The flipside of the switching-systems thread; have you ever suddenly switched the setting of your game but kept the same system and characters?  Either with or without in-game justification.

I don't mean a change of tone or something like that, we refer here to literal world-changes

I guess the most typical example of this would be a D&D game in some normal world where the GM suddenly puts the party in Ravenloft's realms.

How has this gone? Does it ever save a game (Is "saving the game" even the main reason its done)?  Or does it more often ruin a game?

RPGPundit

Start in Greyhawk, Find Spelljammer Vessel, Travel to the Realms, Go back via Portal. Expeditions to the Plane of Mirrors, the Abyss adn Acheron included.

Yes. Have done that. I actually did the Ravenloft thing by the book (the boxed set I mean).

Quote from: RPGPundit;456155How has this gone? Does it ever save a game (Is "saving the game" even the main reason its done)?  Or does it more often ruin a game?

I don't know if it saves games. I imagine it might, if your campaign fails specifically because of something that went wrong with the setting itself.  Can it ruin a a game? Yes, totally, if you suck at transitioning from one to the other, or the feel of the new setting just sucks in comparison to the previous one, you might have a big problem recovering from it.

Now, can it keep things fresh over the course of a campaign? Yes, definitely.

I'm tempted to say that, in the specific case of D&D, it's sort of implied by the rise of characters in level and their access to new abilities and capabilities that the setting will change sooner rather than later. The obvious aspect of this is the scale of the campaign: low-level characters trek through the mountains to the fort that's come under attack and soften targets for a counter-offensive, mid-level ones teleport to the other continent to kill King Zarbuk and stop the invasion, high-level ones plane shift to get to the demon lords Zarbuk had pacts with and end the threat of their return once and for all.

I did a switch between Harn and the Wilderlands it worked out to be one of my best campaigns but not something I would do on a regular basis.

I have used Ravenloft for a number of one-shot adventures while I was running a FR campaign. It provides a nice break from the usual fare.

Yes, and it didn't end well, but I think that it failed due to the perceptions of the players.  I was accused of a bait-and-switch, but in my mind it was not.  Although, I can completely see their point-of-view on the subject and why they felt the way they did about the game.

I was running a game set in the Justifiers universe using the D20 Modern game system.  I had some complex plot lines set up with the various power players of the Justifiers universe, but they were loosey-goosey just in case.  

One of the supplements for the Justifiers game offers alien magic as an option, and I decided to use it in this game.  The characters went through some things in their Sci-Fi world, and wound up going through a magic portal to the world of Talislanta.  Now, I had planned for the group to explore the world of Talislanta for a few levels to increase in power and abilities, and also to gain magical items to bring back to their Justifiers world.  I chose this route so that the group would have some unique and powerful items to confront those who are working against them, and the Beta Rights cause.

The players hated it.  They had planned for a Sci-Fi character and game, and then I yanked all their technological advantages out from under them and made them slosh it out in a fantasy game for a while.  The Elephant-Beta Assault Specialist loved it on Talislanta for all the hand-to-hand combat and swore to never return to his home-world.  However, all the other characters wanted to return home.  

Unfortunately, even after I explained that their trip through the Rabbit Hole was only temporary, they had already mentally shut down on the game and it unraveled and fell apart.  

I learned a valuable lesson with that game: never pull a bait-and-switch on the players, or even something that can be perceived as a bait-and-switch.

Quote from: Drohem;456167I learned a valuable lesson with that game: never pull a bait-and-switch on the players, or even something that can be perceived as a bait-and-switch.

Totally.

Quote from: Drohem;456167Yes, and it didn't end well, but I think that it failed due to the perceptions of the players.  I was accused of a bait-and-switch, but in my mind it was not.  Although, I can completely see their point-of-view on the subject and why they felt the way they did about the game.

I was running a game set in the Justifiers universe using the D20 Modern game system.  I had some complex plot lines set up with the various power players of the Justifiers universe, but they were loosey-goosey just in case.  

One of the supplements for the Justifiers game offers alien magic as an option, and I decided to use it in this game.  The characters went through some things in their Sci-Fi world, and wound up going through a magic portal to the world of Talislanta.  Now, I had planned for the group to explore the world of Talislanta for a few levels to increase in power and abilities, and also to gain magical items to bring back to their Justifiers world.  I chose this route so that the group would have some unique and powerful items to confront those who are working against them, and the Beta Rights cause.

The players hated it.  They had planned for a Sci-Fi character and game, and then I yanked all their technological advantages out from under them and made them slosh it out in a fantasy game for a while.  The Elephant-Beta Assault Specialist loved it on Talislanta for all the hand-to-hand combat and swore to never return to his home-world.  However, all the other characters wanted to return home.  

Unfortunately, even after I explained that their trip through the Rabbit Hole was only temporary, they had already mentally shut down on the game and it unraveled and fell apart.  

I learned a valuable lesson with that game: never pull a bait-and-switch on the players, or even something that can be perceived as a bait-and-switch.

Just FYI, not all players have this problem. I have absolutely no problem with a bait and switch type game, and IMO it can sometimes even be pretty kick-ass with a decent GM. One (but by no means the only) good example is starting a modern or near-future (or really any setting/time-period) game and having it kick over into a disaster setting (alien invasion, Lucifer's Hammer, etc...) followed by PA. That would completely rock. I'd love to play in a fantasy game starting with Roma Imperious (or something like) and ending with Dark Sun (or something like). Why have all these setting based on a distant magical war or calamity when the setting could instead actually be the magical war or calamity? I'm sure I'm not alone in having this opinion, so if you ever want to try out a bait&switch type game on pbp, just let me know. You don't even have to identify it beforehand if ya don't want to, I love a good surprise

I've done it as a "break" from the "main" campaign.

I'm not sure it will "save" a campaign because, in my own experience, I've never seen a campaign tank because of the setting.

Bait and switch? Yes. And, like others, I've had mixed success. Change settings where all participants knew the change was coming? No, I haven't. But I imagine it'd go over better than bait and switch.

Seanchai

Very interesting to hear on the bait-and-switch games.

I've been sorely tempted to do that sometimes -- it must be awesome when it works -- but I'm afraid it might blow up in my face. Especially if you invite people over for a game they know well (e.g. "let's play D&D!") with a familiar setting (the typical vague mishmash of Middle-Earth and Hyborian Age) and take them to a very different place (a Barsoomian sword-and-planet romp).

One of the best campaigns I ever played in as a character was in a low magic, super detailed celtic campaign, sometime during 2E.  It was an awesome homebrew campaign.  Then the DM started to have less prep time and half way through the campaign we were thrown into a planescape/Ravenloft mash up.  It just wasn't the same and ended up being one of the rare times where I quit a campaign.

On the other hand, I ran a very successful homebrew campaign set in Greyhawk (Perrenland) in the first year 3E came out.   The campaign ran successfully enough till the party hit 7th level and defeated the big bad of the campaign.   To throw them a curve ball, I threw then into ravenloft and I6 in particular.  What was a good campaign got ramped up to awesome (according to the players).   The death toll amongst PCs was horrendous but they loved the heightened danger.  By the end they were happy to just escape back to the real world, never came close to defeating Strahd. Their time in Ravensloft is still talked about.

So there you go, one good experience, one bad, both involved Ravenloft.  I will say this, however, railroady or not, I6 - Ravenloft is one of the best damn modules ever published...

Quote from: danbuter;456165I have used Ravenloft for a number of one-shot adventures while I was running a FR campaign. It provides a nice break from the usual fare.

I wasn't meaning like "we'll move them to ravenloft and play the classic module", though; I meant more like "now we're changing the campaign to a Dark Sun game, you all fall through a portal and can't go back", or whatever. A permanent re-routing of the game setting.

RPGPundit

Oh. Never did that. Then I'd have to scrap all my world stuff.

Well, I have done it, a couple of times in the past.  Rarely has it had any good results; these days, I think its probably wiser to just start over again in a brand new campaign if what you really want is a total change of setting.

RPGPundit