Reward from Nowhere - TV Tropes

The Legend of Zelda

• A Link to the Past: Randomizer: The somewhat logical context of some of the original game's item locations is lost during randomization. For example, finding an old book on a bookshelf makes sense, but finding the legendary Master Sword there less so. Finding a lonely mushroom on the forest floor is nothing strange, but finding the Big Key to Ganon's Tower in the same spot can make one question how responsible the dark lord really is with his stuff.
• Ocarina of Time: Randomizer: All places where Sheik appears do not have him/her actually appear, and instead, Link just receives the item from mid-air. Items received during any cutscene are earned this way.

• Akata Witch: Whenever a member of the Leopard Person Magical Society gains new knowledge, metal tokens called 'chittim' appear out of nowhere and fall near them. The Leopard People use them as currency but have no idea In-Universe what creates them.

• Kamen Rider Geats: In "Encounter II: Zombie Hunting", Keiwa obtains the Boost Buckle after helping some civilians evacuate. It just appears there, being it unknown where it came from or who owned it before.

• Alter A.I.L.A.:
  • You just defeated an Optional Boss? Congratulations, an Infinity +1 Sword has just appeared out of nowhere!
  • Possibly justified in the case of the characters' unique ultimate weapons, since their darksides may have been carrying them. The Tear of All Ocean, on the other hand.
• Anarchy Online:
  • Mission rewards appear literally out of nowhere as soon as the mission is complete, even if you are far away from town. This is at least somewhat plausible due to something known as the grid, which can apparently transfer matter around the world in data form. And, of course, you receive credits from every kill, and various wildlife, monsters, and robots can drop armour, weapons, and even precious stones.
  • You receive credits from corpses on Rubi-Ka because ICC, the organisation that governs the planet is paying you a bounty for them (tracking you by surveillance satellites or whatever). You don't get credits from corpses in Shadowlands.
• ANNO: Mutationem: In the Mysterious Console DLC, defeating all enemies that appear in a random room will cause a item chest containing new weapons and supplies to inexplicably fall from above with no given explanation on where it came from.
• Atlantica Online: In guild quests, random tasks reward the guild with points and the one doing it with the usual things. Some quest rewards are also given out of nowhere when you talk to another NPC as the objective (with the NPC in question having no reason at all to reward the player).
• Barony: Clearing the Maze of Sokoban of all the grey rocks (without just smashing them with a pickaxe) nets you several gold coin bags and the artifact gauntlet.
• Bully: Beat a nerd's top video game score and a powerful weapon will periodically spawn into your room.
• Counter-Strike: You get money from killing other players. This would make sense as bounties paid between rounds except you get the money the instant you kill them and can even buy more stuff right there if the round's buy period hasn't ended yet.
• Dare to Dream: Giving proper burial to the Forgotten Soldier in the third episode yields a precious item out of nowhere.
• Dawn of War II: The Randomly Dropped Wargear. This is justified once, when Tarkus discovers a vault containing Terminator armour and the other Space Marines are understandably pissed at the Governor hoarding such rare and powerful Powered Armor, but nothing is mentioned when even stronger versions of said armour can be acquired in subsequent missions.
• Disgaea:
  • Clearing a level gets you prizes from nowhere, based on enemies killed, geoblocks destroyed, and so on.
  • Getting loot from the Item World is even more baffling. You go inside your sword and come out with a dozen new swords?
• Elona: You get some items for kicking the tutorial NPC out of your house. However, they'll leave after a few days, and if you don't show them out, you don't get the items.
• Evil Genius: If an agent trips a trap that then blasts him into another trap, then into another, etc., money appears out of thin air rewarding you for the combo. America's Funniest Home Videos? Flattr micro-donations when you share the CCTV footage on your blog? We shall probably never know.
• Fallout: New Vegas: You can find snowglobes to sell Dr. House's robot Jane for a considerable amount of caps. However, if you kill House or pick up a snow globe in a DLC area (most of which you can't leave until you complete) picking the globe up rewards you immediately.
• Fire Emblem: Certain items are collected from foes upon defeat, even if the foe was on the other side of a wall, or on the other side of the whole battlefield.
• Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas: You can earn money from merely performing tricks with a BMX bicycle or jumping around on a motorbike. Collecting all items in a city will earn you weapons that constantly respawn at your hideout, with no explanation as to where they come from.
• Gun Bros: For each wave, a reward will appear somewhere on the map, indicated by a green question mark at the edge of the screen. It's usually an Xplodium crystal, but it can be an XP bonus or, rarely, a health boost.
• I Was a Teenage Exocolonist: Successful stat tests can reward Sol with kudos, even when there's nobody around to give them and the situation is one completely unrelated to money.
• Killing Floor: The game gives you dosh for killing Specimens, healing teammates, and surviving waves, though it's a little less blatant about it since periods when you can buy things and when you're killing Specimens are wholly separated.
• Kingdom Hearts II:
  • You get a new keychain and spell for clearing an episode. Though the keychains seem to be made out of memories and each keyblade symbolizes the episode. Compare the upgrades from KH2 that all have motifs based on a Disney movie, Final Fantasy character, or Kingdom Hearts character to the ones you buy in 358/2 Days which are just generic designs. The spells have no excuse, though.
  • Fridge Logic sets in when you realize that, somehow, the Gullwings gave you what is effectively a memory not only physically, but consciously! (When was the last time you said "Here, take this memory, beat up bad guys with it"), especially considering very few people know ANYTHING about how the Keyblade works. Considering their entire mission in life was collecting memory spheres and they got their powers by 'equipping' the memories of other fighters (while dressing up of course) it does sort of make sense that if anyone would know how to hand over memories it would be them. Most of the Secret Ansem Reports have no excuse, though.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • Most enemies (and random objects like pots or bushes) drop rupees, arrows, bombs, magic potion vials, and hearts at random. Even better, whenever you get a new item that consumes a resource, that resource suddenly starts appearing everywhere in spite of its not showing up before (ie: when you get the bow, arrows suddenly start showing up). Sometimes, keys fall out of the sky when you solve a puzzle. As a justification, The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap states that tiny little people called Minish hide useful items in random places in order to make life easier.
  • Averted, however, in several boss fights where the obligatory Heart Container reward comes out of the skull/stinger/eyeball/insert-body-part-here of the boss's corpse as it explodes, implying that you're taking power FROM your defeated foe.
• The Lord of the Rings Online: Skirmish marks, a type of currency gained from skirmishes. You will gain some marks from looting enemies or chests, but many of them comes out of nowhere upon capturing flags (offensive skirmishes), surviving repeated enemy attacks (defensive skirmishes), or optional encounters.
• MapleStory: Low-level hunting quests in Henesys and mid/low-level quests in the Excavation Site allow you to receive a reward from a sign.
• Mass Effect: Exterminating the entirely robotic Geth will sometimes yield medi-gel despite the fact that they obviously have no use for it.
• Mega Man Legends: There's a shopping center with a can on the floor and a bakery nearby. You can get free money by kicking the can so it lands behind the bakery's counter. The logical explanation (implied by the text message that appears) is that you're being paid for recycling the can, but this works even when no one is around. Also, it moves your Karma Meter towards Evil.
• Neo Steam: You receive experience points and gold (complete with bouncing coins animation) when your party makes a kill—even if you are not in the same area.
• Omensight: You get amber (money) for pulling off combat moves, which the Harbinger then sacrifices to upgrade her gear. Where's the cash coming from? Who knows?
• Puzzle Quest: Although the game sometimes hands you gold from nowhere, most of the time, you are specifically told that the mission-giver pays you or to search the monster's lair for treasure.
• Professor Layton:
  • How exactly does solving that match-stick puzzle mean to find a piece of a mechanical dog or new tea ingredient?
  • Sometimes the duo quiz each other with riddles, but they still get picarats for solving it.
• Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time:
  • You are rewarded bolts by fixing stuff with the help of Clank's Chronoscepter. Who gives you the bolts or why is left unanswered.
  • Every time you complete a new non-optional puzzle or successfully fix time anomalies as Clank, bolts shower onto you in a ring shape from above.
• Red Steel 2: While it does make sense that killing enemies carries a reward of some sort and finishing them off in a stylish way increases the amount, the fact that you can trap a single enemy against a wall and then fling Sword Beams at them until your hand gives out and get 500 dollars for each one pretty much rules out other possibilities.
• Saints Row: The Third: Some activities, such as power-sliding, give you Respect up until you reach a certain threshold (300 seconds' worth in this case), at which point you are given a larger respect and money bonus for reaching it, and after that point doing it any more results in just cash instead.
• Shiness: The Lightning Kingdom: You instantly receive rewards when you complete quests even when the goals are part of the main story and weren't commands given by someone in particular.
• Spider-Man (Atari 2600): You receive web fluids (which only Spidey is canonically able to manufacture) and bombs from slaying criminals.
• World of Warcraft:
  • Most quest rewards are given to you by the person who gave you the quest or are a useless object with a new quest to take an object to someone who will give you a reward. Occasionally though, they seem to just show up when you collect an object. The simple explanation would be that the reward is next to the item, but it tends to be completely at odds with other things lying around in the area.
  • The Cataclysm expansion ups the ante on this by implementing "remote turn-in" quests, which you can complete (and often pick up the next quest in the series) without physically traveling back to the questgiver, if there even was one. However, these quests offer the same gold and item rewards as others do. So, basically, you do the thing and your reward literally materializes out of thin air. Only in some cases is it justified by you finding the reward in the world as a result of your actions, And even then, it fails to explain why you have to choose from among different rewards rather than just taking them all.
  • Parodied with the quest "Once More, With Eeling", where you give yourself a quest to go kill eight more eels, just for the hell of it. After somehow turning in the quest (do you turn it into yourself, or what?), the monetary reward just appears in your pocket. Did you just give yourself 7 gold? It wasn't there before.

• Awkward Zombie: In one Super Smash Bros. strip, a disgruntled Marth sees a key materialize out of thin air and land on the table as a reward for Link solving a Rubik cube.
• Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures: Some of the characters go on a quest to "rescue" Alexsi from Biggs, but by the time they get there Alexsi is just leaving. Mab declares victory and calls dibs on the quest loot. Where the loot actually came from can be explained by Mab being a Cloud Cuckoolander with Reality Warping Powers.