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Trevortni
2015-03-30, 02:01 PM
I've been musing about a game that I was involved in a few years that fell apart, and there's one aspect in particular I want to get more feedback on. While it was hardly the reason everything fell apart (I think I won't get into that unless asked), one of the other players was unhappy about the fact that I did some things in character behind the other players' backs. They said that we should make everything that we do happen in full view of the other players, and that keeping secrets from the other players is disruptive to roleplaying.

What do you think, in general, about secret player actions?

Keltest
2015-03-30, 02:08 PM
Go all in or don't do it at all. If you want to play that kind of game, ok, that's fine. But it should be made clear to all involved that there is a possibility for such hidden actions, and that they are allowed to engage in them right back at you. Otherwise, it shouldn't be done at all.

Eisenheim
2015-03-30, 02:15 PM
I have to agree with the other player. Rollplaying is a cooperative endeavor, regardless of the characters involved and their relationships. Your character doing things behind the other PCs backs: fine, if it's that kind of game. You doing things behind the oher players backs: not okay.

Rad Mage
2015-03-30, 02:17 PM
By all means have a character that acts behind the other character's backs if you're so inclined. But that should be limited to your character. As a player I would advise against keeping your actions hidden from the other players. Trust your fellow players to be able to roll with whatever you've got going on and keep their player and character knowledge seperate.

Lacco
2015-03-30, 02:20 PM
It depends on the group. I enjoyed the secret plotting-behind-everyone's back while I was a player, but I know that there was at least one of the group who didn't really like it. He never tried to do something like that - I was a thief, he was the honorable barbarian.

I would say, that if you talk with the players before the game and decide if you want to do it and maybe the boundaries (e.g. no secret talks with GM during the game, only after/before/during breaks; no PvP actions or other harmful stuff).

In my games, we usually have a silent agreement - character secrets are fine (e.g. if one of the players doesn't want to tell everyone else, that he sees multiple ghosts that follow them through the underground city so they are not spooked, it's fine), but no PvP actions. My players usually use the secret note passing and private talks to arrange pleasant surprises for other players (such as presents, good roleplaying opportunities, etc.) or pranks (this has a long tradition... such as hacking the street sam's clothes in SR to change to pink "I love ponies" clothes or turning the temperature up in the room using fire spirits to make the hacker who did the last thing sweat during his date... oh, no one ever objected against a prank - usually they join the fun).

So - boundaries and agreement of players.

Trevortni
2015-03-30, 02:30 PM
PvP actions.

Yeah, I probably should have specified that I wasn't doing any PvP actions. Ironic, considering that the person who complained about my secret actions wasn't being secret at all about his actions against my character.

Jay R
2015-03-30, 02:59 PM
Well, of course having secret preparations gets in the way of the character who's trying to take actions against your character.

On the theoretical level, anything your character does when others aren't watching should not be known by the players - because it isn't known by the characters. In that sense, telling them about it is disrupting to roleplaying, not hiding it. (Having your character tell their characters is fine, of course. But giving the player knowledge of what her character doesn't know is metagaming.)

When my character became an Earl, I copied the entire party between games with question to the DM about the economics of the county. Some players asked me to stop copying them.

This is a decision that a group should make together. I usually have actions that most players don't know about, but I try to make the revelations fun, all players know that I am doing things they don't see, and I am always completely on the side of all the other party members.

But a player who is planning actions against yours? No, of course you won't tell him all your secrets.

jaydubs
2015-03-30, 03:03 PM
It's not character-to-character trust that matters. It's the trust between players (and between the players and the DM) that has to be maintained. So the important thing is to set rules and expectations before the campaign starts. If acting against party (or other characters') interests is allowed, make sure everyone knows that. If secret actions are allowed, make sure everyone knows that. And if those things are banned, the DM has to enforce those bans.

veti
2015-03-30, 03:04 PM
What do you think, in general, about secret player actions?

I'm fine with them - for the same reason as I don't automatically tell other players my entire character background.

Roleplaying is co-operative, yes. But that doesn't mean you have to do everything together. I work in a company, that's also a co-operative endeavour, but I don't know what everyone else in the company is doing or vice-versa. Some things it's necessary to keep secret until they're ready to be revealed. Some things are minutiae/detail that you really don't want to know about, it probably wouldn't make sense to you anyway.

I expect the players and DM to share things with me that my character would know. But by the same token, I don't expect them to share things that my character wouldn't know.

Maglubiyet
2015-03-30, 03:21 PM
Depends on the game. Secret actions tend to be disruptive, but occasionally what's happening demands it. You just try to minimize it and move on.

Some games it's absolutely necessary. Like Paranoia is one where pretty much everyone is passing notes every few minutes.

Beta Centauri
2015-03-30, 03:51 PM
I recommend not having secret player information, and not having it assumed to be the default if you do. It leads to exactly this kind of problem.

Players don't like secrets, even when the GM is keeping them, because it means that something could happen to their character without them being able to do anything about it. People don't like feeling that loss of control.

Show your fellow players that you trust them, by not keeping secrets from them. Even if you don't trust them, give them a chance to earn that trust, and if they abuse it, tell them. When trust is high, fellow players can make in-game choices that even enhance the secret, as long as they know what it is.

Darth Ultron
2015-03-30, 03:51 PM
I've never had a problem with secret actions themselves, but plenty with player reactions. But I don't think they are a big deal. It's not so much keeping secrets from another player as it is just not telling everything about everything.

The problem is more of a bad player one: where the player thinks that they should know everything about the game at all times. And it's bad enough where a player wants their character to be all knowing, but it only gets ten times worse when they want to be all knowing themselves.

The all knowing character is very annoying. When anything happens within like a mile they will want the character to immediately be there and know everything. When the player does it, it just ruins the game.

Jay R
2015-03-30, 04:03 PM
Lots of secret actions are arranged outside of the session, and don't involve passing notes. The goal is to make the reveal fun for the entire party.

When we started an old west game, I announced that I was going to base my character on an old TV show. I showed up with Cali Yang, a Chinese immigrant with Kung Fu skills, clearly based on Kwai-Chang Kane from Kung Fu. Or was he? In the fifth game, he needed to drop the disguise, and revealed himself as Cal Young, a disguise artist secret agent based on Artemus Gordon of Wild, Wild West.

In a Champions game, I was playing a Superman-like flying brick named Hyperion, with a sidekick Pinball. In fact, he hadn't died, The DM and I privately arranged for him to reappear at a crucial moment. The party was fighting a giant robot, and losing badly. At one point the DM said, "You hear a rush of air from above." I looked at him, he nodded privately at me, and Pinball yelled out, "Look! Up in the sky!" And that's how Hyperion returned to save the day.

In both cases, members of the party congratulated me later on a fun, exciting adventure moment.

Ralanr
2015-03-30, 04:03 PM
Working in secret from players can be a sign of mistrust towards the players. In a cooperative game that can be pretty insulting.

Segev
2015-03-30, 04:05 PM
I can understand the complaint about players keeping secrets from other players. I don't think it's grounded well, but I understand it. If the party plays in good faith and the players all want an open table, then you should respect that as part of the social compact.

However, if there's any PvP going on at all, on any level, then secret actions are going to be required. Anybody trying to whine about them under those circumstances I immediately suspect of wanting to set the terms by which PvP is "allowed" to happen in a fashion that makes their PvP "okay" and everybody else's not.

Because sometimes, the kind of power a PC exerts requires secret action to bring to bear, while others' powers do not.

BWR
2015-03-30, 04:07 PM
It really depends on the game. Most D&D games or L5R, Ars Magica, whatever don't usually need secret actions. Unless the PCs are actually plotting against each other, you should be fine doing everything openly. Even when they do, we hope the players are good enough roleplayers to not metagame the issues. Sometimes, they can be warranted, e.g. one PC is split from the group in a dungeon and falls prey to something, you might as well just do that privately so the others aren't stuck with metagame quandaries.
Some games, like the aforementioned Paranoia or some WoD games, secret actions are part and parcel of how the game and setting work. Though I will say in our V:tM game the ST eventually spent more time out in the hall with individual players all doing their own secret thing than he did at the table running the game for everyone at once, so at that point it gets annoying.

Beta Centauri
2015-03-30, 04:47 PM
I don't think anyone's saying that surprises can't work, just that they can backfire in a number of ways. For some of us (and for some groups) that makes them inadvisable.

Jay R
2015-03-30, 04:50 PM
I can see that that would make sense in some games. Since I only play D&D with long-time friends, the issue of trust never comes up.

Eisenheim
2015-03-30, 04:57 PM
I really don't think PvP requires secrets to be kept from the other players, assuming everyone is a reasonable, mature player and willing to not metagame. I would personally pick no PvP over a PvP game with people I couldn't trust to separate the IC and OOC conflict enough that I had to hide things from players as well as their characters.

In FATE, at least, we've had plenty of PvP conflicts, though mostly in the moment rather than over extended periods, and that has not required any secret keeping.

mephnick
2015-03-30, 05:26 PM
Actions two characters took between each other, behind the backs of the other two characters, as well as mine as the DM, probably led to my favourite campaign moment of all time. The rogue in that campaign also did a lot of thief stuff between me and him out of session that ended up drastically helping the party out down the road. No one else knew anything about it until the end.

The key is these things helped the group. Out of session secret actions meant to backstab or hinder allies almost always goes poorly.

veti
2015-03-30, 05:49 PM
I really don't think PvP requires secrets to be kept from the other players, assuming everyone is a reasonable, mature player and willing to not metagame.

That's one heck of an "assuming". And no matter how good the players' intentions, I strongly suspect it's not really possible to completely avoid metagaming with OOC knowledge.

Imagine you're facing two opponents. OOC (but not IC), you know that one of them has a Fire Shield in effect. Do you (a) take protective measures before hitting them, (b) hit them anyway, or (c) attack the other one instead?

(a) is (probably) metagaming - unless you habitually take those measures before engaging with a suspected caster, but even then your fellow players may have suspicions; (b) is wilfully anti-metagaming; but (c)?

If "trust within the group" is an issue, then the suspicion of metagaming is going to be there unless you take the "wilfully blind" option every time. That's more limiting, IMO, than simply "not knowing the spell is there in the first place".

Beta Centauri
2015-03-30, 06:01 PM
That's one heck of an "assuming". And no matter how good the players' intentions, I strongly suspect it's not really possible to completely avoid metagaming with OOC knowledge. Yes, it's not that the players should be expected not to metagame, it's that players should be okay with the metagaming people choose to do.


Imagine you're facing two opponents. OOC (but not IC), you know that one of them has a Fire Shield in effect. Do you (a) take protective measures before hitting them, (b) hit them anyway, or (c) attack the other one instead?

(a) is (probably) metagaming - unless you habitually take those measures before engaging with a suspected caster, but even then your fellow players may have suspicions; (b) is wilfully anti-metagaming; but (c)? Anti-metagaming is still metagaming. Metagaming is metagaming whether or not it results in an advantage for the character of the player doing it.


If "trust within the group" is an issue, then the suspicion of metagaming is going to be there unless you take the "wilfully blind" option every time. That's more limiting, IMO, than simply "not knowing the spell is there in the first place". Probably, but that's not the only other way this can go. Another way for this to go is for the player of the character with the Fire Shield not to care if the opponent is prepared for it.

As I assume that by "prepared for it" you mean the spell is completely negated, I would imagine the player would question the use of using the spell at all. But that get to the heart of the metagaming issue: if an entire plan or plot can be nullified simply because a player knows and acts on out-of-game information, then it's set up to have problems with metagaming. Avoiding strategies like that in the first place almost completely solves the problem.

Gavran
2015-03-30, 06:09 PM
(a) is (probably) metagaming - unless you habitually take those measures before engaging with a suspected caster, but even then your fellow players may have suspicions; (b) is wilfully anti-metagaming; but (c)?

Why is there no (d) determine which one I attack first using the same algorithm I normally use to decide which of two enemies to attack, not including the information about the Fire Shield? And don't get hung up on the formal language - any decision making follows procedures, even though most are much less organized than the wording implies.

Though, I don't particularly disagree with your general point, I'd say let's take a more subtle effect - let's say character A has an effect that makes the third (and consecutive) domination effect cast on them fail - how many times should your character keep trying domination effects before you "realize" it won't work?

That said, I'm pretty much in the "you shouldn't pvp in games that aren't actually designed around it" camp regardless, and when the consequences of failing to keep OOC things OOC are only "the cool reveal isn't as cool as everyone wanted it to be" instead of "one character loses", it's easier to have that trust I think. Not that totally secret reveals can never be cool - but I've personally always laid at minimum the foundations bare to all the other players.

Eisenheim
2015-03-30, 06:56 PM
Vetri, I speak from a perspective of trusting other players to handle things in a cooperative, mature way because I don't play with people I can't trust to do that. If people are forced to play with people they can't trust, that sucks, but no gaming is better than bad gaming.

It's also a lot easier to avoid worries about inappropriate use of OOC knowledge if you come at things with a cooperative storytelling ethos. Players can cooperate to build an enjoyable narrative about treacherous, sneaky characters, and a large amount of dramatic irony needn't get in the way of that, assuming everyone is on board with that kind of narrative to begin with.

I'm also of the opinion that the only good PvP is mutually agreed PvP, so secrets seem extra inappropriate there.

themaque
2015-03-30, 07:25 PM
It really depends on the game. Most D&D games or L5R, Ars Magica, whatever don't usually need secret actions. .

What... no scorpions in your group? ;-)

As long as people know the option is there, I have zero problem with players doing actions in secret. Ninja Notes are a time honored tradition. :-)

And yes, Meta-gaming is wrong, but sometimes human nature. If both me and my character are surprised it can be rewarding experience. And I fully admit, I'm one of those PLAYERS who like to know everything that is going on. I'm naturally nosey. It can be frustrating not to know, but not knowing can be part of the fun.

veti
2015-03-30, 08:07 PM
Vetri, I speak from a perspective of trusting other players to handle things in a cooperative, mature way because I don't play with people I can't trust to do that. If people are forced to play with people they can't trust, that sucks, but no gaming is better than bad gaming.

See, I see "trust" in precisely the opposite light. The reason I don't mind fellow-players keeping secrets from me is precisely because I do trust them. Even when I don't trust their characters, even when they're patently engaged in double-crossing me behind my back, I trust that they're doing it fairly - which is to say that at the appropriate time, I'll be told as much as my character should know, and given the opportunity to act on that knowledge.

Mr.Moron
2015-03-30, 08:14 PM
I don't do hidden-information among PCs. Characters can do things on their own without the other characters knowing, but everything is open to everyone at the table. I'm not terribly interested in putting in the work even the manage the logistics of such thing, never mind all the potential for bad blood among the player base.

Obviously it's a matter of taste but hidden-actions run about as far from mine as possible.

Jay R
2015-03-30, 10:37 PM
I actively prefer not to have information that isn't available to my character. When I have knowledge my character doesn't have, I cannot play the game correctly in any case.

Gaming is making the best decision I can, based on the information I have, when I have the information the character has.

Making a decision based on information I have that the characterer doesn't have is meta-gaming.

But if I have relevant information and don't use it, then I'm not making the best decision I can, so I'm not gaming as defined above. And trying to make the best decision I can is what I'm here for. That's the point.

I cannot act like I would if I don't know it. Using it is meta-gaming. Making a deliberately wrong decision to avoid meta-gaming is still not gaming. Call it "anti-metagaming"; call it "metagaming-B"; but don't pretend that's what I do when I'm allowed to make the best decision I can.

Eisenheim
2015-03-30, 11:18 PM
I love information my character doesn't have, or at least I have absolutely no objection to it, but that's really part of a different flavor of gaming. I mostly play FATE, so it's very much not tactical and heavily into cooperative storytelling. I'm at least as invested in a satisfying story as I am in victory for my character.

I will preemptively respond to the suggestion that thinking like that breaks immersion by saying that, for me, it enhances it. The thing that most breaks immersion for me is when the mechanics of a game get in the way of my character acting like they would in my head, which is why I don't like low level D&D, where my heroic concept runs up against swingy dice and low durability.

Beta Centauri
2015-03-30, 11:24 PM
Gaming is making the best decision I can, based on the information I have, when I have the information the character has. Yes.


Making a decision based on information I have that the characterer doesn't have is meta-gaming. Yes, though the only thing keeping that from being gaming is a reason for the character to have that information.


But if I have relevant information and don't use it, then I'm not making the best decision I can, so I'm not gaming as defined above. Yes, what you'd be doing in that case is "roleplaying," pretending to be a character who doesn't know what you know.


And trying to make the best decision I can is what I'm here for. That's the point. What does it feel like when you fail to make the best decision you can?


I cannot act like I would if I don't know it. Using it is meta-gaming. Making a deliberately wrong decision to avoid meta-gaming is still not gaming. Call it "anti-metagaming"; call it "metagaming-B"; but don't pretend that's what I do when I'm allowed to make the best decision I can. No one is.

What if there is no "best decision"? What if, in terms of the utility to your character, and the enjoyment you feel, there would be essentially no difference between two options? Could you then pretend not to know the information? That's what works for me: I generally figure that any decision is going to balance out, characterwise, and I can usually have just as much fun with either decision. Oh, there's an ambush ahead? Well, if we avoid it for some reason cool, we'll make it to our destination on time. If we spot it or stumble into it, we get to have a combat scene and either get treasure and experience or get to roll up new characters. Fun no matter. I can just pick one, or just go with whichever one the social scene seems to call for. There was no "best decision" to make.

I understand the "best decision" mentality, but it should be recognized as being highly unstable: the slightest whisper can topple it. I prefer a more stable mode.

Earthwalker
2015-03-31, 03:19 AM
That's one heck of an "assuming". And no matter how good the players' intentions, I strongly suspect it's not really possible to completely avoid metagaming with OOC knowledge.

Imagine you're facing two opponents. OOC (but not IC), you know that one of them has a Fire Shield in effect. Do you (a) take protective measures before hitting them, (b) hit them anyway, or (c) attack the other one instead?

(a) is (probably) metagaming - unless you habitually take those measures before engaging with a suspected caster, but even then your fellow players may have suspicions; (b) is wilfully anti-metagaming; but (c)?

If "trust within the group" is an issue, then the suspicion of metagaming is going to be there unless you take the "wilfully blind" option every time. That's more limiting, IMO, than simply "not knowing the spell is there in the first place".

Oddly when a similar situation like this has come up for one for my characters its been handled with

"I want to attack Character B as he has no fire shield. I don't know about the fire shield so lets say I roll a die, 1-3 I attack fire shield guy, 4-6 I attack the other."

Seemed the fairest solution at the time.

GungHo
2015-03-31, 09:12 AM
I'm okay with things happening off screen or in sidebars/passed notes as long as people are generally aware that it will be happening and that doing so is used to promote the story rather than promote a player, if you get my drift. The downside is that you have to reign in people who have a natural curiosity and want to spoil things like that by trying to find out what was on that piece of paper by making their characters somehow hyperaware of everything.

johnbragg
2015-03-31, 10:08 AM
I can see that that would make sense in some games. Since I only play D&D with long-time friends, the issue of trust never comes up.

This definitely helps. The groups I've played with where secret actions or character secrets were major plotpoints were all long-established friend-networks.

Sometimes "paranoia notes" were passed to the DM that just said "Nothing, I just wanted to make (people)/(the Paladin) nervous)

The best moment of one campaign was probably the revelation that one character was not _just_ and elf ranger-sorcerer, but a homebrewed-undead elf ranger-sorcerer, questing to get his memories of his former life back. Much to the chagrin of our cleric the Death Priest--the ranger had been very careful to avoid being in range of the priest whenever he detected or commanded undead; as a sniper he was never in need of too much healing, and as an elf of course he "slept" alone up in a tree.

MEanwhile my wife, rogue-cleric-"homebrewed paladin of chaos" was running around distributing leaflets on how to build printing presses.


Actions two characters took between each other, behind the backs of the other two characters, as well as mine as the DM, probably led to my favourite campaign moment of all time. The rogue in that campaign also did a lot of thief stuff between me and him out of session that ended up drastically helping the party out down the road. No one else knew anything about it until the end.

The key is these things helped the group. Out of session secret actions meant to backstab or hinder allies almost always goes poorly.

My biggest "secret from the party" moment breaks that rule, and also didn't happen because the campaign ended when the DM got a full-time teaching job.

We were D&D characters in the Everquest roleplaying game world, with the campaign goal of disrupting whatever evil necromancy enabled the Bind Altars (save points) that allowed free resurrection. My character didn't see exactly what was wrong with the bind altars, was not convinced that the party was right and everyone-in-the-world was wrong about the Exile (ancient-evil-guy whose secrets we were digging up) and the rightness of blowing up the bind-altar-system. (I was pretty sure the PCs were, effectively, the Bad Guys arriving from unknown realms to Break Everything for No Good Reason.)

As the party's teleporter, I had a plan to teleport the party at the campaign climax to the main square of the main library city when they were about to go up against whatever the final Big Bag was to break the bind altars and take away everyone's free resurrection and give them back their "souls."

To quote Dr Nefario, "Was that wrong?"

To be clear, I notified the DM of this well in advance. IC, I teleported solo to Library-opolis or whatever and gave them a heads up that if we showed up and everybody acted surprised, that they'd be well advised at that point to bring the pain.

mephnick
2015-03-31, 10:41 AM
As the party's teleporter, I had a plan to teleport the party at the campaign climax to the main square of the main library city when they were about to go up against whatever the final Big Bag was to break the bind altars and take away everyone's free resurrection and give them back their "souls."

To quote Dr Nefario, "Was that wrong?"

To be clear, I notified the DM of this well in advance. IC, I teleported solo to Library-opolis or whatever and gave them a heads up that if we showed up and everybody acted surprised, that they'd be well advised at that point to bring the pain.

As a DM I would have advised against it. Honestly, as a player, if you screwed up the end of a long running campaign for me by preventing us from fighting the end boss and making the party "lose", I'd probably think twice about ever playing with you again. Seems kind of selfish.

veti
2015-03-31, 02:46 PM
But that get to the heart of the metagaming issue: if an entire plan or plot can be nullified simply because a player knows and acts on out-of-game information, then it's set up to have problems with metagaming. Avoiding strategies like that in the first place almost completely solves the problem.

So the solution to metagaming is meta-metagaming? Making choices for OOC reasons, in order to avoid giving others the opportunity to make choices for OOC reasons? That strikes me as - unsatisfactory.




I cannot act like I would if I don't know it. Using it is meta-gaming. Making a deliberately wrong decision to avoid meta-gaming is still not gaming. Call it "anti-metagaming"; call it "metagaming-B"; but don't pretend that's what I do when I'm allowed to make the best decision I can.

No one is.

Would you care to enlarge on that? To me, it seems that anyone who says "you just have to be mature enough to not metagame" is saying exactly that, and there are quite a few people saying that in this thread.


What if there is no "best decision"? What if, in terms of the utility to your character, and the enjoyment you feel, there would be essentially no difference between two options? Could you then pretend not to know the information? That's what works for me: I generally figure that any decision is going to balance out, characterwise, and I can usually have just as much fun with either decision. Oh, there's an ambush ahead? Well, if we avoid it for some reason cool, we'll make it to our destination on time. If we spot it or stumble into it, we get to have a combat scene and either get treasure and experience or get to roll up new characters.

In the first place, that's a very big "what if?" It's rare for there to be no difference between two possible actions.

In the second place... if my character is in a situation where ambushes are a possibility, then avoiding or anticipating ambushes is a part of what she'll be trying to achieve. She'll gain satisfaction from conducting her team to their destination safely. She'll get insufferably smug if she (and I, together) correctly anticipate where an ambush is going to be set up, and turns the tables on the ambushers. If you just tell me where the ambush is going to be, then you deprive me of that entire dimension of fun.

Keltest
2015-03-31, 02:52 PM
As a DM I would have advised against it. Honestly, as a player, if you screwed up the end of a long running campaign for me by preventing us from fighting the end boss and making the party "lose", I'd probably think twice about ever playing with you again. Seems kind of selfish.

As a DM, I have to agree, but as an EQ player, I like having my bind point.

johnbragg
2015-03-31, 03:37 PM
As a DM, I have to agree, but as an EQ player, I like having my bind point.

Well, if we had ever finished that campaign, the DM knew about my character's reservations about the campaign goal, and the DM knew about my IC plan (obviously, since I told some of his NPCs about it to set it up.) So the DM would have an ambush ready in the City of the Library.

So the other players would have been taken by surprise

"OK, everybody buff up. Felix casts teleport. Wait, this isn't the Lair of the Puppet Master, this is the City of the Great Library. ZZAP. WTF-why did Felix just hit me with an Enervation spell?")

My character would have died in the battle (rest of the party would have made sure of that), but unless the DM set up a TPK in the Library City, they'd still have gotten to the end-boss in another session or two, presuming they could set up transportation. (Sudden loss of ability to teleport would have been a big change in playstyle.)

KillianHawkeye
2015-03-31, 04:08 PM
See, I see "trust" in precisely the opposite light. The reason I don't mind fellow-players keeping secrets from me is precisely because I do trust them. Even when I don't trust their characters, even when they're patently engaged in double-crossing me behind my back, I trust that they're doing it fairly - which is to say that at the appropriate time, I'll be told as much as my character should know, and given the opportunity to act on that knowledge.

I agree with this 100% and, to be perfectly honest, I don't find any use in knowing about anything that my character shouldn't know about. And while I know that some people are just mentally incapable of not metagaming (which is another great reason for not telling them anything their character wouldn't know), in my case I just don't want knowledge of out-of-character information because I find it to be a needless distraction. Furthermore, since I'm already fine with being in the dark when it comes to the secret activities and abilities of the DM's villains and NPCs, it doesn't make any sense not to extend that same trust to my fellow players.

Now, I'll want to know the details of it all after the fact (just like how I'd tell my players that the vampire they just killed had an item that improved it's turn resistance or whatever), but until stuff gets revealed I would rather not ruin the surprise. One thing that I would never tolerate is somebody who demands to know something they have no right to and no business knowing.

icefractal
2015-03-31, 04:54 PM
If I was engaging in PvP? I wouldn't want to know what preparations the other character had taken. Because trying to out-plan your opponent is part of PvP, often the most fun part, and knowing what they have OOC destroys your ability to do that.

At the point their preparations are secret, you, the player, are actually planning and actually getting intellectual enjoyment out of the process. When the preparations are public, it's only the character who's planning, and your role as a player is limited to portraying that character. Not the same thing!

Beta Centauri
2015-03-31, 05:11 PM
So the solution to metagaming is meta-metagaming? Making choices for OOC reasons, in order to avoid giving others the opportunity to make choices for OOC reasons? That strikes me as - unsatisfactory. Metagaming is an OOC issue. The characters aren't the ones who have an issue with it, the players are. If a player or GM provide incentives to metagame, and those incentives are stronger than the incentives not to metagame, then that player or GM shouldn't be surprised when people metagame.


Would you care to enlarge on that? To me, it seems that anyone who says "you just have to be mature enough to not metagame" is saying exactly that, and there are quite a few people saying that in this thread. I haven't audited everyone in the thread, but from where I stand, the appropriate use of metagame knowledge is handled via roleplaying and narrative considerations. The player knows and ambush is coming, but the character fails their rolls to know and roleplays that they don't. The benefits of doing the optimal thing are traded for the benefits of roleplaying the character.

The optimal thing to do and the roleplaying thing to do aren't necessarily different of course. Players build characters who have the means to know what the player wants to know to play optimally. That's fine. If my players have an urge to act on player knowledge, but don't see a way to mesh that with the roleplaying, I'll help them find a way, so that they get to act optimally without concern.


In the first place, that's a very big "what if?" It's rare for there to be no difference between two possible actions. It's a hypothetical. I'm trying to see if there's any situation in which you would play the character as if it didn't know what you know.


In the second place... if my character is in a situation where ambushes are a possibility, then avoiding or anticipating ambushes is a part of what she'll be trying to achieve. Well, you've dodged the point entirely.


She'll gain satisfaction from conducting her team to their destination safely. She'll get insufferably smug if she (and I, together) correctly anticipate where an ambush is going to be set up, and turns the tables on the ambushers. If you just tell me where the ambush is going to be, then you deprive me of that entire dimension of fun. I don't care in the slightest about how a character feels or what they gain. A player can have fun no matter what the character is experiencing.

A player can also have fun in more than one way. An adventure might not include any surprises at all and still be very fun, so if the same adventure includes an ambush that the players know about, the fun is not decreased. It's potentially increased because the players get to engage with what's going on in the game, and have the adventure play out in a way they're interested in. One player doesn't like having to roll for surprise, so they don't have to. Another enjoys it, so that one does. Or, if someone thought turning the tables would make a good scene, that is what's described, possibly with some rolls, though, since they apparently don't want to take any risks, probably just narrated.

I don't go in much for people who talk about "story" in games, but it's not uncommon for people to be interested to see what happens when not everything goes right. Even a situation that goes disastrously wrong can be very fun to play out. D&D, at least, doesn't offer many rewards for risk, though, so there's not much sense to do anything other than prevent every possible unknown. But when the threat or risk is known players can decide to take that risk and play out that scene that sounds cool to them.

Anyway, like I said, purity of information can be easily destroyed, and it's therefore somewhat silly to rely on as either a method of storytelling or as a crutch for roleplaying. If we let people know things and assume they'll know things, the game remains fun, and players can engage and make choices without having to worry that they're forced to act one way or another.

Edit: As for trust, it's a wonderful thing, but it's fragile. Trusting someone and getting an outcome that's unpleasant reduces the amount of trust available for next time, so trust should be utilized only when necessary, and built up whenever possible. The way I see trust increased is by showing someone that they're trusted, by communicating openly. Forcing trust by keeping secrets immediately puts a strain on whatever trust their is, and even a happy secret does not necessarily repair that strain.

Full disclosure: I don't have any real respect for the "figure out their plans and turn the tables" approach in RPGs. It generally makes the enemy look like fools, which I don't care much for.

Kane0
2015-04-01, 05:12 AM
My current group does a lot of this. I think i spend about half my time as DM in the private booth listening to whatplayers are doing behind the scenes.
It works because everybody is in on it, but it comes down to trust between players at the table. I'm encouraging people to be more open because although secrets are good, sharing your characters shenanigans is even more entertaining and it frees yp my time as DM to continue the game. The more people the talk the better, amd the less likely things are going to to pear shaped because of some behind the scenes escapades or backstabbery.

BWR
2015-04-01, 08:57 AM
What... no scorpions in your group? ;-)

Joke I know, but yeah, we've had Scorpion characters. In the hands of competent players who know how the Scorpion work, no problem even if the Scorpion character is a conniving ********. In the hands of newb players who get blinded by 'zomg, cool ninjas and blackmail and evil for the greater good', they become annoying.


And yes, Meta-gaming is wrong,
I disagree. Metagaming is unavoidable and can actively make games better if done correctly. If you create characters that will work well with what the other players are making (like not insisting on playing a backstabbing CE assassin in a party of paladins), you are metagaming. If you make build and character choices that maximize the fun of the group even if they are possibly slightly out of character, you are metagaming. If you decide to go along with the adventure the GM has planned instead of striking out on your own in some other way, you are metagaming. In these cases, metagaming is a good thing. Using OOC knowledge to solve legitimate in-universe problems, like reading an adventure ahead of time or killing an important NPC the PCs don't suspect but you know is a villain, is bad metagaming.

Beta Centauri
2015-04-01, 09:05 AM
Using OOC knowledge to solve legitimate in-universe problems, like reading an adventure ahead of time or killing an important NPC the PCs don't suspect but you know is a villain, is bad metagaming. That tends to be called "cheating." It's undesirable, but the fact of it happening provides a useful signal that the game as intended isn't something that interests the player. If it was, they wouldn't have the incentive to mess it up. So, it's time for a conversation about what that player would like to be doing that they aren't going to mess up. The answer might be "nothing" in which case it's probably a good idea to part ways with them.

Kalmageddon
2015-04-01, 09:23 AM
I have to agree with the "no secret actions" camp. Players have to trust one another and never keep anything a secret unless the campaign is specifically oriented towards PvP.

BWR
2015-04-01, 11:03 AM
That tends to be called "cheating." It's undesirable, but the fact of it happening provides a useful signal that the game as intended isn't something that interests the player. If it was, they wouldn't have the incentive to mess it up. So, it's time for a conversation about what that player would like to be doing that they aren't going to mess up. The answer might be "nothing" in which case it's probably a good idea to part ways with them.

I think you're missing the point.

Beta Centauri
2015-04-01, 11:11 AM
I think you're missing the point. If the point is to figure out who is bad so we can then shun them or punish them, then I'm happy to miss it because that approach goes exactly nowhere useful.

Often when someone is cheating it's because they have some incentive to cheat. If that incentive can be removed (and it often can, if the person is one who generally tries to act in good faith) then the cheating behavior goes away.

BWR
2015-04-01, 11:59 AM
If the point is to figure out who is bad so we can then shun them or punish them, then I'm happy to miss it because that approach goes exactly nowhere useful.

Often when someone is cheating it's because they have some incentive to cheat. If that incentive can be removed (and it often can, if the person is one who generally tries to act in good faith) then the cheating behavior goes away.

No, the point was 'not all metagaming is bad'. I said so quite explicitly in the post in question.

Beta Centauri
2015-04-01, 12:20 PM
No, the point was 'not all metagaming is bad'. Right, but some of it is "bad," implying to a lot of people that the people who do it are "bad" and should be punished. I'm saying that punishment is iffy and that it's often possible to simply remove the incentive to commit the "bad" metagaming, allowing the formerly "bad" player to be a productive member of a gaming group.

BWR
2015-04-01, 01:24 PM
Right, but some of it is "bad," implying to a lot of people that the people who do it are "bad" and should be punished. I'm saying that punishment is iffy and that it's often possible to simply remove the incentive to commit the "bad" metagaming, allowing the formerly "bad" player to be a productive member of a gaming group.

You play different games with different people than I, if this works for you. If people are inclined to cheat by metagaming they will cheat by any other means as well, in my experience.

KillianHawkeye
2015-04-01, 01:48 PM
I have to agree with the "no secret actions" camp. Players have to trust one another and never keep anything a secret unless the campaign is specifically oriented towards PvP.

Well then, let me ask you this: If you trust your DM to keep secrets and plan surprises for the players, why do you not accept it when the DM includes another player in this activity? Nothing can happen in the game without the DM's approval, after all.

You claim that the only way you can trust another person is if they're always honest. That's actually the opposite of trust. To quote from the TV series Doctor Who:

The Doctor: Amy. You need to start trusting me. It's never been more important.
Amy: But you don't always tell me the truth.
The Doctor: If I always told you the truth I wouldn't need you to trust me.

You see, if everyone was forced to be honest, open, and forthright at all times, the act of trusting someone would be meaningless because you've engineered a situation devoid of risk. Simply put, allowing people to keep secrets is the very foundation of trust. If you can't do that, then just remove the word "trust" from your vocabulary now.

veti
2015-04-01, 05:14 PM
It's a hypothetical. I'm trying to see if there's any situation in which you would play the character as if it didn't know what you know.

Well, yes. But there's a difference between "suspension of disbelief" and "wilful stupidity".

In general, for instance, I have no problem playing as if I don't know that germs cause disease and washing is conducive to good health. But if, in a non-magical campaign, I'm specifically tasked with trying to protect a household from the plague, I'm going to find it very hard to ignore all the animals and fleas about the place.

If I'm an adventurer and a mysterious island with mind-bending architecture rises out of the Pacific before my astonished eyes, I'll volunteer like a shot to lead the shore party. But unless I fail a SAN check, don't expect me to stand my ground and spend round after round reloading and unloading my revolver into Great Cthulhu, in the hope that this time it'll work. (Unless, of course, I've previously decided that my character is an idiot and I don't much enjoy playing him. That's possible, but rare, because why would I be playing him in the first place if I don't like it?)

To go back to my previous example: if I'm attacked by "two orcs", with nothing to choose between them, and the DM asks me which one I'm hitting first, I'll probably start with "the nearest". But if I'm attacked by "one orc with a halberd and one with a scimitar and shield", then there's a real tactical decision to be made based on the situation, and I honestly resent being told to "just ignore" relevant information that I know and make a coin-toss instead.

Beta Centauri
2015-04-01, 05:21 PM
You play different games with different people than I, if this works for you. Have you tried it?


If people are inclined to cheat by metagaming they will cheat by any other means as well, in my experience. But do you ever ask yourself why? No one is a saint. Everyone cheats about some aspect of their lives, even people we think of as good. The reason is the incentives that are in place. Figure those out, and you can figure out how to stop that person from cheating without having to just blindly load on punishments until they either stop or are driven away.

Blackhawk748
2015-04-01, 05:33 PM
I have no problem with note passing. Mainly this is used by the DM and given to those who made a successful knowledge check or spot check or similar, but sometimes im doing something that the others dont know and id like to keep it that way, this is mostly to stop unintentional metagaming. Honestly its an option everyone can use and we all know it. I havent used it yet, and i dont really plan to, though that could change.

hiryuu
2015-04-02, 02:51 AM
You see, if everyone was forced to be honest, open, and forthright at all times, the act of trusting someone would be meaningless because you've engineered a situation devoid of risk. Simply put, allowing people to keep secrets is the very foundation of trust. If you can't do that, then just remove the word "trust" from your vocabulary now.

No one ever keeps information -from- you for your health. If you can't understand why keeping secrets from someone and treating them like a lesser being unable to handle the information you are withholding, you need to just remove the word "humane" from your vocabulary now.

BWR
2015-04-02, 03:46 AM
Have you tried it?

But do you ever ask yourself why? No one is a saint. Everyone cheats about some aspect of their lives, even people we think of as good. The reason is the incentives that are in place. Figure those out, and you can figure out how to stop that person from cheating without having to just blindly load on punishments until they either stop or are driven away.

Have I ever tried what? Removing any possibility of metagaming? No. That' ridiculous. For one thing it would mean rewriting tons of established campaign settings, which is where I run most of my games.

Have I asked why people cheat? Yes. The answer, in all cases I've experienced, is that the player wants to be awesome and doesn't like failure, yet wants the illusion of failure to seem cool (and likes the systems in question). If a game has certain rules or expectations you disagree with, the correct response is to bring it up with the group and see if you can change the rules to something you like. The correct response is not to cheat and then expect people to accommodate you if you happen to be caught.

Most importantly, where did this thing about cheating and punishment and whatnot come from? I cannot see anything in my previous posts that hinted at that, and can only assume you are imagining that I have said stuff I haven't.

Edit: On reflection I suppose one can, with some mental gymnastics, go from 'bad metagaming' to 'crime and punishment'.

goto124
2015-04-02, 04:03 AM
Tried to reduce incentives for metagaming.

Of course, you should also talk to the cheater, which will give you insight on why she doesn't feel 'cool' or 'awesome' enough with the normal rules.

Surely there's a way to give the illusion of failure without the player resorting to cheating?

And I've lost track of what 'cheating' is, and how it's different from metagaming.

KillianHawkeye
2015-04-02, 04:17 AM
No one ever keeps information -from- you for your health. If you can't understand why keeping secrets from someone and treating them like a lesser being unable to handle the information you are withholding, you need to just remove the word "humane" from your vocabulary now.

Yeah, um... just no.

Have you ever been to a surprise party? That is a great example of keeping information secret for the benefit of the unknowing party.

{scrubbed}

Trevortni
2015-04-02, 05:09 PM
I suppose this is a reasonable point to interject that the secrets I was keeping were:

a.) Discoveries I made about the DM's setting that he didn't want people to know without discovering in-character
b.) Actually advancing the plot because everybody else was ignoring the mcguffin we were taking with us everywhere
c.) Due in large part to the player who later got mad at me for keeping secrets single-handedly shutting me out from interacting with the rest of the party because the way I explained my character's backstory in the first session didn't meet with his approval

Blackhawk748
2015-04-02, 05:45 PM
I suppose this is a reasonable point to interject that the secrets I was keeping were:

a.) Discoveries I made about the DM's setting that he didn't want people to know without discovering in-character
b.) Actually advancing the plot because everybody else was ignoring the mcguffin we were taking with us everywhere
c.) Due in large part to the player who later got mad at me for keeping secrets single-handedly shutting me out from interacting with the rest of the party because the way I explained my character's backstory in the first session didn't meet with his approval

A: Legitimate reason, helps stop unintentional metagaming.
B: Again, legitimate. Unless the plot was ungodly boring or they showed zero interest, if its just apathy then good job keeping the story running.
C: LAME!!!!!!!!!!!! I dont need your approval of my PCs backtsory! Seriously i hate players like this, the DM approved it, its ok for your character to have problems but you cant control someone elses PC.

Jay R
2015-04-03, 09:11 AM
Lots of times we know things our characters don't know. But we have no business demanidng to know things our characters don't know.


No one ever keeps information -from- you for your health.

So what? There are lots of reasons to keep information from people that are not against their health, either.


If you can't understand why keeping secrets from someone and treating them like a lesser being unable to handle the information you are withholding, ...

"[K]eeping secrets from someone" and "treating them like a lesser being" do not mean the same thing. You know that, I know that; everybody reading this knows that.

I gave two examples in the thread above. I didn't tell the players that Cal Yang was actually Marshall Cal Young in disguise, simply because the characters didn't know that he was Marshal Cal Young in disguise. And I didn't tell them that Hyperion was back from the dead because their characters didn't know that he was back from the dead. That has nothing to do with "treating them like a lesser being" or being "unable to handle the information"; it was just correct roleplay.

There are lots of reasons to withhold information from people, but the only one that matters here is this one: if the character doesn't have the information, the player has no reason to know the information.

In reality, the character has lots of information that the player doesn't, and we use knowledge rolls to deal with that awkward fact. Often, people have information their characters don't know. That puts us in the awkward situation of having to avoid metagaming. It's not great, but it's something we can deal with.

But ideally, the player is making decisions based on the knowledge set the character has.

You will sometimes know things your character doesn't know. But demanding to know things that your character cannot get in-game is the same act as demanding to see the DM's notes about the upcoming adventure.

It may happen that you accidentally learn it, and we'll all do our best to work around that fact. But you certainly have no right to know it.


... you need to just remove the word "humane" from your vocabulary now.

That was fast. You started this sentence by opposing the idea of treating other gamers as lesser beings, and end it by stating that everybody who disagrees with you is below the level allowed to use the word "humane".

oxybe
2015-04-04, 12:29 AM
I just started playing 5th ed. Had our 2nd session on Thursday.

Some of the characters and players are already hiding their plans, histories and whatnot from one another already. The party mage, who's from a family of nobles with as many daggers hidden behind their backs as the ones being inserted in each other's, is wary of my druid, who's got a very clear ideology: respect others' lifestyles and customs as long as you're not hurting them, and we butted heads in the second session where I refused to go further in a tomb and plunder from it, after having returned an heirloom-type object to a distraught spirit and let it have it's vengeance on the culprit. The criminal stole from the tomb, disrespecting the feelings of not just the people who entombed the dead but the dead themselves who earned their rest, to the point where they came back as spirits. My character was content that the spirit was laid to rest without issue, justice served and balance restored. But the noble, greedy at the possibility of not-rusted plunder, wanted to go further down. I refused and left the tomb, the party monk in tow, and left the mage, the rogue and the paladin behind, the latter of which was unsure if he should go with us or stay with them to protect the other charges of any danger that might arise (which something did, an animated sword when they touched the wrong thing).

Now, the noble's player has made it clear his character is not a nice fellow and has plans within plans, but until he actively does something to incite my character I could care less what he's planning in or out of character. Heck, I don't want him to tell me. It's no fun knowing this stuff. He's raised a warning flag, but all it's warranted for now is a stern in-character lecture: he can still be "redeemed" and brought to a better path.

Now, that's not to say my character is above reproach. He's a dwarf, who grew up in dwarven culture of craftsmanship, greedy moneylending and strong filial responsibility and left it for various reasons, mainly them imposing their beliefs and values on him and they didn't mesh. But he's still got a bit of that moneylender in him: he innately began handling the party gold and splits it evenly in 6 shares (one for each party member and one for the "group" so if a major purchase is required, we have money aside). But I take the occasional hidden "administrative fees" on top of my share. If we get 170gp, everyone gets a 28gp share and I take the 2gp left over on top after splitting it. One GP more on that total and it would have been split 28.5gp each with no fees but 2gp doesn't split 6 ways right, and I am the one who's putting his reputation on the line selling this stuff... I don't actively let the party know this and anyone who would look over my shoulder or do basic math post-split, knowing how much in loot we got would realize there are a few silver here and there left unaccounted for, but it's in a small amount that doesn't hurt.

Doubly so since I end up buying healing kits and medicine, being the main healer of the group, using said funds. Or so my character justifies it to himself... he's still a mortal, with all their failings, after all.

But neither my actions or the nobles have hurt anyone.

In our main Pathfinder campaign, Nisha, my tiefling witch, specifically remodeled an old abbey we found outside and away from any town specifically so she could do her stuff hidden away from prying eyes. A lot of it is done on a whim: the party barbarian wished off-hand to become a theriantrope and I offered him a way, but we had to do this behind the party cleric, who would likely disagree with turning the big angry man into a big, angry tiger man. But a lot of it is also done to protect others as well as my privacy: I do research on fey, demons and otherworldly creatures that regularly threaten our land and for the most part my actions are done for the sake of the people under the party's protection: an entire kingdom. The populace might not like how I go about things and fear me, but I do the acts that others, like the cleric, cannot do in the open or even in hiding (as it would destroy his rep with the people if it came to light). I'm the bad cop to his good cop and while they might not agree with my methods, after 15 levels of play, they trust me and know my curses and necromancy are primed and ready for their benefit. That most farmers couldn't really deal with the stuff I work with and survive. Some of this stuff is downright nasty if you're not prepared and if something escapes we're far enough from farmland that I can teleport to the nearest PC, give them a warning and get us on the hunt. Thankfully my preventative measures have yet to cause this to be required.

So yeah, I'm all for secret actions. But with a caveat: as long as you're not hurting anyone.

The one or two gold pieces I pocket in 5th ed doesn't really matter much as the list of things you may want to buy with it is limited, and while Nisha is of sketchy character, her actions are either of benign or beneficial to the party (for the most part). The party doesn't need to know about the experimentation I'm doing on the Dominated enemy cyclops chained in my basement and if something good comes out of it, well then i'll bring it up at the next kingdom council meeting.

But if you're actively secretly planning to destroy the party from the inside, that's not cool. Not because it's being done in secret but because it's disruptive to group play.

In an older campaign, me and another player (the guy GMing the 5th ed game) came to an agreement: if my character dies and his is around, his will do everything in his power to stop mine from being revived. It made sense in character and I was all for it. We discussed this beforehand and I was cool with this, so when my character eventually died I would already have another ready. Now, his character wasn't around when mine did die, so when the cleric revived me he had no one around to argue and stop him from doing so. But I had that secondary PC ready to drop in.

This sort of action, while PVP in nature, was not disruptive because he was open about his potentially disruptive actions. It would have been a different story if he had done so entirely in secret however.

So yeah, if you're going to do something that may disrupt play: be open about it and discuss it with the people it will affect. If it's not going to be disruptive, then I trust you enough to let you hide whatever you want.

#1 rule of social gatherings, be it sporting events, dinner parties or D&D: Don't be a jerk. Follow this rule and keeping secrets are fine.

Gavran
2015-04-04, 02:31 AM
That was fast. You started this sentence by opposing the idea of treating other gamers as lesser beings, and end it by stating that everybody who disagrees with you is below the level allowed to use the word "humane".

You kind of missed the point here, Jay R. That's a response to this:


If you can't do that, then just remove the word "trust" from your vocabulary now.

Not that two absurdly declarative and condescending demands about who can know and understand certain words make a right, as it were, but I don't think it's fair to ignore the instigator and call out the instigated.

TheCountAlucard
2015-04-04, 02:54 AM
2gp doesn't split 6 ways right…Sure it does! Just cut the coins into thirds. :smallamused:

KillianHawkeye
2015-04-04, 12:04 PM
Not that two absurdly declarative and condescending demands about who can know and understand certain words make a right, as it were, but I don't think it's fair to ignore the instigator and call out the instigated.

Hey, it's not my fault if somebody uses the word "trust" to describe the exact opposite of trusting someone, is it? Anyway, Jay R's comment seemed to be more about the hypocritical nature of the post, a fault that mine did not share.

oxybe
2015-04-04, 12:25 PM
Sure it does! Just cut the coins into thirds. :smallamused:

Just cut the coins into thirds?

CUT THE COINS? INTO THIRDS?!

Do you know the difficulty of minting coins? The care needed to make sure that it looks correctly and is weighted correctly for circulation? Why when I was apprenticing at my my Great-Uncle Nestor Axehammer at the Dourstone Mint...

/long and tiresome dwarven rant on the nature of making coins and working soft metals

Blackhawk748
2015-04-04, 01:00 PM
Just cut the coins into thirds?

CUT THE COINS? INTO THIRDS?!

Do you know the difficulty of minting coins? The care needed to make sure that it looks correctly and is weighted correctly for circulation? Why when I was apprenticing at my my Great-Uncle Nestor Axehammer at the Dourstone Mint...

/long and tiresome dwarven rant on the nature of making coins and working soft metals

Puts Anti-Rant TM earplugs in. Only 9 cp!! Available now at your local Adventuring Store!!

KillianHawkeye
2015-04-04, 05:09 PM
The funny thing is that cutting coins used to be a common practice back in the days when a coin was only worth the material it was made from.

oxybe
2015-04-04, 05:30 PM
Yeah, but it also used to be that you were hung, drowned or burned for practicing spellcraft, but here we are, magical elves and all. :smalltongue:

And yeah, i know about the practice of coin cutting, but my PC is a dwarf. I'm pretty sure cutting a coin in a dwarven land would be heresay. They're moneylenders and minters made of beards and iron that hold grudges that go through families. Never insult a dwarf: your grand-kids will hate you for it.

Keltest
2015-04-04, 05:34 PM
Yeah, but it also used to be that you were hung, drowned or burned for practicing spellcraft, but here we are, magical elves and all. :smalltongue:

And yeah, i know about the practice of coin cutting, but my PC is a dwarf. I'm pretty sure cutting a coin in a dwarven land would be heresay. They're moneylenders and minters made of beards and iron that hold grudges that go through families. Never insult a dwarf: your grand-kids will hate you for it.

Im pretty sure cutting a coin in dwarfland would be theft, or perhaps a refusal to pay your debts, like it is in most other places where you owe someone money and then refuse to pay it. I hear they like to cut off body parts for that.

hiryuu
2015-04-04, 05:52 PM
Not that two absurdly declarative and condescending demands about who can know and understand certain words make a right, as it were, but I don't think it's fair to ignore the instigator and call out the instigated.

Shoulda put my absurd demand in blue just so it was clear I knew the demand was absurd T_T

KillianHawkeye
2015-04-04, 08:50 PM
Shoulda put my absurd demand in blue just so it was clear I knew the demand was absurd T_T

Nah, no need to give the other players in this discussion all the information that you have. Don't you "trust" us not to metaconverse? :smallamused:

hiryuu
2015-04-04, 09:19 PM
Nah, no need to give the other players in this discussion all the information that you have. Don't you "trust" us not to metaconverse? :smallamused:

*gigglesnort*

Anywho, should contribute meaningfully somehow.

In L5R? Note-passing is damn near essential. But not for the reasons people think. i.e. not Scorpion reasons. It's complicated.

It's also super-helpful in investigate-heavy games, like Trail of Cthulhu. I also note-pass if people have high Perception abilities and low Wisdom-like stuff. Or if someone's going crazy. I also pass notes like "look at [player 2] and say 'huh' like it's a funny revelation, then write something below and pass the note back."

In D&D? Depends. Note passing has this weird tendency to result in people dying (I've played with so many absolutely awful people that "NO NOTES" is a thing), and it's not conducive to most storytelling efforts in a game where everyone is cooperating.

...this has led to one of my homebrew settings having a thing called "fessring:" the night after getting together with someone new, isos ("adventurers) get together in the woods, starting a fire, and sitting around it. Anything anyone says during fessring will never be mentioned again, and after that point, there is expected honesty among the party at all times. They don't care if you're an assassin, or if someone's going to try to assassinate you, or if you owe someone money, or if you're a heretic - none of anything matters. Your past cannot be your enemy during fessring - or after, if you fessed (people only want to know if the mob is after you, so that way when the mob catches up to you, your party knows what's happening). On the other hand, if that honesty is broken, there is no "strike" system, the oathbreaker dies and is dumped unceremoniously in the woods, un-cremated, and death gods are bribed to leave them to suffer for a while. But they've had an adventuring culture for thousands of years, and the jerks have largely been weeded out.

Earthwalker
2015-04-07, 05:17 AM
I have very strong opinions about note passing, and secret information.
So much so I am not going to explain them in this thread I am instead going to send a PM to a moderator.

Jay R
2015-04-07, 09:45 AM
I have very strong opinions about note passing, and secret information.
So much so I am not going to explain them in this thread I am instead going to send a PM to a moderator.

Fine. Anything that's just between you and the mods is something I don't have to deal with. And since I trust you, I assume that anything you need to do to save my character, you will do.

TheCountAlucard
2015-04-07, 10:42 AM
Heck, even when rulers would introduce less-valuable metals, such as iron or even lead into his currency, people still cut coins. The fact of the matter was that oftentimes, coins were in too short a supply for people to be able to just expect someone to make change for their purchase. Chopping the coin into four bits is just easier.

Gravitron5000
2015-04-07, 12:00 PM
Fine. Anything that's just between you and the mods is something I don't have to deal with. And since I trust you, I assume that anything you need to do to save my character, you will do.

I think this is the clearest invite for character assassination that I have ever encountered :smallwink:

GrayGriffin
2015-04-07, 02:02 PM
One of the players in my weekly game does a lot of stuff in secret. Since we game on roll20 and the DM saves and publishes the logs, we can see what he whispers there, but they also do a lot of stuff through Skype. However, we mostly trust him to not actually sabotage the party. Plus, he and the DM seem to go back a ways, so I also trust our DM's judgment of his secret activities not being actively disruptive.

...although his character did just "die" in the last session.

Jay R
2015-04-08, 09:38 AM
I think this is the clearest invite for character assassination that I have ever encountered :smallwink:

Only if you play with people who aren't trustworthy.

Kavos D.
2015-04-10, 07:47 AM
Almost all of the things that happen in "Murder, Lies and Civic Duty." (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?384134-quot-Murder-Lies-and-Civic-Duty-quot-a-Pathfinder-Campaign-Journal) wouldn't be possible without player secrets. In fact, there have been entire sessions where we're individually sending the DM secret messages. I mean it works for us. Every session is always a blast but I can't speak for other groups, Kid Jake is just awesome at what he does.

In other games I've been involved in, secrets just wouldn't work - especially if its in a face to face game. Texting makes you look distracted, whispering is distracting, and knowing there is a secret going on, but not being involved in it is pretty disengaging. Roll20 fixes most of those problems, but there's still the occasional forgetting to whisper, revealing anything you wanted to surprise people with. Then it comes back to the DM, it really depends on how they want to do things. If they're not interested in the inter-party intrigue, or don't want to juggle the cloaks and daggers, just don't do it.

GungHo
2015-04-13, 09:44 AM
I have very strong opinions about note passing, and secret information.
So much so I am not going to explain them in this thread I am instead going to send a PM to a moderator.

This made me laugh. Thank you.