Editing Plot Armor (section)

==Exceptions: Players voluntarily dropping advantages similar to Plot-Armor==

While almost all stories fail to ignore the infamous Plot-Armor, experiencing an adventure almost without it and without similar influences is actually possible, especially PC versions of certain /tg/ games. There are some gamers who put themselves into challenges that get considerably close to an "authentic" adventure, at least relatively.


You will have to pick a game that already has very weak Plot-Armor by itself. You can identify them by characteristics such as these:


=> No battles are fought for you

=> No hopeless situations are solved in cutscenes

=> The main character doesn't have any considerable powers higher than NPCs of the same level/equipment

=> Dialogue options and behavior has logical consequences that can be ruinous


One of the best examples for this is the ''Baldur's Gate'' series. With only very few (and minor) exceptions, all challenges in the story are thrown at '''you''', not at a sequence you can lean back and watch. At best, one can only honestly blame it for a few story/logic inconsistencies performed by opponents. Dark Souls is another example of a series with no plot armor. if you want to advance and complete the game you must either have or develop real skill, and there's no relying on fate to give you a lucky hit. You will die, over and over and over again, but that makes victory all the sweeter. Of course, it also has a steeper learning curve than Mount Rushmore thanks to this sink-or-swim mentality, but it didn't develop a huge and impossibly smug fanbase for nothing. Darkest Dungeon is also  a good example, where you will send adventurers (so your characters) to their deaths over and over again with no way to bring them back if they end up having a heart attack from being splashed with some wine by a walking skeleton in some ruins or if they suddenly decide that they want to have a sip of whatever was in the barrel they found inside the sewers populated by murderous pigmen that use human skins to fashion their clothes (the game itself starts by telling you that you'll lose characters and face situations that will have no good outcome for your team).

While absolutely not tied to any plot, the most important and difficult step is one of tremendous discipline: the so-called "No-Reload Challenge" (also know as "Iron Man" in some games where it comes as a supported mode) which basically only allows you to load a savegame to continue playing, never to rewind a death or similar unfavorable outcome. Add increased difficulty and a few mods onto this, and if you survive a game like Baldur's Gate without a million repeated attempts, you're (mentally) ready for lethal adventure. We're speaking of a true far cry from modern games here, a game that throws your 4-10 Hit Point Character into a world where your stereotypical lowlevel wolf enemy hits you for 17, bears for 32, and where early story "assassins" are not the dumbed-down incompetents you know, but out-level you by ridiculous amounts.

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