The Big Reveal is better than the Surprise Twist

tl;dr - the Big Reveal is better than the Surprise Twist because it adds to rather than invalidates player knowledge.

I saw this post on Reddit "As GMs, I think we overvalue our plot twists. So, players, what twists and unexpected turns were memorable/enjoyable?" and I got a great recent example on why I think the "Big Reveal" is a lot better than the "Surprise Twist" at the table.

The three things to keep in mind here:
- Exploration is a pillar of the game and new information can be a form of reward for progress made
- Players can keep limited 'facts' in mind about the campaign, try to keep those meaningful
- Try to avoid having players waste their time; twists that invalidate their decisions and actions are frustrating and drain energy and motivation

For background - I have gotten much more fun from 'the revelation' where the players find out a piece of the truth and then go on from there - snatching a map from an enemy spy and then figuring out where their base is - "Ah-ha, now we can take the initiative!"

As an example - the kind of 'Big Reveal' I like was showcased during a recent Mechanus one-shot I ran. The party started inside in a tavern, got some information from the proprietor and then stepped outside to get the lay of the land and looked up to see a skyful of cogs. I showed them the map of Mechanus below and the reaction was 'oh boy'.

Mechanus poster from Planes of Law by Robert Lazzaretti

Other examples recalled by the in-house testing team were:
a revelation that an oracle was a surviving member of a distant branch of their family dynasty
the appearance of a particularly huge adversary that demonstrated that the things loose in the world were far, far worse than previously feared

All of these instances have the common factor of being 'world-opening' - nothing the players had previously done was wrong, they just suddenly realised they were playing on a much bigger space than they had been thinking about before.

To my mind, the root of why information reveals will energise or drain a table lies in whether or not they invalidate player efforts to that point. If the new information ruins their plans, or shows they have been fools to act on what they thought they knew, that is demotivating and can sap the energy from a table. If the new information is complicating but the table does not feel their actions so far were wasted, that is usually fine.

A second strand to this is simple cognitive load. I saw an article that I have now lost about how your players can probably keep about seven things in mind about your campaign world. Real life concerns occupy a lot. The players are probably having to refresh what they recall every time they sit to table. With all this in mind, red herrings or false information is 'jamming' that channel. Try to make all information the players are working with meaningful and actionable. Maybe they do not know something but a known gap is a truth they can work with.

Over time I have become less and less happy with red herrings and twists - in my games it frequently leads to confusion and de-motivation of 'why try to figure this out, it may just be nonsense'. I have gotten better fun from hard-to-access truths as the big information reveals. I have written in the past about how energy pumped into making clues 'realistic' by having not everything refer to the players quests was not only time wasted, it was counter-productive as the players were unable to sort the wheat from the chaff, or got frustrated and never tried. We are at the table to enjoy ourselves - clearly marked puzzles are fine, sifting information for truths is not fun for many.

As a counterpoint, some games do have a ready home for low signal-to-noise in the information with lies, mistaken witnesses and red herrings all part of the fun. It ought to be very clear from the start which game you are running and that this is the right place for those things. A suitable game for lies and red herrings is one where unravelling the mystery is the challenge, not doing something about the problem once it is identified. If the main thrust of the game is getting to grips with the villain or sneaking out of a dungeon with as much treasure as you can filch then spending a couple of sessions headed in the wrong direction because of bad information is not going to be a good time.

There is lots of room for information to be treasure and new information to be eagerly sought but make it additive to what the players know.