When did you bait & switch and how did it go? (Spoilers)

[werecorpse]

By bait and switch what I mean when you allowed the players to think that the plot or theme or basis of the campaign or adventure was one thing and then partway through it turned out to be another.

A common method is where they might think they’re playing normal people but they turn out to be super heroes or where they think it’s a spy game and it turns out to be horror or the like.

I’ve read a bit to suggest this is a bad idea but it can also work well. I’m interested in hearing both sides of the story - how it worked as well as cautionary tales.

My most successful one recently was when I ran the Evernight savage worlds campaign (spoilers) as an intro to the savage worlds system to my group. We are mostly D&D players and I told them I wanted to give the system a try but it would be a standard d&d type fantasy world. We played for a few sessions and then the aliens with their lasers and space ships invaded and things got wacky. The players absolutely loved the change, playing the fish out of water etc. I think it worked because the characters were still mystical heroes and so kept player agency. I didn’t change what they were just what the world was.

 

[Larnievc]

It’s never went well when I did it. You need player buy in in any game and throwing that away is to lose a valuable thing.

 

[Umbran]

I had a quite good shot at bait and switch.

I was using White Wolf rules, with the PCs stated as normal humans. I kept a portion of their build points aside, and added supernatural powers (mostly from Sorcerer, but a couple other places) as they discovered the weirdness of the world. The result was a nicely X-FIles-esque, coming-into-power story.

It working hinged on my telling them before character generation - "You will start playing normal people... but that's not all there is to it." They knew something was coming, but didn't know what. That small point was key.

 

[werecorpse]

Yeah I played in one game set up as modern world csi type murder investigators and switched to a supers style game. It worked brilliantly. The players brought in to the cops and conspiracy stuff, then when supers started to show up we just bought into that as well.

 

[Nagol]

I had a quite good shot at bait and switch.

I was using White Wolf rules, with the PCs stated as normal humans. I kept a portion of their build points aside, and added supernatural powers (mostly from Sorcerer, but a couple other places) as they discovered the weirdness of the world. The result was a nicely X-FIles-esque, coming-into-power story.

It working hinged on my telling them before character generation - "You will start playing normal people... but that's not all there is to it." They knew something was coming, but didn't know what. That small point was key.

And thus you avoided bait and switch. You used the similar technique of "this plus something more that you'll have to trust me on". This tends to work substantially better than bait and switch.

Bait and switch gets the players interested in playing a game that you aren't intending to run only to run a game they aren't currently interested in.

This plus something more gets the players interested in their starting position and open to potential growth/alteration.

 

[Umbran]

And thus you avoided bait and switch. You used the similar technique of "this plus something more that you'll have to trust me on". This tends to work substantially better than bait and switch.

I guess I can call that a fair distinction.

 

[Blue]

By bait and switch what I mean when you allowed the players to think that the plot or theme or basis of the campaign or adventure was one thing and then partway through it turned out to be another.

Never, because it's one of the worst behaviors a DM can do. It's a bunch of people getting together to have fun. Enticing real people in with one type of game and then intentionally decieving them is just messed up beyond imagining.

"But I wanted to surprise them" - can you guarentee they will all like your surprise? If not, then don't try to surprise them with it. Talk it over with them.

This isn't saying don't have plot twists. Bait and switch is completely different thing than that.

 

[Blue]

I had a quite good shot at bait and switch.

I was using White Wolf rules, with the PCs stated as normal humans. I kept a portion of their build points aside, and added supernatural powers (mostly from Sorcerer, but a couple other places) as they discovered the weirdness of the world. The result was a nicely X-FIles-esque, coming-into-power story.

It working hinged on my telling them before character generation - "You will start playing normal people... but that's not all there is to it." They knew something was coming, but didn't know what. That small point was key.

That's not bait and switch. You had player buy-in-before that their characters were more than just the normal people they built. You asked them to trust you, and they did.

Should have read more before replying. @Nagol said it better than I could already.

 

[Umbran]

That's not bait and switch. You had player buy-in-before that their characters were more than just the normal people they built.

To be clear, I didn't tell them their characters would be more than normal. I told them the game would be more than normal, but not in what way. I even left open the possibility that we would switch rules systems sometime after start, and that characters would be translated at some point.

So, yes, I didn't fake them out, but they didn't know what they were getting into, either. It had the switch, with no bait, so to speak.

 

[MGibster]

I've never explicitly pulled a bait and switch on my players. The closest I ever came was when I had them make ancient Greek characters from the Peloponnesian war (any side) and that weird stuff would ensue. My sword and sandal game ended up being a sword & science fiction game as the PCs where whisked off to another planet by aliens.