History Main / RatStomp

** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' also has an archetypal "clearing out rats" quest during the ThievesGuild questline, but it's not possible to do it before a number of other quests have been finished. Also, exterminating pests will only be a cover for the ''real'' task...[[note]]putting rat poison in the mead so the brewery fails [[TheInspectorIsComing the health inspection]].[[/note]]

* ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights'' has a [[http://nwn.bioware.com/support/patchdetails127.html demo module]] for rats and dire rats, named "[[TalkLikeAPirate Thar be Rats! Yarrr!]]".

** It gets parodied in IcewindDale 2, when you encounter another group of low level adventurers who were given the exact same quest and chose to solve it by tossing a cat into the room with the rats.

A common early quest in many [[RolePlayingGame RPGs]], particularly of the Western, tabletop-derived variety. Rats may be [[RodentsOfUnusualSize of unusual size]], or substituted with some similarly non-threatening and easily killed critter, and indeed the basement may well be a different room entirely. This may even be part of the game's combat tutorial. Whatever the specifics, there's an area filled with small squishy things that need squishing. Get to it.

* The reboot of ''TheBardsTale'' starts with the Bard trying to impress a Barmaid by taking care of her rat problem. Turns out that the 'problem' is a giant, fire-breathing rat, and the locals regularly get a kick out of watching cocky adventurer types being beaten by it.
** Even [[Creator/TonyJay the narrator]] has a hard time [[{{Corpsing}} holding back his snickers]] as he describes your demise.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Pokemon}}'', the first Pokémon you will find in the wild will be a Rattata in the first and second generation, and Patrat, in the fifth generation.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Mother 1}}'' you have to enter your basement towards the beginning of the game to retrieve a certain item, where there is a chance that you will fight rats.

* ''Webcomic/TheNoob'', being a parody of the MMO genre, has plenty of fun with this trope. From the disappointment that the heroic adventure starts with collection [[TwentyBearAsses rat tails]], to the ExplosiveBreeder needed to repopulate the starting zone, to the elf-players looking down on the humans starting with ratstomping (while [[HypocriticalHumor starting elf players are all stuck killing spiders]]), to the starting-zone rats being made into [[DemonicSpider giant spiked monstrosities]] because the head developer ordered the team to ramp up the difficulty or be fired (he only meant the endgame dungeon).

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** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' also has an archetypal "clearing out rats" quest during the ThievesGuild questline, but it's not possible to do it before a number of other quests have been finished. Also, exterminating pests will only be a cover for the ''real'' task...

** However, [[https://i.sli.mg/OhwfdR.png rats can be genuinely dangerous for non-adventurers.]]

* Brutally subverted in most RPG created by ''Creator/FromSoftware'', particularly ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' and ''VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}}'', rats can be seen early on, but it isn't you who stomp rats, [[RussianReversal it's the rats who stomp you]]. Not only they are twice larger than you, they are also poisonous and [[ZergRush can swarm you]].

** ''[[''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'':

** ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'' also has an archetypal "clearing out rats" quest during the ThievesGuild questline, but it's not possible to do it before a number of other quests have been finished. Also, exterminating pests will only be a cover for the ''real'' task...

* The first quest for the Fighter's Guild in ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind'' has you killing a room full of rats.
** ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'' plays it straight by starting you off in a dungeon/secret passage largely populated by rats, but inverts it with the first Fighter's Guild quest -- you're told a local woman has a "rat problem" in her basement, but the problem is that they're her pets and ''mountain lions'' are killing them.
** When asked about "Rumors," some [=NPCs=] will [[LampshadeHanging point out]] how the tasks given to new recruits always seem to have something to do with rats.
** ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'' also has an archetypal "clearing out rats" quest, but it's not possible to do it before a number of other quests have been finished. Also, exterminating pests will only be a cover for the real task...

** However, [[https://data.archive.moe/board/tg/image/1381/43/1381436344408.png rats can be genuinely dangerous for non-adventurers.]]

* In Pokémon, the first Pokémon you will find in the wild will be a Rattata in the first and second generation, and Patrat, in the fifth generation.
* ''EveOnline'', even being a WideOpenSandbox, is not immune, except the rats are low level NPC pirates in spaceships...which the players call "rats", and the act of cruising for [=NPCs=] in asteroid belts "ratting". And not just because of the Fun With Abbreviations to be had with pi''RAT''e... player pirates don't get called that.

* In ''EternalSonata'', while there's a tiny part of the game before it, Allegretto and Beat's first battles are in an AbsurdlySpaciousSewer with a lot of rats in it. The only ones you're ''required'' to fight, however, are the ones in the bottleneck that serve as a combat tutorial for item use, Special Attacks, and light levels, should you elect to let it be one, and the boss and entourage at your destination.

* For the first part of nearly any ''{{Pokemon}}'' game, one of your major annoyances will be the Rattatta coming at you every time you hit a patch of grass. Except for Gen V, where it's Patrat. However, VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire avert this by having Zigzagoon instead, and VideoGame/PokemonXAndY avert this as well by having Bunnelby and the aforementioned Zigzagoon.

* At the beginning of ''BaldursGate'', you're asked to kill all the rats in a warehouse as part of the tutorial. The player character's journal contains a several-lines long [[DeadpanSnarker sarcastic rant]] on his/her [[LampshadeHanging thoughts]] on the 'quest'.

** ''BaldursGateDarkAlliance'' also begins with one of these, in the cellar beneath the Elfsong Tavern.

** One of your very first tasks upon venturing out into the Commonwealth after escaping Vault 111 in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 4}}'' is killing a bunch of Mole Rats that have infested the local Red Rocket station where you first find Dogmeat.

* Your first task in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout|1}}'' is to head over to Vault 15 and see if they've got a spare water chip. As it happens, Vault 15 is now a bomb shelter full of mutant rats, and of course you start in the area outside Vault 13, also full of rats.

*** And then, in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'', one of the first quests you can obtain involves testing out a rat repellent. It involves hitting rats with a stick. That makes their heads explode.

* For the first part of any ''{{Pokemon}}'' game, one of your major annoyances will be the Rattatta coming at you every time you hit a patch of grass. Except for Gen V, where it's Patrats.

* Brutally subverted in most RPG created by ''Creator/FromSoftware'', particularly ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' and ''VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}}'', rats can be seen early on, but it isn't you who stomp rats, it's the rats who stomp you. Not only they are twice larger than you, they are also poisonous and can swarm you.

* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' has the human noble fight off an invasion of rats in their family's pantry in their origin story. Like all classic RPG tropes in the game, it's [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded.]]

** ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'' plays it straight by starting you off in a dungeon/secret passage largely populated by rats, but subverts it with the first Fighter's Guild quest -- you're told a local woman has a "rat problem" in her basement, but the problem is that they're her pets and ''mountain lions'' are killing them.

* Your first quest in ''VideoGame/CandyBox 2'' is to clear out some lady's basement of rats. It's also impossible to lose, since the rats die within 1-3 hits, and deal 1 damage to you. As a CallBack to the previous game, the rats aren't drawn in ASCII unlike all the other enemies, instead literally being shown as the text "RAT".

* ''[[{{Mardek}} Mardek RPG]]'': The rats have strange pipes instead of tails.