So Long and Thanks For All the Gear: Difference between revisions
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In [[Video Games]], this is the annoying effect of having potentially great equipment stolen from you because the character wearing them is rendered inaccessible for some part of the game. If and when they come back, their equipment may already have fallen victim to the [[Sorting Algorithm of Weapon Effectiveness]]. Or they may have found new, better equipment and ditched what they had before, in which case you better hope they didn't have anything unique on them that you might need later. Kinder games will dump this swag back into your inventory.
Especially a risk with [[Guest Star Party Member
Some Meta-Humor is often used here; if you the player know the character is leaving, you'll unequip everything from them. Since "you" the character couldn't possible know the character is leaving, some people will comment that the reason they left is because you took all their stuff.
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** It's also possible to set up ''six'' sets of abilities/GFs that still had all five major Junctions. The one caveat is that you can't do this before you visit Esthar, as it's the only place in the game where you can get Amnesia Greens.
** Oh, and don't forget to take back all the magic you gave to [[Guest Star Party Member|Edea]] unless you never want to see it again after Esthar.
* Inverted early on in ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'', where it's possible to strip [[Guest Star Party Member|Mog's]] Mythril Lance and Shield during his first appearance. Granted, this leaves Mog utterly defenseless for the remainder of the event,<ref>However, his Dusk Requiem Dance still oneshots the boss of the scenario, and from the back row, too.</ref>
** And even then, he comes with another set when he rejoins anyway for some reason.
** Better not give Shadow any rare equipment or Magicite until he joins for real in the World of Ruin.
*** This trope can be averted, very oddly, by speaking to the equipment guy on the airship who will somehow unequip all of Shadow's stuff and give it to you even after he's gone.
** Due to a (minor to the point of being nearly unnoticeable, but entirely unavoidable) bug, inverted with just about the last character you'd expect: the boomerang and shield equipped by Kamog/Cosmog, one of the generic moogles at the beginning of the game, are "returned" to you at the end of the {{spoiler|World of Balance}}. Note that you can't even alter Cosmog's equipment in the first place! (The reason for this is because this moogle shares his party member ID with Gogo, who hasn't been introduced yet, and the "unequip everyone" script accidentally counted Gogo among "everyone".)
* In ''[[Final Fantasy II]]'' a whole stream of [[Guest Star Party Member
** Though it made the last boss battle in the main storyline kind of a hassle, it was worth it to send the Blood Sword to the bonus section and kill off the Ultima Weapon to gain its [[Disc One Nuke|reward spell at a ridiculously low-level]].
* ''[[Final Fantasy IX]]'' did this every ten minutes. At least you get the gear back when the party members return, but that's small comfort when the fancy new super gear you blew all your cash on wanders off before you can use it. However, the [[Bag of Sharing]] effect means that even when two of your party members decide to split off from the main group, they can use items in the shared inventory and even buy items for the other party members (who are now halfway across the continent) to equip later.
** The [[Guest Star Party Member
*** The Mythril Sword loss is only a problem if the player doesn't think to visit Esto Gaza before going to the Desert Palace.
** However, you can give Beatrix one of the summoning items and cause it to be [[Lost Forever]].
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** Ditto for {{spoiler|Kreia}} in ''KotOR 2'', who leaves no matter what and takes your stuff with her.
** To a lesser extent, there's the fact that both games will occasionally throw you on a mandatory run with only one character, often not your main, and at the worst possible time. Good luck winning when all your good weapons are being used by active party members. The second game was ''much'' worse about this, particularly Nar Shaddaa, which had a good hour's worth of playtime spent doing nothing but forcing you to switch between numerous characters without so much as a chance to regroup.
* Happens with several [[NPC
** Party members who are [[Killed Off for Real]] either drop their gear to the ground, or to another members inventory to prevent this.
** If you try to avoid this in the final scene, [[The Dragon]] will notice (triggered when a defecting character is wearing less than 10000 GP's worth of gear), and he will call it clever but futile. [[The Dev Team Thinks of Everything|He also wonders if you knew they were going to betray you]].
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** At least it's explained in-game: Maya gambled it all away, Alena hired some mercenaries, Ragnar spent it wandering the world, and Torneko paid for the construction of a ship.
** Also any temporary NPCs who join your party have their own personal equipment that cannot be removed and will refuse to accept any item you put into their inventory.
* Averted in ''[[Persona 3]]'' with the full-moon incident on October
* Averted in [[Legend of Dragoon]] when both characters who leave ({{spoiler|Lavitz}} suffers a [[Plotline Death]] and {{spoiler|Shana}} gets [[Put on a Bus]]) are almost instantly replaced with characters who have exactly the same Dragoon levels, XP, equipment, and addition experience as they had.
* The ''[[Valkyrie Profile]]'' series is an odd turn in that it actually puts this under your control. You choose (with a couple exceptions in the second game) when to get rid of your guest party members, and thus have full control over what equipment they have at the time. The twist here is you get items in exchange for the characters, and you get better items for a well-equipped and high-level character than one you've stripped bare.
* ''[[Betrayal at Krondor]]'' both plays this trope straight and averts
** On the other hand, since the party {{spoiler|permanently splits into two at one point, you can end up with your good items on the party that doesn't need them.}}
* Some ''Ultima'' games avert this by having the character spontaneously drop everything, including clothes. Humorously, in ''Serpent Isle'' you pick up Selena, who is very transparently working for the bad guys and tries to lead you into a very ineffective and badly planned deathtrap. When the mercs she hired show up, she makes a remark about going back to the inn (she's not going to be there, though) and then literally teleports out of her clothes. One wonders what she thought she'd accomplish.
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* Used {{spoiler|and then inverted at the end}} in ''[[The World Ends With You]]'', due to Neku {{spoiler|getting a different partner at the start of each week}}. You ''can'' buy some of the clothes again if you want them that desperately. Thankfully, the first time it happens, it's not too much of a loss: {{spoiler|female equipment is useless to Neku and his other two partners after Shiki}} unless you ''really'' powerlevel Bravery. And most of that first person's equipment is likely to be {{spoiler|Shiki-specific}}, anyway. The loss of the money stings a bit, though.
* Rather realistically inverted in the ''[[Siege of Avalon]]'' anthology, where most party members have at least some equipment that cannot be unequipped, but can be taken from them if they die. (Naturally, you don't want the new kid taking the armor that's served you well for months of siege, even if he is the war hero's younger brother.) Unfortunately, it's mostly just standard mid-level armor with a distinct coloration (rare, but not unique) or even non-unique, non-enchanted, basic clothing, and it also means that you can't upgrade their armor at any point. And you'll want to. However, all but one of them will only die (permanently; every death [[Killed Off for Real|is real]]) if you're badly outnumbered and you don't or can't heal them in time to save them, or get a magician in your party and set him to do it for you.
* Played obnoxiously straight in the ''[[Gold Box]]'' series of ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]] CRPGs''. [[NPC
* Rather strangely done in ''[[Live a Live]]'' due to the fact that the Final Chapter only uses the main characters from each chapter. Not stripping Taro of his item-gained specials before completing Akira's chapter means you lose some equipment for Cube later on.
* When someone dies in Interplay's ''Lord of the Rings'', you are instantly given the task of transferring inventory to another party member. If your inventory is already full, that stuff is gone. If the One Ring is gone, you're screwed, and the game ends.
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* Happens ''constantly'' in ''[[Phantasy Star IV]]'', because only the four main characters stay in the party the whole game; all the others join temporarily, and then return for the final battle when you have to pick one, except Alys {{spoiler|who dies}}. Hahn, Alys, Rune, and Raja can be un-equipped before they leave the party, and you can sell their stuff to help pay for better armor and weapons later on, but if you want to do that with Gryz, Demi, or Kyra, you have to be gutsy enough to go through a boss battle with them naked because they leave in the cutscenes following the victory.
* ''[[SaGa Frontier 2]]'' averts this by allowing you to access the inventories of characters not in your current party, and you can even equip techniques that they've learned. (This is, in fact, how you can pick up a technique that would otherwise be [[Lost Forever]].)
* ''[[Dragon Age]]'' is pretty obvious with which party members will stay with you and which won't (hint: look for an approval bar), so it's easy to tell when you should strip your [[Guest Star Party Member|buddies]] in the pre-initiation mission. It's just [[Vendor Trash]], but hey. As a bonus, the usually dramatic initiation cutscene gets an [[Naked People Are Funny|added dose of hilarity]]. However, even the "permanent" party members will leave if you cross their personal [[Moral Event Horizon]]
** It's averted with the guys in the pre-initiation mission. Their stuff automatically goes into your inventory after the inevitable occurs. It is played annoyingly straight with the random guys you get in the Tower of Ishal.
*** [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/stolen-pixels/6831-Stolen-Pixels-147-Naked-Greed This "Stolen Pixels" strip] illustrates the reaction of [[Genre Savvy]] players.
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* Toyed with in ''[[Arc Rise Fantasia]]''.
** You can't equip or unequip [[Guest Star Party Member|guest characters]], and characters who leave for an extended period leave their equipment and orbs behind.
** However, they keep their stuff if they're only gone for a little bit, and the game isn't very nice about warning you. One character, for example, gets booted in the cutscene preceding a boss
** Finally, when playing as the alternate party, you ''can'' unequip them if you'd like, but they don't share the same item pool as your party... so there's no point.
* Krobelus in ''[[Summoner]] 2''. Luckily he's not allowed any armour in the first place, but he has other equipment. Make sure you have a wooden staff in the inventory that you can replace his rod with, because you aren't allowed to just take his weapon.
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== Simulation Game ==
* Toyed with and reversed somewhat in ''X2: The Threat''. During one early mission you are loaned a personnel transport ship armed with some decent
== Stealth Based Game ==
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== Survival Horror ==
* ''[[The Thing (video game)|The Thing]]'' does this practically every level. This game isn't an RPG but is filled with [[Guest Star Party Member
** [[Fridge Brilliance]] here: ''Anyone'' could be The Thing, and if it turns out to be 'the guy who gave them their guns', the giving of the guns could be some sort of elaborate setup. ''The Player'' knows this isn't true, but the [[Guest Star Party Member
* ''[[Resident Evil Outbreak]]'' would give you AI partners if you were playing alone, who were notorious for occasionally taking extremely valuable items or ammo and running off to die. You could take the items off the bodies, but generally the same monsters which killed them would kill you.
** This could happen online as well, if someone took an important item and then went AFK for a long time, thus never able to respond to any requests for that item. If this happens in a safe area, one of the other players would have to get killed elsewhere and come back as a zombie to kill the idle player, but that wouldn't work for a two-player run or an area completely devoid of remaining enemies and hazards. By the time the idler's virus gauge is maxed out naturally, everyone else is likely also dead or close to it.
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== Turn Based Strategy ==
* ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'' subverts this; [[Guest Star Party Member
* Subverted in ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics A2]]''. {{spoiler|When Adelle leaves the clan, she doesn't take with her any of the items you had equipped to her. Eventually she re-joins the clan, so it doesn't matter anyway.}}
* ''[[Fire Emblem]]'' has an odd example of this. Certain chapters have NPC allies, who are hated by players as occasionally they will kill an enemy that can drop a valuable or useful item, and if an NPC does this then that item is lost to you.
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*** The above is averted as of the DS remakes of [[Fire Emblem Akaneia|Marth's games]] - if someone dies, all their stuff is magically transferred back to the supply convoy. Presumably they're looted by your own army, which in a roundabout way makes letting them die even more heartbreaking than usual.
** Can happen in ''Sacred Stones'' with {{spoiler|Orson's}} [[Face Heel Turn]], but easily can be averted, and once you know that it's coming, he becomes a useful meat shield since he's a {{spoiler|one-chapter only}} [[Crutch Character]] anyway.
* Cecille from ''[[Luminous Arc]]'' manages to pull this without leaving the party. She has a particularly unusual class change, which ends up changing all of her equipment except accessories, removing whatever she had equipped before from the game. If, as is quite likely, you had her equipped with the
* Semi-averted and played straight at the same time with ''[[Disgaea]]''.
** When you start a [[New Game+]], all of the equipment you had on the characters you had acquired through the story are lost until you get them back in their respective storylines, [[Justified Trope]] in that you technically haven't met them yet.
** Then there's the part in one of the later chapters where {{spoiler|Jennifer}} leaves the team {{spoiler|(and gets subsequently [[Brainwashed and Crazy]] by Kurtis)}}
** Additionally, {{spoiler|[[Magikarp Power|Flonne]] }}is taken out of commission for the final boss fight via {{spoiler|getting turned into a flower}}. She'll come back with her stuff on a [[New Game+]], of course, but the stuff on her, which is likely to be good stuff, since she's one of the best story characters in the game, is locked away from you until then.
** After beating the aforementioned final boss, if you choose to start in [[Another Side Another Story|Etna Mode]] instead of a traditional [[New Game+]], {{spoiler|Laharl will die in the opening cutscene}}, leaving you without ''his'' equipment, as well. Etna Mode is significantly more difficult than the normal story, and you probably ''needed'' him fully equipped to handle the final boss without access to {{spoiler|Flonne}}, making it nothing short of annoying.
* Every single team member in ''[[Odium]]'', since they all leave without warning. Especially ridiculous when one of your teammates departs through {{spoiler|dying an unavoidable death on the street. You'd think you could just collect the stuff off the teammate's corpse, but no dice}}.
* Averted quite nicely in the ''[[Jagged Alliance]]'' series: mercs whose contract is up will leave behind their equipment. In fact, one of the strategies in ''Jagged Alliance 2'' involves creating an IMP merc (widely considered to be your chance to make an [[Author Avatar]], and will stay on the party permanently), hiring one of the super-expensive mercs for one day with their equipment, taking the first two towns, and
* The [[Warhammer 40000]] turn-based game ''Chaos Gate'' has this on one level. Enemies will teleport in, grab a random team member and then whisk him away, [[Lost Forever|never to be seen again]]. Hope you didn't have any rare/unique wargear on him
* The ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'' series tends to do this, especially with storyline deaths. A very early one occurs in ''[[Super Robot Wars 3]]'' where [[Zeta Gundam|Reccoa]] disappears to go spy on the bad guys and takes the Mobile Suit you put her in with you. Here's hoping you shoved her into a mook unit before hand and not one of your special Gundams.
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* The above kind of behavior is NOT against the rules in [[EVE Online]], and is a particularly infamous and widespread profession, making vetting new members and restricting access a lot more of a big deal. If your corporation gets swindled out of your items, tough luck, you should have been more careful about placing your trust in people. Your only option is to swear revenge.
=== Non-video game examples
== Anime and Manga ==
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