Here's a short video describing the problem: https://youtu.be/qrjjohJGhfg
I have set up a particle system where a face emits a couple of particles (this is actually a laser gun.)
As long as I have it set to render as an object, things work fine. Particle shoots out from the face, and is rendered as my laser object.
But, because I'm rendering in Eevee, I also parented some area lights to the laser so that it would actually eminate light onto surrounding geometry (emission node currently doesn't do this in Eevee.)
So I created a new collection with the laser and its lamps, and place it into the particle system just as I did with the laser object, except now I choose "whole collection."
The odd thing is that now the particles are being emitted directly from the collection location instead of the particle emitter. Bug, or feature? Thanks!