One of the best bait and switches that Matt pulls in Campaign 2 is the way he completely sets the Nein up to believe that the Dynasty is this brutish, scary place using nothing but propaganda and effects that the characters will find ominous (for example, drow wanting to live in darkness makes sense, but as humans it can feel foreign and threatening).
He purposefully puts them in contact with people from the Empire who are biased narrators and doesn’t tell the party that they’re biased. He lets them do research in the Empire but that research is all slanted to make the Dynasty seem as foreign and alien as possible. It’s such a perfect illustration of how propaganda can dehumanize its targets, and because this is a fantasy world, the players and the characters don’t have enough knowledge of Xhorhas to be able to tease apart the lies and spin to find the truth.
So Matt sets them up to explore the Dynasty with their only information about the area from the Empire, and in the beginning, the Nein see what they expect. On rewatch, WE as watchers know that this is just another culture of people, that the Dynasty is in some ways kinder than the Empire but still a colonizing force in Eastern Wynandir, and that the Kryn are just as much a mix of good people and bad people and ordinary people trying to live their lives, like anywhere else.
We get to watch in real time as the characters discover this for themselves, and it’s such a fascinating study in the way that personal experience and connections to people who have been dehumanized can effectively help in deprogramming biases. The Nein’s attitude starts to shift in Asarius, but we don’t truly see them accept that the Dynasty is like anywhere else until they start living in Rosohna.
I doubt this bait and switch was planned in this form back when Beau and Caleb first researched Xhorhas, but it’s really brilliant the way Matt runs with it once the party decides to go to Xhorhas to rescue Yeza. Rewatching these episodes, I’m always fascinated to watch the Nein’s slowly-changing attitudes to the Kryn while knowing that this is going to become one of the places that they eventually call home. It’s just so well done.
