SpawnPoint - Where Game Begins

The Plot Lock

Your character is a master burglar. You can sneak past guards like you were invisible. You can scale stone walls to get to windows and rooftops. You can pinch the coin purse of the most astute nobleman without even making a rattle. You have picked the lock from the vault door of the King's treasury. Yet somehow there's a simple wooden door in your way that is unsurpassable. You my friend have just encountered the plot lock.

The plot lock occurs in any situation where a character should be able to pass a situation based upon his skills, but by merit of the game designers not wanting you to reach a certain point until a certain time, you find yourself unable to proceed. Certain things we've just come to expect with the limitations of coding. Just because your character has a chainsaw and a stack of grenades doesn't mean blowing through a wall instead of finding the key to the door is an option. Just because a pile of debris is only knee-high doesn't automatically mean the game has given you the ability to jump.

Half-Life and Half-Life 2 are full of the plot block. Usually it happens when a path becomes blocked, and rather than being able to spend five minutes clearing debris Gordon has to take an alternate path through enemy territory. This is particularly annoying in Half-Life 2 where you would think you can just use the gravity gun to knock things out of your way and move on. You'll also notice that NPCs have the ability to climb anywhere they can get a handhold, whereas the player is restricted to finding a ladder.

Anyone who has completed and then replayed a game from the Grand Theft Auto series will see it a plenty. In this game once you reach a certain point or complete a task, more areas get unlocked. This shows up in the form of glowing portals in front of buildings that let you enter. So there isn't even a lock in the way, your character just refuses to turn the doorknob and walk in.

Numerous RPGs like Oblivion, Knights of the Old Republic, and Mass Effect are prone to having doors that can only be opened after performing a certain task or finding a key, despite having a specific skill devoted to opening locks. Fallout 3 is a happen exception to this that lets you go anywhere you're capable of traveling. However in a later expansion to the game called The Pitt, you find the plot lock has come to strike you over the head, literally. At this point in the game you're pretty much the most badass thing in the wastelands. You have an arsenal that would make the Brotherhood of Steel envious, and even super mutants shiver at your passing. Yet once you step into a certain city you find you are completely unable to move or defend yourself, while a group of baton-wielding thugs who should be little more than target practice are able to completely incapacitate you. You need to be enslaved before you can have the quest of escaping slavery, right?