Billions of Buttons: Difference between revisions
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* ''[[Yellow Submarine]]'' had this in spades: the eponymous submarine had hundreds of buttons to choose from. None of them were labeled in any way, either, requiring the Beatles to press them all at random to do anything.
** Most of the time, though, it didn't matter, as the submarine did what it wanted, with [[New Powers as the Plot Demands]].
* ''[[Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory]]'': Every surface that isn't a window or a seat in the Wonkavator is covered with buttons. They all seem to be unlabeled and indistinguishable from each other -- except for the one Wonka says he has never pressed, which has a bright red ring around it.
== [[Literature]] ==
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* The first edition of ''Advanced [[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' featured an artifact known as the Machine of Lum the Mad, a device consisting of a large console powered by dozens of dials, plugs, levers, and buttons, none of which are labeled. A sourcebook for Second Edition AD&D introduced the Mighty Servant of Leuk-O, which was essentially a [[Humongous Mecha]] controlled by around 300 [[Guide Dang It|unlabelled levers]].
** This trope got used numerous times with [[Gary Gygax]] and his original gaming group, as they all liked to gamble on random lever pulls. Often Gary would keep two or three different lever or button rooms as [[Schmuck Bait]] for the players, who couldn't resist pulling them and hoping to get a magic item or a sizable boost in XP—though just as often they'd end up [[Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies|dooming the party instead...]]
** The
* ''Into the Outdoors with Gun and Camera'', the introductory adventure to ''[[Paranoia]]'' 2nd ed, sends the hapless Troubleshooters into wacky adventures on a six-legged amphibious vehicle. The players are presented a foldout of the vehicle's dashboard with unmarked buttons, gauges and levers, and of course the instruction manual is not available at their security clearance. Have a nice day.
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