hole and into the nozzle. This method would be capable of flying a spaceship at about 2G's of acceleration and would have the power to obliterate Rhode Island if it got caught in the exhaust plume.
  Another method merely uses the fusion reactor as a combustion chamber, similar to the nuclear thermal rocket concept.
- One nuclear reactor-free method currently within the grasp of modern science involves uranium salt dissolved in water. This salt would reach critical mass as the water is squirted out of the rocket nozzle, causing a sustained series of nuclear explosions at the ship's tailpipe. They would need special fuel tanks honeycombed with neutron-absorbing materials to keep the fuel from exploding early, and rocket nozzles protected from their exhaust's heat somehow. It has the unfortunate downside of vaporizing the ship if the fuel tanks are punctured.
Nude Nature Dance: Special ability for those who have taken the "Gardnerian Wiccan" prestige class that allows them to perform many ceremonies "skyclad" (nude), complete with dancing.
Numbered Sequels: Numerous conflicts, such as World War II.
- And the Second Battle of Bull Run/Second Manassas.
- Oddly enough, some disenchanted fans were already calling the first world war "World War One". The foreshadowing for that series wasn't particularly subtly written.
- The Third Reich, although thankfully that map didn't last long until it was deleted and a new one was coded to replace it.

Obvious Rule Patch: Whatever happened to the dinosaurs was probably a result of this. Other than that, pretty much averted. When a new rule is discovered (generally as a result of poking an old rule until it breaks) it's also discovered that the new rule applied even before it was discovered.
Official Couple: A system has been devised to cement a couple as being, in their own opinion, the author's One True Pairing. A lot of these are eventually disproved, but many others remain plausible for the duration of the characters' tenure.
Official Presidential Transport: One of the perks for players who reach the National Leader class. Most servers have one for their top player.
Once an Episode: In general, every episode contains at least one sunrise and one sunset. Subverted in the Arctic regions. On the poles this is Once a Season.
Once a Season:
- For hundreds of seasons now, every season has featured many of the same celebrations as the previous ones. Traditionally, every season ends with a big celebration, though different servers disagree on when exactly a season ends and the next one begins.
- Every season features every character's birthday, and consequently, the accompanying celebrations.
One-Hit-Point Wonder: Some would have you believe a given member of the human race is extremely fragile when a decent variety of single attacks,some worse than others, are bound to kill them in one strike. Also subverted because humans are tougher than they look - enough decades of time, though, eats up HP something fierce. Also, modern weaponry has made humans one-hit kills, and it would take a much longer time to bring one down with just the hands. Good old-fashioned luck plus modern medicine (particularly the advancement in Trauma medicine) plus some curious biology means this trope is Justified, Played Straight, Averted, Zigzagged, Invoked, Enforced, Subverted, and even Parodied. Occasionally with the same person, and rarely, all in one incident. Warfare is a particularly fickle mod that allows for all of these to happen at the same time.
One-Way Visor: Spacesuit helmets, welding goggles, Hazmat suits, and mirrored, wraparound shades.
Only Known by Their Nickname: Welcome to the Internet. Many famous characters, like Snoop Dogg, Elton John, and David Bowie, are subject to this trope.
Only Sane Man: Most players think they are the Only Sane Man, but if they're all sane, why is everyone surrounded by crazy people? This leads to an inversion as some people think they are the only insane person surrounded by sane people.
Only Smart People May Pass: You're repeatedly tested on your knowledge in the "School" phase as well as the optional "College/University" phase. Depending on the character class you choose, you'll also have to do this kind of thing frequently during your job.
Ontological Mystery: Characters enter the world naked and crying with no idea whatsoever of their purpose for existence. Might all be a giant "Shaggy Dog" Story.
Origin Story: An uber-example as every player has their own unique story. Some gamemasters have attempted to write all-encompassing origin stories, to varying degrees of acceptance.
Our Trolls Are Different: Internet-based cruel pranksters.
Our Demons Are Different: In Name Only slang for computer subroutines.
Our Dragons Are Different:
- Large, flightless lizards native to a handful of tropical islands. No Breath Weapon, but they have a mouth so filthy a bite almost always results in infection. A smaller type of lizard, called the flying dragon, is much smaller and weaker but possess a set of wings formed from its own hyper-extended ribs; these are only found in certain jungle maps. Another small lizard type, the bearded dragon found in the desert and scrubland maps of the Australia server, shares none of these traits but is popular among sections of the player base as pets.
- In the setting's backstory, there was the Yi qi, a small dinosaur with bat-like wings, and Dracorex hogwartsia, a bipedal, armored-headed reptile named as a shout-out to another work.
Our Presidents Are Different: "President" is a common title among leaders of the larger player guilds and alliances, and has become particularly widespread in recent patches.
Our Vampires Are Different: Parasitic insects (mosquitoes, blackflies, etc) and worms (leeches), mostly. And certain bats, eels, and birds.
Our Zombies Are Different: Hacked computers, displaced fossils, viri, and people who haven't had their coffee yet.
Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions: Zig-zagged with extreme confusion.
- Played straight in that many ancient religions have become mythology since almost no one believes them anymore.
- While atheism as a whole seems to be gaining popularity, this was a fairly recent 21st-century explosion, and there are still billions of people who adhere to a religion. Those that hold such beliefs are usually treated civilly by those that don't. Church attendance has dropped below 50% in the US server for the first time in history.
Out of Focus:
- Happened big-time to Mongolia after the death of Kublai Khan.
- More recently, Australia gets much, much less attention than Canada or Britain.
- For a long time, formerly great civilizations like Arabia, India and China were more or less ignored. Now they seem to be making a comeback. Recently, France and Russia seem to feel this is occurring for them.
Overly-Long Gag:
- This page.
- End of the world predictions.
- Life itself.

Pacifist Run: This is the default option, and you can often suffer massive penalties for straying from this path (ranging from being temporarily banned from the server to immediate player character death). That said, certain character classes, such as Soldier and Police, are allowed to use lethal force without serious penalties in particular situations. At the same time, however, many players disagree on what exactly those situations should be, with some even arguing that it should never be allowed or that such character classes should be banned.
Path of Most Resistance: Claimed to be the best way to succeed. Played straight if you needed to get into a highly technical position or rely heavily on ability, but subverted by those who manage to bluff or use other means to gain status.
People's Republic of Tyranny: The more a country's name sounds like the personification of an ideal, the more likely it is to be the opposite. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the People's Republic of China, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are all good examples.
Permadeath: You die, that's it for your character. What happens afterward is unknown, but there are three basic camps^noteThese are not the only beliefs, just the three most well-known.:
- If you were good, you go to the New Game Plus in Fluffy Cloud Heaven, but if you were bad you go to Fire and Brimstone Hell. Where the dividing line is believed to be varies — some believe that only really evil people go to hell, others believe that only characters with Incorruptible Pure Pureness get heaven. Still other schools of thought hold that whether or not you go to Heaven or Hell is inherently out of your control, so your actions mean nothing. Many ancient religions also had a third level in-between the other two. In another variation, one major belief system teaches that there is a Fluffy Cloud Heaven but no Fire and Brimstone Hell. In this belief system, the player is required to play and pass one last level to reach Heaven. If they do not pass the level, they must continue playing that level indefinetely until they achieve a satisfactory score.
- You start over with a new character. Details vary, but generally depend on your Karma Meter in the life you just finished. Some believe that, eventually, you play a different game entirely.
- Nothing. You're just dead.
Permanently Missable Content: Too many to count. You do not get a warning, but it is still possible to progress without missed items.

Piecemeal Funds Transfer: One man was actually caught because his program worked too fast. He hadn't thought about how much money he would actually acquire, and when his account grew beyond reasonable levels, someone wondered where all the money was coming from.
Pilot Episode: A matter of much debate. It's generally considered to have taken place in Africa, but nobody is exactly sure when except that it was a long time ago.
Pinball Scoring: Some currencies' values are so low that one USD is equal to thousands of that currency. And then there's hyperinflation; post-World War I Germany, for instance, had banknotes with values as high as 100,000,000,000,000 marks. Zimbabwe is an example, with everyday bank notes hitting the trillions and maybe beyond. This was recently patched and as a result, the currency in question no longer exists for practical purposes.

Planet of Hats: Averted six billion ways to Sunday, although this doesn't stop a lot of authors from trying to play it straight. Declining in popularity these days.
Platform Hell: If you want to see other people experience it, Ninja Warrior. If you want to experience it yourself, go for a tough hike or try to climb a mountain. Be careful, though; this minigame gives you only one life, and no one continues unless you're lucky enough for a Mountain Rescue player to be in the area. However, if you have a distress beacon item, you get a generally high chance (depending on local conditions) of getting an additional continue, but you have to restart the entire minigame.
Platinum Makes Everything Shinier:
- In credit card plans, platinum cards offer more exclusive and elite privileges and reward programs to their holders than gold cards do, and require a higher income and/or credit score to obtain, too.
- Among the awards that the Recording Industry Association of America offers to singers whose songs or albums have been successful, platinum awards for 1,000,000 units sold are the second-highest tier, above gold awards (500,000 units) and below only diamond (10,000,000 units).
- A couple whose marriage has endured for fifty years celebrates their golden anniversary. If they reach their seventieth anniversary still together, then that is referred to as their platinum anniversary.
Playable Epilogue: Retirement. You've finished all of the main quests, and all that's left to do is enjoy minigames at your leisure while waiting for the credits to roll.
Player Versus Player: Between the "Law/Crime", "Wimps/Bullies", and opposing "Military" class tree players. Technically any player can engage, but it's not a very good idea.
- Special rules for Player Versus Player contests exist in minigames known as Boxing, Wrestling, and Ultimate Fighting. The advantage of these is that there's no penalty for engaging in them, and they do not cause death (most of the time). Not to mention that unlike other examples of this trope, the aggression is confined to these mini-games and no animosity or hatred would continue to affect the characters outside of the contest area.
- The entire world is one big Player Versus Environment zone unless you are either doing one of the above or in a designated PvP zones such as Somalia or Iraq. Penalties for attacking players outside of those zones can range from your character getting banned and deleted from the server to being restricted to special penalty zones where you can get ganked by trolls and twinks.
- The 'Lawsuit' minigame is a good choice for players who want nonviolent PvP action... but expect to spend a lot of in-game currency even if you win. 'Office Politics' is also another choice, but the rules aren't nearly as consistent.
- And of course there's other forms of nonviolent PvP, known as "games".
Pocket Rocket Launcher:
- The Gyrojet invented jointly by Robert Mainhardt and Art Biehl (thus the name of the company being MBA: it stands for "Mainhardt, Biehl, Associates") in 1965 is a rocket-firing pistol. It got to a carbine-sized long arm before the company folded. It was too inaccurate for combat, since a manufacturing defect only caught years later caused its spin-stabilization rockets to actually decrease the accuracy (remember what we said about rockets being finnicky?). Until this defect was found, the projectile's weight was blamed; the thought was that they didn't have the weight to resist being blown about by the wind. They also had a minimum range, where the rocket-bullet was going too slow to reliably kill (better propellant would have fixed that, however, the most potent safely-burning, non-toxic rocket fuel they could find was used), and a maximum range where the rocket tore itself appart through centrifugal force. There is an Urban Legend that it was originally intended for use in space stations, where recoil would be a big problem and weather a complete non-issue. However, it seems that their inventors just really liked the idea of a rocket-propelled bullet, and the accepted story is that it was noticed that rockets are more powerful the further away from the gun they get, as they pick up speed as they travel, whereas conventional guns have most penetrating power up-close ("point blank"). In any case, the US military was barely interested, and the gun-buying public didn't want to buy "bullets" that were not only expensive (a whole dollar for one round, and this is back in the 60s where a dollar went a lot further), but also of consistently low quality (lots of duds and the aforementioned manufacturing defects).
- A Spiritual Successor to the gyrojet, called the "pogojet" was invented in 2015. The rocket first forcibly extends a telescoping piston (the "pogo") that cold-launches the rocket, and creates enough drag to keep it from killing anyone-it's a deterrent, rather than a legitemate weapon.
- The USA's National Firearms Act declares a rocket over four ounces, or carrying explosives of any size (including incendiary or chemical warheads), to be a Destructive Device with "no sporting purpose," and it's illegal for a private citizen to own one.
- For those with more balls than brains, firework fights. Yes, some people shoot fireworks at each other for fun, and a lot of them are hurt or killed.
- The ancient Chinese utilized a small, musket-sized launcher that fired a quiver's worth of rocket-propelled arrows in a shotgun-like spread.
- The Danes, as early as 1848, issued some soldiers with small rocket-propelled incendiary grenades that fit into their guns, called Voss rockets, instead of traditional rifle grenades. They were used in a couple of conflicts (namely, the two Danish-Prussian wars), but didn't see much use. While effective due to the use of the standard load of black powder used as a kick-charge, they became illegal by 1869 due to the signing of an international treaty banning explosive weaponry weighing in at under 400 grams.
- Those Wacky Nazis tested with a 9mm rocket-propelled bullet of varying lengths that they called the "S-Munition" as part of an experiment. The idea was to create a constant pressure wave behind the projectile to increase its velocity (and thereby its range and damage profile). While their records state that they would be fired from a smoothbore gun similar to the MP-4 Sturmgerwer, no such device was ever found. Lots of rounds though. They also tried creating an Anti-Air rocket launcher that rivalled a regular shoulder-carry one, but had several (the working protoype had 4 and the improved iteration had 9) 20mm barrels strapped together. They called it the "Fleigerfaust," which means "plane-fist."
- One that was just a hoax: In 1934, one Clyde Farrell claimed to have invented a rocket-launching, belt-fed SMG that weighed about three pounds. He never submitted the plans for patent, nor did he demonstrate it to the military (despite his claims to the magazine "Modern Mechanix").
- One of the closest examples in Real Life thus far is the Raytheon Pike, a small guided missile that can be fired from a 40mm grenade launcher (currently the M320 or the FN EGLM).
- A similar weapon, the AeroVironment Switchblade, is a guided missile (a "loitering munition," which does exactly what it says it does) that can be launched from a soldier's backpack, just like a certain bounty hunter from a certain Space Opera.
Poison Mushroom: There's a reason why many wilderness survival guides warn novices to think twice about eating wild plants and fungi. The best-case scenario is a horrible stomach illness and/or diarrhea. Worst case scenario, unwittingly ingesting a deadly poison.
Plothole: There are many, as lampshaded in this video. While many do turn out to be Blatant Lies uttered by Unreliable Narrators, quite a few seem legit. Players who study these refer to them as "paradoxes", but only when they can phrase them in a way that invokes irony.
Plot Armor: Averted. The plot follows character development, rather than the other way around.
Polar Penguins: There are many penguins in Antarctica, which is in the southern hemisphere of the main game world. Their game function seems to be uncertain.
Polluted Wasteland: Many industrial areas and several cities count, particularly during the Industrial Revolution. Occasionally averted, often reverted.
Poor Communication Kills: This trope has been grossly overused throughout the series run. According to the Tower of Babel archive, this was a deliberate choice from God.
Posthumous Character: Influential characters from early seasons can have a surprising influence on later plotlines even after they die. The Doomed Moral Victor from the Rise of Rome storyline is now (arguably) the posthumous main character. The Chessmaster from the Arabia arc and the Jerk with a Heart of Gold from the Bo Tree arc has been almost as influential, and even the Crazy Is Cool Mad Scientist from the Restoration Arc (and his later counterparts in the World War I and World War II storylines) is still considered important.
- Some players believe they have an unlimited number of lives, and thus after dying they start over again with a new life, though all stat points are reset to zero and the game begins again under a new set of dice-roll conditions. Occasionally, however, some players claim to experience bleed-through from a previous life/game attempt.
P.O.V. Cam: Standard for all players. Due to hardware limitations, an alternate setup is not accessible at this time. (See, however, Psychic Powers and Near-Death Clairvoyance)
- Some items, such as Skype or Security Camera, do allow a limited form of third-person view.
- Certain items found lower on the Tech tree, such as mirrors, can also be used to look at your character from different perspectives.
- In the most recent updates, an item known as a "Drone" has become available to the public. With these drones, players can look at anything from different angles, in some cases even things that are kilometers away! However, restrictions on their use depend on the server.
Poverty Porn:
- The critic Diana George says many organizations have such a hard time convincing people living in first-world Western civilizations (particularly in America) that real poverty is actually out there that they resort to this in order to gain favor.
- Joãosinho Trinta noted this as a reason for why he chose to create lavish costumes and floats for Carnival, creating a trend: "Only intellectuals like poverty, the poor people like luxury."
Power Gives You Wings: Inverted — wings give you power! Just ask any member of the "Air Force" class tree. Inverted differently by the dinosaurs, who got wings at the expense of a substantial decrease in power.
- And Red Bull.
- The dinosaurs may be a Double Subversion: wings may have come at a substantial decrease to their overall stats, but through Min-Maxing the winged descendants of the dinosaurs that developed that way became the only ones to survive the mass extinction event which ended their story arc, though their racial descriptor changed from 'dinosaur' to 'bird' in the process.
The Power of Friendship: Players will never get far into the game without making some kind of connection with other players of the same species, which opens unlimited paths, some that were previously not considered! With any luck, those connections will pay off.
The Power of Rock: Played straight. Usually used by the "Angsty Teen" class to get back at their parents. Rock music was also played to get Manuel Noriega to surrender during Operation Just Cause.
- Sometimes happens when players think the game is too hard and try to Game Over, but the lyrics helped them get back on their feet.
Power Perversion Potential: My, my, my. Where do we begin? This trope was the founder of one of Real Life's first job classes.
- At some point, humans must have realized they didn't need a partner to orgasm and could literally take matters into their own hands. Things have never been the same since.
Present Day, Present Time: Always.
Press Start to Game Over: Tragically it’s entirely possible to get a Game Over before completing the first level of the tutorial, sometimes without any visible reason if the Random Number God decides to screw you over. In extreme cases, you can get a Game Over before you even start the game.
Press X to Die:
- Suicide is arguably a subversion, as you have to be deliberate about it. The vagus nerve reflex would be a straight interpretation.
- This can also happen unintentionally when a player inadvertently takes an action that turns out to lead to termination. If clear warnings of the danger are present but the player ignores or fails to recognize them, the result is sometimes referred to as a Darwin Awards.
Press X to Not Die: No on-screen indicators, and it doesn't always show up. All you got is your instincts.
Prestige Class: "Doctor", "Lawyer", "President". "Rocket Scientist" and "Brain Surgeon" are commonly considered this as well.
Prequel: "Real Life Prehistoric".
Product Delivery Ordeal:
- A common sidequest in Real Life consists of transporting or trading products across great distances, which requires an extensive preparation and coordination. Even those who simply want to bring a present to someone or move furniture between houses can relate to this kind of pain.
- There's a classic riddle that is sometimes proposed in schools and friend circles to see who can solve it first: A farmer wants to transport a tiger, a sheep, and a bundle of hay to a rural village (variations of the riddle replace the sheep with a goat, and/or the hay with grass). But at one point, the farmer meets a river, and while there's a canoe that can be used to transport people and their packages, it's only big enough to hold two entities (one of which, logically, will be a person). The farmer wishes to reach the other side with all three things he's traveling with, but he'll have sail across the river back and forth as he can only carry one thing at a time; if he tries to transport the hay first, the tiger will eat the sheep when they're left alone; and if he tries to take the tiger first, then the sheep will eat the hay. What should the farmer do? Take the sheep first, because the tiger won't do anything with the hay. When the sheep is put into the other side, the farmer can go back to get either the tiger or the hay next. When the second item is placed to the other side, take the sheep back so it's left to where the remaining item is. This makes it so, in the final step, the tiger and the hay are now on the desired side; all the farmer has to do then is to sail back one more time to grab the sheep and take it to the other side and have all three items crossed to continue the travel.
The Prom Plot: Those in the "teenager" class can partake in the Prom minigame. Can be used to increase your Relationship Values if done well, but those with the "Social Anxiety" trait may want to skip it.
The Promised Land: Users on third-world country servers view first-world servers as such, and try to do anything to switch over. For some, switching over brings them better gameplay, but for others, life doesn't improve that much. In the late 19th century edition of Real Life, many players tried to switch over to the United States server. How well it worked out for them varied from player to player.
The Protagonist: You are the main character whose life the events of your story revolve around.
Psychic Powers: Nothing so far, despite a surprising amount of grass-roots support for an expansion. They seem to clash with the physics engine.
Puberty Superpower: After roughly a decade and a half of playing, your character will receive various stat boosts. The most obvious is the ability to reproduce, allowing you to create further characters with a member of the opposite gender. You will receive an increase in height and strength, boosts which are usually more pronounced in males. If you are a guy, you get the option to grow beards and mustaches. As for a girl, you receive the Most Common Superpower, useful for extortion, and feeding your young. Although it is possible to begin the Love Life quest at around age seven, it is not possible to unlock the Sex Life quest until you reach puberty. There is also a bug which makes it impossible to unlock the Sex Life quest at all.
The Public Domain Channel: Some TV channels will air public domain movies or shows, because the Rights Negotiation minigame can be kind of a pain and results in a big loss of money.
Punk Punk: Constantly averted. Every time it looks like a Punk genre is going to take over, fate pulls a fast one and stops work on that tech tree. Steampunk / Clock Punk never got going, though they're good fun for lobbying. The only part of the world that took Ocean Punk seriously was the Caribbean area, Diesel Punk was going great at the start of the 1900s but kinda ran out of gas (although the Internal Combustion Engine was such a popular element it was adopted by other genres), and Atom Punk was considered but dropped after the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl disasters, and Fukushima was the final nail in its coffin. The newest Punk genres slated for Tech Tree expansion are Bio Punk and Cyberpunk, but we'll have to wait and see.
Puppy Love: While the love buffs are much more common when puberty kicks in, prepubescent characters also receive love buffs. Generally (but not always) they are not very strong and fade away on their own, however some characters (albeit rarely) end up in a lifelong relationship with their childhood love.
Purely Aesthetic Gender: Averted in the extreme. For instance, male characters have a weak point while female characters suffer a nasty debuff once a month (though once they are roughly halfway through the game they lose this debuff; some, though, experience a more random set of debuffs for a while afterward; male characters, however, retain their weak point for life). Female characters also tend to have lower starting STR scores, and on some servers, penalties (sometimes massive penalties) to Respect ratings. Some players claim these disadvantages are offset by increased WIS and CHA scores, but there is still controversy on this point.
- Perhaps also subverted in the form of transgender people in that they lack most of the above characteristics but often face severe penalties for having a Purely Aesthetic Gender.
- The lists of Disease debuffs that favor one gender or the other are long enough to choke a horse, and worse, many of those diseases are picked up at character creation. Lupus, for example, is found in women almost ten times as often as in men.
  - One that can affect the literal aesthetics of the game world is color blindness and is found much more commonly in men than in women.
- Childbearing, one of the most monumental events in the game for most players, is restricted to one gender. It usually involves both, but the male need not even be present while the female is committed. Some mod attempts have been made to allow males to conceive, but this is not as successful as yet.
- In many species, sexual dimorphism is even more pronounced than it is in the H. sapiens type used by every character reading this page. Birds can be so radically different that they can appear as entirely different species, while the eusocial insects live an Amazon Brigade existence with males only sticking around to impregnate a queen.
- Recent game upgrades allow individuals to physically change gender if they so wish, though this is optional.
Put on a Bus: Lots of people lose track of friends and relatives. Many find themselves put on a bus, too. Commonly invoked with bus tickets.

Quicksand Box: invoked In some cases, it's easy — you simply need to survive by collecting food. In some cases, it's hard because of the expansive nature and you can't guarantee that a certain path will result in food. In extreme cases, you have to plan ten years with little guidance on what should be done.

Ragdoll Physics: The Ur-Example and, so far, the best-coded in history.
Rage Quit: A sadly high number of players exit the game before finishing it for reasons ranging from frustration about their lack of wins, to despair from being hurt by other players, to bugs making their experience unenjoyable. Very few of these quitters are ever given a chance to continue playing, but those that do usually will, making a subversion.
Rain Aura: Go somewhere that's at once miserably hot and horridly humid. Stir in one (1) cloudburst. Observe the steam rising from the pavement. Repeat as necessary.
Random Encounters: Too many to count. Cockroaches (can be found everywhere), stray dogs, and Mugger players in street levels and great white sharks in aquatic levels are just some examples.
- Also spiders, some of which can kill with a single, poisonous bite.
- Snakes.
- Running into someone you don't want to see or talk to.
Random Events Plot: Some days go like this for people.
Randomly Drops: The Archaeologist, Beggar, Garbage Picker, and Thief classes are almost entirely dependent on these turning up something good. The Police prestige class Drug Enforcement is too, to a degree. The Street Vendor class depends on being seen as a unique enough provider of these compared to others in his or her class. Also happens, obviously, to players searching thrift shops, junk shops, street vends, and low-price shops.
Random Number God:
- Character Customization is especially weird, because it requires two players, each from a distinct half of the player base, to generate a new one. Stats are based on the stats of several related characters, not just the two that instigated the generation of a new character. The random number generator used in character generation is mediocre at best, clearly favoring some values over others. Some other, smaller, completely random changes are also made to the base stats, giving unique new values for those stats, but these changes often have no effect on gameplay or hinder the new character's later progress.
  - According to some, "Gender" is listed twice, once under "Mental Stats" and once under "Physical Stats". This wouldn't be a problem if not for the existence of a system bug/feature that can cause a mismatch between the mental and physical development of the character.
- A good number of new characters are also deleted before gameplay begins due to a poor stat roll or problems during the later stages of character generation. All in all, Real Life character generation is really fun at first but becomes highly inconvenient later on, and downright painful at the end.
- The character changes after generation and can change based on interactions within the game, as well as self-modification which occurs semi-randomly. Whew... it's complicated.
"Rashomon"-Style: In life, much like fiction, players can experience the same thing, yet interpret it very differently. What's true, false, denial, or just missing proper context is usually anyone's guess.
Rasputinian Death: Although the Trope Namer's death was greatly exaggerated, there have been a few rare cases.
Read the Fine Print: It's usually a good idea to carefully read and reread ANYTHING given to you to sign before you put pen to paper. Consulting with someone with some levels in contract law before signing would also be helpful in some situations.
Real Is Brown: It is. It's also many, many other colors, to the delight of species with color vision.
Reality Has No Subtitles: Players who have different language sets will have serious difficulty coordinating anything.
Reality Is Unrealistic: Trope Namer, Trope Maker, and Trope Codifier. Example: When Mt Everest was first reliably measured, the result was 29,000 feet. Since that figure *sounds* unreliable, they announced 29,002 instead.
Real Life Writes the Plot: Well, it is the plot, but discoveries and wars are almost entirely based upon players' actions.
Reasonable Authority Figure: You will encounter them often enough that the Corrupt Politician or Obstructive Bureaucrat stereotype isn't always true. NPCs such as Parents or Teachers may qualify.
Reassigned to Antarctica: The Trope Namer itself offers an aversion. Like the aquatic levels, survival in and exploration of the polar regions requires a great deal of special training and equipment, and relatively few players (aside from the locals in the northern region) even attempt to do so.
Recycled In Space: Rumored for an upcoming expansion.
Recycled Premise: Happens so reliably that even a character with no science ranks catches on pretty quick: water flows downhill, summer follows spring, and every year there's a World Cup somewhere.
Red Baron: The Trope Namer.
Redemption Equals Death: Since it gets to the point in some situations that Anyone Can Die, this trope comes in straight, subverted, averted, and every other possible combination. The straight version often spawns religions.
Redemption Equals Sex: Reportedly played straight in many ancient religions, averted in most cases today. Still played straight in Tantric yoga and a few New Age cults.
- Also frequently played straight in everyday life. Make-up sex is often an example.
Reed Richards Is Useless: Most of the greatest add-ons that redefined the whole game, such as the internet or computers, were designed for military purposes, and then released to the civilian public.
Reference Overdosed: Any work you can think of is somehow encountered here.
Refuge in Audacity: Oh, so many, many examples...
Regenerating Health: Played with. Characters do have a healing factor, but it can take days to years to restore them to full health, and they may permanently lose several abilities. However, certain items can drastically increase the rate of regeneration, and many players devote their time in-game to healing others. Despite this, taking major damage is a very, very bad thing in real life.
Retcon:
- Amnesia and the blocking out of memories (usually of traumatic experiences), though it's handled quite differently here than in most other series.
- Common during totalitarian regimes when "purging" a character to the extent that they simply never existed according to the players ruling at that time.
- "The jury will disregard that and the statement will be stricken from the record."
- "History is Written by the Winners."
- Criminal records. Some legal systems act as if any crime a player committed as a minor never happened once they become an adult. Additionally, a crime on an adult's record of which they are later revealed to be innocent is retconned from their record; from a legal point of view, it never happened. Should the actual perpetrator's identity ever be known, their record is retconned accordingly.
  - In some regions, a crime that you're found guilty of will be wiped from your criminal record after a set time, depending on the severity of the crime. The less serious the crime is, the sooner it is wiped from the record.
The Reveal:
- The Earth is round! Hitler was building death camps!
- Santa Claus isn't real.
- There is no Easter Bunny. There is no Tooth Fairy. The Queen of England was real, though.
The Revolution Will Not Be Vilified: A good number of countries, especially most of the ones in the Americas, owe their existence to a resistance against the empire they had once belonged to (Britain for the United States, the United States for Cuba, France for Haiti, Portugal for Brazil, and Spain for most of the others). For such countries, their revolution was a glorious epic, and nobody dares to say that it was "wrong", or that it would have been better to stay being part of the Empire.
- One story arc of the current season is Britain's secession from the EU.
Revolving Door Casting: Can happen for a variety of reasons; you move to a new place, you graduate school/college, get a new job, etc. Sometimes you lose touch with old friends and gain new ones.
Revolving Door Revolution: France went through fourteen governments from the 1700s to 1958, though the Third Republic managed to last from 1870 until it was destroyed by the Nazis in 1940.
Right Behind Me: The downfall of any player who makes a habit of badmouthing others behind their backs.
The Rival: There's always someone in a person's life making it harder (or to put it in a positive context, much more interesting).
Rodents of Unusual Size: Capybaras, porcupines, and beavers.
Rogues' Gallery Transplant: Sometimes happens when defending another character from a bully; that character's bully might become your bully.
Rule of Cool: The rather limited and strict physics engine eliminates a lot of cool possibilities, but if you know where to look, Real Life is full of cool things: indoor plumbing, Jupiter, and chocolate, to name just three. Some claim that the engine limitations make it even cooler when somebody manages to do something badass anyway.
- Occasionally invoked in-universe as a reason to do something: for instance, two prominent servers once competed for ten years and spent a lot of resources to see who would be the first to unlock the Moon expansion, just for the bragging rights.
Rule of Cute: Did not feature much in the early seasons, but began with the introduction of Amphibian characters and became increasingly common once mammals appeared on the scene. In a few cases, such as the Asian giant panda or the Australian numbat, Cuteness Overload has been employed to induce characters to help save the species.
Rule of Fun: Generally subverted. Learning to play guitar takes months of lessons and practice, shooting people is neither fun^* For the sane nor temporary, fighter jets have very complex controls and usually aren't even within sight of their target, making whole lines of blocks doesn't make them vanish, and sports take lots of practice, require you to be in great athletic shape, and can cause injuries far more severe than sore thumbs.
- On the other hand, this is the only reason we engage in leisure activities that don't benefit us in any concrete way.
Rule of Funny: Played straight once you accept that most Real Life humor is Black Comedy. People find Epic Fail ways to end their games so often that 'the Darwin Awards' have become an established fixture: hypocrites and Jerkass characters occasionally receive a hilarious comeuppance: and, of course, certain features of Real Life are almost certain to provoke mirth.
- It's also purposely invoked by the Comedian and Cartoonist classes, among others.
Rules Lawyer: The "lawyer" prestige class is half of the Trope Namer for this. They, along with legislators and various other characters, have this as their class specialty. Some other characters just take up this ability as a hobby. This ability invokes YMMV among quite a few players; the player consensus seems to suggest that it's an annoying but necessary part of the game.
Rule 34: To the point where Real Life porn is a major industry. It's possibly the one universally accepted Fetish, though doubtless, some people disagree.
Running the Blockade: When there's a blockage somewhere, occasionally there's someone foolhardy enough to try and charge right through it.

Sacred Scripture: Many biographies on the head developer have surfaced in-game, most appearing shortly after the game release. Many players consider these factual, or even as rules to play by, but other players strongly disagree. This often leads to flame wars on in-game chat. Additionally, members of a given religious faction frequently disagree on interpretation - splits into bitter rival guilds tend to result.
Sanity Meter: A truly elusive game mechanic that's difficult to completely understand for even the highest leveled of players in the appropriate specialist sections of the Doctor class, and the effects of the meter are notoriously difficult to downright impossible to relieve. Sometimes players are afflicted with moderate to debilitating penalties right as soon as they start the game, sometimes they gain the immediate effects from traumatizing incidents ^note, and sometimes the effects are gradually built up through a whole game's worth of playing. Resistance to how quickly the meter fills will vary between players, where two players can experience the same horror and only one of them will feel the mental aftereffects while the other will remain mostly unfazed. The effects of the sudden debuff vary wildly too, which include but are not limited to vivid nightmares while resting, and a massive penalty to the characters' Fear Resistance and/or losing most of the control over the characters' actions when placed in similar situations.
Save Scumming: Averted; there appears to be no way to save the game at all. Unless this theory is correct and we all have unlimited save games.
Scaling the Summit: A major achievement for athletic player classes, although it tends to tie them up in an in-depth questline that allows for the advancement of few, if any, other quests and can last for months.
Scars are Forever: Played straight for humans, at least. Many kinds of cells cannot be regenerated in vivo without becoming malignant neoplasias. Even if the cells could regenerate, there's a good chance the cells can't self-organize after a wound to regenerate correctly. The body resorts to healing, where it lays down fibrous tissues to hold itself together as best it can. Barring surgery, that's permanent.
Scenery Gorn: Any Ghost Town, abandoned theme park, abandoned building, bombed-out region, or heavily polluted area.
Scenery Porn: Sets the standard for all other scenery, and most media can't hope to measure up. 126 million light receptors per eye make for some really good graphics, and the resolution cannot be beaten. Full 3D, pan, dynamic light and shadows, adjustable focus, and (with the proper upgrade equipment) zoom. And a visible spectrum of several million colors. Also has changing times of day, living landscapes, near-infinite fractals, and weather effects that are never the same twice. A specific location of Scenery Porn is the Crystal Cave.
- Here is a screenshot gallery to give you the general idea.
- The Scottish Highlands. In England, the Lake District and the Peak District.
- It's all over the place. It's called nature. Also, some cities are like this.
Schematized Prop: Many, most notably the digestive system. The reproductive system also deserves mention.
Schizo Tech: Because of a lack of product placement, the new equipment has to be bought, resulting in people with the latest game console, a 5-year old cell phone, a 13-year-old car, and a fridge that's older than its owner. Increasingly averted for characters that buy from companies that practice planned obsolescence. With a little careful purchasing though, one can still play this straight.
- Thanks to Difficulty by Region, certain maps may have much much-advanced Technology Levels than others, even ones that are right next to each other (see the Korean server).
Science Is Bad: Although generally averted (learning how to safely employ fire and how to kill germs were particular fan favorites), Real Life does flip-flop the trope, particularly when the current plotline emphasizes Who Watches the Watchmen? or creates a conflict of interest with politics or religion. In general, each generation has factions For Science! and protesters claiming that this particular achievement goes too far. As science has unlocked greater and greater tech tree achievements, it has become increasingly clear that the protesters may only have to be right once for human character generation to be blocked for good.
Scoring Points: Many classes in schools and colleges use points to determine your grades. Also, credit scores.
- Some militaries use a points system for officers to determine who is eligible for the promotion. Of course, the threshold can change instantly...
Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: Non-profit organizations.
Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Some major corporations exhibit this trope. Players of the Politician and Celebrity classes often attempt this, and just as often fail. This has led to it being classified informally as a psychological disorder, called "affluenza."
Screw the Rules, I Have Plot!: Usually averted since no one can figure out what the plot is. Though some events make you wonder...
Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: Common enough to be represented by an entire job class — they're called Dictators. Politicians besides dictators may attempt this. The US Congress exempts itself from several laws, for example. US Presidents have been known to exempt themselves and their staff from laws.
Richard Nixon: Well, when the President does it that means that it is not illegal.
Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Used occasionally, but frequently subverted when the character who attempts this is punished for their actions.
- Non-violent protesters believe this and are something of a Trope Codifier here.
Sea Monster: Many different examples.
- Whales, despite their Gentle Giant status.
- And including extinct animals, we have plesiosaurs and similar creatures like the ichthyosaur and mosasaur, and megalodon, a prehistoric shark the size of a whale. Its modern counterpart may be the Whale Shark, which is thankfully nonaggressive and feeds on plankton.
  - Indeed, so many different creatures like this existed in the past that one can argue that plesiosaurs can't have survived to the present because the mosasaurs would've eaten them, long before the K-T extinction took down subsequent forms of reptilian Sea Monster.
- The modern equivalent of Carcharocles megalodon might be the Whale Shark from a size perspective, but in every other respect, it's a Great White that is... bigger.
- Check out the miniseries Sea Monsters (from the creators of Walking with Dinosaurs) for some of the nastiest aquatic predators ever.
- Predator X. Its teeth are each a foot long.
- The Oarfish: an eel-like fish that can exceed fifty feet long. Harmless, but quite impressive.
- The African country of Burundi is home to Gustave, a man-eating crocodile. Gustave weighs in at approximately one ton, is approximately twenty feet in length, and has been known to eat adult hippopotami. Given the number and variety of bullet-shaped scars that cover his body, he may be Immune to Bullets.
- Saltwater crocodiles can be even larger than Gustave. Large adult male saltwater crocodiles can be more than six meters long and weigh more than 2,600 lbs.
- The Bloop, or rather, whatever made the Bloop, an ultra-low frequency underwater sound that matched the profile of a living creature, but not any specific living creature we know. If it did come from a living creature, scientists agree that it would have to be several times larger than the Blue Whale, the largest known animal on earth.
  - Ironically enough, the signal originated from a point in the South Pacific roughly 950 nautical miles from the sunken home of another large monster.
- Tullimonstrum, a bizarre fossil lamprey from the Carboniferous Period, bears a striking external resemblance to the Loch Ness Monster, except it's barely a foot long and found in North America.
- The Coelacanth. Now, fair enough — as fish go, they're rather harmless. But the fact the coelacanth has been swimming around virtually unchanged for millions and millions of years; it can grow to the size of a healthy human adult, makes a lot of supposed sea-monster sightings just a little bit creepier.
- The whole point of fishing shows like River Monsters, Hooked, and Monster Fish. Their catches range from the modest (Taimen) to the bizarre (catfishes of the Amazon), to the truly gargantuan in scale (marlins, giant catfishes, and the Mekong Giant Stingray).
- The Kraken, once thought to be a mythological monster, is known today as the Giant Squid.
- THIS◊ exists. The horrors...
Sealed Orders:
- The Knights Templar went down so fast partly because Philip IV of France's orders to arrest the Templars were issued sealed, so nobody (not even the omnipresent Templars) knows what is inside them until they were all opened simultaneously on Friday, 13 October 1307.
- The captains of the Royal Navy's four Vanguard class ballistic missile submarines are each given a sealed handwritten letter by the Prime Minister when he or she enters office before they leave port detailing what they should do in the event of a nuclear attack on the UK which neutralizes the normal chain of command. These letters are destroyed unopened when the PM steps down.
- Surprise travel companies allow particularly adventurous travelers to go on arranged tours without even knowing where they're going until they're at the airport itself on the day of departure. The more elaborate ones will send something like sealed-wax envelopes containing their tickets and a customized journal for their curated trip, with instructions not to open the envelope until arrival at the airport so as to preserve the surprise until then.
- British nuclear strategy has their orders for a "the Government has been wiped" situation in sealed envelopes that can only be opened if Royal Navy boomers can't detect signs of life from the country. They are called the Letters of Last Resort and can vary from a full retaliatory strike to taking orders from Australia, depending on what the current Prime Minister decided when he or she wrote them. The letters are destroyed unread when the PM changes.
Sequel: The Afterlife (maybe).
Sequence Breaking: Some players have managed to cross the broken bridge into the higher-level jobs without activating the necessary Event Flags in the school and/or college stages first.
- This is particularly common among players with the "Child Prodigy" or "Genius" feats.
Serial Killer: A few characters seem to be this. It's the job of the Police class (an in-game moderator of sorts) to track down and imprison (perma-ban) them.
Series Fauxnale: Many of the participants seem intent on believing that the finale is approaching. This may be due to a craving for some kind of resolution of the incomprehensible plot.
- The Great War arc (later known as World War I) was advertised as "the war to end all wars". Ninety seasons later, and war episodes are as common as ever.
- Some of the "Crazy Street Person" class advertise it rather more frequently.
- The Y2K storyline also served up some red herrings.
- The date 6/6/06. Some people bet on whether we would survive. Others suggested that people listen to Slayer. Does anyone else wonder how the believers were supposed to collect their money?
- The 2012 season seemed destined to fit into here, although it wasn't.
- When episode 12/20 aired, we weren't sure if 12/21 would air or if the show would just end. It aired, so this does fit here.
Serious Business: And how. In fact, you are expected to treat it as the most important thing ever, or you'll possibly be considered a freak or something.
- Nevertheless, there are still some who hold to the tempting view that life is just a party and parties weren't meant to last. Other PCs, especially of the Musician class, have often held that the entire series is just a dream, a joke, or the like
Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: This is practically required to get a university degree (a prestige-class Knowledge achievement that can only be unlocked through several years of level grinding). Also, some people with Asperger's syndrome may speak like this all the time, as well as in Spock Speak.
Sex Montage: It's happening right now, though probably not for you if you're reading this. Unless you can multitask.
Shifting Sand Land: North Africa, Arabia, Central Asia, Western USA, most of Australia, and a part of South America.
Ship Sinking: Allllll the time. Occasionally cause for a Heroic BSoD.
Ship Tease: Spreading rumors about characters dating each other. Prevalent in many characters' high school arcs and certain magazines that provide constant coverage of Celebrity characters.
Short-Lived, Big Impact: Something many people doing speed runs aspire to In-Universe.
Shout-Out: After the release of the original Star Wars, a President character proposed an unnecessary orbital defense against nonexistent weapons, code-named 'Star Wars'.
- The Chernobyl power plant has a "Zone of Exclusion," after Roadside Picnic.
- AIDS is undetectable, except with a blood test, although the said test doesn't involve hot wires at all.
- Several animals are named, in proper Latin, after cartoon-character versions of themselves.
- Large swathes of the game world are covered in dirt.
- The navy got the idea for The Big Board from Lensman.
- The Iron Curtain device from the Red Alert Series, although it's in name only and only protects from rocket attacks, making it closer to the Anti-Missile System.
Show Within a Show: A truly massive number of them, of literally every genre. With such a large cast of characters, it's not surprising that every major group has a large number of fictional and nonfictional novels and books. Heck, there's even a Database Within The Show that analyzes both the show and the shows within it.
Single-Biome Planet: Averted for the most part. It is difficult to get a large sphere to truly have a single biome across its entire surface. Major exceptions would be planets not near a star (called rogue planets) or planets with extremely thick atmospheres, such as Venus, the only large body known to play this trope entirely straight (the temperature at the poles is the same as that at the equator at high noon or midnight). Most people might assume that say, icy bodies like Pluto or rocky, airless bodies like Mercury would be single-biome planets, but the different exposure to sunlight would still result in different circumstances in different places. It might all look icy to you, but for a native of Pluto, equatorial ice would probably seem very different from polar ice.
The Singularity: Rumors suggest the next major expansion pack will be this, but many of the players are worried that it'll crash the server and ruin everyone's game instead, turning the solar system into cheese.
Sir Swears-a-Lot: Unfortunately enforced for people with certain types of Tourette's Syndrome.
Slice of Life: The entire world plays straight on this trope.
Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Tends to slide back and forth between arcs and also on a day-to-day basis. All characters have their own opinions on it and frequently argue, and some watchers make fanfics or mods that usually tip on one side of the scale.
Slippy-Slidey Ice World:
- Antarctica, Siberia, the local ski resort... all there. Greenland, but not Iceland. Ironic, no? In general, these areas lack the classic slippery ice — it's usually fairly rough unless recently melted and refrozen — but inflict severe environmental damage on any player not equipped with significant protective gear and items.
- Many areas can become a Slippy-Slidey Ice World after a "Freezing Rain" event.
Slobs Versus Snobs: Some servers, particularly the United Kingdom server, have a sharply defined class system.
The Slow Path: Expect loads and loads of grinding to attain your character's preferred class. Even if the class has shortened requirements, your character may have to complete other, unrelated sidequests, or take even more grinding to get the class. The artist class (and various sub-classes) have it the worst, as many grinds, but will never get player recognition.
The Smart Guy: Many, some of whom have managed to induce system-wide improvements or change the nature of the interface. The unknown inventor of thread qualifies, as does Archimedes, DaVinci, Sun Tzu, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Leibniz, Linnaeus, Tesla, Einstein, Von Braun, and Hawking. Despite millions of characters who desperately sought fame through politics or conquest, The Smart Guy can achieve such fame that Last Name Only is adequate for recognition, even after hundreds of seasons!
So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Yes, it is. Being attractive may cause others to envy you, bully you, or even stalk you. Not to mention sexual harassment or actual rape. Also, most human societies at any time have a history of attractive girls being kidnapped/sold in sexual slavery.
The Sociopath: There are a whole bunch of them around, and is very difficult to pinpoint them no matter how normal they seem to be. Lack of Empathy is obvious enough as it is. They have no conscience, they're utterly self-centered, and are good at manipulating people.
Somewhere, a Herpetologist Is Crying: There is an urban legend wherein a woman keeps waking up to discover her husband's pet python is stretching itself out alongside her in bed. She calls a herpetologist to ask about the behavior, and he tells her "Get out of the house now!" (is that a Stock Phrase?): The python, he tells her, was measuring her up in preparation to eat her.
- Sadly, most wildlife-rehabilitation facilities have had to treat turtles with cracked shells, whom some idiot tried to remove from their "little house" in ignorance of the fact that the shell is part of the animal's skeleton. A case of Television Is Trying To Kill Turtles in action.
- Horned lizards are often called "horned toad," "horny toad", "horned frog" etc etc etc due to their similarity to the given amphibians but they are lizards. To make things more confusing, their scientific name, Phrynosoma, evidently means "toad-bodied" so...
- One Not Always Right tidbit had a man in a petshop try to have a staring contest with one of the pythons for ten minutes before the owner had to remind him that snakes can't blink.
- The idea that snakes somehow possess a hypnotic gaze probably stems from a few things. The first is that snakes lack eyelids, so their unblinking stares can be kind of creepy to humans. The second comes from stories of people who witness small animals sitting very still when snakes are nearby. This is standard prey behavior with just about any possible threat, freezing up so that predators who aren't already aware of them might not notice (if that doesn't work, run). This sort of behavior may be partly responsible for the myth of the Gorgon Medusa. And while we're on the subject, snake charmers don't charm snakes with music (since snakes don't hear things the same way we do), the snake is just following the motion of the charmer's flute and hands.
Somewhere, an Entomologist Is Crying: Insects, arachnids, crustaceans, and myriapods all do not have jaws that open and close like vertebrates, and they do not have teeth or tongues as we do.
- A mosquito's proboscis is not syringe-shaped and certainly not its nose.
- An arachnid's limbs are attached to the first of their two body segments (the prosoma) and the insect's the second of their three (the thorax). They are not proportioned or configured like anything remotely resembling a human or a dog.
- Basically, every depiction that isn't attempting to go for scientific accuracy is abysmally, embarrassingly, very obviously wrong.
- What most people refer to as a "wild" beehive is a mix between an antique bee skep and a hornet's nest. Actual wild beehives look like this◊ or this◊, or are simply made inside an existing knothole.
- Being arachnids, scorpions have eight legs (the pincers are pedipalps, which are closer to mouthparts than anything), but good luck finding one in TVland with the right number of legs. Made all the more grating because a simple Google search would clear up this misunderstanding immediately.
Somewhere, an Ornithologist Is Crying: Most people think hollow bones like those of birds are fragile. In reality, thanks to a complex honeycomb structure, bird bones are no more fragile than those of mammals. In the case of the now-extinct dinosaurs and pterosaurs, both having pneumatic skeletons, fragility would mean death, and they had quite strong yet light bones.
Sorting Algorithm of Weapon Effectiveness: Over the past 10 000 years, we've gone from rocks and obsidian blades to ... laser-guided cluster bombs? Remotely-piloted Attack Drones? The nuclear option? Luckily very, very few players ever get to unlock these.
Soundtrack Dissonance: There can be times where bad things happen while cheery music is playing. For example a shootout at a party. Also, the "Ear Worm" debuff can cause this if it's in effect at the wrong time.
Sparse List of Rules: Most characters only know the sections of legal codes that directly affect them.
Spectacular Spinning: The wheel seems to be the example here. Though its introduction occurs in a Lost Episode, believed to be several thousand seasons ago, nearly every episode features one or more of the myriad variations on the basic concept. Not for living characters, though, rapid rotation around the Z-axis inflicts a nasty Interface Screw and debuffs to appetite, stability, and dexterity.
Spikes of Doom: Averted in everyday life, though they have been used as booby traps in wars, and several plants have thick thorns on them. There's also a creature called the Porcupine which took this and ran with it — rather literally.
Spinoff:
- In-universe, Second Life. Widely considered to suffer from severe Adaptation Decay, although its fans will argue that it's merely a Pragmatic Adaptation.
- The Science Class invokes this with their theories about alternate dimensions, and for that matter the projection that there is another, pretty identical Earth somewhere in the potentially infinite universe.
Spock Speak:
- A required skill for the Scientist, Engineer, and Economist classes.
- These pages, whenever gaming tropes are used.
Spoiler: Played With. There are characters who claim to be capable of knowing the plot in advance from pretty much all levels, and some play it straighter than others. Often a subverted trope, and generally Played for Drama. Characters are not usually mad about these spoilers.
Spotlight-Stealing Squad:
- What other reason could there be for the number of tropes here pertaining specifically to humans?
- People with levels in the Celebrity class.
Sprint Meter: Two distinct ones for characters:
- Stamina (or Energy) is a more general measure of activities and hours you can stay awake and the only hard regeneration for it is sleeping, any consumable marked "stimulant" can grant a small amount, slow down the rate at which it drains or even grants a very slow amount of regeneration but the buffs start losing effectiveness the longer you've been awake. Your stamina cap, endurance, and drain reduction can be improved by having a nearly depleted meter when you go to sleep within a certain degree.
- Fatigue (sometimes called Exhaustion) is tracked in parts around your body and actually has both a positive and negative extreme. Fatigue occurs when the muscles of that part reach around roughly 75% exertion through activities which leads to the expected debuffs that persist for about a day afterward. Lack of use also has its own problems as the stat goes into the negative "atrophy" range.
Status Buff: these do occur as well though. Hyper leads to increased energy and drive, though this comes at an increasing cost of concentration, and can be bestowed through energy drinks, caffeine, and other stimuli, or it can occur naturally. Some characters also get it temporarily when nearing the end of the day. Euphoria increases the morale, concentration, and motivation stats and the condition occurs after a big success. "Afterglow" increases relationships and skilled PCs will use this to chain together big chains of successes and level up quickly.
- Though those with the "ADD" and/or "ADHD" character trait garner severe penalties to Concentration checks, there is a chance to cause the opposite effect, "Hyperfocus", on themselves, allowing them to shut out all other influences in favor of one goal. ADD, by its very scatter-brained nature, also grants the ability of "Brainstorming", allowing the caster to come up with as many ideas as a small group of people, though many of them may be just as scatter-brained.
- Also there is the infamous Strength Buff. It is considered illegal in many countries and has some really bad side effects. There are some other buffs for your base physical stats, and they are equally damaging. Buffs for mental stats exist only in theory.
- "Adrenaline Rush" is a naturally triggered buff upon sighting of any potential hostile with at least twice as many overall stat points as you, a considerable environmental hazard, or anticipating, dodging, and especially taking heavy damage. This can also be triggered by an accident through an abrupt event to any of your five senses. The buff grants a significant boost to your attack strength and movement speed. However, it only lasts until you are no longer in danger, give-or-take, and you're immediately saddled with an "Adrenaline Crash" debuff, resulting in a loss to those stats below the original values and this effect is amplified depending on how long the initial buff lasted.
Status Effects: Humans are rather vulnerable to poison, paralysis, stun, sloth, sleep, blindness, freeze, burn, berserk, confusion, lust, charm, fear, deafness, and instant death status effects. Some would say cursing can happen as well. Petrification is rare but known; see Pompeii. The silence status is almost unheard of (though speech impediments are common). Fatigue sets in after exercise and saps strength, agility, and motivation, and this status can advance to Exhaustion, which almost destroys the stats. Tiredness occurs after going without sleep and advances. Tiredness 1 occurs normally after going on the past evening and reduces concentration and motivation. (Note: It's possible to be stuck with Tiredness 1 if a character is addicted to caffeine.) Tiredness 2 occurs upon completely missing a night's sleep, and results in further stat hits and temper also taking a hit. Sleep Deprivation, however, is when things get nasty. SD 1 inflicts Paranoia, and SD 2 finally causes hallucinations. Any further progression results in Instant Death. Depression is caused by various factors, both natural and due to outside stimuli (it's also one of the nastier debuffs caused by substance abuse), and causes huge penalties to motivation. Temper can also be affected, and PCs who get too depressed may end up suicidal.
Status Quo Is God: Many players feel this way, and many resources are devoted to keeping things mostly the same way as it's always been.
Story Within a Story: Too many to list. Not that we didn't try. The list is made potentially infinite by the fact that literally, any character can create such a story.
Strictly Formula: Zig-Zagged. There is a great deal of variation, but many, many episodes are similar to the point of interchangeability.
Stripperiffic: Also known as varying degrees of "indecent exposure." The line for how little clothing can be worn without being considered "indecent" has been shifting in some countries, allowing for this trope to increase in prominence. Some countries have legalized public nudity.
Stuff Blowing Up: Even things such as whales can blow up. Although terrorism, war, and the debris caused by explosions show, it usually isn't fun (except for fireworks). This is thought to be how Real Life was first created.
Subsystem Damage: Almost every entity, player or not, has this to a varying level and the only way to get a rough estimate of damage is by inspecting the object or person in question or through your nervous system in many instances. Many of the medical classes and sub-classes are all about fixing individual subsystems on human and animal characters. Mechanical engineering classes, their sub-classes, and entire skill trees are all about being able to determine and repair subsystems on vehicles, implements, machinery, etc. It's important to maintain subsystems on your character as, outside of certain cases, they are gone for good once they are destroyed or lost through other means such as excessive debuffs.
Super-Speed Reading:
- A childhood condition called hyperlexia causes this effect.
- Certain players have been known or rumored to retain or even acquire this ability as adults, among them Magliabechi, John Stuart Mill, Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and JFK, and Guiness book record holder Howard Berg.
Super Weight:
- Type -1: Babies, small children, fairly old people, people with serious physical or mental handicaps, most animals, almost all plants, fungus, many microorganisms.
- Type 0: Most people, particularly large trees.
- Type 1: Athletes, soldiers, martial artists, police, firefighters, stuntmen, certain kinds of circus freaks, large predators like lions, tigers, and alligators, other very aggressive animals like elephants.
- Type 2: Robots, cyborgs with really good prosthetics, computers with sufficiently advanced A.I., humans with scale-breaking intelligence of all kinds, people enhanced through clothes somehow^note, humans piloting tanks, jets, or any other vehicle with destructive capabilities.
- Type 4: Diseases in general, thermonuclear weapons, and any other weapons of mass destruction.
- Type 5: The human race collectively.
Suspicious Video-Game Generosity: This can happen to players who work menial office jobs or are constantly busy at work until suddenly one day — usually the last week of a month — they have their workloads suddenly decreased greatly, and are allowed to simply slack off at work. Unfortunately, this likely means the player(s) in question would very likely be demoted in-game or, even worse, start a new game in another company.
Sweet Polly Oliver: Joan of Arc, most famously, but over the game's history it's been fairly common for female players to disguise themselves as males in order to enter guild leadership roles or engage in pvp. This has become much less common in recent seasons, as most player guilds have abandoned their gender restrictions to player careers.

Real Life / Tropes N to S

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