I spent some time this afternoon working on a new campaign. It has a specific central premise, but the PCs wont know that until probably the end of the first session.

The question is, do I tell the players?

Metagaming players could definitely take advantage of the information and create characters that have advantages they logically wouldn’t. For example, picking specific languages or backgrounds that would be hard to explain in their current situation, but they know will be helpful later on. If part of the fun is the fish out of water aspect of the adventure, then yes it is an issue. If it’s just interfering with player fun, it can go into the GM just ignores it because it’s a game and it’s supposed to be fun.

For my game I plan on spilling the beans. I trust my players (mostly) to go along with the premise. I’ve also never really liked the surprise campaign as a player.

Another reason to give the game away is the PCs are going to start at 5th level. I can imagine the frustration of starting a PC down a specific build path only to realize that won’t be effective going forward.

Looking back at the last large campaign I ran, the big reveal was the title of one of the books, “Rise of Tiamat”. It’s not hard to guess what the final encounter of the campaign should contain. This campaign doesn’t have a central set of villains like Tyranny of Dragons, but it does have a central mystery and the players will be leaving their known environment early in timeline.

Have you ever run a campaign with a secret that isn’t revealed until after the first couple of encounters? How did your players react? Conversely, have you laid your cards on the table ahead of time and how did your players react to that?

For those of you interested, the setting will be a combination of Spelljammer and Plane travel. The mystery is that the Githyanki race has disappeared and now Mindflayers and Githzerai are waging more open conflict and competing for resources.