History Main / AndYouThoughtItWasAGame

[[quoteright:350:[[ComicBook/GhostsDCComics https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rco001_9_4.png]]]]

* [[AndYouThoughtItWasAGame/LiveActionFilms Films - Live-Action]]

!!Examples:

* ''ComicBook/NickFuryAgentOfSHIELD1968'': One day after completing a DeathCourse training exercise and joining S.H.I.E.L.D., Jimmy Woo is ejected from a crashing plane over the ocean, then retrieved from the water by some sort of genetically-modified creature. It's revealed to be the work of the EvilutionaryBiologist Centurius, but Jimmy initially wonders if it's just another instalment of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s extreme training regime.

* ComicBook/NickFuryAgentOfSHIELD1968: One day after completing a DeathCourse training exercise and joining S.H.I.E.L.D., Jimmy Woo is ejected from a crashing plane over the ocean, then retrieved from the water by some sort of genetically-modified creature. It's revealed to be the work of the EvilutionaryBiologist Centurius, but Jimmy initially wonders if it's just another instalment of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s extreme training regime.

* Played around with in an arc of Superman/Batman, where Toyman (Hiro Okamura) creates a new Superman and Batman-themed game, not realizing that the "game" has become real via [[AppliedPhlebotinum nanomachines]], allowing him and his friends to control Superman and Batman. They quickly realize the game is real by having the events of the game come to them, but by this point, the true culprit of the game, Mongul, has made it available online, with 90 million people [[BrainwashedAndCrazy under the effects of mind-controlling spores]] now dictating the actions of the two heroes in a fight to the death, thinking it is all just a game, with Hiro and his friends now desperately trying to take charge of the situation by convincing the others that the game is real. However, some of the players simply don't care, wanting payback for injustices the superheroes cause on their everyday lives.

[[folder:Anime and Manga ]]
* In ''Manga/{{Akagi}}'', the insanely talented title character agrees to play {{TabletopGame/Mahjong}} against Yakuza rep player Urabe only if his mild-mannered coworker Osamu plays first. As it turns out, Osamu is actually quite good and holds his own against the professional... until he hears that the game is being played for a wager of 32 million yen between two rival Yakuza groups. His emotions overwhelm his ability to play, and Akagi has to step in and save him.
* Played straight by the ''Manga/{{Beelzebub}}'' delinquents through the entire premise of the FPS/online video gaming chapters. Furuichi and Lamia convince the Ishiyama gang to join in the search for Lord En by challenging him at online games. They agree to [[ShouldntWeBeInSchoolRightNow skip school]] and look for him - all under the impression that Lord En and his retainers are from a rival school that simply want to to beat the crap out of the Ishiyama students. Little do the thugs know that, while playing with En and his maids [[SeriousBusiness non-stop for three straight days]], [[spoiler:Behemoth's 34th Pillar Squads are assembling to annihilate humanity in Lord En's name]].
* The protagonists in ''Manga/{{Bokurano}}'' are told they're going to pilot giant robots as part of a game. This is a massive lie.
* ''Manga/DarwinsGame'': Sudo Kaname accepts his friend's request for help in the eponymous ''Darwin's Game'' through his phone. He assumes that it's just another phone-battle game, which are very popular in Japan. Of course, the reader knows that his friend was killed, the game is literally one of life and death, and there are others coming to kill him.
* ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}'':
** ''Anime/DigimonAdventure'': Riding on the confidence he stems from Koushiro's discovery that the Digital World is, well, [[{{Cyberspace}} a digital world]], Taichi believes that he's virtually invincible and if things go awry he'll respawn in the real world. He passes through an illusion of a gate of electricity believing that he won't die from it, but after Koushiro impresses upon him that he could still be harmed, he hesitates at the thought of going through it again, resulting in Sora being kidnapped. He ''still'' hesitates to go through again on the subsequent rescue mission.
** ''Anime/DigimonAdventure02'': Ken Ichijoji has no problem with enslaving, torturing and killing Digimon because he [[MoreThanMindControl thinks]] he's just playing a [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential virtual MMORPG]]. When he is finally proven wrong with [[DeadSidekick Wormmon's death]] he suffers a BSOD, triggering his eventual HeelFaceTurn.
** ''Anime/DigimonFusion'': [[spoiler:Yuu Amano was lured into the Digital World by the promise of being able to play with real friends without the possibility of permanently hurting or killing them. That turned into him leading the forces of the Bagra Army in the war, believing no-one's actually dying. Near the endgame, because of this he even has no problem with the notion of killing his own sister Nene, one of the generals of the opposition; he even sees ending her as part of the game. When Taiki explains that it's actually not the case, [[VillainousBreakdown he flips out]]; Tuwarmon recognises that it's important for the Bagra Army that Yuu continue to believe that it's all a game, and afterwards makes a point of reassuring him.]]
* The main character of ''LightNovel/{{Dokkoida}}?!'' agrees to put on the costume and fight supervillains because the costume contains a special component which boosts his fighting ability, all while playing dramatic music... except that the end of the first episode reveals that the suit manufacturer forgot to put that specific component in, leaving only the music. The other characters don't bother to mention this fact to him until the ''last'' episode. Suzuo also put on the suit because he didn't take the claims about fighting supervillains seriously, since the suits makers were a toy company. He realizes too late that toy companies can make weapons too.
* In volume 13 of ''LightNovel/GoblinSlayer'', the guild arranges a dungeon exploration contest in a practice-dungeon for prospective new adventurers to try out their skills. During Scrawny Girl's run, she winds up getting attacked by a real goblin (rather than the puppets the guild set up) and going down the secret passage it came from. After finally finding her, Goblin Slayer doesn't have the heart to tell her that all the monsters she took down were very real and not just part of the test.
* In ''Anime/GundamBuildDiversReRise'', team BUILD [=DiVERS=] are brought into what appears to be a new campaign mode within [[VirtualReality GBN]], liberating a race of human-like animals from fearsome machines. However, as they push through the mission, things don't line up, ultimately leading to [[spoiler:the team failing to stop a KillSat from obliterating an island where the Resistance was set up at and the team never gets a signal that they lost. They soon discover that the land of Eldora is actually an extraterrestrial planet that had somehow managed to connect with GBN[[note]](a ''very'' long story connected to the living [=AIs=] that emerged in the previous series)[[/note]], and all this time they had been fighting ''real'' battles in ''real'' bodies and [[HumongousMecha Mobile Suits]] constructed on the world. This one [[HeroicBSOD breaks Kazami as he treated this as a game from the get-go]].]]
* The biggest issue of the Sword, Spear and Bow Heroes in ''LightNovel/TheRisingOfTheShieldHero'' is the fact that they refuse to acknowledge the world they're in is ''not'' like the videogames they're familiar with. This results in them not caring about the consequences of their actions and causing more harm than good along the way, often having the titular Shield Hero having to pick up the slack and clean up their messes.
* ''LightNovel/HaremInTheLabyrinthOfAnotherWorld'' has the protagonist believe that he's in an extremely immersive VR RPG, even commenting on how crazy the blood splatter effects are when he cuts down bandits. However, once he finishes his first encounter and tries to log off, it dawns upon him that he's actually transported to another world and that the bandits he killed were real.
* Byakuran from ''Manga/Reborn2004'' thought the whole world was just a computer program. Or it was just a metaphor. We will never know.
** Since the beginning of the manga, Yamamoto has apparently believed that everyone is playing a very elaborate mafia role-playing game. He assumes it's just SeriousBusiness for everyone and has given no indication of realizing it's all for real, even through TimeTravel, supernatural weapons and people getting seriously injured and dying. [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation Either he's just that stupid, or he's been]] ObfuscatingStupidity [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation all the while, or he's desperately clinging to denial to keep from freaking out.]]
** Then, later, he admits somewhere in the Future Arc that he knew it wasn't a game all along but didn't want to admit it.
* In ''Manga/SailorMoon'', the first hint that Ami is Sailor Mercury is when she tops the score at the Sailor V Game arcade machine, that was created specifically to train the Sailor Senshi. The manga also has a later example, again with the Sailor V Game: as she plays it, Usagi openly wonders why the character is using the Moon Stick, only realizing she was being trained in its use when Luna starts using the machine other functions to analyse objects and, later, the ''real'' Sailor V hacks the game to communicate.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* In ''Fanfic/WhatYouWishFor'', when Lori is in the alternate reality where Lincoln is Carol's brother instead of hers, she initially thinks everyone is just pretending not to know him as a prank.

[[folder:Film - Live-Action]]
* [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig-zagged]] in ''Film/{{Bowfinger}}''. When Jiff has to film a scene where he runs across a busy freeway, Bowfinger tells him that [[BlatantLies all the cars have stunt drivers who will miss him]]. Inverted when they [[EnforcedMethodActing secretly film scenes with Kit]], leading him to believe he really is being followed by aliens.
* Used initially for scary effect, but increasingly for comedic effect as the franchise went on, in the ''Film/ChildsPlay'' saga. ''Seed of Chucky'' even takes place partially on a movie set...
* In the movie ''Film/ErikTheViking'', the title character borrows Princess Aud's cloak of invisibility and bravely attacks Halfdan the Black's crew, not realizing that the cloak only makes its wearer invisible to Aud's father. (Not a MagicFeather because he wasn't misled about the powers of the cloak; he took it into battle before Aud could explain its limitations.) Since he thinks he's invisible, he gets confident enough to be able to fight with reckless abandon, which stupefies Blackdan's crew enough for him to beat several of them, and also inspire several of his own crew to fight.
* Tim Allen's character in ''Film/GalaxyQuest'' orders the destruction of a threatening enemy spacecraft, believing himself to be shooting a promo for the fans of his show.
* The entire premise of ''Film/TheGame1997'' is the millionaire protagonist working out whether he is taking part in a Live-Action Role-Playing adventure game, or are there actually people trying to kill him? Or [[spoiler:is he really just going insane and having paranoid delusions]]?
* Nicholas Angel in ''Film/HotFuzz'' being called about an "escaped swan". "And who might you be? P. I. Staker? Right. 'Pisstaker'? Come on!" Cut away to Nicholas taking Mr. Staker's statement.
* In ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheTempleOfDoom'', Willie spends her first proper night in the jungle jumping and panicking at every sound and critter that appears, a tendency not helped by a tamed elephant's over-friendly tendency to lay its trunk on her shoulder. Then, after a particularly exhausting scream-a-thon and subsequent argument with Indy that wears her out, a deadly snake slithers down from a tree onto her shoulder. Whilst Indy himself is [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes paralyzed with fear]], Willie -- fed-up and assuming it's just the elephant -- yells "Cut it ''out''!", grabs the snake and hurls it very far away without even looking.
* Played with in ''Film/TheKillingRoom'' (2009). An NSA psychiatrist is recruited to observe tapes of an experiment, and is shocked to find it's a lethal MindControl experiment inherited from the MK Ultra program. We can back and forth between her and the experimental subjects, who are eventually wheeled into the room where she is, and she's informed that the tapes she's been viewing were filmed earlier that day.
* This is the entire plot of the classic sci-fi film ''Film/TheLastStarfighter''. The main character is a teenager who is the best in his town at a video game that involves defending the Star League against the Kodan Armada, with him eventually becoming the first and only person to be able to completely win the game. Once a recruiter from the Star League shows up in response, you can guess what happens next.
* A good 2/3 through ''Film/MalibusMostWanted'', the main character B-rad finds out that the "thugs" who kidnapped him were actually just actors hired by his father to try to scare him straight. Instead of revealing that he knows what's really going on, he decides to play along and have fun with it. When actual thugs kidnap him and the actors, however, he doesn't realize anything's wrong, and his fearlessness puts him in terrible danger but also lets him become the ultimate gangsta.
* In ''Film/TheManWhoKnewTooLittle'' (which used to be the TropeNamer), Wallace Ritchie believes himself to be taking part in an avant-garde street theatre experience, when he has actually embroiled himself in an assassination plot. A similarly contrived set of circumstances results in [[MistakenForBadass everyone else connected to the plot thinking that he's a cold-blooded assassin]]. HilarityEnsues. Unusually for how this trope usually plays out, Wallace doesn't figure out that it was all real until some time after the end credits start rolling.
* In ''Film/MortalKombatTheMovie'', Johnny Cage has absolutely no idea what he's getting into. He has only been told that Mortal Kombat is an invitation-only martial arts tournament, and leaps at the chance to prove that he is a legitimate martial artist rather than a WireFu actor. When he realizes what the stakes and the opposition are... he doesn't take it well.
* In ''Film/MyNameIsBruce'' Bruce Campbell (playing himself) is kidnapped by a fan who wants his help fighting a monster that's killing the townsfolk. Bruce believes that he is there to star in an unscripted movie. Bruce realizes that the monster is real when he leads an attack on it, and he promptly turns around and flees.
* ''Film/TheNakedGun 2½'':
** In one rather painful scene, Frank Drebin tries to "expose" an impostor, eventually going so far as to sand off the "fake" mole on his buttocks.
** And an [[InvertedTrope inversion]] in the first movie - he saw five men stabbing someone in the park and shot the assailants, only to be disciplined later for having killed actors in a production of ''Theatre/JuliusCaesar''. The hundred-strong crowd probably should have been a tipoff.
* Lassard in ''Film/PoliceAcademy5AssignmentMiamiBeach'', when being held hostage, he thinks it's a simulation for the festivity. In fact, it turns out that it was the bad guys who should have been worried, as Lassard disarms their leader the moment he finds out the truth.
* In the movie ''Film/ProblemChild'', Ben Healy (John Ritter) encounters a bear at a campsite, and, believing it to be a friend in costume, acts playfully towards it. He soon realizes that the bear is an actual animal. During the ensuing panic, the bear retreats and the actual friend dressed as a bear arrives, whom Ben hits over the head with a skillet.
* In ''Film/{{Sleuth}}'' the line between game and real life thread becomes blurred more than once.
* In the sequel to the French comedy ''Film/TheTallBlondeManWithOneBlackShoe'', the hapless everyman is recruited by a high-ranking intelligence officer to help discredit another. They set up a gauntlet of encounters in which our hero, pretending to be a spy, "beats" or "kills" a series of bad guys, while under surveillance by that other intelligence officer. At one point, our hero turns left down an alleyway instead of turning right, meets a burly workman, and assumes this is the next guy he's supposed to fight. The workman gets annoyed at this skinny loser whacking him with fake karate chops...
* In the film ''Film/ThreeAmigos'', three movie stars who specialize in rescuing-Mexican-peasant-villages-from-marauding-bandits movies are invited to come and rescue a real Mexican peasant village from real marauding bandits; they assume the whole thing is staged until one of them finds out the hard way that their opponents are using real bullets.
** Double for the bit where they [[spoiler:attempt a ritual to summon the "invisible swordsman". They successfully summon the swordsman, but end up with [[IJustShotMarvinInTheFace Dusty shooting him because he didn't aim his guns safely upwards during the "fire gun" part]]]].
* Occurred quite a bit in ''Film/TheThreeStooges'' shorts, usually with Moe assuming the person behind him is Larry or Curley or Shemp bugging him rather than the threat of the episode about to do him harm. Another instance of the trope happens in ''What's the Matador?'' when the boys are hired in Mexico to do a mock bullfight act. Curley plays the Matador while Moe and Larry are in a bull costume. [[HilarityEnsues Because plot]], they've managed to incur the wrath of a jealous husband, who bribes the arena attendants into releasing a genuine bull into the ring. Moe and Larry see the bull and [[ScrewThisImOutOfHere scamper over the fence]] as soon as possible, but Curley doesn't notice, and for a few minutes thinks it's Moe and Larry… [[OhCrap until he sees them frantically gesturing from the sidelines...]]
* Played with in the original ''Film/{{Tron}}''. Kevin Flynn has been digitized into the computer system and captured by the Master Control Program's forces. They take him to the Gaming Grid, where Ram, who thinks he's just another captive program, tells him that he'll be forced to play video games. Flynn laughs it off, boasting that he plays games better than anyone... and then the poor guy finds out just how differently things work in the Electronic World.
-->'''Kevin Flynn:''' On the other side of the screen, it all looked so easy.
* ''Film/TropicThunder'':
** This is the premise of the film. Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and Robert Downey, Jr. (as a method actor who has been surgically altered into a Black man) get dropped into a real war zone while still thinking they're filming a movie about the Vietnam War. Robert Downey Jr. almost immediately realizes the mistake (yet still never breaks character). The others... take a little time.
** In a rare [[ZigZaggedTrope zig zag]] of the trope, Jay Baruchel's character, an unknown yet serious actor, is actually prepared for the tribulations the troupe goes through, because he actually attended the training courses everyone should have attended (but didn't, making him the only competent "soldier"). He knows what's going on - or at least indicates that he suspects it - but still finds time to make small talk about trivialities "between takes", and ''still'' seems to not be taking the danger seriously. The others treating it like a game use him as a pawn to manipulate the events of the plot, which helps them survive, but their motivations were to save the film from each other.
* The plot of ''Film/WarGames'' is kicked off by a teenage hacker accidentally breaking into a US military supercomputer and playing a [[{{The End Of The World As We Know It}} nuclear warfare]] simulation with it. The problem is, even after he stops, the supercomputer keeps playing -- and it doesn't know the difference between a game and real life.
* The first two victims in ''Film/{{Westworld}}'' assume the androids will let them win their duels as they have been programmed to do, not realizing that AIIsACrapshoot.
* At the end of ''Film/WhatAboutBob'' Bob thinks he is undergoing "Death Therapy" although Dr. Leo Marvin is actually [[spoiler: trying to kill him.]]
* In ''Film/WouldYouRather'', everyone realizes this around the time that one guest attempts to leave the party - and is shot dead.
* In ''Film/XXx''', Xander Cage wakes up in a diner where a robbery is going down. Xander quickly figures out it's all just a test and is knocked out again. He and two other men are dumped into a South American jungle and taken hostage. Xander naturally assumes it's all another test when a man threatens him, laughing on how bad the guy's accent is and he's overplaying the part. It's when the guy shoves a machete up to his face and Xander smells the blood on it that it hits him this is all for real.

[[folder:Literature]]
* In the book ''Abduction'' by Peg Kehret, the main character, a thirteen-year-old girl trying to save her little brother from a kidnapper, writes a message on the bathroom mirror of a bar with soap to try to get help. However, it just so happens to be mystery night at the bar, so a waitress, thinking that a patron had written the message to throw people off, washes the message off the mirror. When the story goes on the news and she realizes that the message was an actual cry for help, she feels very ashamed.
* The Howlers in K.A. Applegate's ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' books are savage killers. However, their mind has been compared to a dolphin's in playfulness. They only kill because they have no idea that their victims are alive and feel pain and emotions. Seeing an emotional display causes their master to stop using them immediately as they were unwilling to fight.
* The central premise of Ernest Cline's ''Literature/{{Armada}}'' is that certain video games are actually training sims for an impending alien invasion, with the latest games being near perfect simulations of actual combat against the aliens. [[spoiler:And because Earth's defenses are drone-based, certain "game" missions ''are'' actual combat operations.]]
* ''Bang! You're Dead'' by Ray Bradbury centers on a US soldier called Johnny Choir fighting in Italy in WWII. He believes the entire war is a game and no one actually gets killed or hurt - they're all just pretending. This allows him to "duck" bullets, because he doesn't think they exist. [[spoiler:When another soldier called Melter tells him it's all real, Choir promptly gets shot. The same thing happens to Melter when he tries to do what Choir did to avoid being hit.]]
* In ''Literature/DeadMansFolly'' by Creator/AgathaChristie, a famous detective writer has been asked to organise a Murder Hunt as one of the activities in a village fete. She begins to feel that she is being manipulated via proxies into changing details of the fictional murder to fit someone else's script, and calls in Literature/HerculePoirot because she feels a real murder might be on the cards. The [[spoiler: girl playing the "dead body"]] is duly killed for real.
* In the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' novel ''Literature/GoingPostal'', Moist von Lipwig is totally unconcerned about facing down a pack of [[AngryGuardDog angry guard dogs]] because he knows that all purebred Lipwigzers (the Disc's version of Rottweilers) were trained by his countrymen (they don't let females out of the country, to keep the breed price high). He successfully uses his granddad's commands to control them, but later learns they were Ankh-Morpork mongrels that ''looked'' like Lipwigzers.
* A ''Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse'' novel introduces a free video game the premise of which is a war between a race of porcupine-like aliens (whom the game labels as the good guys) and a race of mantis-like aliens (the game's bad guys). Since neither race can kill one another in hand-to-hand combat (the porcupines' needles can't pierce the bugs' exoskeleton, and the bugs' claws can't get close to the porcupines' bodies due to the needles), the porcupines recruit humans (players) to infiltrate the enemy base and win the war. A typical first-person shooter, except the save game, for some reason, occasionally gets erased, forcing players to start from the beginning. It turns out that [[spoiler:not only is the premise true (except for the porcupines being the good guys), but the aliens are kidnapping humans to use as the in-game "avatars" controlled by players (when players "log out", the avatar just stands there until the player comes back or when the bugs kill him/her). The Doctor is playing the game until he finds out that his avatar is Rose]].
* In Creator/JohnDicksonCarr's ''Literature/DrGideonFell'' novel ''The Arabian Nights Murder'', a set of friends putting on an act to trick one of their buddies hires an actor to play a professor in an Arabian museum. They are surprised when a ''real'' professor, a friend of the museum's owner, arrives for a meeting and is treated as an actor who looks just like the real thing. In the meantime, the professor thinks that the actors are real, and attacks one of them in an act of misguided heroics.
* The climax of ''Literature/EndersGame''. Ender and the other Battle School graduates are sent to Command School, where they are sent through a grueling set of fleet combat simulations. [[DespairEventHorizon When Ender realizes that they will never stop trying to skew the odds against him]], he decides to pull a GameBreaker in the most spectacular way conceivable by [[spoiler: ordering a suicide attack against the enemy homeworld, [[EarthShatteringKaboom resulting in its destruction]] and the annihilation of an entire alien species, along with the human fleet that had delivered the death blow]]. [[AngstComa He doesn't take the truth well...]]
* In ''Literature/HaltingState'' by Creator/CharlesStross, the British and Chinese intelligence agencies both run {{Alternate Reality Game}}s in which player-characters pretend (or rather, ''think'' they're pretending) to be spies, essentially creating hundreds of agents who Know Too Little. However, most of the game really ''is'' a game, with no "real" opposition or consequences for failure. It's a simple way to sort out potential recruits, provide them with training, and actually make money doing so. It's noted that you can't entrust anything dangerous or time-critical to people who think they're just playing a game in their spare time.
* A nasty example of this trope shows up in ''Magic: A Fantastic Comedy'', by Creator/GKChesterton. A certain Conjuror is putting on a show for a Miss Patricia Carleon, her family, and certain of her father's friends. Unfortunately, Miss Carleon's brother suffers from a particularly virulent strain of ScullySyndrome, and upon finding himself unable to explain how the Conjuror managed one particular trick, he collapses in gibbering lunacy. A Doctor who happens to be present explains that the only hope for the lunatic is for the Conjuror to explain how he did his last trick. Then we get this exchange:
-->'''Conjuror:''' You would really be willing to pay a [very large sum] to know how I did that trick... But suppose I tell you the secret and you find there's nothing in it?\\
'''Doctor:''' You mean it's really quite simple? Why, that would be the best thing that could possibly happen. A little healthy laughter is the best possible thing for a convalescence.\\
'''Conjuror:''' It is the simplest thing in the world. That is why you shall not laugh.\\
'''Doctor:''' Why, what do you mean? What shall we do?\\
'''Conjuror:''' You will disbelieve it.\\
'''Doctor: And why?'''\\
'''Conjuror:''' Because it is so simple. ''(Jumps to feet)'' You ask me how I really did the last trick. I will tell you how I did the last trick. ''I did it by magic.''
* The central theme of ''Literature/ThePeripheral'' by Creator/WilliamGibson. In the 22nd century, a method of transmitting information to and from the (or rather, "a") past is discovered. One character who learns of this uses it to set up a system whereby someone from the past remote operates her bodyguard drone. In the mid-21st century, a playtester is baffled by the "VR game" she's testing, and even more so when witnessing an "in-game" murder leads to her being in real danger.
* The Endymion in Creator/DanSimmons' ''[[Literature/HyperionCantos Rise of Endymion]]'' does some pretty bad ass acrobatics on a mountain cliff, all the while thinking that dropping would be such a hassle because somebody would have to retrieve him from the safety line. Just until he sees some fearful friend rush to him with just that safety line he forgot to attach. Considering the circumstances, his lapse of mind is easily forgiven, though.
* In the ''Franchise/StarTrek'' novel ''Literature/TheThreeMinuteUniverse'', a Glechenite that was taken hostage by [[BrownNoteBeing Sackers]] told Kirk that the Sacker ship clearly outclassed the Glechenite ship and shot all around them for sport before finally getting bored and shooting them down. It was later revealed that their command crew had been killed during an accident and the inexperienced crew that stepped up really was having trouble hitting their target.
* In the ''Literature/StarTrekNovelVerse'' book ''The Captain's Daughter'' by Creator/PeterDavid, Sulu's MeetCute with Demora's mother takes place in a theme-park city designed to look like a WretchedHive. So when Sulu finds himself caught between a band of ruthless criminals and a beautiful freelance adventurer, he naturally assumes this is an act, possibly something Chekov set up because he was complaining he was bored. He keeps thinking this right up until the criminals vaporise someone's head.
* Creator/PhilipKDick's ''Literature/TimeOutOfJoint''. The main character lives in a quaint [[TheFifties 1950's town]] and spends his days solving a newspaper puzzle, "find the green man". It's actually the future, there is a war between Earth and Mars going on, and the protagonist used to be a genius tasked with predicting the Martians' attack targets. After he had mental breakdown, he was given false memories and led to believe that he's living an idyllic life in a fake town. He is still doing his job, by regularly solving what he thinks is just a newspaper puzzle.
* Another dramatic example: in the sci-fi novella ''Wine of the Dreamers'', Raul Kinson is raised in a dwindling [[HumanAlien alien compound]] and believes the devices he periodically sleeps in are advanced virtual reality devices that create three alternate worlds within the dreamers' minds. Killing or humiliating dream characters is a popular sport. Unfortunately, the dream worlds are actually long-lost colony planets, one of which is Earth! Over the course of millennia, the dreamers have destroyed space programs and even triggered nuclear wars due to a misremembered plan that the "dreams" must end when the colony worlds achieve interstellar flight.

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* In an episode of ''Series/{{Bewitched}},'' Samantha's identical cousin, Serena, was having an affair with a warlock, when his wife tracked her down to Darrin and Sam's house, [[MistakenIdentity she cursed Sam]] with amnesia and sent her to turn of the century [[TheDeepSouth New Orleans.]] At the end of the episode Darrin faints when he's told that his rescue of Sam included a sword fight with a Southern gentleman.
* In ''Series/{{Castle}}'':
** One episode both played straight and inverted this trope in the ''same situation'' in one episode: it starts by showing the victim, who paid good money to play at being a spy in a rather impressive personalized AlternateRealityGame, being chased by someone who he assumed was part of the game, but was actually a real-life murderer. On discovering the body, complete with all sorts of cool spy props, Castle of course assumes actual espionage was involved - and proceeds to thoroughly confuse the actors hired as part of the ARG. Similarly, a man picked up in the course of the investigation is suave, confident, and refuses to tell the cops a goddamned thing... until they mention the ARG and he realizes that this isn't part of the game, he's ''really been arrested by the real police''. The super-spy promptly evaporates and is replaced with an ordinary man who's rather terrified at how over his head he's gotten.
** Another episode of Castle zigzags in a different way: Castle gets excited to find that the case he's on apparently involves a treasure hunt for mythical Masonic treasure. In following the trail of clues, he runs smack into reality: the treasure hunt was all just a game set up as part of a historical fundraiser (Castle was sad to discover the guy he had sword-dueled with was an actor, and the swords were props). Turns out, it actually ''wasn't'' a game: it was set up as a fundraiser by a guy who discovered real clues for real Masonic treasure, and decided to crowd-source the clues while ''telling'' everyone it was a game he made up. (Most of the participients believed it was a game, but a couple figured out the truth, and one killed the other for the treasure.)
* On ''Series/Deception2018'', a lawyer is killed when someone sprays him with a water pistol filled with poison. The FBI agents hunt down the shooter to find him going after another target. Magician aide Cameron sees the man looking confused and asking "did I win?" He realizes the guy thinks he's part of some reality TV show and no idea he was just used to commit a real murder.
* In "Rose", the first episode of the revived ''Series/DoctorWho'', Rose encounters a crowd of Autons, plastic mannequins animated by the Nestene Consciousness to conquer the Earth and use it as a food source for the Consciousness, and is saved from certain death by the Doctor. She guesses that the Autons are in fact students dressed up as a prank. She is wrong. Happens again later in the same episode - when the Doctor is attacked by the severed Auton arm, it takes her some time to realize he isn't just goofing around with it as Mickey had earlier.
* Numerous times on ''Series/FantasyIsland'', a guest's fantasy will involve a spy adventure or living out a historical era. At first, they'll assume they're in an elaborate role-play...until a real bullet nearly hits them or someone is struck down and they realize they're truly back in time and in real danger. Played with as, just as it looks bad, Mr. Roarke will suddenly whisk them back to safety. When asked if what happened was real, Roarke will generally just smile "what do you believe?" and the guest just decides it's better not to know the truth.
* On ''Series/{{Frasier}}'' the exact same thing happens, except that Niles, etc. had the opposite goal; to convince everyone else that the recently deceased was just part of the game.
* On ''Series/TheFreshPrinceOfBelAir'', Will tries to impress his girlfriend by having Jazz hire an actor to rob her store. Will goes wildly over the top attacking the gunman with nutty "martial arts" moves and hamming it up knocking the guy out. Instead of being impressed, the girlfriend chews Will out for being reckless and leaves. Will tries to blame the guy Jazz hired for blowing it...at which point, Jazz states the actor is a guy who was watching Will beat down on a ''real'' robber with a real gun who's being arrested by the cops. Will faints.
* In one episode of ''Series/GilligansIsland'', Gilligan is suffering from low self-esteem ([[ButtMonkey and no wonder]]). The other inhabitants of the island set up increasingly insane situations for him to save them from, until they finally tie themselves to stakes and pretend a cannibal captured them and will eat them. At that moment, an actual cannibal happens upon the scene, but Gilligan thinks it's just the Skipper in disguise, and he drives the cannibal out.
* In one ''Series/HogansHeroes'' episode, the plan is to use a fake unexploded bomb as a diversion. Hogan amuses himself at Klink's expense by "disarming" it with blatantly reckless and clumsy moves... until he's informed that the fake bomb was stuck in a tunnel cave-in and he's working on the real thing.
* On ''Series/JustShootMe'', Maya's Murder Game goes awry when an actual death occurs and she can't convince the others that it isn't part of the game.
* In the ''Series/KenanAndKel'' episode "Bye Bye Kenan: Part 2", Kenan comes up with a ZanyScheme to force his father to quit his new job as a park ranger by having one of his new friends dress up as a bear and frighten his father into quitting. HilarityEnsues when a ''real'' bear shows up first.
* On ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow'', Nate and Zari are sent on a solo mission to 1936 to recover a mysterious egg. The duo find the egg only to discover it's fake. They immediately jump to the idea that Sara set up this entire fake mission as a way of having them get together, noting how it's all tailored after the action movies Nate loves. When a pair of men with German accents enter, Nate and Zari literally laugh on how Sara added in "Nazis" to the adventure. They're tied up with the Nazis demanding to know where the egg is while the duo mock their cliche accents and bad acting. They manage to call up Sara to joke about this...at which point Sara informs them this is a ''real'' mission and these are ''real'' Nazis with ''real'' guns aimed at them.
* In one episode of ''Series/{{MASH}}'', Radar runs unthinkingly into a minefield to save an injured Korean girl. When later told how brave he was by B.J., Radar responds "Did I just run into a minefield?" Granted, he knew the minefield was there ''before'' he ran into it, but didn't fully grasp what he had done until the danger was over, a situation common to many real-life Medal of Honor winners.
* In ''Series/TheMonkees'' episode "The Picture Frame", the Monkees are hired to play bank robbers in a movie holdup scene, not knowing they will actually be robbing the bank.
* An episode of ''{{Series/NCIS}}'' has the team burst in to arrest a suspect... in the middle of a Halloween party. His first response is to mock their costumes for spelling {{Series/CSI}} wrong.
* In one episode of ''Series/StargateAtlantis'', Sheppard and [=McKay=] are playing what they think is a simulation/strategy game similar to ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}.'' Their differing play styles and natural rivalry means that it's no surprise that this strategy game will quickly turn into a wargame. However, everything changes when they realize that the Ancient device they are playing the game on is actually manipulating two actual civilizations remotely, and they scramble to try to avert a ''real'' war. Slightly subverted later, when Zelenka and Lorne find another planet being monitored by the "game" and try to help the natives... only to, once again, devolve into rivalry (again, one is a scientist, the other is a soldier) and nearly start another war. Luckily, Weir shows up just in time to put an end to this once and for all.
* ''Franchise/StarTrek'':
** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'':
*** In an early episode, "The Big Goodbye", a RedShirt practically dares a hologram to shoot him and is shocked when the bullet actually hurts him.
*** In "A Fistful of Datas", Worf and his son Alexander are playing in a Western holoprogram, later joined by Counselor Troi. But thanks to a linkup between Data and the ''Enterprise'' computer, every character starts resembling Data. So, when Worf faces the character [[BigBad Frank Hollander]], he initially thinks Data is also playing a part like Troi, until almost getting killed by him.
*** In "Peak Performance", an actual Ferengi ship shows up during a combat-simulation exercise, catching the crew off guard when they find out the hard way that it's a real attack.[[note]]This is in part because earlier in the exercise, Riker had hacked the ''Enterprise'''s systems to make them think a Romulan ship was attacking, so when something similar happened, [[CryingWolf they thought it was another fake]].[[/note]]
** ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'':
*** In "His Way", the hologram Vic Fontaine gets Kira and Odo to hook up by telling Odo that he's dealing with a hologram of Kira, which takes Odo's insecurity out of the equation.
*** In "Move Along Home", Quark begins playing a game with some mysterious new visitors using four pieces, when he discovers that four crew members have been whisked off to the game world. [[spoiler: Subverted when he loses, and they all materialize back at Quark's. After all, it's just a game!]]
* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' has the main characters attend a convention about the series of ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' books, which exist in the universe. When they get there, they find a LARP going on in which an old urban myth is the basis of a 'hunt'. They team up with a [[HoYay gay couple]] [[{{Bromance}} who are LARPing]] [[LampshadeHanging as Sam & Dean]], and when they realise that the events of the book are real, they choose to team up (unknowingly) with the real Sam and Dean to help take down the BigBad, because "It's what Sam and Dean would do." The real Sam and Dean choose to play along, claiming to just be fans who are so into the books that they took up monster-hunting for real.
* ''Series/TheThinBlueLine'':
** In "Rag Week", Fowler confronts and talks down a group of dangerous bank robbers, while under the impression they were students playing a prank.
** Inverted in "Fly on the Wall" -- after Fowler talks down the old man with the gun, it turns out that he was going to turn it in to the weapons amnesty program and possibly get on television.

[[folder:Video Games]]
* Since the Holy Grail War in ''VideoGame/FateExtra'' takes place in {{Cyberspace}}, many of the participating Masters initially approached it as a game. The full impact of just what they'd signed up for and [[ThereCanBeOnlyOne the conditions for winning]] (namely that the losers ''have their body and soul erased from reality, no one but the surviving contestants remembering they ever even existed'') doesn't sink in until the first round ends. This is particularly driven home by [[spoiler:Shinji's]] reaction.
* A [[WhatCouldHaveBeen dropped concept]] for ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'' would have involved citizens of the dystopian future playing a supposed game at the "Manhack Arcade" where they piloted flying buzzsaws in pursuit of criminals.
* In ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9'', Johnny Cage initially assumes the Mortal Kombat tournament is some kind of elaborate roleplay and that all the participants are just actors like him in some very convincing costumes. He starts to realize that it isn't when Shang Tsung orders him to kill Baraka after their fight, but it takes an encounter with Sonya and Kano for it to fully sink in.
* ''VideoGame/NiraOni'': After the group group gets trapped in [[AbandonedHospital West Nira Hospital]] and the Oni starts stalking them, Ryan thinks that it's some kind of fake haunted house. Hiroshi goes out of his way to [[LockedOutOfTheLoop keep her believing this]].
* In ''VideoGame/OpusMagnum'', the noble Houses have engaged in low-conflict "wars" where the two sides will put on a show of fighting, bluster at one another, and finally the "loser" will cede a few streets of territory. House Van Tassen treated the assault from House Colvan as more of the same even as losses mounted up. It took a letter from Taros expressing his intent to conquer Van Tassen for them to realize the danger they were in.
* When the Mecha-Bowser appears in Pinna Park of ''VideoGame/SuperMarioSunshine'', the Noki Director thought it was another tourist attraction.
* In ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsOriginalGeneration'' downplays this because of the actual controls for one of the series's original mechs, the Gespenst, were used as the basis for the simulator game. The problem is no one told the gamers that the data from the simulation would be used as an aptitude test for potential recruits/draftees.
* ''Franchise/TouhouProject'' antagonist Tenshi Hinanawi never did cotton that Gensokyo's Incidents ''aren't'' a game, so she contrives to engineer one herself because she was bored.
* ''VideoGame/UntilDawn'': The mastermind behind the events of the evening, [[spoiler:Josh]], didn't expect [[spoiler:actual, flesh-eating monsters]] to show up.
* ''VideoGame/VirtualOn'': The first few stages in the game are actually training simulations. After completing them, the game reveals that it's not actually a game, and proceeds to give the player remote control of a mecha on a lunar base.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Visual Novels]]
* ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc'': While the others trapped in Despair Academy quickly figure out that Monokuma's game is horribly real, [[FortuneTeller Yasuhiro]] continues to insist it's just an elaborate prank being staged to welcome them to Hope's Peak. It's not until someone dies that he realizes the truth, and mentally shuts down for a bit from sheer shock.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* ''Webcomic/CaptainSNES'':
** In the 2008 Halloween series, Alex refused to believe that the murders around him were real initially (they were in a "murder mystery" simulation) but even then, [[spoiler:it wasn't REALLY real as it was AllJustADream]].
** Earlier, he'd been fearlessly facing his trials in The Desert and dealing with Zeromus, believing that if he did die he'd simply be able to reset to the last save point and try again. When he is able to later talk it over with Bob, he learns that, due to the rules of the save points, the danger was very real and he was quite capable of dying for real. Naturally, he freaked out.
* In ''Webcomic/ClanOfTheCats'', the main character is a InvoluntaryShapeshifting witch, who can transform into a black panther. After an incident during a vacation with her [[TheDitz ditzy half-sister]], she runs off into the woods in a distressed state. Shortly after, a black panther is found hiding in a crawlspace under the house they're staying in, and The Ditz crawls in there to comfort her half-sister. After spending most of the night trying to cheer up her half-sister, she finally finds out that it's a REAL black panther, who has just escaped from a private zoo...
* In the ''Webcomic/GunnerkriggCourt'' chapter "From The Forest She Came", Annie is trying to convince Kat to talk to her by staging contrived situations in which they must work together to defeat a threat, and Kat isn't buying it. When an EldritchAbomination emerges from the water tank, she's quite impressed and wonders how Annie created it. Then she notices that Annie is terrified. [[spoiler:Luckily, it turns out to be Lindsey, their new guidance counselor.]]
* ''Webcomic/KillroyAndTina'': When an enemy of Killroy's shows up while he's training Tina, Killroy lets Tina believe it's part of the test.
* In ''WebComic/SabrinaOnline'', Sabrina and her boyfriend are attacked in an alley. Sabrina (an anthropomorphic skunk) sprays the mugger and they run away; when she gets home, she recounts the event to Amy in a tired voice, then suddenly jumps and shrieks, "OH MY GOD, I COULD HAVE BEEN ''KILLED''!"
* Kent from ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'', who believes he's facing vampire- base {{LARP}}ers rather than actual vampires, although in his case it endures in the face of all evidence because his WeirdnessCensor is incredibly strong - which in [[WorldOfWeirdness the Sluggy universe]] is another way of saying TooDumbToLive.
* ''Webcomic/TheWotch'': Anne [[https://www.thewotch.com/?comic=enter-the-wotc-2_26 mistakes an actual attack]] for a training exercise.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* Taken literally in ''WebVideo/OneHundredYardStare'' when Macy threatens to punch everyone if it is just a game...Unfortunately it is [[Franchise/TheSlenderManMythos much more than that]].
* The participants in ''WebVideo/SuburbanKnights'' start their quest off believing that it's just some pseudo-LARP adventure. by the end of Part 2 they discover that there really ''are'' supernatural beings standing in their way, and [[OhCrap don't take it too well]].
-->'''Spoony:''' "Suddenly I've decided that I'm terribly afraid of you."
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'', Francine mistakes a real vacation for a fake one, after finding out that most family vacations have been faked using a LotusEaterMachine (though less malicious). Thinking she is hallucinating the whole thing, she [[spoiler:kills people, sinks a boat, and wreaks havoc before finding out that this is all really happening]].
* ''WesternAnimation/TheBeatles'' episode "Please Please Me" had a similar scenario. In this case, a bullfight's bull, El Taco, is knocked unconscious, so the boys set things up with John and Paul in a bull costume and Ringo as a matador (with George as his picador). John and Paul are delayed because of a jammed zipper, and El Taco regains his consciousness. He barges into the ring to face Ringo, who thinks it's John and Paul.
* Happened thrice to ''WesternAnimation/BozoTheWorldsMostFamousClown''. In the first instance he thinks the circus tiger is a little kitty painted to look like a tiger, then the lion he's ordered to perform with he thinks is Butchy Boy in a lion costume. The third time he's in Hollywood to be a star and drives a gang of bank robbers' getaway car thinking it's part of a movie shoot.
* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/ChipNDaleRescueRangers'' has the Rangers stage a spy game for Dale; he figures out it's all fake early on, but what he ''doesn't'' realize is that a group of ''real bad guy spies'' have gotten into the mix. [[spoiler:Later, the leader of the spies catches on that Dale doesn't know it's not a game anymore; he gets the idea to tell Dale that the "game" is over to make him surrender, but this inadvertently causes Dale to destroy the microfilm they're after.]]
* A WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck cartoon has Donald manhandling a mountain lion thinking it was his nephews in disguise.
* In ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales1987'', "[[Recap/DuckTalesS1E4WhereNoDuckHasGoneBefore Where No Duck Has Gone Before]]", it takes "Major Courage" most of the episode to realize that he's really in outer space with real aliens instead of on a set.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'' episode "Double-O Duck in: You Only Crash Twice!", Launchpad and Dewey are playing a VR spy game when they get confronted by Steelbeak and taken to an actual F.O.W.L. base. Dewey is delighted that they've ''finally'' reached the next level. Launchpad realises the truth when he's hit with the Intelli-Ray, but forgets it once his intelligence goes back to normal. Dewey never does.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'':
** Timmy, Chester, and AJ end up in TheMostDangerousVideoGame. Chester and AJ remain oblivious that they're in a deadly game, thinking it's all fun. Unlike most examples, they never learn the truth.
** In another episode, Chester and AJ remain oblivious that Mark the Alien is a real villain, thinking the whole thing is a pretend game.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheFlintstoneKids'': Freddy and his friends once went camping. Rocky Ratrock and his gang did all they could to sabotage them. One of their plans was dressing up like a monster to scare Fred, Barney, Wilma and Betty away but Freddy and friends learned of the plan and ended up unwittingly scaring a real monster and only then learned it was real.
* In one WesternAnimation/{{Goofy}} short, Goofy demonstrates to his son how he would deal with a mountain lion if one should attack, not realising that he has grabbed hold of an actual mountain lion in the process.
* ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'':
** The episode "Larry's Birthday" featured Professor Dementor kidnapping Kim's {{geek}}y cousin Larry by telling him that he's taking part of a LARP set up for his birthday. Larry buys it, and ends up almost putting Kim and Ron through a {{deathtrap}}, before [[spoiler: revealing he had seen through it. (Dementor's plan, that is, not the fact it wasn't a LARP.)]] Kim and Ron, along with Kim's father Jim, [[SureLetsGoWithThat decide to let Larry and his neurotic mother keep thinking that]] so as not to result in the latter going into a panic.
** Drakken's plan in "Clean Slate" was to set up a fake engine overload on a train in order to trigger an evacuation. After he and Shego boarded the train, and Kim and Ron showed up to stop them, [[ExplainExplainOhCrap he realized]] that he'd forgotten about the "fake" part....
* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheLifeAndTimesOfJuniperLee'', "The World According to LARP", June's brother Dennis is kidnapped by monsters (as opposed to the ''intended'' target, her other brother Ray Ray... the orders given were something to the tone of "the one who can see monsters"), but believes this to be his {{LARP}} (live-action role-play) group's new adventure. Since his "props" are ''real'' magical items that he stole from June's room (which also happen to make him able to see monsters like Ray Ray), he defeats his kidnappers and escapes the dungeon with no idea that any of it was real.
* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' short subject "Picador Porky" (1936) has Porky and his two vagabond pals scheming to win some prize money at a bullfight with Porky as a matador and his buddies dressed in a bull costume. The two buddies get drunk off of some wine and their hiccupping causes them to escape from their cage. The bullfight staff replace with a ''real'' bull, which Porky thinks is his friends. He's quite fearless, up until he sees the two in a drunken revelry singing "La Cucaracha."
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': In "Stranger Than Fan Fiction", Rainbow Dash and Quibble Pants get kidnapped by Dr. Caballeron, taken to an ancient tomb, and rescued by Daring Do. Quibble Pants thinks this is a {{LARP}} (to be fair, the Daring Do convention had earlier been offering customers a chance to go on a LARP) and spends most of his time nitpicking everything and [[YourCostumeNeedsWork insulting Caballeron as a bad cosplayer]]. He's finally convinced it is real when they are attacked by a monster.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'': In '[[Recap/TheOwlHouseS2E10YesterdaysLie Yesterday's Lie]]' when Camila Noceda's daughter Luz appeared on her smartphone to spin a wild tale of having been [[TrappedInAnotherWorld banished to a demonic realm]] for the last few months and ask her help in rescuing [[ChangelingTale the shape-shifting creature which stole her life]] the woman who had been worried about how much her child had changed since returning from summer camp was relieved enough to play along with the silly 'LARP'. That lasted until she arrived in the back room of a local museum, got a good look at the true form of a gagged and caged Vee, and realized there was ''[[AvertedTrope absolutely no way]]'' [[YourCostumeNeedsWork this was anyone in a costume]].
* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain'' had Brain staging a victory over a giant monster by having them grow to giant sizes and having Pinky dress up as one. Brain then finds an actual giant monster he at first believes to be Pinky.
* In ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooOnZombieIsland'', the gang are burnt out on [[ScoobyDooHoax Scooby-Doo Hoaxes]] and assume that the titular island is just another such hoax. It isn't.
* In ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooPiratesAhoy'', the gang crack a whole series of staged mysteries on a "Mystery Cruise" on the first day of their vacation. When an ''actual'' mystery turns up, it's hardly surprising that they initially complement the cruise director on its realism.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' subverts this in the episode "Paths of Glory", combining it with AndYouThoughtItWasReal. In order to train Bart and the sociopaths to become military pilots, they are put in military battle simulations, where they drop bombs in the Middle East. Bart gets the highest score out of everyone, but is horrified when he is told that the simulations were real. Bart refuses to join the military, and it is then revealed to him that the real battles were indeed actually simulations, and Bart is sent home due to being unfit for both the military and as a sociopath.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' episode "I Had An Accident". Patrick dresses up in a gorilla suit and tries to kidnap Sandy in an attempt to get [=SpongeBob=] to come out of his house. [=SpongeBob=] can easily tell that it's just Patrick in a gorilla suit... only for Patrick to suddenly walk into frame. Subverted when the gorilla costume is unzipped to reveal that the real Patrick is indeed inside it... then the fake Patrick unzips ''their'' costume to reveal ''an actual gorilla''.
* Happens a lot on ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama''. Owen manhandles a bear, thinking it is his insane girlfriend Izzy in a bear costume. In a later episode, Gwen thinks she's encountering the show's co-host in a generic movie-slasher costume. It's not. Despite Gwen's newfound friend being white and the co-host being black, it takes the appearance of everyone else on the island before she realizes what is going on. Then, she beats him up.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* [[http://www.cracked.com/article_15628_5-creepiest-urban-legends-that-happen-be-true.html There was this corpse in a Fun House...]]
* Allegedly, some officers from the British armed forces were on a training course in an isolated location in which various terrorism scenarios were being wargamed, when someone happened to switch on a TV. It showed a confused report of [[UsefulNotes/NineEleven massive casualties in the United States due to hijacked planes being crashed into buildings in at least two locations]]. They were all impressed by the thoroughness and realism with which the course organizers had introduced this scenario...
* In the case of fire alarms, this is why people stop to collect valuables when the alarm goes off.
* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Kim_Jong-nam The assassination of Kim Jong-Un's half-brother]] happened when a deadly nerve agent was smeared on his face by three citizens who claimed they were told the substance was harmless and that they were part of a TV prank. The North Korean agents who allegedly tricked them made it back to Pyongyang without being arrested, and murder charges against the three citizens were subsequently dropped.
[[/folder]]

* ''Franchise/StarTrek'':
** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'':
*** In an early episode, "The Big Goodbye", a RedShirt practically dares a hologram to shoot him and is shocked when the bullet actually hurts him.
*** In "A Fistful of Datas", Worf and his son Alexander are playing in a Western holoprogram, later joined by Counselor Troi. But thanks to a linkup between Data and the ''Enterprise'' computer, every character starts resembling Data. So, when Worf faces the character [[BigBad Frank Hollander]], he initially thinks Data is also playing a part like Troi, until almost getting killed by him.
*** In "Peak Performance", an actual Ferengi ship shows up during a combat-simulation exercise, catching the crew off guard when they find out the hard way that it's a real attack.[[note]]This is in part because earlier in the exercise, Riker had hacked the ''Enterprise'''s systems to make them think a Romulan ship was attacking, so when something similar happened, [[CryingWolf they thought it was another fake]].[[/note]]
** ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'':
*** In "His Way", the hologram Vic Fontaine gets Kira and Odo to hook up by telling Odo that he's dealing with a hologram of Kira, which takes Odo's insecurity out of the equation.
*** In "Move Along Home", Quark begins playing a game with some mysterious new visitors using four pieces, when he discovers that four crew members have been whisked off to the game world. [[spoiler: Subverted when he loses, and they all materialize back at Quark's. After all, it's just a game!]]
* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' has the main characters attend a convention about the series of ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' books, which exist in the universe. When they get there, they find a LARP going on in which an old urban myth is the basis of a 'hunt'. They team up with a [[HoYay gay couple]] [[{{Bromance}} who are LARPing]] [[LampshadeHanging as Sam & Dean]], and when they realise that the events of the book are real, they choose to team up (unknowingly) with the real Sam and Dean to help take down the BigBad, because "It's what Sam and Dean would do." The real Sam and Dean choose to play along, claiming to just be fans who are so into the books that they took up monster-hunting for real.
* On ''Series/TheFreshPrinceOfBelAir'', Will tries to impress his girlfriend by having Jazz hire an actor to rob her store. Will goes wildly over the top attacking the gunman with nutty "martial arts" moves and hamming it up knocking the guy out. Instead of being impressed, the girlfriend chews Will out for being reckless and leaves. Will tries to blame the guy Jazz hired for blowing it...at which point, Jazz states the actor is a guy who was watching Will beat down on a ''real'' robber with a real gun who's being arrested by the cops. Will faints.

* ''Series/TheThinBlueLine'':
** In "Rag Week", Fowler confronts and talks down a group of dangerous bank robbers, while under the impression they were students playing a prank.
** Inverted in "Fly on the Wall" -- after Fowler talks down the old man with the gun, it turns out that he was going to turn it in to the weapons amnesty program and possibly get on television.
* On ''Series/JustShootMe'', Maya's Murder Game goes awry when an actual death occurs and she can't convince the others that it isn't part of the game.

* In one episode of ''Series/StargateAtlantis'', Sheppard and [=McKay=] are playing what they think is a simulation/strategy game similar to ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}.'' Their differing play styles and natural rivalry means that it's no surprise that this strategy game will quickly turn into a wargame. However, everything changes when they realize that the Ancient device they are playing the game on is actually manipulating two actual civilizations remotely, and they scramble to try to avert a ''real'' war. Slightly subverted later, when Zelenka and Lorne find another planet being monitored by the "game" and try to help the natives... only to, once again, devolve into rivalry (again, one is a scientist, the other is a soldier) and nearly start another war. Luckily, Weir shows up just in time to put an end to this once and for all.

* In "Rose", the first episode of the revived ''Series/DoctorWho'', Rose encounters a crowd of Autons, plastic mannequins animated by the Nestene Consciousness to conquer the Earth and use it as a food source for the Consciousness, and is saved from certain death by the Doctor. She guesses that the Autons are in fact students dressed up as a prank. She is wrong. Happens again later in the same episode - when the Doctor is attacked by the severed Auton arm, it takes her some time to realize he isn't just goofing around with it as Mickey had earlier.

* In ''Series/{{Castle}}'':
** One episode both played straight and inverted this trope in the ''same situation'' in one episode: it starts by showing the victim, who paid good money to play at being a spy in a rather impressive personalized AlternateRealityGame, being chased by someone who he assumed was part of the game, but was actually a real-life murderer. On discovering the body, complete with all sorts of cool spy props, Castle of course assumes actual espionage was involved - and proceeds to thoroughly confuse the actors hired as part of the ARG. Similarly, a man picked up in the course of the investigation is suave, confident, and refuses to tell the cops a goddamned thing... until they mention the ARG and he realizes that this isn't part of the game, he's ''really been arrested by the real police''. The super-spy promptly evaporates and is replaced with an ordinary man who's rather terrified at how over his head he's gotten.
** Another episode of Castle zigzags in a different way: Castle gets excited to find that the case he's on apparently involves a treasure hunt for mythical Masonic treasure. In following the trail of clues, he runs smack into reality: the treasure hunt was all just a game set up as part of a historical fundraiser (Castle was sad to discover the guy he had sword-dueled with was an actor, and the swords were props). Turns out, it actually ''wasn't'' a game: it was set up as a fundraiser by a guy who discovered real clues for real Masonic treasure, and decided to crowd-source the clues while ''telling'' everyone it was a game he made up. (Most of the participients believed it was a game, but a couple figured out the truth, and one killed the other for the treasure.)
* In one episode of ''Series/GilligansIsland'', Gilligan is suffering from low self-esteem ([[ButtMonkey and no wonder]]). The other inhabitants of the island set up increasingly insane situations for him to save them from, until they finally tie themselves to stakes and pretend a cannibal captured them and will eat them. At that moment, an actual cannibal happens upon the scene, but Gilligan thinks it's just the Skipper in disguise, and he drives the cannibal out.
* In one ''Series/HogansHeroes'' episode, the plan is to use a fake unexploded bomb as a diversion. Hogan amuses himself at Klink's expense by "disarming" it with blatantly reckless and clumsy moves... until he's informed that the fake bomb was stuck in a tunnel cave-in and he's working on the real thing.
* In an episode of ''Series/{{Bewitched}},'' Samantha's identical cousin, Serena, was having an affair with a warlock, when his wife tracked her down to Darrin and Sam's house, [[MistakenIdentity she cursed Sam]] with amnesia and sent her to turn of the century [[TheDeepSouth New Orleans.]] At the end of the episode Darrin faints when he's told that his rescue of Sam included a sword fight with a Southern gentleman.
* An episode of {{Series/NCIS}} has the team burst in to arrest a suspect... in the middle of a Halloween party. His first response is to mock their costumes for spelling {{Series/CSI}} wrong.
* On ''Series/Deception2018'', a lawyer is killed when someone sprays him with a water pistol filled with poison. The FBI agents hunt down the shooter to find him going after another target. Magician aide Cameron sees the man looking confused and asking "did I win?" He realizes the guy thinks he's part of some reality TV show and no idea he was just used to commit a real murder.
* On ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow'', Nate and Zari are sent on a solo mission to 1936 to recover a mysterious egg. The duo find the egg only to discover it's fake. They immediately jump to the idea that Sara set up this entire fake mission as a way of having them get together, noting how it's all tailored after the action movies Nate loves. When a pair of men with German accents enter, Nate and Zari literally laugh on how Sara added in "Nazis" to the adventure. They're tied up with the Nazis demanding to know where the egg is while the duo mock their cliche accents and bad acting. They manage to call up Sara to joke about this...at which point Sara informs them this is a ''real'' mission and these are ''real'' Nazis with ''real'' guns aimed at them.

* ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc'': While the others trapped in Despair Academy quickly figure out that Monokuma's game is horribly real, [[FortuneTeller Yasuhiro]] continues to insist it's just an elaborate prank being staged to welcome them to Hope's Peak. It's not until someone dies that he realizes the truth, and mentally shuts down for a bit from sheer shock.

* ''VideoGame/VirtualOn'': The first few stages in the game are actually training simulations. After completing them, the game reveals that it's not actually a game, and proceeds to give the player remote control of a mecha on a lunar base.

* A [[WhatCouldHaveBeen dropped concept]] for ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'' would have involved citizens of the dystopian future playing a supposed game at the "Manhack Arcade" where they piloted flying buzzsaws in pursuit of criminals.
* In ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsOriginalGeneration'' downplays this because of the actual controls for one of the series's original mechs, the Gespenst, were used as the basis for the simulator game. The problem is no one told the gamers that the data from the simulation would be used as an aptitude test for potential recruits/draftees.
* In ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9'', Johnny Cage initially assumes the Mortal Kombat tournament is some kind of elaborate roleplay and that all the participants are just actors like him in some very convincing costumes. He starts to realize that it isn't when Shang Tsung orders him to kill Baraka after their fight, but it takes an encounter with Sonya and Kano for it to fully sink in.

* In ''VideoGame/OpusMagnum'', the noble Houses have engaged in low-conflict "wars" where the two sides will put on a show of fighting, bluster at one another, and finally the "loser" will cede a few streets of territory. House Van Tassen treated the assault from House Colvan as more of the same even as losses mounted up. It took a letter from Taros expressing his intent to conquer Van Tassen for them to realize the danger they were in.

* Kent from ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'', who believes he's facing vampire- base {{LARP}}ers rather than actual vampires, although in his case it endures in the face of all evidence because his WeirdnessCensor is incredibly strong - which in [[WorldOfWeirdness the Sluggy universe]] is another way of saying TooDumbToLive.
* In ''Webcomic/ClanOfTheCats'', the main character is a InvoluntaryShapeshifting witch, who can transform into a black panther. After an incident during a vacation with her [[TheDitz ditzy half-sister]], she runs off into the woods in a distressed state. Shortly after, a black panther is found hiding in a crawlspace under the house they're staying in, and The Ditz crawls in there to comfort her half-sister. After spending most of the night trying to cheer up her half-sister, she finally finds out that it's a REAL black panther, who has just escaped from a private zoo...
* ''Webcomic/KillroyAndTina'': When an enemy of Killroy's shows up while he's training Tina, Killroy lets Tina believe it's part of the test.
* ''Webcomic/TheWotch'': Anne [[https://www.thewotch.com/?comic=enter-the-wotc-2_26 mistakes an actual attack]] for a training exercise.

** In the 2008 Halloween series, Alex refused to believe that the murders around him were real initially (they were in a "murder mystery" simulation) but even then, [[spoiler: it wasn't REALLY real as it was AllJustADream.]]

* In the ''Webcomic/GunnerkriggCourt'' chapter "From The Forest She Came", Annie is trying to convince Kat to talk to her by staging contrived situations in which they must work together to defeat a threat, and Kat isn't buying it. When an EldritchAbomination emerges from the water tank, she's quite impressed and wonders how Annie created it. Then she notices that Annie is terrified. [[spoiler: Luckily, it turns out to be Lindsey, their new guidance counselor]].

* The participants in ''WebVideo/SuburbanKnights'' start their quest off believing that it's just some pseudo-LARP adventure. by the end of Part 2 they discover that there really ''are'' supernatural beings standing in their way, and [[OhCrap don't take it too well.]]
-->'''Spoony:''' "Suddenly I've decided that I'm terribly afraid of you."

* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheLifeAndTimesOfJuniperLee'', "The World According to LARP", June's brother Dennis is kidnapped by monsters (as opposed to the ''intended'' target, her other brother Ray Ray... the orders given were something to the tone of "the one who can see monsters"), but believes this to be his {{LARP}} (live-action role-play) group's new adventure. Since his "props" are ''real'' magical items that he stole from June's room (which also happen to make him able to see monsters like Ray Ray), he defeats his kidnappers and escapes the dungeon with no idea that any of it was real.
* In ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'', Francine mistakes a real vacation for a fake one, after finding out that most family vacations have been faked using a LotusEaterMachine (though less malicious). Thinking she is hallucinating the whole thing, she [[spoiler: kills people, sinks a boat, and wreaks havoc before finding out that this is all really happening]].

* In one WesternAnimation/{{Goofy}} short, Goofy demonstrates to his son how he would deal with a mountain lion if one should attack, not realising that he has grabbed hold of an actual mountain lion in the process.
* A WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck cartoon has Donald manhandling a mountain lion thinking it was his nephews in disguise.
* Happens a lot on ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama''. Owen manhandles a bear, thinking it is his insane girlfriend Izzy in a bear costume. In a later episode, Gwen thinks she's encountering the show's co-host in a generic movie-slasher costume. It's not. Despite Gwen's newfound friend being white and the co-host being black, it takes the appearance of everyone else on the island before she realizes what is going on. Then, she beats him up.
* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/ChipNDaleRescueRangers'' has the Rangers stage a spy game for Dale; he figures out it's all fake early on, but what he ''doesn't'' realize is that a group of ''real bad guy spies'' have gotten into the mix. [[spoiler:Later, the leader of the spies catches on that Dale doesn't know it's not a game anymore; he gets the idea to tell Dale that the "game" is over to make him surrender, but this inadvertently causes Dale to destroy the microfilm they're after.]]

* In the ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' episode "I Had An Accident". Patrick dresses up in a gorilla suit and tries to kidnap Sandy in an attempt to get [=SpongeBob=] to come out of his house. [=SpongeBob=] can easily tell that it's just Patrick in a gorilla suit... only for Patrick to suddenly walk into frame. Subverted when the gorilla costume is unzipped to reveal that the real Patrick is indeed inside it... then the fake Patrick unzips ''their'' costume to reveal ''an actual gorilla''.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheFlintstoneKids'': Freddy and his friends once went camping. Rocky Ratrock and his gang did all they could to sabotage them. One of their plans was dressing up like a monster to scare Fred, Barney, Wilma and Betty away but Freddy and friends learned of the plan and ended up unwittingly scaring a real monster and only then learned it was real.

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': In "Stranger Than Fan Fiction", Rainbow Dash and Quibble Pants get kidnapped by Dr. Caballeron, taken to an ancient tomb, and rescued by Daring Do. Quibble Pants thinks this is a {{LARP}} (to be fair, the Daring Do convention had earlier been offering customers a chance to go on a LARP) and spends most of his time nitpicking everything and [[YourCostumeNeedsWork insulting Caballeron as a bad cosplayer]]. He's finally convinced it is real when they are attacked by a monster.
* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' short subject "Picador Porky" (1936) has Porky and his two vagabond pals scheming to win some prize money at a bullfight with Porky as a matador and his buddies dressed in a bull costume. The two buddies get drunk off of some wine and their hiccupping causes them to escape from their cage. The bullfight staff replace with a ''real'' bull, which Porky thinks is his friends. He's quite fearless, up until he sees the two in a drunken revelry singing "La Cucaracha."
* ''WesternAnimation/TheBeatles'' episode "Please Please Me" had a similar scenario. In this case, a bullfight's bull, El Taco, is knocked unconscious, so the boys set things up with John and Paul in a bull costume and Ringo as a matador (with George as his picador). John and Paul are delayed because of a jammed zipper, and El Taco regains his consciousness. He barges into the ring to face Ringo, who thinks it's John and Paul.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'':
** Timmy, Chester, and AJ end up in TheMostDangerousVideoGame. Chester and AJ remain oblivious that they're in a deadly game, thinking it's all fun. Unlike most examples, they never learn the truth.
** In another episode, Chester and AJ remain oblivious that Mark the Alien is a real villain, thinking the whole thing is a pretend game.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'' episode "Double-O Duck in: You Only Crash Twice!", Launchpad and Dewey are playing a VR spy game when they get confronted by Steelbeak and taken to an actual F.O.W.L. base. Dewey is delighted that they've ''finally'' reached the next level. Launchpad realises the truth when he's hit with the Intelli-Ray, but forgets it once his intelligence goes back to normal. Dewey never does.
* Happened thrice to WesternAnimation/BozoTheWorldsMostFamousClown. In the first instance he thinks the circus tiger is a little kitty painted to look like a tiger, then the lion he's ordered to perform with he thinks is Butchy Boy in a lion costume. The third time he's in Hollywood to be a star and drives a gang of bank robbers' getaway car thinking it's part of a movie shoot.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'': In '[[Recap/TheOwlHouseS2E10YesterdaysLie Yesterday's Lie]]' when Camila Noceda's daughter Luz appeared on her smartphone to spin a wild tale of having been [[TrappedInAnotherWorld banished to a demonic realm]] for the last few months and ask her help in rescuing [[ChangelingTale the shape-shifting creature which stole her life]] the woman who had been worried about how much her child had changed since returning from summer camp was relieved enough to play along with the silly 'LARP'. That lasted until she arrived in the back room of a local museum, got a good look at the true form of a gagged and caged Vee, and realized there was ''[[AvertedTrope absolutely no way]]'' [[YourCostumeNeedsWork this was anyone in a costume]].

%%Commented out examples are Zero-Context Examples. Please do not re-add them without adding context.

%%

* ''Anime/DigimonAdventure02'': Ken Ichijoji has no problem with enslaving, torturing and killing Digimon because he [[MoreThanMindControl thinks]] he's just playing a [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential virtual MMORPG]]. When he is finally proven wrong with [[DeadSidekick Wormmon's death]] he suffers a BSOD, triggering his eventual HeelFaceTurn.
** [[Anime/DigimonAdventure Previously]], riding on the confidence he stems from Koushiro's discovery that the Digital World is, well, [[{{Cyberspace}} a digital world]], Taichi believes that he's virtually invincible and if things go awry he'll respawn in the real world. He passes through an illusion of a gate of electricity believing that he won't die from it, but when he later has this trope revealed to him by Koushiro he hesitates in going through it again, resulting in Sora being kidnapped. He ''still'' hesitates to go through again on the subsequent rescue mission.
** ''Anime/DigimonFusion'': [[spoiler:Yuu Amano was lured into the Digital World by the promise of being able to play with real friends without the possibility of permanently hurting or killing them. That turned into him leading the forces of the Bagra Army in the war, believing no-one's actually dying. Near the endgame, because of this he even has no problem with the notion of killing his own sister Nene, one of the generals of the opposition; he even sees ending her as part of the game. When Taiki explains that it's actually not the case, [[VillainousBreakdown he flips out]]; Tuwarmon recognises that it's important for the Bagra Army that Yuu continue to believe that it's all a game, and afterwards makes a point of reassuring him.]]
* In ''Manga/{{Akagi}}'', the insanely talented title character agrees to play {{TabletopGame/Mahjong}} against Yakuza rep player Urabe only if his mild-mannered coworker Osamu plays first. As it turns out, Osamu is actually quite good and holds his own against the professional... until he hears that the game is being played for a wager of 32 million yen between two rival Yakuza groups. His emotions overwhelm his ability to play, and Akagi has to step in and save him.

* The protagonists in ''Manga/{{Bokurano}}'' are told they're going to pilot giant robots as part of a game. This is a massive lie.
* Played straight by the ''Manga/{{Beelzebub}}'' delinquents through the entire premise of the FPS/online video gaming chapters. Furuichi and Lamia convince the Ishiyama gang to join in the search for Lord En by challenging him at online games. They agree to [[ShouldntWeBeInSchoolRightNow skip school]] and look for him - all under the impression that Lord En and his retainers are from a rival school that simply want to to beat the crap out of the Ishiyama students. Little do the thugs know that, while playing with En and his maids [[SeriousBusiness non-stop for three straight days]], [[spoiler: Behemoth's 34th Pillar Squads are assembling to annihilate humanity in Lord En's name]].
* In volume 13 of ''LightNovel/GoblinSlayer'', the guild arranges a dungeon exploration contest in a practice-dungeon for prospective new adventurers to try out their skills. During Scrawny Girl's run, she winds up getting attacked by a real goblin (rather than the puppets the guild set up) and going down the secret passage it came from. After finally finding her, Goblin Slayer doesn't have the heart to tell her that all the monsters she took down were very real and not just part of the test.
* In ''Anime/GundamBuildDiversReRise'', team BUILD [=DiVERS=] are brought into what appears to be a new campaign mode within [[VirtualReality GBN]], liberating a race of human-like animals from fearsome machines. However, as they push through the mission, things don't line up, ultimately leading to [[spoiler:the team failing to stop a KillSat from obliterating an island where the Resistance was set up at and the team never gets a signal that they lost. They soon discover that the land of Eldora is actually an extraterrestrial planet that had somehow managed to connect with GBN[[note]](a ''very'' long story connected to the living [=AIs=] that emerged in the previous series)[[/note]], and all this time they had been fighting ''real'' battles in ''real'' bodies and [[HumongousMecha Mobile Suits]] constructed on the world. This one [[HeroicBSOD breaks Kazami as he treated this as a game from the get-go]].]]
* The biggest issue of the Sword, Spear and Bow Heroes in ''LightNovel/TheRisingOfTheShieldHero'' is the fact that they refuse to acknowledge the world they're in is ''not'' like the videogames they're familiar with. This results in them not caring about the consequences of their actions and causing more harm than good along the way, often having the titular Shield Hero having to pick up the slack and clean up their messes.

* ''LightNovel/HaremInTheLabyrinthOfAnotherWorld'' has the protagonist believe that he's in an extremely immersive VR RPG, even commenting on how crazy the blood splatter effects are when he cuts down bandits. However, once he finishes his first encounter and tries to log off, it dawns upon him that he's actually transported to another world and that the bandits he killed were real.

* In the ComicBook/LuckyLuke "Nitroglycerine" story, Luke is escorting a shipment of nitroglycerine to a railroad tunnel site. The Daltons, spying on him, think the huge crate is filled with gold bars, being sent to the town of "Nitro". Hilarity Ensues when the Daltons try to shoot the lock off, jump bridges on the train, etc. At the end, Joe demands to know where the gold was, and faints upon learning what was inside.
* Played around with in an arc of Superman/Batman, where Toyman (Hiro Okamura) creates a new Superman and Batman-themed game, not realizing that the "game" has become real via [[AppliedPhlebotinum nanomachines]], allowing him and his friends to control Superman and Batman. They quickly realize the game is real by having the events of the game come to them, but by this point, the true culprit of the game, Mongul, has made it available online, with 90 million people [[BrainwashedAndCrazy under the effects of mind-controlling spores]] now dictating the actions of the two heroes in a fight to the death, thinking it is all just a game, with Hiro and his friends now desperately trying to take charge of the situation by convincing the others that the game is real. However, some of the players simply don't care, wanting payback for injustices the superheroes cause on their everyday lives.

[[folder:Film]]
* In ''Film/TheManWhoKnewTooLittle'' (which used to be the TropeNamer), Wallace Ritchie believes himself to be taking part in an avant-garde street theatre experience, when he has actually embroiled himself in an assassination plot. A similarly contrived set of circumstances results in [[MistakenForBadass everyone else connected to the plot thinking that he's a cold-blooded assassin]]. HilarityEnsues. Unusually for how this trope usually plays out, Wallace doesn't figure out that it was all real until some time after the end credits start rolling.

* In the movie ''Film/ProblemChild'', Ben Healy (John Ritter) encounters a bear at a campsite, and, believing it to be a friend in costume, acts playfully towards it. He soon realizes that the bear is an actual animal. During the ensuing panic, the bear retreats and the actual friend dressed as a bear arrives, whom Ben hits over the head with a skillet.

* In the film ''Film/ThreeAmigos'', three movie stars who specialize in rescuing-Mexican-peasant-villages-from-marauding-bandits movies are invited to come and rescue a real Mexican peasant village from real marauding bandits; they assume the whole thing is staged until one of them finds out the hard way that their opponents are using real bullets.
** Double for the bit where they [[spoiler:attempt a ritual to summon the "invisible swordsman". They successfully summon the swordsman, but end up with [[IJustShotMarvinInTheFace Dusty shooting him because he didn't aim his guns safely upwards during the "fire gun" part]].]]
* In the movie ''Film/ErikTheViking'', the title character borrows Princess Aud's cloak of invisibility and bravely attacks Halfdan the Black's crew, not realizing that the cloak only makes its wearer invisible to Aud's father. (Not a MagicFeather because he wasn't misled about the powers of the cloak; he took it into battle before Aud could explain its limitations.) Since he thinks he's invisible, he gets confident enough to be able to fight with reckless abandon, which stupefies Blackdan's crew enough for him to beat several of them, and also inspire several of his own crew to fight.
* Nicholas Angel in ''Film/HotFuzz'' being called about an "escaped swan". "And who might you be? P. I. Staker? Right. 'Pisstaker'? Come on!" Cut away to Nicholas taking Mr. Staker's statement.

* In ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheTempleOfDoom'', Willie spends her first proper night in the jungle jumping and panicking at every sound and critter that appears, a tendency not helped by a tamed elephant's over-friendly tendency to lay its trunk on her shoulder. Then, after a particularly exhausting scream-a-thon and subsequent argument with Indy that wears her out, a deadly snake slithers down from a tree onto her shoulder. Whilst Indy himself is [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes paralyzed with fear]], Willie -- fed-up and assuming it's just the elephant -- yells "Cut it ''out''!", grabs the snake and hurls it very far away without even looking.
* In ''Film/MyNameIsBruce'' Bruce Campbell (playing himself) is kidnapped by a fan who wants his help fighting a monster that's killing the townsfolk. Bruce believes that he is there to star in an unscripted movie. Bruce realizes that the monster is real when he leads an attack on it, and he promptly turns around and flees.
* The entire premise of ''Film/TheGame1997'' is the millionaire protagonist working out whether he is taking part in a Live-Action Role-Playing adventure game, or are there actually people trying to kill him? Or [[spoiler: is he really just going insane and having paranoid delusions?]]

* This is the entire plot of the classic sci-fi film ''Film/TheLastStarfighter''. The main character is a teenager who is the best in his town at a video game that involves defending the Star League against the Kodan Armada, with him eventually becoming the first and only person to be able to completely win the game. Once a recruiter from the Star League shows up in response, you can guess what happens next.
* In the sequel to the French comedy ''Film/TheTallBlondeManWithOneBlackShoe'', the hapless everyman is recruited by a high-ranking intelligence officer to help discredit another. They set up a gauntlet of encounters in which our hero, pretending to be a spy, "beats" or "kills" a series of bad guys, while under surveillance by that other intelligence officer. At one point, our hero turns left down an alleyway instead of turning right, meets a burly workman, and assumes this is the next guy he's supposed to fight. The workman gets annoyed at this skinny loser whacking him with fake karate chops...

* Played with in the original ''Film/{{Tron}}''. Kevin Flynn has been digitized into the computer system and captured by the Master Control Program's forces. They take him to the Gaming Grid, where Ram, who thinks he's just another captive program, tells him that he'll be forced to play video games. Flynn laughs it off, boasting that he plays games better than anyone... and then the poor guy finds out just how differently things work in the Electronic World.
--> '''Kevin Flynn:''' On the other side of the screen, it all looked so easy.
* In ''Film/{{Sleuth}}'' the line between game and real life thread becomes blurred more than once.
* The plot of ''Film/WarGames'' is kicked off by a teenage hacker accidentally breaking into a US military supercomputer and playing a [[{{The End Of The World As We Know It}} nuclear warfare]] simulation with it. The problem is, even after he stops, the supercomputer keeps playing -- and it doesn't know the difference between a game and real life.
* Lassard in ''Film/PoliceAcademy5AssignmentMiamiBeach'', when being held hostage, he thinks it's a simulation for the festivity. In fact, it turns out that it was the bad guys who should have been worried, as Lassard disarms their leader the moment he finds out the truth.
* Used initially for scary effect, but increasingly for comedic effect as the franchise went on, in the ''Film/ChildsPlay'' saga. Seed of Chucky even takes place partially on a movie set...
* Played with in ''Film/TheKillingRoom'' (2009). An NSA psychiatrist is recruited to observe tapes of an experiment, and is shocked to find it's a lethal MindControl experiment inherited from the MK Ultra program. We can back and forth between her and the experimental subjects, who are eventually wheeled into the room where she is, and she's informed that the tapes she's been viewing were filmed earlier that day.

* In ''Film/MortalKombatTheMovie'', Johnny Cage has absolutely no idea what he's getting into. He has only been told that Mortal Kombat is an invitation-only martial arts tournament, and leaps at the chance to prove that he is a legitimate martial artist rather than a WireFu actor. When he realizes what the stakes and the opposition are... he doesn't take it well.
* [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig-zagged]] in ''Film/{{Bowfinger}}''. When Jiff has to film a scene where he runs across a busy freeway, Bowfinger tells him that [[BlatantLies all the cars have stunt drivers who will miss him]]. Inverted when they [[EnforcedMethodActing secretly film scenes with Kit,]] leading him to believe he really is being followed by aliens.
* Occurred quite a bit in ''Film/TheThreeStooges'' shorts, usually with Moe assuming the person behind him is Larry or Curley or Shemp bugging him rather than the threat of the episode about to do him harm. Another instance of the trope happens in ''What's the Matador?'' when the boys are hired in Mexico to do a mock bullfight act. Curley plays the Matador while Moe and Larry are in a bull costume. [[HilarityEnsues Because plot]], they've managed to incur the wrath of a jealous husband, who bribes the arena attendants into releasing a genuine bull into the ring. Moe and Larry see the bull and [[ScrewThisImOutOfHere scamper over the fence]] as soon as possible, but Curley doesn't notice, and for a few minutes thinks it's Moe and Larry… [[OhCrap until he sees them frantically gesturing from the sidelines...]]

* The climax of ''Literature/EndersGame''. Ender and the other Battle School graduates are sent to Command School, where they are sent through a grueling set of fleet combat simulations. [[DespairEventHorizon When Ender realizes that they will never stop trying to skew the odds against him]], he decides to pull a GameBreaker in the most spectacular way conceivable by [[spoiler: ordering a suicide attack against the enemy homeworld, [[EarthShatteringKaboom resulting in its destruction]] and the annihilation of an entire alien species, along with the human fleet that had delivered the death blow]]. [[AngstComa He doesn't take the truth well...]]
* In the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' novel ''Literature/GoingPostal'', Moist von Lipwig is totally unconcerned about facing down a pack of [[AngryGuardDog angry guard dogs]] because he knows that all purebred Lipwigzers (the Disc's version of Rottweilers) were trained by his countrymen (they don't let females out of the country, to keep the breed price high). He successfully uses his granddad's commands to control them, but later learns they were Ankh-Morpork mongrels that ''looked'' like Lipwigzers.
* The Endymion in Creator/DanSimmons' ''[[Literature/HyperionCantos Rise of Endymion]]'' does some pretty bad ass acrobatics on a mountain cliff, all the while thinking that dropping would be such a hassle because somebody would have to retrieve him from the safety line. Just until he sees some fearful friend rush to him with just that safety line he forgot to attach. Considering the circumstances, his lapse of mind is easily forgiven, though.
* In Creator/JohnDicksonCarr's Literature/DrGideonFell novel ''The Arabian Nights Murder'', a set of friends putting on an act to trick one of their buddies hires an actor to play a professor in an Arabian museum. They are surprised when a ''real'' professor, a friend of the museum's owner, arrives for a meeting and is treated as an actor who looks just like the real thing. In the meantime, the professor thinks that the actors are real, and attacks one of them in an act of misguided heroics.
* In ''Literature/HaltingState'' by Creator/CharlesStross, the British and Chinese intelligence agencies both run {{Alternate Reality Game}}s in which player-characters pretend (or rather, ''think'' they're pretending) to be spies, essentially creating hundreds of agents who Know Too Little. However, most of the game really ''is'' a game, with no "real" opposition or consequences for failure. It's a simple way to sort out potential recruits, provide them with training, and actually make money doing so. It's noted that you can't entrust anything dangerous or time-critical to people who think they're just playing a game in their spare time.

* Another dramatic example: in the sci-fi novella "Wine of the Dreamers", Raul Kinson is raised in a dwindling [[HumanAlien alien compound]] and believes the devices he periodically sleeps in are advanced virtual reality devices that create three alternate worlds within the dreamers' minds. Killing or humiliating dream characters is a popular sport. Unfortunately, the dream worlds are actually long-lost colony planets, one of which is Earth! Over the course of millennia, the dreamers have destroyed space programs and even triggered nuclear wars due to a misremembered plan that the "dreams" must end when the colony worlds achieve interstellar flight.
* Creator/PhilipKDick's ''Literature/TimeOutOfJoint''. The main character lives in a quaint [[TheFifties 1950's town]] and spends his days solving a newspaper puzzle, "find the green man". It's actually the future, there is a war between Earth and Mars going on, and the protagonist used to be a genius tasked with predicting the Martians' attack targets. After he had mental breakdown, he was given false memories and led to believe that he's living an idyllic life in a fake town. He is still doing his job, by regularly solving what he thinks is just a newspaper puzzle.

* ''Bang! You're Dead'' by Ray Bradbury centers on a US soldier called Johnny Choir fighting in Italy in WWII. He believes the entire war is a game and no one actually gets killed or hurt - they're all just pretending. This allows him to "duck" bullets, because he doesn't think they exist. [[spoiler: When another soldier called Melter tells him it's all real, Choir promptly gets shot. The same thing happens to Melter when he tries to do what Choir did to avoid being hit.]]
* In ''Literature/DeadMansFolly'' by Creator/AgathaChristie, a famous detective writer has been asked to organise a Murder Hunt as one of the activities in a village fete. She begins to feel that she is being manipulated via proxies into changing details of the fictional murder to fit someone else's script, and calls in Literature/HerculePoirot because she feels a real murder might be on the cards. The [[spoiler: girl playing the "dead body"]] is duly killed for real.

--> Conjuror: You would really be willing to pay a [very large sum] to know how I did that trick... But suppose I tell you the secret and you find there's nothing in it?
--> Doctor: You mean it's really quite simple? Why, that would be the best thing that could possibly happen. A little healthy laughter is the best possible thing for a convalescence.
--> Conjuror: It is the simplest thing in the world. That is why you shall not laugh.
--> Doctor: Why, what do you mean? What shall we do?
--> Conjuror: You will disbelieve it.
--> Doctor: And why?
--> Conjuror: Because it is so simple. ''(Jumps to feet)'' You ask me how I really did the last trick. I will tell you how I did the last trick. ''I did it by magic.''
* The central premise of Ernest Cline's ''Literature/{{Armada}}'' is that certain video games are actually training sims for an impending alien invasion, with the latest games being near perfect simulations of actual combat against the aliens. [[spoiler:And because Earth's defenses are drone-based, certain "game" missions ''are'' actual combat operations.]]
* In the ''Literature/StarTrekNovelVerse'' book ''The Captain's Daughter'' by Creator/PeterDavid, Sulu's MeetCute with Demora's mother takes place in a theme-park city designed to look like a WretchedHive. So when Sulu finds himself caught between a band of ruthless criminals and a beautiful freelance adventurer, he naturally assumes this is an act, possibly something Chekov set up because he was complaining he was bored. He keeps thinking this right up until the criminals vaporise someone's head.

* In the book Abduction by Peg Kehret, the main character, a thirteen-year-old girl trying to save her little brother from a kidnapper, writes a message on the bathroom mirror of a bar with soap to try to get help. However, it just so happens to be mystery night at the bar, so a waitress, thinking that a patron had written the message to throw people off, washes the message off the mirror. When the story goes on the news and she realizes that the message was an actual cry for help, she feels very ashamed.
* In the Star Trek novel ''Literature/TheThreeMinuteUniverse'' a Glechenite that was taken hostage by [[BrownNoteBeing Sackers]] told Kirk that the Sacker ship clearly outclassed the Glechenite ship and shot all around them for sport before finally getting bored and shooting them down. It was later revealed that their command crew had been killed during an accident and the inexperienced crew that stepped up really was having trouble hitting their target.

* The protagonists in ''Manga/{{Bokurano}}'' are told they're going to pilot giant robots as part of a game. This is a massive, ''massive'' [[KillEmAll lie]].

* Allegedly, some officers from the British armed forces were on a training course in an isolated location in which various terrorism scenarios were being wargamed, when someone happened to switch on a TV. It showed a confused report of [[UsefulNotes/September11Attacks massive casualties in the United States due to hijacked planes being crashed into buildings in at least two locations]]. They were all impressed by the thoroughness and realism with which the course organizers had introduced this scenario...

* In ''Anime/GundamBuildDiversReRise'', team BUILD [=DiVERS=] are brought into what appears to be a new campaign mode within GBN, liberating a race of human-like animals from fearsome machines. However, as they push through the mission, things don't line up, ultimately leading to [[spoiler:the team failing to stop a KillSat from obliterating an island where the Resistance was set up at and the team never gets a signal that they lost. This one [[HeroicBSOD breaks Kazami as he treated this as a game from the get-go]].]]

* The entire premise of ''Film/TheGame'' is the millionaire protagonist working out whether he is taking part in a Live-Action Role-Playing adventure game, or are there actually people trying to kill him? Or [[spoiler: is he really just going insane and having paranoid delusions?]]

* Happened thrice to WesternAnimation/BozoTheWorldsMostFamousClown. In the first instance he thinks the circus tiger is a little kitty painted to look like a tiger, then the lion he's ordered to perform with he thinks is Butchy Boy in a lion costume. The third time he's in Hollywood to be a star and drives gang bank robbers' getaway car thinking it's part of a movie shoot.

** One episode both played straight and inverted this trope in the ''same situation'' in one episode: it starts by showing the victim, who paid good money to play at being a spy in a rather impressive personalized AlternateRealityGame, being chased by someone who he assumed was part of the game, but was actually a real-life murderer. On discovering the body, complete with all sorts of cool spy props, Castle of course assumes actual espionage was involved - and proceeds to thoroughly confuse the actors hired as part of the ARG. Similarly, a man picked up in the course of the investigation is suave, confident, and refuses to tell the cops a goddamned thing... until they mention the ARG and he realizes that this isn't part of the game, he's ''really been arrested by the real police''. The super-spy promptly evaporates and is replaced with an ordinary man who's rather terrified at how over his head he's gotten. (Bonus for the part being played by Creator/MitchPileggi, who plays both the cold as ice spy everyone is familiar with from other roles, and confused, out of his depth Everyman ''perfectly''.

** One episode both played straight and inverted this trope in the ''same situation'' in one episode: it starts by showing the victim, who paid good money to play at being a spy in a rather impressive personalized AlternateRealityGame, being chased by someone who he assumed was part of the game, but was actually a real-life murderer. On discovering the body, complete with all sorts of cool spy props, Castle of course assumes actual espionage was involved - and proceeds to thoroughly confuse the actors hired as part of the ARG. Similarly, a man picked up in the course of the investigation is suave, confident, and refuses to tell the cops a goddamned thing... until they mention the ARG and he realizes that this isn't part of the game, he's ''really been arrested by the real police''. The super-spy promptly evaporates and is replaced with an ordinary man who's rather terrified at how over his head he's gotten.

* ''The Flintstone Kids'': Freddy and his friends once went camping. Rocky Ratrock and his gang did all they could to sabotage them. One of their plans was dressing up like a monster to scare Fred, Barney, Wilma and Betty away but Freddy and friends learned of the plan and ended up unwittingly scaring a real monster and only then learned it was real.
* In ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooOnZombieIsland'', the gang are burnt out on {{Scooby-Doo Hoax}}es and assume that the titular island is just another such hoax. It isn't.

* In ''Manga/SailorMoon'', the first hint that Ami is Sailor Mercury is when she tops the score at the Sailor V Game arcade machine, that was created specifically to train the Sailor Senshi. The manga also has a later example, again with the Sailor V Game: as she plays it, Usagi openly wonders why the character is using the Moon Stick, only realizing she was being trained in its use when Luna starts using the machine other functions to analyse objects and, later, the ''real'' Sailor V hacks the game to communicate.

* ''ComicBook/Rorschach2020'' had a double-whammy example for Jonathan Oates, a security agent-for-hire that got roped into a conspiracy to assassinate a presidential candidate. He became attached to the conspiracy after being approached by [[spoiler:Creator/FrankMiller of all people]] for reference material on a presidential assassination "story", letting him know how to hypothetically carry it out to make it realistic. Oates eventually did come to realize that he was attached to a not-so-hypothetical plot against Governor Turley -- the presidential candidate he was presently working for -- but Turley ended up ''encouraging'' collaboration since he saw the assassins as hopeless loonies who can be stopped, and that [[FalseFlagOperation the attempt against him would be excellent to blame on his opposition]] to cinch the election. But then Oates realizes too late that one of those "loonies" has [[ImprobableAimingSkills astonishingly accurate aim with a sniper rifle]], [[NotSoHarmlessVillain and that their crazy attempt would succeed]].

* ''ComicBook/Rorschach2020'' had a double-whammy example for Jonathan Oates, a security agent-for-hire that got roped into a conspiracy to assassinate a presidential candidate. He became attached to the conspiracy after being approached by [[spoiler:Creator/FrankMiller of all people]] for reference material on a presidential assassination "story", letting him know how to hypothetically carry it out to make it realistic. Oates eventually did come to realize that he was attached to a not-so-hypothetical plot against Governor Turley -- the presidential candidate he was presently working for -- but Turley ended up ''encouraging'' collaboration since he saw the assassins as hopeless loonies who can be stopped, and that [[FalseFlagOperation the attempt against him would be excellent to blame on his opposition]] to cinch the election. But then Oates realizes too late that [[NotSoHarmlessVillain one of those "loonies"]] has [[ImprobableAimingSkills astonishingly accurate aim with a sniper rifle]]...

* Allegedly, some officers from the British armed forces were on a training course in an isolated location in which various terrorism scenarios were being wargamed, when someone happened to switch on a TV. It showed a confused report of [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror massive casualties in the United States due to hijacked planes being crashed into buildings in at least two locations]]. They were all impressed by the thoroughness and realism with which the course organizers had introduced this scenario...