Game Master Guidance- Writing a Good Twist

In the realm of storytelling, there are few narrative elements with as high a risk and reward as plot twists. The Twilight Zone is remembered in no small part due to its great twists. And its bad ones. Similarly, M. Night Shymalan’s career has been mired by more than just bad movies, as the average viewer now sees his director trademark as being terrible, last-minute plot twists. Part of why storytellers are so committed to such a difficult concept is because when it’s pulled off, it will often elevate the work. Making a plot twist work in the context of an RPG is a challenge for any game master. But if executed properly, your players won’t forget it.

Before all else, it’s important to establish what a good twist is. It will be shocking but not unprecedented. A twist shouldn’t be too obvious nor should it come out of nowhere. With every great example, half the fun is the audience wondering how they didn’t figure it out themselves. Even a twist that’s easy to guess can still be good if presented properly. An audience can see it a mile away but if they care enough about the characters and groups involved, they’ll desperately wish they’re wrong.
But most importantly, a twist needs to recontextualize part or all of a narrative. It shouldn’t exclusively pertain to the subject but rather everything it affects. Every good twist doesn’t make its work fit to be consumed only once but instead gives the audience a reason to go back and pick up on the foreshadowing.

Before you put in a twist, your story needs to make sense. If the story doesn’t function without the twist, than the latter comes off as a desperate attempt to fix the former. Then the dramatic reveal doesn’t become a sign of your strength as a GM but just the opposite. Similarly, don’t have a twist unless it’s necessary to the narrative, tone, and themes you’re trying to convey. Anything there "just for the sake of having it" is ultimately pointless. Even a light, escapist campaign shouldn’t be that devoid of substance. Before implementing a twist, carefully consider how necessary or even how feasible it is. Are you ready to throw out what you had planned for the sake of a “gotcha” moment?

Part of the trick of writing a good twist is making sure the narrative doesn’t just become a bloated extension of it. Building a whole story around that single moment will cause it to suffer immensely, not just in terms of complexity but also just how much room you and the players have to breathe. Admittedly my best twists are thought up of pretty late into the story. In my last Star Wars campaign, one of the party’s efforts was to hunt down a mole within a rebel outpost. It was discovered to be a surly Ishi Tib engineer and droid smith. Long after they executed her with impunity and left to bleed to death in her own workshop, it occurred to me that this imperial traitor had access to the facility’s protocol droid. While only revealed in the last session, this droid’s reprogramming and ensuing treachery ended up being one of my group’s favorite parts of the campaign. I changed the ending slightly to match this shocking development but the outcome strangely felt more natural as a result. Smaller twists can happen spontaneously, as the narrative shifts in such a way that it leaves an opening for a quick thinking GM. If a natural, organic progression in the story ends up being a twist, embrace it.

The common perception is that having a twist makes a story more complex. This is true, but people often forget the important distinction between complex and convoluted. You have to be frank with yourself and the story you want to tell. Would it survive being dramatically redefined at the last minute? Would it really benefit from that? Would the players enjoy that? Would the twist invalidate their actions or progress? Sometimes you have to make the hard choice and settle for a smaller twist. And sometimes you’ll end up with no twist at all. Building a narrative is all about creative freedom but with that comes a responsibility. A capable GM, like all storytellers, needs to know when to exercise restraint.