No Good Deed Goes Unpunished/Video Games

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Examples in Video Games and Visual Novels

House of Rules: Ruth had broken the arms of some scumbags to stop them from raping a girl. Sadly, she got thrown into prison for that.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II. If you give a beggar some money, Kreia's ~What The Hell, Hero?~ Lampshades the trope.

Kreia: If you seek to aid everyone that suffers in the galaxy, you will only weaken yourself... and weaken them. It is the internal struggles, when fought and won on their own, that yield the strongest rewards. You stole that struggle from them, cheapened it. If you care for others, then dispense with pity and sacrifice and recognize the value in letting them fight their own battles. And when they triumph, they will be even stronger for the victory.

- The speech is punctuated by the beggar being beaten up for the money you gave him, and even if you choose the dark side option and send the beggar away, he gets beaten up anyway by the guy you just threatened.
The Happyhills Homicide: While it was a good deed for Madison Carpenter to politely thank John Wade for his dead or rotten gift to her, it unfortunately gave him the idea that she loved him. She was also a naïve high school girl, so she did not realize how disturbing and inappropriate it was for him, a thirty-something, to leave gifts for her, a teenager. As it was, he was obsessed with her, and he would go on to stalk her, try to kill her twice and succeed on the second attempt.
The ending of the original Fallout is a pretty stunning invocation of this trope. You've saved your Vault and the entire wasteland, but when you try to return home the Overseer exiles you so your story doesn't inspire other Vault dwellers to leave.
- Fallout 3 quotes the original's ending almost word-for-word when you finish the "Trouble on the Home Front" quest. By leaving Vault 101 at the beginning of the game you've sparked a civil war between a faction that wants to leave and another that's convinced the Vault is the only safe place in the world. You can stop the bloodshed and bring the conflict to a peaceful resolution, even get your childhood friend chosen as the new Overseer, but she'll ask that you leave because your presence is dangerously disruptive.
  - Tenpenny Tower. So you've talked the bigoted inhabitants around around and convinced them to let the ghouls move in, everyone is quite content, and you leave whistling a happy tune. Then you return a few days later and all the humans are dead. Nice Job Breaking It, Hero.
  - If your karma is too high, you will be hunted down by Talon Company mercenaries, who said you have 1000 caps on your head. Inverted if you are evil as well, as you will be hunted down the same way by the Regulators.
- Fallout: New Vegas makes finding happy endings for your companions difficult. Help Arcade link up with his foster family and fight with them at the Second Battle for Hoover Dam? Odds are good he'll end up a military prisoner or run out of the Mojave by bounty hunters. Convince Veronica to leave the isolationist Brotherhood of Steel to do humanitarian work with the Followers of the Apocalypse? Oops, angry Brotherhood Paladins have slaughtered the entire Followers outpost so Veronica can't share their secrets.
In Betrayal at Krondor, Gorath's method of saving his race, namely by warning their sworn enemies about the planned invasion to nip it in the bud and prevent another costly war, unfortunately happens to be one that his entire race condemns him for. Ultimately, his heroism directly leads to his death — had he not been merciful enough to be willing to spare Delekhan even after everything he had done and had simply killed him when he got the chance, the Lifestone never would have been endangered and called for him to protect it at the cost of his life.
Poor, poor Marona. Frequently a victim of this throughout most of Phantom Brave.
Played for comedic purposes in Disgaea 3 Absence of Justice during the Almaz ending. He was right to stop Mao, but ends up losing everything for it. Possibly a case where Yank the Dog's Chain went too far.
- Taken to extremes in Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten with Artina's death being caused by her healing someone. The recipient becomes an Omnicidal Maniac as a result of said death.
Deconstructed in Castlevania with Lisa, who was burned at the stake for practicing medicine. Dracula does NOT take this well and resumes his war with humanity.
Ramza in Final Fantasy Tactics is one of the only legitimately good people in the story. His run of bad luck starts when he tries to help a desperate squire (Argath) rescue his Lord and Ramza's own brother subtly suggests how to go about it, which leaves his home at Eagrose undefended when the Corpse Brigade comes by to kidnap his best friend's sister. When the entire world is full of jerkasses, not being a Jerkass is asking for trouble. For Ramza to actually go around telling all the Jerk Asses to knock it off? Super trouble. In addition, Ramza is arguably one of the only people who survives (he either directly or indirectly killed a good amount of everyone else), and he's eventually vindicated by history, albeit hundreds of years later.
Happens in spades to Norman Jayden from Heavy Rain. If he goes to the warehouse to save Shaun, he slowly succumbs to his addiction to ARI and inability to differentiate it from reality
Colette from Tales of Symphonia qualifies. Always nice to people, yet fate seems to hate her for no reason.
- It also happened to Mithos in the backstory.
Vincent from Final Fantasy VII. He was a Turk (basically an elite hitman), yes, but was a genuinely kind person who fell in love with the woman he was assigned to protect. This woman then proceeded to break his heart and get married to the resident Complete Monster Mad Scientist, getting pregnant with his child almost right away. Vincent pulled an I Just Want My Beloved to Be Happy and continued protecting her, until she started experimenting on her unborn child with her husband's help. He then confronted her husband about this, wanting nothing more than to protect her and keep an innocent baby from pain, and was consequently shot in the chest. Instead of letting him die peacefully, Lucrecia and Hojo made him into their newest lab rat, performed several horrific experiments on him, shoved four demons into his psyche, and then tossed him into a coffin to sleep for the next thirty years. And yet, he blames himself for all this mess. The amount of guilt he places on himself is incredible, especially since he was practically blameless.
- Similarly, the woman who left him basically did it out of guilt for her part in Vincent's father's death when both were trying to research Chaos.
- Chaos in Dissidia was shown to be somewhat merciful to his minions, even unwilling to punish them if they disobey them. Unfortunately for him, this also results in most of the villains not being truly loyal to Chaos, to the extent that once he offs Cosmos, they end up doing their own thing, abandoning Chaos, with only Garland remaining by Chaos' side.
Luigi, though this is played for comedic purposes since he's become a Chew Toy.
Subverted in Odin Sphere. Gwendolyn (outside the battlefield) is actually a pretty kind and caring person. She exposes and eliminates a traitor and rescues her half-sister Velvet (despite her own feelings) to ease her father's pain. She suffers punishment for this—but the powers that be give karma the finger by manipulating destiny so that her magically induced punishment ends up being her perfect match, and these two are supposed to save the world.
In Fate/stay night, Emiya Shirou stays at school late to sweep the archery dojo as a favour to his friend Shinji. This gets him stabbed in the heart. By Cúchulainn.
- Also, Archer. His entire life turned out to be one big example of this trope as a result of his blind devotion to his ideals, and he keeps on doing it even after death.
- In Fate/Zero the only thing Kayneth did which could be considered an act of kindness--giving up at the Grail War (with it his only chance to restore his pride and damaged body) to save his fiancee's life—gets him killed immediately after.
In the good ending for Phantasy Star Portable, you and your partner's reward for saving the galaxy is being discharged from the Guardians and being branded traitors because your partner was an unknowing (not to mention unwilling) pawn in the Big Bad's scheme and you refused to leave her behind. Is it any wonder the Guardians aren't very well liked in part 3?
In Shadow Hearts: From the New World, we learn that the main antagonist is hero Johnny Garland's older sister, who sacrificed her mind and memory to bring him Back From the Dead. She ends up wandering the land in a silent, amnesiac daze, slaughters the innocent, loses her love interest and fails to revive him, and the final battle against her is fixed so that Johnny is the one to kill her. Given what she had become, this could be seen as a Mercy Kill.
Mass Effect pulls the fake-distress-call-leading-to-a-trap routine on the player, and it's hinted that in Mass Effect 2, a great many of Shepard's decisions may come back to bite the player in the nether regions.
- If you repent for killing the Rachni queen in the first game by saving the false queen in the third game, she'll eventually betray you and severely damage your military.
- Meanwhile, in Mass Effect 2, turns out Elnora really was as bad as you thought she was. Too bad you let her go. Mostly, though, you're not really punished. ME2 even encourages you to be the Team Therapist by completing all those side missions, since if you don't, then most or all of your team — possibly including Shepard — will die.
- In Mass Effect 3 if you managed to talk Wrex down, you're stuck with a no-win situation with the Salarians and Krogans. If you support the Salarians, you have to kill Wrex and lose the clans; if you support the Krogans, the Salarians withhold a fleet. Only if you killed Wrex can you get the benefits from both sides by betraying the Krogans.
  - This can be averted, however. If Kirrahe survived Virmire and subsequently survives the Cerberus attack on the Citadel, he will give Shepard the STG's support, even if it means defying the Dalatress if you sided with the Krogan. If Kirrahe isn't available, Thane can help out in his stead, and you'll still get support from the STG
- Did you rewrite the Heretic Geth? Congrats, you just made getting the Geth and Quarians to make peace that much harder.
Massive irony (and massive spoilers) in one possible ending of Heavy Rain. If the Big Bad selflessly saves a certain person's life, and kills all the heroes, he'll appear to get away with it all in the end only to end up being killed by the one, completely unrelated person whose life he saved.
Subverted in Fahrenheit (2005 video game), at one point Lucas (who by this point is a fugitive wanted for murder) has the choice of saving a drowning boy while a cop who saw him leave the crime scene happens to be approaching. If he does save him, the cop does in fact recognize him but chooses to let him go.
In the backstory to Gears of War, Dom testifies in Fenix's defense after he is charged with desertion for his entirely justified attempt to save his father. His "reward" is being demoted, facing public humiliation, and being hated by the top brass for "supporting a traitor".
Similarly, in Resistance: Retribution, James Grayson's reward for destroying 26 Chimera conversion facilities is...to be imprisoned and threatened with execution because he disobeyed one order.
~Demon's Souls~ has you meet Yurt, the Silent Chief in the second part of the prison level while he is caged. He is dressed in black Sauron-like armor, and wields scythes, but he happens to be one of the few sane humans left, and claims to be here to help fight demons as well. When you let him out, he thanks you and says he'll remember this. When you return to the Nexus later, instead of finding the usual scene of just another NPC added, you find two dead bodies. If you do nothing, the next bodies will be those of the shop keepers (some of whom have items you can't get elsewhere). This continues until either you talk to him, where upon he attacks you, revealing that he was here to kill all humans left in the kingdom, or he runs out of NPCs and sticks around waiting for you to talk to him.
- You also have Patches the Hyena, who every time you "help" him, he traps you with a horrible enemy, Satsuki, who if you're good offers you a quest to grab a sword where at the end he tries to kill you with it if you give it to him, tries to kill you to steal it if you don't, and just straight up tries to kill you if he see's you with it equipped, if you're bad, his evil version tries to kill you without even bothering with the quest, and of course there is the end of the game where you get to be a Monumental, a living seal for the Old One until you die, assuming that the Maiden in Black was just doing the same routine as last time, though this is up for debate. Oh, this also means that all Soul Arts will be gone from the world.
One of the main ways Red Dead Redemption shows that it is depressing and cynical as hell is showing how nearly every good deed John performs ultimately amounts to nothing. Help the desperate hooker make a new life for herself? Her pimp hunts her down and murders her. Help a Chinese immigrant get back to his lover? He dies of an opium overdose before he's even halfway there. Help a woman whose pregnant get funds from her illegitimate suitor? It turns out she's a con artist, and you just killed an innocent man (albeit in self defense) and left a distraught woman widowed...
~The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind~: You may encounter a woman who will ask you to retrieve a ring from a pond. Say yes, hop in and grab it (if you can find the damn thing), and she and her visibly invisible friend will attack you. "No good deed goes unpunished, outlander," indeed.
So at the beginning of Singularity, an unstable time warp sends you back to 1955, right into the midst of a burning building and dying Soviet scientists. You find one man running for his life, only for the floor to collapse beneath him. Naturally, you grab his hand and carry him to safety. Oh, the catch? Turns out Dr. Demichev had cruelty to rival Stalin and because you saved him, the project he was working on went further than it ever had in the original history, giving him fantastic weapons that allowed him to take over the world. And the only way to undo it is to go back in time and kill yourself. If you do so, it causes a Snap Back to the beginning of the game so you don't technically die... then you find out you're in an alternate timeline where the Soviet Union still rules the world, albeit with a (hopefully) much more benevolent person in charge.
Return to Krondor plays this straight, at the beginning of the game no less. You can tear down a sweatshop that uses children as labourers. Now while this may give you a warm and fuzzy feeling inside, it turns out that there are consequences. The owner of the sweatshop, Yusef, worked for Jazhara's uncle in Kesh. You will encounter Izmali assassins — ninja-like killers who will attack you with poisoned daggers. They were apparently paid by Jazhara's uncle to kill you for meddling in the affairs of Kesh. You will encounter a group of them in the third chapter of the game, and another group roughly halfway through the game. In the second last chapter, you will find a dead group of these assassins. If you search their bodies, you will find out in a letter written by Jazhara's uncle that The Crawler, who Yusef was an agent for, pulled strings and is the one actually responsible for these assassins being sent in the first place. Jazhara's uncle is trying to tell her that he knows she was not meddling in the affairs of Kesh, and that there is little he can actually do, due to the Crawler being quite powerful and elusive. You can decide not to even investigate the sweatshop, and you will never be accosted by the Izmali assassins.
In Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops, Big Boss, when he participated in the Mozambician War of Independence, rescued a war orphan named Frank Jaegar after fighting him, and placed him in a rehab facility hoping that he would recover and be safe. Unfortunately for him, he didn't realize until after the fact that some CIA personnel accessed the rehab facility and took Frank Jaegar and placed him into an inhuman experiment called the Perfect Soldier Project, of which he was the sole successful, surviving result, turning him into Null.
Civilization 4 has a random wartime event that tells you the enemy has shown unexpected mercy towards wounded prisoners of war, and that this could be a stepping stone towards negotiations for peace. The player then receives the option to either force a 10 turn peace treaty with a +1 bonus to the relations with the enemy civ, or continue the fight. The option to continue the fight actually says "No good deed shall go unpunished".
Support nice old man Harrowmont to keep ruthless fratricidal bastard Bhelen off the throne of Orzammar in Dragon Age? Congratulations, Harrowmont gets assassinated within a year of his coronation and Orzammar is back to where it was before you intervened.
One of the defining tropes of Space Quest. So you saved the galaxy, the ambassador of Star Con, and the crew of an entire starship, defeating the Big Bad for good measure. So what's your reward for doing so? You are forcibly and literally stripped of your rank, demoted to Janitor, and basically told to be lucky that you weren't convicted of war crimes.
In Dark Souls the "reward" for following through with the quest to link the First Flame is a horrible burning existence as the new Cinder. And it's doubtful how "good" this deed really is.

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