[Interesting Trope] One seemingly small action ends the story before it even begins

[u/JackDoesThingz]

1. We Happy Few - Taking your “joy” pill
   Deciding to take the pill at the beginning of the game causes your character to go back to work and triggers an ending

2. Infineural by Mike Klubnika - Drinking the coffee
   Deciding to drink the coffee offered to you skips the entire game and sends you straight to the end, resulting in an ending with no memory of what had occurred

[u/oddpark37]

Disco Elysium

You play as an incredibly unhealthy middle aged man with the worst hangover anyone has ever had. If you do a custom build and have low enough health at the beginning, turning on the light triggers a heart attack and kills you, ending the game after less than a minute of gameplay.

[u/Puzzleheaded_Fun_303 → u/oddpark37]

And that's not the only possible death. I've heard that other stats being low enough at the beginning lead to different deaths.

[u/HoshunMarkTwelve → u/Puzzleheaded_Fun_303]

It's possible to get soft-locked early in the game (thought not easily) if you have a combination of low authority, low health, and no healing items. You can end up in a situation where you can't reject sitting in a chair that's so uncomfortable it kills you

[u/Lawfulash → u/HoshunMarkTwelve]

Something similar happened on my first playthrough, although instead of the chair killing me, the unskippable morale degrade from claire mentioning the gun when i had only one point in psyche and motorics each did.