How can you circumvent player-logic instilled by years of TV,

>>52935112
If they want to be paranoid, let them be paranoid. But if they really are obsessive paranoid characters, have NPCs treat them as such.

Also, it's easy for a player to say his character is in a permanent state of readiness, because they don't actually have to pull all night shifts, or stare at nothing for hours on end, or try sleeping in armor, or unfuck a bow they've left strung for days. You should definitely apply penalties for that sort of thing, giving them a heads up ahead of time that trying something like that will incur checks/tests/penalties/whatvever.

Keep them off balance by double-subverting the tropes.

Once they think the advisor is in the clear, have them discover later down the adventure that he was, indeed the mastermind.

If they are guarding the prisoner, make up a distraction. Suddenly, one guard is in with the prisoner.

Humanize the guy in the quarantine. Make sure is not a faceless mook. Players tend to be attached to the PCs they like. Before the horror game, have the spaceship crew do a smuggling run so they get acquainted with npcs

>>52935112

Talk to them like adults. Talk about the genre conventions at play in the game, and the amount of genre savvy that's really suitable.

Explain that everyone always being aware of every threat before it happens and constantly having to try to fool the players actually robs them of fun- They miss out on so many interesting experiences and fun scenes precisely because they always take optimal action to avoid them.

Maybe experiment with a narrative system like FATE, where the game has built in rules and systems that lets the GM compel players to obey those kind of rules and genre conventions for a metacurrency reward. I run plenty of games without it just fine, but being compensated for it and learning that playing along is actually fun might be a way to break the habit.

>>52935112
The "evil advisor" wannabe is the evil mastermind. The chief advisor gets the perks without as much work and responsibility; just has to make sure the heirs will keep him on. The dragon at the princess in full view; recover her body for resurrection. The players want new stories and to do better than the heroes in the stories.

>>52935112
>having common sense is bad

okay

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Get better players.

>>52935112
Don't try to deliberately subvert whatever trope has come up; you'll end up frustrating people when every sign (meta & in-game) points to some conclusion but actually psyche it's not true heh gotem.

Being genre-savvy will only work if you're planning the campaign based on modern TV, etc.. Instead, decide on the tone & vision of your campaign and dogmatically stick to it. If the players continue to predict what's coming, good, they're engaging with the world. If not, they'll adapt, as long as the world is fairly consistent. I wouldn't want players to be constantly surprised. Letting them mull over the underlying themes of the campaign is better than subverting every expectation to the point that no-one bothers to think ahead. But the only way to avoid such genre-sense from paying off is to separate yourself from those genres, not just trying to trick the players all the time.

Get better players. Mine delight playing these things straight and playing themselves as clueless even when OOC they all see it coming.

If you obsess on picking everything apart, then there won't be any game left to play.

>>52935281
>Once they think the advisor is in the clear, have them discover later down the adventure that he was, indeed the mastermind.
Pls don't, that will just re-enforce their paranoia. Never justify a player who treats a scene like a meta aware insert.
>If they are guarding the prisoner, make up a distraction. Suddenly, one guard is in with the prisoner.
If they are not acting paranoid they will treat this as a reason for future paranoia. If they are then this will feel too much like railroading.
>Humanize the guy in the quarantine. Make sure is not a faceless mook. Players tend to be attached to the PCs they like. Before the horror game, have the spaceship crew do a smuggling run so they get acquainted with npcs
Excellent! Great advice.

Having rewatched Alien yesterday actually, that scene could've happened. Reminder that all their weapons were improvised, and that the science officer was a droid whose mission was to bring back the alien, crew is expendable.

>>52937017
>>52935112

Man the crew in that movie (probably like all horror movies) or at least the captain were so stupid.
>"What freeze him? why would we do that Mr. token black guy".
>"Hey that thing died so you must be ok. Lets have some mother fucking breakfast and assume everythings okay without doing a thorough checkup on you first".
>"ok everyone time for that good ole horror cliche lets all split up and die seperately".

>>52937752
The novelisation had the robot fake the medical scans too.