How would you react to the 'ole bait and switch?

[Umbran]

One problem with the bait-and-switch is very basic. It is a one-trick pony, a single, stand alone gimmick. And it's a big gimmick, one that kind of takes over everything else, due to the pretty large scope of the change. That sort of thing works well in a short piece of fiction (a short story or novel, or a mini-campaign). But basing a longer term camapign on a single big gimmick is generally not wise, in my experience.

 

[Voadam]

I enjoy having my existing character get sucked into different worlds and even redoing him for slightly different game systems. My current one started in 2e D&D where he played a multiworld spelljammer campaign, then I went to college out of state and used him in a homebrew D&D system for another campaign, and then resurrected him for 3e and now 3.5. He has been to multiple worlds by spelljamming, been sucked to ravenloft by a nightmare ride, gone to a different moorckian campaign world through a gate, been to another one through the dream plane, and been summoned to a different world by an interrupted true ritual. I'm fine with this and have enjoyed it.

I don't enjoy genre shifts from D&D to gun worlds or to using mecha. I wouldn't mind going to a shadowrun or dragonstar setting that has high tech mixed with magic, or even a world of darkness type modern setting, but generally tech in D&D does not do it for me. I would hate "everything you've ever known or did was a dream" and now you are a d20 modern character with only memories of your former hallucinated magic. I would also dislike body switching as is done in a few of the Ravenloft modules (the puppet one, the golem one, the time travel one). In the Banewarrens it would have been more enjoyable as a player without the construct mecha piloting in the end to overcome the BBEG.

 

[Psion]

One problem with the bait-and-switch is very basic. It is a one-trick pony, a single, stand alone gimmick. And it's a big gimmick, one that kind of takes over everything else, due to the pretty large scope of the change. That sort of thing works well in a short piece of fiction (a short story or novel, or a mini-campaign). But basing a longer term camapign on a single big gimmick is generally not wise, in my experience.

What experience is that? I'm curious, because your assertion just isn't striking me as true. Sure, if the players weren't interested in the new genre style or that's the only creativity you bring to the table, yeah, it's limited. But OTOH, as a tool to add spice to a game, it seems great to me.

I plan to switch my swashbuckling nautical game into a planehopping campaign in short order. (See this thread). I am actually looking forward to it. I'll let you know if it is an unmitigated disaster. Somehow I doubt it will be. This is all about "pumping up the fantasy."

 

[kigmatzomat]

So in the time I've spent on these boards I've heard lots of really awesome campaign ideas. The ones I've found most intriguing (mostly because I've never been involved with anything like them) is the 'Ole Bait-and-Switch.

So how would YOU react? Have you ever had it done to you, or done it to others? How did it go down? Do your answers vary based on how the switch is done, and if yes, how so?

I have never been happy with a true bait & switch. Okay, start out as one game type (swashbuckling) and move to another (dungeon crawl) and I may be disappointed. Might really like it.

Massive setting changes can be really good or really bad. I'd love to play Earthdawn characters in a Shadowrun setting. I've been in a game where Shadowrun characters interrupted a super-summoning ritual and got shifted to the Earthdawn universe, but that was several months of gaming in and the GM had warned that he was in the mood for something different. Our PCs also had a fairly good idea that they could go home, since leaping forward in time is much easier than backwards.

Send my character to a setting I can't stand and you'll have lots of in-character problems as I will do everything possible to get my character home. Should that prove to be impossible, a la Ravenloft, I will set about waging a war of character-appropriate vengeance upon whatever mechanism caused my arrival.

Pull a Matrix where the character I created is not my actual character and I will verbally abuse the GM and malign his/her lineage in public, or at least other gamers. I spend a lot of time on characters; often generating 10-15 different ones on the same theme 'til I hit something that feels right. This kind of bait and switch wastes an immense amount of my mental time and effort.

But I'm not bitter.

 

[Umbran]

What experience is that? I'm curious, because your assertion just isn't striking me as true. Sure, if the players weren't interested in the new genre style or that's the only creativity you bring to the table, yeah, it's limited. But OTOH, as a tool to add spice to a game, it seems great to me.

Yeah, well, YMMV, of course. I have found that the true "bait and switch" pretty much overwhelms everything else that the players may have had in mind. All the background they've developed, anything dealing with links to the world they were in becomes pretty much useless. The dramatic, unexpected change of venue tends to override all other character concerns. That's as it should be - if you wake up one mornign in a different universe than the one you expected, that single fact is going to pretty much dominate your life for a long time.

I plan to switch my swashbuckling nautical game into a planehopping campaign in short order. (See this thread). I am actually looking forward to it. I'll let you know if it is an unmitigated disaster. Somehow I doubt it will be. This is all about "pumping up the fantasy."

Do the players know it is coming? Will they have a choice? Is it a natural outgrowth of the plotline? If the answer to any of these is "Yes", then it isn't really a bait and switch. There's a large qualitative difference between the usual case of a party having gotten powerful and choosing to pursue goals outside of their original world, and having the entire genre they expected to play ripped out from under their feet and replaced with a new one.

 

[Camarath]

Would feelings towards this kind of change be more positive if the DM was upfront in the beginning? "We're going to be playing a V:tM game, but you're starting as regular humans before being turned." Or would that completely ruin the suprise elements, and make you feel like you were wasting your time before the "real game" began?

I would be much more positive if told upfront what type of game I was actually going to play in. I do not take people lying to me and actively deceiving me very well. Deception and subterfuge in-game is one thing, because you are not really lying to me you are setting up my character perceptions, but out of game deception is going to make me pretty unhappy no matter how it turns out. If there is going to be a twist I think the DM should inform the players. The DM does not nessecarily need to explain all of the details of the change just that it is going to happen and the basics of what the change involves.

 

[WayneLigon]

On the whole, I would dislike the idea. I've experienced it a few times now. Some changes have been good and I really enjoyed what happened. Other times my reaction was stunning indifference. I don't have a lot to do on Game Night, so I usually just stuck with it rather than leaving, but I came close a few times. I would be very, very careful of what happened, though. Somehow I'd manage to discuss things with the players. You certainly want to review the PC's and their backgrounds again, esp. if the change is very radical; you may remove someone's motivation for adventuring.

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

Would feelings towards this kind of change be more positive if the DM was upfront in the beginning? "We're going to be playing a V:tM game, but you're starting as regular humans before being turned." Or would that completely ruin the suprise elements, and make you feel like you were wasting your time before the "real game" began?

Yes, that'd be fine. In fact, I'm playing in an online game right now that is d20 Modern. But the DM warned us that (1) it will be changing, and (2) if we don't like fantasy, don't join the game.

Thus, a change is coming. And I have no idea exactly what it will entail. But my Smart6 character (computer nerd) is really going to be out of his element. I think it'll be fun, and I actually spent skills points and took feats for his d20 Modern self. If we jump to D&D (or some other no-tech fantasy setting), I doubt his "Electrical Device" & computer-based assets will be much use.

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

Ack. My first double post.

 

[Grayswandir]

I ran a campaign once where I let my players start out with 12th-level characters, built on 32 points. I specifically warned them to make their characters very two-dimensional and larger-than-life, as I was going for an "ultraheroic", comic-booky feel. Then, halfway through the first session, I collected their characters and quickly statted up 1st-level, NPC-classed, 15-point versions of the same. The paladin became a warrior, the wizard became an adept, the nimble female fighter became an expert (barmaid), and so forth. I then explained to them that these were their "real" characters who had just awakened from a very pleasant (shared) dream, in which they had been running around as idealized versions of the people they secretly wished they could be.

It was a very risky move, and I knew that going in. I was rather scared, actually, but if it hadn't worked, well, we'd only have wasted one session and I could chalk it up as a one-shot experiment. Fortunately, my players absolutely loved it. I split the sessions down the middle, spending half of each session in the dream world and half in the waking world, so they got a chance to play each character. Unfortunately, the campaign petered out when one of my players had a change in his schedule and was unable to make it to the games anymore. Ultimately, I had been planning on dovetailing the two halves together, and having events in the dream world impact events in the waking world, but as it is the characters never progressed nearly that far and in fact never quite realized that they were all having the same dreams. Oh well.

Personally, as far as being a player goes, it really depends on the execution, like most have said. I really enjoy it sometimes, but I've had experiences where the character suddenly wakes up and none of the previous sessions ever happened, or the campaign suddenly switches genres three and four times in rapid successions, and that can really kill the fun.