If this is the wrong forum, let me know.

In general, if a game was going to start 1 way and then twist into something completely different, for example;
- ordinary, clear the dungeon fantasy game, but when you finish and come out of the dungeon a 100 years have gone by and you find yourself in a post-apocalyptic setting
- imagine you are not told ahead of time what you are playing (Pathfinder APs)
  Ironfang Invasion; turns into a survival/wilderness/being hunted situation
  Strange Aeons; you have no memory and start in an asylum
  Skull & Shackles; shanghaied by pirates (imagine making a paladin and the dm springs this on you)
  Jade Regent; becomes an escort mission to distant lands
  Serpent's Skull; shipwreck/survival
- start in a city and then get teleported into the middle of Australia where EVERYTHING wants to kill you.  Admittedly some critters can't kill you, but they WANT to.
- Some sort of Groundhog Day scenario.
- out of the blue you find yourselves in a zombie Apocalypse.
- Many isekai anime; start with modern characters that get transported to typical fantasy world.


Would you want to know from the beginning?
This message was last edited by the user at 14:23, Fri 24 Apr 2020.

Personally, I don't like knowing those things in advance.

With regards to knowing what path/module/etc is being run, if I'm familiar with it already, it's like knowing how the movie ends before I watch it and it takes some of the suspense and thrill out of the story. (Also, people who are familiar with the story might build their characters specifically FOR the story, which can wind up feeling unfair to anyone who didn't do the same thing.)

With regards to twists like the jump a hundred years in the future... if you know the twist is coming, it lessens the impact. It's like watching the Sixth Sense a second time - it's not as good.

That's a tricky one. The problem is, if you sign up for a straight fantasy, and then a twist turns it post-apocalyptic, you might lose players.

Lesser twists - like you're working with the wrong guys, can be done, but that kind of major twist is probably best done with people you know.

As to the above point of building a character specifically for a specific story - well, with Pathfinder and a lot of other structured games, that's the assumption. Pathfinder is the obvious one with the players' guide, but most structured campaigns you will usually craft a character that works - it really sucks to build a mounted sjpecialist only to find the whole adventure is taking place in a dungeon. Now, this can work a lot better if you're homebrewing the entire campaign, because you can work around that kind of thing, but I think if you're using pre-created modules, you need to let the players know what kind of characters will work, unless you're running a system where that kind of thing just won't make a major difference.

Yes.  I have no tolerance for Bait And Switch anymore, I dump B&S games as soon as I figure out it's B&S.


Now, if I know going in that the entire genre is being upended at some point, that's different.  I have different expectations and I know already and have signed on for the genre switch.

Depends who I'm playing with - I wouldn't do this to a group of online randoms, but some folk I at least knew were into [left field situation] and had built up a bit of trust with, sure. I think the rule of thumb would be "do I think this group is going to be really excited to find out they're in a different genre/mashup?" If yes, do the thing. If not, best not.