Have you ever radically changed campaign premise mid-stream?

[Anders]

For instance, the heroes of your fantasy epic suddenly 'wake up' and discover that they are characters in a Cyberpunk campaign (I stole this shamelessly from Red Dwarf - although that wasn't exactly a fantasy epic)?

I honestly don't know how I would react to that kind of switcheroo. It would take one hell of a GM to pull that off without alienating the players. What do you think?

[RogerBW]

I tend to call this "bait and switch", and I find it hacks off players no end.

I joined a long-running modern mercenaries game, only to find that in that very session the GM was throwing everyone through a one-way portal to a fantasy world. Didn't go back.

As a GM I need to be able to trust my players. I can say to them "this is a game about psi powers in the 1960s, but you will start without them, so please make up characters who might volunteer for a paid drug trial" - and they won't come up with characters packed full of covert operations skills.

If I wanted to do it in mid-campaign, I'd simply ask the players before committing them to anything.

[Joe]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

I tend to call this "bait and switch", and I find it hacks off players no end.

I feel this way, too - I've always thought of the bait-and-switch as the kind of high-concept tactic that sounds great in the GM's head, but risks being a disaster in play unless performed under very special circumstances.

I've never actually experienced one as a player, though, so I speak in ignorance - hopefully someone will chime in and say that a bait-and-switch GM changed their life, thus proving me wrong.

[mehrkat]

These sort of changes in focus should be discussed with the players beforehand. With a GM who has built up lots of trust with his players it might be possible to have this sort of change with a warning that "there will be a major change of focus midstream and you might want to make characters who are flexible enough to handle it" but mostly the Players should create characters and persona for the game you are actually planning to have even if there are stages that have changes.

I ran a Dragonlance/Spelljammer game where all the players knew ahead of time that even though the characters were all starting on Krynn and didn't even know about other worlds the players should be prepared to travel the space lanes and visit other worlds. It was a wonderful game. The players didn't even know about space ships at the beginning. When they found a ship they decided to stay traders on Krynn for several days (using their power to get places by flying too them in their new ship). Then they discovered that they had to leave Krynn. Nobody was surprised and everyone enjoyed each stage.

[David Johnston2]

Depends. I had a comic book game where I switched sub-genres in the middle of the campaign (from four-colour to pulp) for one arc then sent them back after they found and defeated the reality warper. (Requiring them to design pulpish versions of their characters for it.)

[Randyman]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Depends. I had a comic book game where I switched sub-genres in the middle of the campaign (from four-colour to pulp) for one arc then sent them back after they found and defeated the reality warper. (Requiring them to design pulpish versions of their characters for it.)

(Emphasis added.)

This is key. The PCs have to remain viable in the new premise, or else the "bait-and-switch" effect becomes even more pronounced.

[Brandy]

Similarly, I ran a supers game where the tone changed mid-stream from mildly romantic to somewhat bleak, but that wasn't my plan -- it just arose out of gameplay. I've posted the tale to the boards before.

At this point as a GM, I would never do an unannounced bait-and-switch, though I might begin a campaign before the beginning, as it were. Frex, in a modern-folk-transported-to-fantasy-world campaign, I might spend some number of sessions at the beginning before the characters changed worlds.

B

[WingedKagouti]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Depends. I had a comic book game where I switched sub-genres in the middle of the campaign (from four-colour to pulp) for one arc then sent them back after they found and defeated the reality warper. (Requiring them to design pulpish versions of their characters for it.)

This kind of thing actually does fit in with the four-colour mentality, but mostly because it was a temporary change for a single arc. Alternate (universe) versions of established characters are practically an expected thing.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Anders

For instance, the heroes of your fantasy epic suddenly 'wake up' and discover that they are characters in a Cyberpunk campaign (I stole this shamelessly from Red Dwarf - although that wasn't exactly a fantasy epic)?

I honestly don't know how I would react to that kind of switcheroo. It would take one hell of a GM to pull that off without alienating the players. What do you think?

Yes. The player were bored and clearly wanted something different, so I gave them what they wanted. That way they learned to like what I gave them.

Time Travel to Victorian England was switched to Steampunk/Gothic Horror. I know it doesn't sound like a big switch, but it was.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Anders

I honestly don't know how I would react to that kind of switcheroo. It would take one hell of a GM to pull that off without alienating the players. What do you think?

Ask first! I've never understood why this isn't obvious. If they all love the idea, it should work fine. If they don't all love it, don't do it. If they agree to try it and then don't like it, be prepared to reverse course, even if that means rolling back to the old character sheets and respending points earned in the experiment on something entirely different.

Seriously why would you *want* to run a game the players hadn't agreed to?