If your plots are predictable in and of themselves - that is to say, clichés or similar structures recur within the canon of your games - then yes, the players clue in too early because "they know how you think", or rather, you've taken them down this road before. And that's on you. I'm thinking of the UNIT era of Doctor Who where, for a while, most plots had the Master hidden in plain sight, usually with a name that meant Master or was an anagram for it. Well, if that were a role-playing game, the players might well have started looking for an evil Maitre'D at the start of every adventure. It's a sign that you're repeating yourself.
If the players predict your plot because it's too similar to a movie's, a book's, a comic's, etc., that's another matter. The most disheartening thing is when you actually did steal from a particular movie you thought the players hadn't seen, and one of them has and calls you on it. It's okay to take inspiration from other media, but you have to be careful. With some players, it's almost unavoidable that they'll recognize the source material. But the similarities might also be coincidental. Face it, when you're dealing with an episodic genre serial with multiple leads who are expect to survive to the next chapter, you can't tell ANY story, nor pull off ANY twist. Throw in the genre tropes that are expected of any given game world, and game session become more and more predictable. It's like being mad when a romcom ends with the characters getting together because you saw it coming. That's what happens in these kinds of stories and it's silly to think otherwise. Well the same is true of a dungeon delve. You probably know the story beats, but it's about the journey, not the destination (and pit stops).
Given that context, what can you do to still make your games surprising?
1. Follow your players. If your imagination is solely responsible for what happens (give or take the PCs' reactions), that vision may, over time, become easy to decode. Your proclivities are on show every session, your stock NPCs, your patented plot twists, and your interests and obsessions. I'm a big believer in letting the players dictate at least some of the setting. Say we enter one's old family home. Let the player describe it, pick up on the details, especially the ones you wouldn't have thought of, and integrate them into the larger story. For example, if they mention a portrait of an ancestral knight, have that knight haunt the place. That clock tower might be a great place for a final battle when the ghost brigands slain by the ghost knight lay siege to the house. In more episodic games, I also like to run a diceless teaser, where the heroes are finishing up a mission before we actually start the night's scenario. They get to describe their climactic fight with demonic yeti and subsequent escape from their mountain stronghold without rules interference. The GM can throw in an idea here and there, but the set-up might be provided by the players, and might give the GM ideas for returning foes or lasting consequences. And even if it doesn't, that was a nice 15-minute free-flowing scene where the action could be totally surprising, where the players couldn't fault the GM for being cliched or redundant because THEY were in charge. DC Heroes RPG allows players to suggest their own subplots, and these can bloom into adventures you would not have personally engineered later. Any time you give the players control, you will have to adapt and think outside the box. Guess what? The box is where your crutches and clichés are, getting out does your GameMastering a lot of good.
2. Play with the expectations you created. Whether it's your own clichés or the genre's, players will expect certain things from whatever you've set up. Maybe you did it accidentally, maybe you did it on purpose. Regardless, when players realize what's going on ahead of their characters (because of real world knowledge), that's the best time to throw a curve ball (planned or improvised). Because if they just guessed the plot, it may be time to throw it out. I think the James Bond 007 RPG adventures are a great example of how to do it (and beautiful products if you ever get a chance to grab one). Each is based on a Bond novel/movie and will seem entirely familiar in terms of locations, characters and action set pieces, but if there was mystery to figure out (who is Mr. Big?) or a climactic action beat (where the final battle occurs etc.), they changed things up. People Bond could trust turn out to be enemies, and maybe vice-versa. Do the same with your games. If the players have deduced are already hemming and hawing about your pet villain escaping at the end, let them capture him (but it's all part of his plan for the next session). If they recognize your plot from a Star Trek episode, introduce a crucial change (Trelaine next hands down his pet Starfleet officers to HIS kids, who are the Q Continuum, and who have very different ideas). Go against your instincts. If your natural inclination would be A, try to think of the exact opposite and do Z. Challenge yourself, and it will challenge the players who think they have you figured out.
3. The surprise is in the details. If we accept that RPGs are trapped in certain genre/media tropes, what makes a session memorable isn't the plot so much as the way its stock elements are treated. We know the player have to receive the mission at the start of the adventure, but does it have to be from a hooded character at Ye Olde Local Inn? What if everybody shuns them in there and it happens when they walk out in the alley, maybe when they've had an ale too many? What if there's a dead drop where they get their orders, one that's being watched? Make the local village worship some strange religion to add flavor to every normally innocuous interaction (like the boring shopping for supplies some players insist on role-playing). Collapse the door to the dungeon entrance and have the characters access it through an old well. Get rid of the rats in the sewers and replace them with miniature albino crocodiles. Werewolves are boring, werefrogs are awesome. Tweak every location, character, and challenge to push it away from the expected, and even if the basic structure of the adventure is well-worn, the story will seem original.
4. One-shots. I've played a LOT of one-shots thanks to the Dream Park RPG, but any game can be used for a one-off story (which may last a single session or several), where the characters and the world are essentially disposable. This is where you can really surprise players because a) they haven't lived in that world for X number of sessions and don't know what to expect, and b) anything can be destroyed and anyone can die, including the PCs. It's basically moving from the television format that most RPGs adopt (the serial), to the movie format. And while there are twists in TV shows, you know the stars are gonna make it and usually stay on the side of good, etc. A movie, on the other hand, could go differently, end on a sour note, or on a dance number. Surprises you would never dare pull in a "campaign" suddenly become viable and interesting, as much for the GM as for the players (they might more willingly sacrifice their lives if there's no tomorrow, for example). In one-shot adventures, I've let the players save the world but it left them stranded on the moon with air running out - CREDITS! I've killed them in the opening minutes only to surprise them with an adventure where they played ghosts. I've set up a world where cavemen have superpowers and fight dinosaurs, which wouldn't have been something they would have played week in, week out (the set-up itself as a curve ball). And if you think you're too involved in a campaign, there's really nothing wrong (and perhaps everything right) with have one session where the players take on different roles to tell a side-story in the same world (maybe the devastated kingdom they just left, or the legend that took place longer and that you're about to tell them in the next adventure). Alternatively, use your characters but Quantum Leap them back, forward or sideways in time, where they take part in completely different events before being returned to their bodies. It's not something they might expect and so we've fulfilled this article's mission.
Whether it's the players or the GameMaster throwing the curve ball, the only really important thing is that the others try to hit it, right out of the ball park.
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