Scrub/Playing With

Basic Trope: Somebody tries to ban (most/all) strategies they don't use and don't approve of in a game.

• Straight: Alex and Bob are playing Generic Fighter II. Alex plays as Daniel, and defeats Bob, who is playing as Charlie. Bob calls Daniel a Game Breaker.
• Exaggerated: Bob is playing as Charlie at a very basic level. Alex defeats him with Daniel, Eric, Frank, and even Gloria, the Ms. Fanservice Joke Character. Bob furiously accuses Alex of abusing glitches, and Rage Quits.
• Downplayed: Bob only bans Daniel. Alex sighs and agrees.
• Justified: Daniel really is a little too fast to fairly compete.
• Inverted: Bob really wants to get better at the game, and encourages Alex to play as Xeno, the playable version of the game's SNK Boss, despite his hefty advantage.
• Subverted: Bob only bans characters on the game's official ban list...
• Double Subverted: ...which he typed out himself and printed off ten minutes before Alex came over.
• Parodied: Bob finds a "Game Breaker" somewhere everywhere, everytime someone beats him in any way, even if it's real life. "Game Breaker! You have a bigger spoon than me to eat your breakfast cereal faster with!" "Game Breaker! You're taller and have longer legs so you can run faster than me!"
• Zig Zagged: Bob only bans characters on the game's official ban list... which he typed out himself and printed off ten minutes before Alex came over. However, he'd typed it out from his best memory of it, and the retyping is accurate. To an old and outdated version of the ban list. Bob didn't use the latest banlist because it banned his favourite character, or unbanned characters he hated Alex using.
• Averted: Alex plays against Bob according to the game's programmed rules.
• Enforced: ???
• Lampshaded: "What's the matter, Bob? Afraid to get humiliated in front of your girlfriend?"
• Invoked: Bob wants to impress his girlfriend with his "leet skillz". But Bob knows that Alex always wins when he plays as Daniel. So Bob tries to ban Daniel to try to save face.
• Exploited: Alex learns a counter-strategy specifically designed to defeat Bob as Charlie, with a character Bob hasn't banned, and has stated he thinks is fair.
• Defied: Alex tells Bob to shove his ban-list, or he won't play.
• Discussed: "So every character you lose to is an overpowered Game Breaker now, Bob?"
• Conversed: "Does this Bob guy have Sore Loser written all over him,or what?"
• Deconstructed:
  • Alex continues to defeat Bob, even when using characters Bob thinks are fair, including winning in several Mirror Match rounds. Bob realizes his (lack of) skill is at fault, not Game Breaker characters, and either works hard to improve, or gives up Generic Fighter II.
  • Alex stops playing against Bob due to the drama which breaks out every time they compete; he gets sick of Bob's Sore Loser, Complacent Gaming Syndrome, Jerkass attitude.
• Reconstructed:
  • Bob works hard to improve... against AI opponents. When Bob thinks he's good enough, he invites Alex over for a rematch. Alex quickly finds and uses a counter-strategy to Bob's new strategy... which Bob quickly begins calling overpowered.
  • Alex grows to miss playing Generic Fighter II against Bob, and agrees to some of Bob's house rules so that they can play together again. Within minutes, Bob's pushing his house rules further and further.
• Played For Laughs: The Exaggerated scenario above happens. Wimp Fight ensues... and Bob claims that Alex's hair pulling is a Game Breaker.
• Played For Drama: Generic Fighter II is Serious Business to Bob, and he tells himself constantly he can't afford to lose to Alex any more, while trying harder and harder to force his home rules onto Alex. The stress threatens their friendship, as Alex threatens Bob's view of himself as the greatest Generic Fighter II player in the 'hood, and Alex is getting pretty sick of Bob's attitude.

---

Back to Scrub - and bring a fair tactic this time!