Bait & Switch

[Barcode]

As a player, I wouldn't mind it, provided the DM has a good, entertaining idea. I don't mind a bit of railroading if it takes the game in a good direction and everything remains fun. The ability to affect outcomes is crucial, of course, but a nice paradigm shift in-game is not bad if executed well.

As a GM, my players know that things are often not as they seem, but I am generally trusted to come up with interesting and compelling games. The scenario in question seems interesting, and was probably intended to be fun and interesting for the player whose character had the pre-game event.

If a player showed such a lack of trust in me that he handed me his character sheet after a campaign twist, particularly a player who I thought would have a great time with something like that, I'd take it, tell him I understand that we have a style conflict, politely show him the door and fill his spot with the next player on the waiting list.

 

[I'm A Banana]

It's a sticky thing to go messing around with someone's character. In general, I'd say it's not worth the loss of trust. That doesn't mean you can't pull a bait-and-switch, but it does mean that you shouldn't muck with a player's knowledge of their own character. Put your knights on mars or your astronauts in space opera or your cops in a horror game. But don't make the cop a vampire, don't tell the astronaut he's a sleeper jedi, and don't tell the knights that they have strange antennae growing from their head all of a sudden.

In this situation, if I wanted to mutate the character, I'd do this:

Not tell anyone. As I'm giving the opening text from the game, I put down an index card with the rules in it, and I say: "Someone emerges from their cryogenic slumber deeply changed...you can decide who this is for yourself, but one of your companions is mutated."

The idea would be to put the control back into their hands. THEY get to pick if they're a mutant or not. It could be that no one wants to be a mutant, in which case maybe you can roll for it, or play Rock Paper Scissors for it, or whatever, but they do know the ramifications of it right there before they pick it.

The specific thing is about altering the character out of the blue. That's something that needs a little gentler touch, I think, than most other kinds of bait-and-switch.

 

[Raven Crowking]

The specific thing is about altering the character out of the blue. That's something that needs a little gentler touch, I think, than most other kinds of bait-and-switch.

This I largely agree with.


RC

 

[Barcode]

I guess what it comes down to is "know thy player". I generally wouldn't do something like that unless I thought the player would run with it. I've done similar things with great results for the players who like dealing with challenging roleplaying scenarios. If a player surprised me and indicated he was unhappy with a change, I'd try to steer it towards an entertaining conclusion sooner or perhaps differently than I might have planned.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Likewise, you could be thinking you're playing in a campaign you want to play in, and it gets switched to one you like better.

Presumably, if the GM in question knows his/her players, he/she is liable to attempt to make the switch into something they will enjoy more.

YMMV, but if it was me running the game, that would be my goal.

RC

Now this is mostly for Hero, but I spend weeks putting the details of a character together, background, build etc. I tailor it to the campaign as told to me.
If the switched to campaign is one I would like better under normal circumstances, I would not like it as much as the campaign I built the character for in the first place, by dint of the bait and switch.

What it amounts to is I don't want the GM to lie to me about what the campaign is going to be about, for any reason, even one that they think makes for a good story.

People talk about trusting the GM. I can't trust a GM that would lie to me about what a game is about.

Luckily, no one in our group does things like this. If there is going to be a big campaign switch, it is told upfront, and the characters are played as freaked out, but the players are not lied to in campaign development.

 

[Bumbles]

The specific thing is about altering the character out of the blue. That's something that needs a little gentler touch, I think, than most other kinds of bait-and-switch.

Well, to be fair, we didn't hear precisely how it went down exactly.

 

[Ariosto]

What's with people playing RPGs with people with whom they have such fiercely adversarial relationships? This is a whole different kettle of fish from the old "adversarial DM" in the in-game sense of challenging the players (which is what the players want in the first place in an old-school game). From posts I've seen here and elsewhere, it seems not uncommon for game groups to take for granted some pretty dysfunctional social dynamics.

 

[Ariosto]

I once created a very "railroad" scenario that the players called "the most awesome adventure ever!" (or words to that effect). The second most "excellent" encounter by their assessment involved a fight in the middle of which one player's character was mind-swapped with a monster incapable of human speech. He had to find some way to communicate the situation to his friends before they killed him (and the Doppelgänger probably proceeded to lead the rest to their demise).

That scenario involved one weird transformation of identity after another as the central theme. Why? Because that made for interesting challenges!

 

[aboyd]

I prefer roleplaying to combat, but I'll surely run a combat heavy game if my players prefer; doing otherwise would be akin to me serving only meat to a vegetarian who I invited over for dinner, just because I like meat myself.

I think your example about dinner can go either way. If the DM serves steak after inviting his friends to a vegan dinner, then he's a big jerk. But if the DM serves vegan after inviting his friends to a vegan dinner, he's not a jerk when the players complain about the lack of meat.

If your goal is to "game with friends" then that can be satisfied in many ways, combat gaming or otherwise. But some, who might invest tons of hours into creating game worlds, may have goals more like, "game with nice people who can enjoy this thing I spent 80 hours creating." If a bunch of people join the game and then say "we'd prefer otherwise, so run something else," is the DM compelled to? Judging by how vehemently you disagreed with Raven Crowking, I'm kinda thinking you would say yes, the DM should indeed abandon his work and do whatever else the players prefer. I kinda hope you clarify otherwise, though.

To me, the best thing in such a case is for both the DM & players to split. The DM finds other players who appreciate his work, and the players find a DM who likes what they like. I feel weird for saying that, as if I'm a pariah or something. But I still feel it anyway.

Real world, I advertised this game and got a player who complained about nearly every house rule, even though I said right up front that I would be testing house rules. My response to the player? "The house rules stay."

Am I a jerk? Am I supposed to drop one of my stated goals because a player -- who knew about it before ever joining -- tells me he prefers otherwise?

It will be interesting to get a handle on how far others take this notion.