History Main / AcceptableBreaksFromReality

* PainfullySlowProjectile: Bullets are slow enough to {{dodge|TheBullet}}. Especially common in {{Platform|Game}} and ShootEmUp games. This is sometimes counterbalanced by OneHitKill mechanics or significant {{knockback}}, but having bullets instantly hit you makes for [[NintendoHard incredibly difficult levels.]]

* InVehicleInvulnerability: Driver doesn't die or get injured when a car crashes without explosion. Having your character die if they suffer too much whiplash either force level designers to use simple, boring tracks or makes the game [[NintendoHard unfair]] or just not as fun.

* In ''Series/TheBoys2019'' it's both a plot point and part of the world-building that the Supes play themselves in the [[ShowWithinAShow films based on them.]] But none of the Supes mention taking acting lessons, nor do the film crews comment on their [[StylisticSuck sub-par performances]] and generally treat them like normal actors, even though these films are supposed to be the in-universe equivalent of real-life superhero blockbusters, and proper movie acting can take years to learn for some people. Starring in such a movie is also stressful and time consuming, and would interfere with Supes' other responsibilities. Realistically, Vought would have most if not all the roles played by professional actors, just like how athletes, veterans and other celebrities rarely play themselves in their biopics, but the way the show presents it allows for some interesting plots and for the satire of superhero media, celebrities and Hollywood to remain focused on [[TheMainCharactersDoEverything the characters the audience knows.]]

* Discussed at the end of each episode of ''Literature/TheMagicSchoolBus'' and its sequel series ''WesternAnimation/TheMagicSchoolBusRidesAgain''. There, one of the producers (or sometimes one of the characters) would take a call from a kid who would call out the various mistakes the episode made and explain why the episode changed things. For example, the planets in a space episode almost never line up, but it's a nice and convenient way to keep track of them. The episode about digestion doesn't show the anus because standards and practices wouldn't let them.

* InformedEquipment: Game characters' equipment won't show up visually. This saves developers from spending time on hundreds of additions that are mostly cosmetic. This is primarily a [[UsefulNotes/BitmapsSpritesAndTextures 2D]] phenomenon, however; games with models have less of an excuse because those are much easier to animate than redrawing entire character sprite sheets.

[[AC:Films -- Animation]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/TurningRed'', it's very unlikely that a Chinese immigrant family so culturally traditional would be speaking so much English with one another instead of a variety of Chinese, likely Cantonese. But since large portions of the movie involve Mei and her family talking to each other, it would result in a lot of the movie requiring subtitles for non-fluent viewers to understand, so everyone just speaks English.

* ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' in additon to being the TropeNamer for the MST3KMantra, has a case of "Acceptable Breaks From Cinema History." The premise of each iteration of the show is [[MadScientist Mad Scientists]] [[ReelTorture forcing captives to watch bad movies to see which ones do the most psychological damage,]] and use said movies as weapons. The theme song even describes the movies as "the worst [they] can find." But the show's real-life creators generally avoided featuring truly terrible movies on the show, since it's been proven that the host's riffing can only do so much to make a bad movie tolerable to sit through, not to mention the problems with showing films with serious issues of ValuesDissonance or terrifying subject matters, and the true stinkers they did feature usually came the closest to driving the captives insane. So it's either this trope, or all Mads are rather bad at finding bad movies.

Of course, different people have different tolerances for the balance between "abstraction" and "simulation," which means that some media creators make conscious and deliberate efforts to avert at least some of these tropes. [[SimulationGame Those sorts]] [[FunForSome of things]], however, tend to cater toward a rather niche crowd. Even then, there's still a small measure of abstraction simply to prevent things from getting too tedious.

* UndeadTaxExemption: Supernatural beings don't need to worry about paperwork when it comes to trying to adjust to new society, even if they're technically considered [[TheIllegal illegal immigrants.]]

* UndeadTaxExemption: Supernatural beings don't need to worry about paperwork when it comes to trying to adjust to new society, even if they're technically considered [[TheIllegal illegal immigrants.]]

* FiveFiveFive: Because if you'd use real phone numbers in fiction, people would keep dialing them and put those poor guys who happen to have these numbers through an uneasy time.[[note]]The most famous example is of course the song "867-5309/Jenny" which caused the exact thing to happen.[[/note]]

* AliensSpeakingEnglish: And with perfect American/British/Australian/wherever-the-work-was-made [[AliensOfLondon accents]] too!

* ArbitraryWeaponRange: In real-world physics, there's no "maximum range" or "minimum range" for weapons.

* {{Cooldown}}: Being able to use a reusable LimitBreak or LastDiscMagic every turn becomes a GameBreaker otherwise.

* GlobalCurrency: The same money is used across the entire world (spanning multiple countries and/or times) to avoid cluttering up the menu with 30 different kinds of currency.

* InSpaceEveryoneCanSeeYourFace: Having lights on the inside of a helmet makes it largely impossible to see out of it in an otherwise dark environment, but otherwise we would be unable to see the actors' faces.

* InsecurityCamera: You can easily just blow up security cameras or otherwise make them useless and nobody will be alarmed by it. Unless there's a very smart supervisor present, at best it'll be dismissed as a temporary glitch to not worry about. Stealth games often need this trope, as otherwise your location options are limited to either universe without camera surveillance or before the 1900s.

* ThrivingGhostTown: Cities and towns are much smaller than they should be for sustainability. This saves time and money on set design/development. See also SpaceCompression.
* TookAShortcut: A common HandWave to explain other {{NPC}}s suddenly showing up past the dungeon you just risked life and limb getting through. But of course, if the villain went through the dungeon themselves, the path would already be cleared, making the dungeon too easy (see AlreadyUndoneForYou).

* CutscenePowerToTheMax: When a character is capable of doing far more impressive feats of skill and action in cutscenes than they are capable of doing in actual gameplay. For instance, they can effortlessly wipe out a group of enemies in one dramatic blow in a cutscene, but this would be impossible to do when playing as that character in an actual boss fight.

* EasyLogistics: You don't need to worry about feeding your troops or keeping up supplies - that all happens automatically. This is to prevent players from [[AntiPoopSocking sitting around waiting for supply lines.]]

* MoneySpider: A more believable scenario would be getting rewarded ''for'' killing the monsters, but it'd simply take too long to go back to the person and get rewarded every time you did it.

* RidiculouslyFastPopulationGrowth: For much the same reason as fast construction populations seem to expand at a rate far in excess of what humans can sustain.

* ThingsAreMoreEffectiveInHollywood: Bulletproof vests are nowhere near as effective as portrayed in the movies but if it was realistic the hero would get shot and either bleed out or spend the rest of the movie in hospital.

* VideoGameStealing: A thief can pick the pockets of a giant dire wolf in the middle of an all-out brawl and come away with an eight-foot claymore. But without that ability, being a thief or rogue class would be [[CripplingOverspecialization very situational]] [[AwesomeButImpractical to the point of needing]] [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman specific instances where his or her abilities come in handy.]]

[[AC: Animation]]

[[AC: Anime & Manga]]

* ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'': What seems to be standard breaks from reality found in HumongousMecha anime, turns out to be very well backed-up in-universe. As a result, it's less of breaking away from reality as it is that the anime's reality is so off-rails, it can [[JustifiedTrope justify]] its wacky state of affairs. The pilots are so young because they can't be tainted by the Second Impact, and as that event happened fourteen years ago... TheHero can get so good at his job, not because of any merit of his but because his mecha is a SoulJar for his mother and a [[EnemyExchangeProgram hijacked clone of the enemy species]] -- it's his mecha doing all of the work. And so on.

* ''Manga/ABridesStory'': A minor one, [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] in the afterword of volume two: getting a load of bricks dumped over your head will kill you, even if the bricks are only made from mud and sun-dried (rather than fired in a kiln).

[[AC: Art]]

[[AC: Blogs]]

[[AC: Comic Books]]

* ''ComicBook/ScottPilgrim'': The setting is a video-game version of Toronto, so there are all sorts of wacky things such as epic narrator voices, video-game interfaces, quests, and factions such as ninjas. People are also capable of doing things that are impossible in reality -- from pulling all sorts of acrobatics to killing without consequence so long it's done within the constraints of a duel/challenge. So, its premise pretty much runs on this trope.

[[AC: Fan Works]]
* ''Blog/LivingInOblivion'': {{Discussed}} and {{defied}}. The blog is geared toward demonstrating how hard a NonPlayableCharacter actually has it in a VideoGame setting. The result is that it gets swiftly illustrated why video games genuinely need this trope -- otherwise, they would be beyond NintendoHard, extremely boring at times, and overall frustrating. While a good gaming experience can be obtained out of such limitations, there are still plenty of things that you just can't avoid.

[[AC: Live-Action TV]]

* In ''Series/TheBoys2019'' it's both a plot point and part of the world-building that the Supes play themselves in the [[ShowWithinAShow films based on them.]] But none of the Supes mention taking acting lessons, nor do the film crews comment on their [[StylisticSuck sub-par performances]] and generally treat them like normal actors, even though these films are supposed to be the in-universe equivalent of real-life superhero blockbusters, and proper movie acting can take years to still fail to learn for some people. Starring in such a movie is also stressful and time consuming, and would interfere with Supes' other responsibilities. Realistically, Vought would have most if not all the roles played by professional actors, just like how athletes, veterans and other celebrities rarely play themselves in their biopics, but the way the show presents it allows for some interesting plots and for the satire of superhero media, celebrities and Hollywood to remain focused on [[TheMainCharactersDoEverything the characters the audience knows.]]

* ''Series/MrRobot'': While the show goes out of its way to [[AvertedTrope avert]] HollywoodHacking at all costs, some of the hacks are sped up for the sake of keeping the show theatrical and entertaining.

[[AC: Video Games]]

* ''VideoGame/WhereInTimeIsCarmenSandiego1997'' justifies this - the point of the game is for people to learn. Its extensive manual mentions that a ''lot'' of creative liberties were taken in order to make the game playable. These include:
** The fact you can understand everyone. Aside from a few English Speaking areas? You would ''not'' have been able to understand anyone.
** You're also able to walk up to historical figures (including royalty) and casually have a chat with them. Which you wouldn't have been able to do.
** Some areas have some pretty notable travel times between screens (in real life). This is cut down in-game so that it could be completed within a 10-20 minute play session.
** In 1002, Erikson's expedition to the Americas is shown as consisting of only four people. It would take a ''lot'' of time to round up the likely dozens if not ''hundreds'' people that were ''actually'' on the expedition.

* SimpleRescueMechanic: Hostages disappear and are considered "Saved" the moment you find them. Would you rather deal with [[EscortMisson escorting]] each and every individual person out of the area?

* In ''Series/TheBoys2019'' its both a plot point and part of the world-building that the Supes play themselves in the [[ShowWithinAShow films based on them.]] But none of the Supes mention taking acting lessons, nor to the film crews comment on their [[StylisticSuck sub-par performances]] and generally treat them like normal actors, even though these films are supposed to be the in-universe equivalent of real-life superhero blockbusters, and proper movie acting can take years to still fail to learn for some people. Starring in such a movie is also stressful and time consuming, and would interfere with Supes other responsibilities. Realistically, Vought would have most if not all the roles would be played by professional actors, just like how athletes, veterans and other celebrities rarely play themselves in their biopics, but the way the show presents it allows for some interesting plots and for the satire of superhero media, celebrities and Hollywood to remain focused on [[TheMainCharactersDoEverything the characters the audience knows.]]