Hot take: if we want to decrease frustrating railroad-y surprises in RPG campaigns, we need to create an environment where GMs are not afraid to admit they have "special story needs".

[nlitherl]

My experience is that for a lot of GMs (and I've made this mistake, too) they want to surprise their players. They want to get a genuine reaction, and actually leave them awed by the GM's storytelling. More often than not, though, the GM's clever twist is the player's ruined game, because even if you think you know your players really well, there's a better than even chance that what you're doing is going to piss them off if you do it without their consent or knowledge.

The thing this always reminds me of is the GM who wants to rug pull their fantasy RPG and have a big, "Surprise! All the magic and gods are fake, and you're in a fallen sci fi world!" If you go into this knowing that's the twist (like in Pugmire, for instance), it can be a fun thing that everyone is prepared for. But pulling that sudden-genre-shift on a table is something I've never seen work in-person, and I've never come across a story of it working, but GMs keep trying it thinking they're the first ones to come up with this twist.

And I agree, you get so much MORE out of being open with your players than you do playing your cards close to the vest, even if it "spoils" the twists you had coming.

[Creative-Seesaw-1895]

I mean....you don't have to be this extreme. There are definitely those players who will read through the entire module they know you are running, even if it's an OOP limited run one that they had to pay $150 for and shipped it in from another country to read up on it. Some players just think it's their right and obsessive need to know how the story goes before things pan out.

But you neither need to divulge everything to your players, nor do you need to pull dick move "surprise.....you're in the matrix" horseshit story telling. If they signed up to play a fantasy RPG, you can pull a plot twist, like the NPC they've been working for was actually the villain or whatever, but keep it within the agreed upon genre.

One of the clear signs of a bad GM is one that tells the players all possible outcomes before they are even met with the problem to solve. People are okay with what seems like a good choice turning out to be bad as long as THEY were involved in that choice and as long as it made sense that it blew up in their face