History Main / ChainOfDeals

* An early ''Webcomic/SkinHorse'' storyline ("Borrowers") featured an increasingly absurd chain as main character Tip tried to deal with an increasingly bizarre string of escaped/lost sentient lab experiments. It proved to have some consequences, since he [[spoiler: ended up screwing up the whole chain of deals his boss was ''used'' to dealing with - which resulted in her having to find out if the new leadership down in the basement is amenable to talking with the folks upstairs.]] Lampshaded at several points during the whole chain.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', the [[AffablyEvil Robot Devil]] accidentally trades his awesome robotic hands for [[IdiotHero Fry]]'s stupid human ones, allowing Fry to become a musician and impress [[LoveInterest Leela]]. Since Fry won't trade back, the Devil goes through a chain of deals until he gets Leela's hand [[spoiler:in marriage]], which Fry ''is'' willing to trade for.

** The 20th Anniversary had an event for Week 1 which some of the most famous past quests. While fetching milk for a redo of the Chef's Assistant quest (the first and easiest quest in the game), they find out that they need to get a bucket...from the questgiver of One Small Favor. Thankfully for the player and player character's sanity, the chain is only four people long this time.

* Several of the ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' games, starting with ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaLinksAwakening Link's Awakening]]'', include an item-trading quest of some sort:
** The one in ''Link's Awakening'' nets you a Magnifying Glass that will allow you to see invisible enemies, get the Boomerang, ''and'' reach the FinalBoss, making it the only game where a trading sequence is partially required.

* ''LightNovel/TheMysticArchivesOfDantalian'' has a story like this, starting with a red paper clip, and ending with [[spoiler: a teddy bear]].

* The {{Anime/Pokemon}} PeggySue fic ''Fanfic/AshesOfThePast'' features this. After being stuck in the Kalos region and unable to help Ash and friends with both [[{{Anime/Pokemon2000}} Shamouti]] and [[{{Anime/Pokemon3}} Greenfield]], Gary Oak resolves to reteach his Alakazam Teleport to avoid missing out on being able to help again, resulting in this trope. The full chain is thus: he needs to borrow Professor Oak's Dragonite, because a man in Geosenge City will give him a fossil for seeing a fully evolved Dragon-type. That fossil can be regenerated into an Anorith, which can be traded for a Liepard, that for a Swoobat, that for a Clefairy, and that for a Gyarados. Showing a Gyarados to Marie in Camphrier Town will get him a letter that he can give to Jacques in Parfum Palace, earning him a Farfetch'd, which he can trade for a Beartic, which he can trade for a Furfrou -- and a shiny one, at that. He can then eventually convince a stylist in Luminose City to give the Furfrou a stylish haircut, which he can show to the Gym Leader, Valerie, to get a Focus Sash, which he can trade in Anistar City for a Silk Sash, which he can give to a girl in Luminose for a Pokémon that can dance, which he can then show to someone in Courmarine City for a Heart Scale, which he can then give the Move Relearner to reteach Alakazam Teleport. Got all that? Now, listen to this: when he talks to Professor Oak to get the Dragonite, he learns that he could have borrowed Misty's Gyarados or Ash's Totodile (who can dance), and the professor not only knows someone who has a Clefairy, but has in his possession a Focus Sash, a Silk Sash, ''twenty'' Heart Scales, and a ''TM'' for Teleport. Gary is understandably frustrated, but since he went through the trouble of building the list, he borrows Dragonite and Gyarados, leaving him with an Anorith, a shiny Furfrou, and a Teleporting Alakazam.

* ''LightNovel/ASimpleSurvey'': In one short story, the narrator had dropped a 100 yen coin, which another person found. The second person used it to bet on a horse race, and won, getting a hundred times the money back. They then used this in pachinko, getting even more money, but a robber stole it all. Then a [[BadassBystander random bystander]] intervened, causing the money (in an attache case) to fall down a slope. Yet another person picked it up and used it for day trading, gaining an immense fortune, and donated half of this to children in a poor country. This then somehow led to oil being discovered in that country, lifting it out of poverty.

** The legend is referenced and inverted in ''LightNovel/TheStoryOfSaiunkoku'', where a character starts off with money for dinner ingredients, but ends up going through a chain ending in a single piece of straw.

** ''Wild World'' had a particularly egregious example of this combined with some GuideDangIt in how players could obtain the Golden Axe. By growing a red turnip (which on its own can be infuriating as their seeds can only be purchased before noon on Sundays and require at least 5 days of very precise gardening to grow sufficiently), and trading it to a hungry NPC who can appear randomly any weekday, players have a 50/50 chance to receive a turban. Then, this must be traded to a different NPC who can also randomly appear on any weekday, to have a 50/50 chance at receiving a massage chair. Then, this chair must be given to the town mayor, who will only appear during holidays and selected events, who will then give you a scallop. Finally, you need to wait for ''another'' random daily NPC to appear to give the scallop to, and there is once again a 50/50 chance he will give you the Golden Axe. Sure it took you several real-world weeks (unless you resorted to TimeTravel) [[DudeWheresMyReward but at least your axe will never break again]].

* In ''Videogame/DragonNest'', a dishonest merchant dares you to trade rotten apple for gold to get your debt removed. You go and give the apple to an arc then trade it with some mud, then you trade the medical mud for some crystal shards from a sorceress, then you trade the shards for gold.
* ''Videogame/RomancingSaGa'' involved a large trade quest kicked off when Strom (Water Elemental Lord) demands the "Raincloud Armlet" in exchange for a captive princess. It's in the possession of Adyllis (Earth Elemental Lord), who will only give it up if you give him the Cyclone Shoes, which you can only get by trading the Ignigarde Helmet to Avi (Wind Elemental Lord) by acquiring the Ice Sword for Pyrix (Fire Elemental Lord) in which you must plunk down 20,000 gold or by killing a recruitable character. At any point in the chain, you can decide to brute-force the whole thing and just beat the crap out of the dragon, though and you get an awesome shield as a [[RandomlyDrops Item Drop]]. However that does have some repercussions, by killing Strom you cannot get the optimal amount of jewels for doing the quest normally, are unable to do his Ecology Quest and also getting the chance to fight his Corrupted Form; Slask ([[RandomlyDrops Item Drop]] is the Chaosbringer; A powerful 2 Handed Axe that gives an Intellect boost). [[spoiler: This also bars you from exploring his temple later, meaning that you can't get the items inside -- including the Water Spirit, which is required for ''another'' quest with ''fantastic'' rewards.]] Also there is a trading ability for you to use in which you can trade items with monsters; so a mini chain is possible; SidetrackedByTheGoldSaucer indeed.

* Browser-based MMORPG ''Videogame/{{Travians}}'' includes several of these, and finally throws in a LampshadeHanging:

* ''Videogame/PlanescapeTorment'': You want information on [[spoiler:Ravel?]] OK, you just need to talk to [[spoiler:Ecco]], except she won't talk to to you at all, so maybe you should talk to [[spoiler:Dolores]] who doesn't want to talk to you unless you get something from [[spoiler:Merriman]], who wants to forget, so you need to get a [[spoiler:Stygian shard]], which you can't pick up without a [[spoiler:very special cup]] that you can get by [[spoiler:curing a wizard-reject's alcoholism]]. Oh, yeah. You have to figure out half of these on your own too.

* ''Videogame/JaysJourney'' has one spanning most of the game, most (but not all) of which is required to complete the game. Jay sees this in progress and is more than happy to make bad deals, because he knows it'll all work out in the end. (He gets a bit annoyed when [=NPCs=] are slow to give rewards, or when one NPC tries to ''steal'' the trade-item-of-the-minute, however.) All of the items have an identical description: "[[LampshadeHanging Some trade item]]".

* ''Videogame/DungeonSiege II'' has a chain quest that spans virtually the entire campaign.

* In ''VisualNovel/FamilyProject'', Chunhua gets a free piece of candy on the street as an advertisement and gives it to Tsukasa. Tsukasa trades it for a pack of cigarettes. He gives the cigarettes to a guy on the street and gets a 5000 yen gift certificate. He uses that to pay Masumi's debt at some store or another, and she gives him thirty lottery tickets, enough for three tries at a game. Chunhua tries three times and eventually gets a personal computer worth 300,000 yen. Lampshaded.
* One of these shows up in ''Videogame/FinalFantasyTacticsA2''; you're not ''doing'' the Chain of Deals, rather you're one of the people ''in'' it. You get to see [[spoiler: the guy royally screw it up: The step is ''adamantite'' for a ''vial of silver liquid''... and silver liquid melts adamantite on contact. Poor sap forgot to wash his hands.]]

* In ''Videogame/{{Dubloon}}'', you must trade items on Stern Island to get the map location of East Sea Serpent.

* An obscure point-and-click adventure entitled ''Videogame/TheDayTheWorldBroke'' has a doozy of a chain. To get Carbine the half-Lizard, half-camera (all the non-human characters are half-animal, half-machine) to stop standing in the path of an element valve, which is causing chaos across Earth's surface, you need to fix his lens. The only place to get a lens is the Glass Works, where Carbine doesn't have the best reputation. That's a moot point, though, as the Glass Works is too busy filling orders for new glassware for Lugnut the bartender. So you need to get a note from Lugnut, who'll give it to you in exchange for getting rival bartender Decanter to part with rare bottle of sludge. In order to get that, Decanter wants a recording of a song his mother used to sing him, which requires an instrument that's notoriously difficult to find but fortunately is in the hands of one of Lugnut's customers, Ratchet, who will trade it to you for another instrument which ''actually doesn't exist'', so you need to enlist the help of Phlange, who will help you make something that could pass for it, but in order to get Phlange to help you, you have to get her to stop standing in a different element valve. To get her to do this, you have to call Julius and Bud at Mission Control, who will finally convince her to leave, allowing you to get her help to make the instrument to trade for the other instrument to trade for the recording to trade for the sludge to trade for the note to trade for the lens. ''Whew.''

* In ''{{Videogame/Mardek}}'' Chapter 3, you can find a rare fruit in an underground desert. Giving the fruit to a reptilian shopkeeper gets you Special Ointment, giving that Ointment to a bald priest gets you Hair Tonic, giving that Tonic to a different priest gets you a Romance Novel, giving that Novel to the Princess of an Air Temple grants you a Cake, giving that Cake to a hermit hiding deep in a volcano gets you a random key, that random key opens a random chest in the Earth Temple, that tiny random chest hides a [[OptionalBoss gigantic red dragon]], beating that dragon gets you its scales, you can take those scales to a reptilian blacksmith who'll forge you the InfinityPlusOneSword for your reptilian party member. [[GuideDangIt There's no way you'd ever figure this out without the Mardek Wiki or Official Walkthrough.]]

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* In ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', this is the B-plots of the first-season episode "Progress," notable for containing the first mention of [[RunningGag self-sealing stem bolts]], and the fifth-season episode "In The Cards". In the seventh-season episode "Treachery, Faith, and the Great River", we learn that such chains are a tenet of Ferengi philosophy - the [[http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Great_Material_Continuum "Great Material Continuum."]]

* ''Series/StargateSG1'' had one of these in the episode "The Ties that Bind"... which also featured Daniel Jackson as the ButtMonkey. Daniel and Vala needed to recover an item Vala stole from a former lover so he would reveal how to sever the bond left behind by the bracelets. Doing this involves a chain with other people: the vendor she sold the item to wants the item he traded for it, an ex-smuggler at the monastery she sold that item to wants his old shuttle back, and the [[TheSyndicate Lucian Alliance]] that has the shuttle isn't going to part with it so they have to steal it. Predictably, even when they finally get all the items back to their rightful owners, the bracelets' owner reveals that he doesn't know how to sever the connection but he thinks it will wear off...eventually.

* The desert monkey cave in ''Videogame/{{Earthbound}}'' is basically a Puzzle Chain of Deals. With some lampshading thrown in ("amongst all these doors..."). Thankfully it's [[RuleOfFunny funny]]. Some players still consider it the most frustrating part of the game, mostly because ''every room looks like every other room'' and one item turns into something else (thus rendering it useless) after too much time passes. Fortunately, the player's guide (which was originally packaged with the game) eliminated most of the frustration by providing maps.

* An episode of ''Series/{{Zoey101}}'' titled "The Favor Chain" centers around this. Zoey wants a ride to the book store to meet her favorite author, and when she asks her dorm advisor, Coco, to do it, Coco agrees if Zoey can get Micheal to cook his grandmother's ravioli recipe. Micheal will do it if Stacey will finish their school project by herself while he cooks. Zoey convinces Stacey to finish the project if Zoey can get her a date with Logan. Logan (reluctantly) agrees to go on a date with Stacey if Zoey gets back his class ring he lost in a bet with Dustin. Dustin will give the ring back if Zoey convinces Lola to be his assistant in his magic show. Lola, who's looking after a teacher's baby, agrees to do it if Zoey can find someone else to look after the baby. Zoey gets Chase to do it if Zoey can get a group of comic book nerds to stop trying to befriend him. The nerds agree to leave Chase alone if they can have a computer software that Quinn invented. But when Quinn can't hold her end of the deal because Mark accidentally destroyed her software, the whole chain of favors falls apart. In the end, Zoey stills gets Coco to drive her.

* In ''WesternAnimation/DaveTheBarbarian,'' Candy owes a huge debt to a troll, who agrees to cancel it if they can collect the money that [[FluffyTheTerrible Chuckles]] owes him instead. Chuckles doesn't it, but says the Queen of the Mole People owes him money. She, meanwhile, has a debt from the original troll. In the end, Candy just has the troll write a check; they pass it around until it gets back to the troll, thus settling all the debts. Then they sing a song about an egg named Steve.

* In ''{{Videogame/Mardek}}'' Chapter 3, you can find a rare fruit in an underground desert. Giving the fruit to a reptilian shopkeeper gets you Special Ointment, giving that Ointment to a bald priest gets you Hair Tonic, giving that Tonic to a different priest gets you a Romance Novel, giving that Novel to the Princess of an Air Temple grants you a Cake, giving that Cake to a hermit hiding deep in a volcano gets you a random key, that random key opens a random chest in the Earth Temple, that tiny random chest hides a [[BonusBoss gigantic red dragon]], beating that dragon gets you its scales, you can take those scales to a reptilian blacksmith who'll forge you the InfinityPlusOneSword for your reptilian party member. [[GuideDangIt There's no way you'd ever figure this out without the Mardek Wiki or Official Walkthrough.]]

* After clearing '''VideoGame/PuyoPuyo2001'' for the second time, one is thrust onto you, prompting another playthrough of the game in reverse stage order. Upon clearing Dark Prince Castle...

* After clearing ''[[VideoGame/PuyoPuyo Minna de Puyo Puyo]]'' for the second time, one is thrust onto you, prompting another playthrough of the game in reverse stage order. Upon clearing Dark Prince Castle...

* In the ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' episode "Tri-State Treasure: Boot of Secrets", while at a swap-meet Candace tries to get an extremely rare Ducky Momo antique which is very expensive. The seller will only trade for another antique found at the swap-meet and what follows is Candace doing an extremely long chain of trading with very bizarre sounding items. Despite her efforts, [[YankTheDogsChain she still doesn't get the antique due to Doofenshmirtz's Inator ruining the antique she was going to trade for it.]]

* Rainbow Dash & Fluttershy's portion of the ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' episode "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS4E19TradeYa Trade Ya]]" features Rainbow Dash going through such a chain to get a first edition book she wants to complete her set. The trade includes Rainbow Dash trading her ''lucky horseshoe'' for a crystal chalice; the crystal chalice for an antique chicken statue; the antique chicken statue for a Discord lamp; the Discord lamp for an Orthrus; and finally, the Orthrus, [[spoiler:along with Fluttershy as a trainer]], for the Daring Do first edition book.

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'', [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-2791 SCP-2791 ("Fauste Bank plc").]] The beings behind SCP-2791 use a series of complicated agreements (including BloodMagic contracts) to allow their customers to avoid the consequences of a DealWithTheDevil.

* Appears in the Game Boy Color RPG of ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets'', starting with a Chudley Cannons jersey (which you have to buy in the brief window that you're in Diagon Alley) and ending with a dragon skin cloak.

* WebVideo/SchaffrillasProductions' BigDamnMovie [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q8GLJyUYN4 Why Tamatoa is My Favorite Character Ever]] has a long string of this involving cameos from various [=YouTubers=]. [[spoiler:It ends up a CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot when William reveals he had the Mort plushie that WebVideo/IHateEverything was looking for.]]

** Also happens in ''Dime to Retire'', where Daffy runs a scam in the hotel Porky is staying at. First, he let a mouse into Porky's room, which drove Porky nuts by eating a piece of celery, prompting him to have Daffy bring in a cat to chase it off for a mere $5, only for the cat to refuse to let him sleep on his bed, thus Daffy brought a dog to scare it away for $10, only for the boxer (after hearing a bell, courtesy of Daffy) to start punching Porky, after which Daffy charged $26 to bring in a lion to get rid of it, which naturally tried to eat Porky, then for another $72, Daffy used an elephant to drive out the lion, however, the elephant then took up most of the room, so for $666, Daffy released the mouse back into Porky's room to scare it off, leaving Porky with the celery-eating mouse all over again.

* In ''VideoGame/Yakuza1'' and the Kiwami remake, there is the substory quid pro quo (in Kiwami pay it forward). First you give a drunk some alcohol, and he gives you a tattered coat in exchange. Then you give the coat to a freezing homeless man at a park, who gives you a pair of glasses. You then can give the glasses to a salaryman near the club Asia who needs them to see the show, and he will provide super strength adhesive tape developed by his company. You can then give this to a homeless man in West Park aka Purgatory so he can use it to repair his tent. The man recognizes the tape since he used to work at the same company as the salaryman, and gives Kiryu a steel briefcase he found. Kiryu finally can give the steel briefcase, which apparently contains an important prototype, to the panicked salaryman who lost it in a back alley, and he will gift Kiryu his expensive Swiss watch you can sell.
* The ''VideoGame/Yakuza2'' substory "Rags to Riches": you first encounter an amateur hip-hop artist who gives you a sample of his beats. When you admit to him that it's terrible, he gives up on the dream and gives you a CD with his samples. Then you encounter a writer who's looking for something that captures today's downtrodden youth. He gets inspired by the CD and gives you his fountain pen. Then a girl who is a fan of the writer runs up to you and asks to trade the pen for her boots. Then you overhear a women who had her scarf taken by a creep, and you trade him the pair of boots to cover his bare feet for the scarf. Finally, you return the scarf to the woman for a Swiss watch, which you can sell for a large sum of money.

* OlderThanPrint: The Japanese legend of the straw millionaire is this trope played completely straight. A poor peasant prays to the goddess of mercy for relief from his miserable life. She tells him to travel west with the first thing he picks up off the ground on leaving the temple, which turns out to be a piece of straw. He trades through his travels until fortunate circumstances lead to him being married to of the daughter of a millionaire. One unique difference, however, is that the tale generally has most if not all trades actually consist of the peasant freely giving what he has to someone in need without expectations of payment, but receiving items as tokens of gratitude.

* OlderThanPrint: The Japanese legend of the straw millionaire is this trope played completely straight. A poor peasant prays to the goddess of mercy for relief from his miserable life. She tells him to travel west with the first thing he picks up off the ground on leaving the temple, which turns out to be a piece of straw. He trades through his travels until fortunate circumstances lead to the hand in marriage of the daughter of a millionaire. One unique difference, however, is that the tale generally has most if not all trades actually consist of the peasant freely giving what he has to someone in need without expectations of payment, but receiving items as tokens of gratitude.

** Some players have done Red Stapler trading sequences, often managing to climb from a [[UselessItem crate]] to [[NiceHat something incredibly valuable]].

* ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'' features the "Catherine's Request" and "Shamir's Request" sidequests. They each want something called a "two-toned whetstone". There is little hint on how to obtain it, but when you finish speaking with them, you may notice a Tome of Crestological Mysteries nearby on the ground. If you give this to Hanneman, he will give you the Tome of Comely Saints, which you have to give to Manuela in exchange for the Fire Amulet, which you give to Cyril, so on and so forth... until you end up with ''one'' two-toned whetstone, the only one in the entire game. Choose wisely which questgiver you give it to... [[spoiler: unless you plan on taking the Crimson Flower Route, in which case you should give it to Shamir. Catherine can't be recruited on that route.]]

* The online RPG ''VideoGame/RealmOfTheMadGod'' doesn’t have any tradable money. Instead, [[RareCandy stat-increasing potions]] are used as currency: Speed, Vitality and Dexterity are the lowest value, Defense and Attack are worth around twice as much (with Def often used as a universal currency), Mana twice as much as ''that'', and Life three times as much again. The Ring of Decades is worth around ''[[UpToEleven 8-9 Life]]'' due to [[TheArtifact no longer dropping from enemies]], and is usually used for compact storage of value (since players have very limited inventory space by default), or for trading for top-tier equipment, as well as other rare items like [[AndYourRewardIsClothes character skins]].

** This example is an unusual instance of this trope being played for laughs not ending in disaster, even though Nog using O'Brien's access codes puts the chief in serious danger of being arrested, court-martialed, or murdered by Martok at various points in the episode.

* An episode of ''Series/{{Zoey101}}'' titled "The Favor Chain" centers around this. Zoey wants a ride to the book store to meet her favorite author, and when she asks her dorm advisor, Coco, to do it, Coco agrees if Zoey can get Micheal to cook his grandmother's ravioli recipe. Micheal will do it if Stacey will finish their school project by herself while he cooks. Zoey convinces Stacey to finish the project if Zoey can get her a date with Logan. Logan (reluctantly) agrees to go on a date with Stacey if Zoey gets back his class ring he lost in a bet with Dustin. Dustin will give the ring back if Zoey convinces Lola to be his assistant in his magic show. Lola, who's looking after a teacher's baby, agrees to do it if Zoey can find someone else to look after the baby. Zoey gets Chase to do it if Zoey can get a group of comic book nerds to stop trying to befriend him. The nerds agree to leave Chase alone if they can have a computer software that Quinn invented. But when Quinn can't hold her end of the deal, the whole chain of favors falls apart. In the end, Zoey stills gets Coco to drive her.