| abstract | - In a video game, if someone, somewhere, mentions a tournament or large-scale competition being held, you will almost always end up competing in it. Most of the time, you won't have a choice. The reasons for your entrance vary: you may need to win to convince someone to give you key information; the villains may hold a party member hostage; the prize itself may be a Plot Coupon; or you may have to compete or die (a form of Forced Prize Fight). The actual mechanics of the tournament depend on the type of game. However, it's usually just a series of fights/duels/cooking challenges, whatever the game uses for conflict. Occasionally it'll be an Unexpected Gameplay Change and you'll have to start racing/playing soccer/bobbing for goldfish. This area is usually free from standard game rules in that losing does not end the game and winning does not give standard experience. This is a highly compressed version of the Tournament Arc, reduced to a subplot rather than a story in itself. The tournament will be single-elimination, so you cannot progress if you lose a match, and your opponents will always get harder as you advance, even if proper seeding is entirely ignored. Although the first forced entry to this event may not require you to actually win, jaunts back into this location later in the game can be a cheap Bonus Dungeon or Minigame Zone. When your Inevitable Tournament involves characters getting in fights, then this is a Gladiator Subquest. Examples of Inevitable Tournament include:
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