mox:
So what about the ones that don't change genres?
- Some sort of Groundhog Day scenario.
- you are superheroes, but one day wakeup to a world who has forgotten you. Oddly, your secret base still exists. (This is taken from a game I was lurking in)
A single Groundhog Day scenario, is not a campaign. If it it becomes a series of Groundhog Days, then yes, you've shifted genres.
I'd say the superhero one is fundamental shift in genres. It means PCs built with webs of contacts become cut from those ties, etc. Now if somehow such ties remain, no supe is built based on hero worship as the core power concept, etc... you could probably get away with it, but again, "You're all heroes, known, loved, feared, and suddenly you awaken to find no one remembers you ever existed, your mark on the world erased" is a
campaign description.
Now if it happens 'midway' and becomes something the PCs work to set right over a handful of episodes, it's perfectly fine. It's an upsetting scenario for some (or chance for growth), but it's overcomable, 'normalcy' can be resumed. If it becomes a fundamental, unchangeable, feature of the setting, it isn't.
Take the comic
The Wrong Earth, the very premise is a campy 60s Batman expy named Dragonflyman switches worlds with a Dark Knight expy named Dragonfly. It's a wonderful comic, but if I sat down to play a dark and gritty Dark Knight only to switched into campy 60's world... again, great idea
if I know what to expect and what is expected of me as well. Am I supposed to suddenly switch to campy 60's Batman? Or are we playing out what would happen if the Dark Knight found himself in campy Gotham*?
* Which is the premise of
The Wrong Earth, do-gooder, highly moral, even slightly campy Dragonflyman doesn't give up his morals because the world he finds himself in is filled with corrupt police who hate him,
murderous rather than campy villains, and other shades-of-grey situations, he keeps trying to right wrongs. Likewise, vengeful, nurdering, and rage fueled Dragonfly doesn't become soft because the world around is soft... and the world's themselves are revealed to be nuanced and have depth.
I could happily play either of those campaigns, but I would want to know in advance.
quote:
Would the AP ones still count as genre changing?
I'm not going to check each one, but Skull and Shackles calls out the very concept of being press ganged in the campaign premise. I would cry foul if the GM was cagey about that, considering there is no reason the Players shouldn't know it before making Characters.
And what I know of Pathfinder APs in general, they are very good about being very upfront about the genre and premise. Except Kingmaker, non-railroad my shiny metal rear... (semi-joke, it's upfront about the premise, I just don't think the author understands what a railroad is, or he mistakes what he wrote for being "not a railroad").