This side-quest seems completely impossible for my player, any ideas?

[Jon_Dahl]

There's an important NPC in my game who runs a secret society. The first thing you have to do in order to enter the society is to tell an important secret that could be used to support the cause of Good or be used against Evil. The secret must be very, very secret, and not even the adventuring companions or closest associates of the candidate may know the secret.

My players have tried this twice already and it seems impossible. Any ideas? Their levels are around 9.

[Khedrac]

Make something up?

There's no way we can suggest much for this as it is way too character (and to a lesser extent) world dependent.

Also how does the NPC know that one hasn't told anyone else?
What's more the "could be used to support the cause of Good or could be used against Evil" clause is stupid. Very few people will know a secret like this, and if they do the chances are that they will have discovered it though their work (adventuring) and therefore their colleagues will know it too... I would also think that most people who do know a secret like this may not be aware that it does fit the criteria.
E.g. They may have noticed that Jack always uses the same cubicle when using the lavatory in the local coffee shop, but is quite secretive about it. They don't know that Jack is a lich and that is about the only clue there is to his phylactery's hiding place. Result - they know a secret that qualifies, but have no idea that they do.

Add in that this is a RPG - if you are playing tabletop the chance for characters to discover something that the rest of the part won't know (or won't be shared with them) is much much smaller. Basically the "make something up" is probably the only way that they can meet the criteria.
I would be surprised if there is anyone in this "secret society" other than the founder.

[Deeds]

I'm having trouble understanding what you're asking. Are the players supposed to:
a) present the society with previously unknown information (example: the whereabouts of a magical sword: a/the Holy Avenger)
b) present the society with something that the PC's simply don't know: even once they tell the NPC. (example: an unopened chest that belonged to a late saint. May or may not contain a McGuffin for fighting evil.)

The first one is simple enough. The second one seems silly. I'd probably just give the society a scroll of Legend Lore and tell them to knock themselves out.

Edit: grammer and stuff

[Barstro]

My players have tried this twice already and it seems impossible. Any ideas? Their levels are around 9.

If the players have tried something open-ended twice, then it's time to look beyond the players. This style of puzzle is inherently bad because you are trying to solicit things from players about their character that even their characters probably do not know. Your puzzle is specifically bad because it presumes that the characters have some incredible way to help Good that they have not shared. The ONLY way someone has something that can help Good that much that he has kept to himself is because that person is completely evil (and rather high up in the ranks to obtain such knowledge).

I concur with the others that the "riddle" you posed has no obvious answer and no obvious starting point to find an answer. Were I at your table, I would have tuned out after my first attempt to move the game along from this dead end. That's not a knock on you; it's a rather common thing that each of us has knowledge or considers a particular thing easy that are downright impossible for others to know/do. Unless you provide many clues in your adventure, there is simply no way for someone to solve a game-specific riddle you created.

[Jon_Dahl]

Well, if I were doing this mission, I'd try to make friends with an important NPC and try to share information with him or her ("If I tell you where we found the red dragon's nest, will you tell me something in return? Something interesting that I could use in my quest for greater good, you know...") or I would interrogate an evil humanoid prisoner in an exotic language or with Tongues spell and not share all the information I gain with my comrades.

Is this REALLY that hard?

[Adrayll]

and not share all the information I gain with my comrades.


If I'm understanding you correctly, you're asking each player to have a separate secret to tell this NPC. One secret per player, unknown to all other players?

1) Have you adequately described this scenario the players? Are they aware that the other players aren't supposed to know what their admission ticket secret is?

2) Two are you giving the players the appropriate space in-game to actually do this successfully? Either separate sessions or note passing or what have you so that each player has some solo time to find a solo secret?

3) How do your players, in character, know what qualifies are a proper secret?

[Jon_Dahl]

If I'm understanding you correctly, you're asking each player to have a separate secret to tell this NPC. One secret per player, unknown to all other players?

Yes, that's it.


1) Have you adequately described this scenario the players? Are they aware that the other players aren't supposed to know what their admission ticket secret is?

Yes.


2) Two are you giving the players the appropriate space in-game to actually do this successfully? Either separate sessions or note passing or what have you so that each player has some solo time to find a solo secret?

Whatever the players want, I'm game. Normally we play... normally. Everyone together, everyone says what they do in front of everyone.


3) How do your players, in character, know what qualifies are a proper secret?

They can't know that for sure. The NPC will decide that. Life is full of risks, you know.

[Arbane]

They can't know that for sure. The NPC will decide that. Life is full of risks, you know.

Sounfs like the PCs need to make a successful Telepathy check against YOU to get anywhere with this.

[Jon_Dahl]

Sounfs like the PCs need to make a successful Telepathy check against YOU to get anywhere with this.

Are you sure?


Well, if I were doing this mission, I'd try to make friends with an important NPC and try to share information with him or her ("If I tell you where we found the red dragon's nest, will you tell me something in return? Something interesting that I could use in my quest for greater good, you know...") or I would interrogate an evil humanoid prisoner in an exotic language or with Tongues spell and not share all the information I gain with my comrades.

Is this REALLY that hard?

And if the information is not good enough, use it to your own advantage (shouldn't be that difficult) and get better information.

[Zaq]

Well, if I were doing this mission, I'd try to make friends with an important NPC and try to share information with him or her ("If I tell you where we found the red dragon's nest, will you tell me something in return? Something interesting that I could use in my quest for greater good, you know...") or I would interrogate an evil humanoid prisoner in an exotic language or with Tongues spell and not share all the information I gain with my comrades.

Is this REALLY that hard?

Honestly? Yeah, this is "that hard."

First off, if something can't even be known by your adventuring companions (people you very literally trust with your life on a daily basis, often in the course of 3-5 life-or-death encounters per day—there are very few deeper bonds of trust than an adventuring party who's been working together for a long time), why is it okay for it to be known by an NPC? It seems completely arbitrary to me that a secret that an NPC is willing to share (so at least one other person knows it, and that one other person is willing to tell YOU, so it can't be that secret) can qualify as "very, very secret," but a secret that you found with your adventuring party is insufficiently secret.

The idea of interrogating a prisoner "in an exotic language" makes very little sense. (First, there's the fact that if the evil NPC knew a given piece of information, that's info that at least two people know, so we're back to my previous paragraph, but let's move on. And I'm also assuming that you're interrogating in a non-Evil way.) Like, you could technically construct a scenario where something like that would happen (the prisoner speaks a language that only one party member speaks, and that party member shares some of the information gathered with the party and keeps some information to themself to fulfill this Super Secret Quest?), but you could never PLAN for it, and it still doesn't seem like something anyone would actually ever do. You said the secret has to be something that can advance the cause of capital-G Good, so we're probably looking at capital-G Good people trying to get this secret and enter this secret club, right? Now, Good takes many forms, and Good does not always mean "socially nice," but still, if someone is Good enough to want to get into this presumably Good-aligned club for the sake of the cause of Good, it doesn't make sense to me that this Good person would selfishly withhold this valuable information (remember, you said it has to "support the cause of Good," so we're looking at actionable information, not just who the Evil guy had a crush on when he was 13) from their comrades in arms just for the sake of getting into the club. This is doubly true when the club is a "secret society," so this potential new recruit doesn't actually know what the club does or how it can help them. (I mean, unless it's a really lousy secret society, but if they're going to be this picky about what secrets can qualify you to get in, I would hope that they're pretty secretive about what they actually do.)

I mean really, think about it. You know that this club exists, but you don't know what they actually do, what kind of resources it can offer its members, how large or effective it actually is, or really anything other than that it's nominally Good-aligned. You are yourself sufficiently invested in the cause of Good that you're seeking out actionable information that can help with that. You come across a weird scenario that allows you to get some actionable Good-helping information that you can choose to share with your party or not. Is it more in keeping with the typical Good mindset to share this information with your trusted friends (who you know are both willing and able to help you in your endeavors) or to selfishly hoard it in the hopes of getting you (and only you) into a secret club that may or may not actually be able to help you?

(I'm not convinced that Tongues would let you set up a scenario where you could conduct this interrogation that your friends can't understand. Even if it does work, I can't fathom why you ever WOULD do that sort of thing. Or how you'd get your friends to agree to it, since there's no benefit to "hey, we got this informant together, but I'm going to insist that we interrogate him in a way where only one of us can actually help or can actually gain information out of him. Why? No reason, let's just do it." That's like if you invited everyone to dinner but insisted that everyone but you be blindfolded. Not as part of a murder mystery party or anything. Just blindfolded. It's weird and antisocial at best and profoundly suspicious at worst.)

So yeah. Honestly, I do think this would be "that hard." The restrictions seem arbitrary at best, you seem to be self-selecting against the typical Good mindset, and if the secret society is actually good at being secret, the characters trying to get in shouldn't really know why they should care enough to jump through these counterintuitive hoops.

[Jon_Dahl]

You seem to be questioning the motivation to do the side-quest more than its difficulty.

[Deeds]

3) How do your players, in character, know what qualifies are a proper secret?
They can't know that for sure. The NPC will decide that. Life is full of risks, you know

Do not do this. Why would you intentionally spin the PC's wheels anyway? As a player, if our group went through the trouble of jumping through all these hoops only to be told one or two of our secrets weren't good enough then I'd stop caring about the quest and the campaign.

[Jon_Dahl]

Do not do this. Why would you intentionally spin the PC's wheels anyway? As a player, if our group went through the trouble of jumping through all these hoops only to be told one or two of our secrets weren't good enough then I'd stop caring about the quest and the campaign.

I will not do this intentionally. The thing is that this is completely a sandbox adventure. I will be flexible when the time comes, there's no doubt about it, but there has to be a reasonable limit.

[Toilet Cobra]

You seem to be questioning the motivation to do the side-quest more than its difficulty.

I question both. If the npc said "You must help us solve a mystery relating to a great evil so it may be destroyed" I could sort of see that. The land has been plagued by zombies for centuries? Find out why, help us do something about it, and voila! You're in the club. Good quest and an official membership ring for everybody.

If you find out something relating to an evil whatever, and you keep it secret even from your allies, you're mostly just helping ensure that if something happens to you, the evil will go on unimpeded. You should tell as many qualified, good-aligned adventurers as you possibly can to increase the chances something gets done.

In fact, I'm starting to see the logic of an evil NPC doing this. Is he going to kill the player and move his phylactery once the player actually manages to find it?

[Coidzor]

There's an important NPC in my game who runs a secret society. The first thing you have to do in order to enter the society is to tell an important secret that could be used to support the cause of Good or be used against Evil. The secret must be very, very secret, and not even the adventuring companions or closest associates of the candidate may know the secret.

My players have tried this twice already and it seems impossible. Any ideas? Their levels are around 9.

Your options are either loosening the restrictions or allowing the ability to satisfy them.

Or admitting that you don't want them joining.

At any rate, stop acting in bad faith.

[Adrayll]

This seems to be straying into accusatory territory. Maybe a better way to see how we can help:

You mentioned your party have failed to be admitted to this group twice. How specifically did they fail the first two times?

[icefractal]

You said the secret has to be something that can advance the cause of capital-G Good, so we're probably looking at capital-G Good people trying to get this secret and enter this secret club, right? Now, Good takes many forms, and Good does not always mean "socially nice," but still, if someone is Good enough to want to get into this presumably Good-aligned club for the sake of the cause of Good, it doesn't make sense to me that this Good person would selfishly withhold this valuable information (remember, you said it has to "support the cause of Good," so we're looking at actionable information, not just who the Evil guy had a crush on when he was 13) from their comrades in arms just for the sake of getting into the club. From the description, I'm not so sure this is a good-aligned organization. It sounds rather like a group of Vecna followers, in fact. Take a secret that could really help good / hurt evil, and then sequester it so that nobody but you and the inner circles knows? Keep that secret far from the ears of the paladins who could benefit from it? And demonstrate in the process that you value hoarding and bartering with secrets more than you do the trust of your companions? Sounds pretty Vecna-approved. :smallwink:

If that's the case, then the admission requirements sound fine ... but I wouldn't expect the entire party to get in, more like one or two people. If the entire group is hell-bent on getting access, they're going to need either some extremely good luck, a very long time, or forcing their way in through other methods.

[Marlowe]

"The plastic tips at the ends of shoelaces are called aglets. Their true purpose is sinister."

[Telonius]

Outside the box thought ... everybody knows at least one secret. It's the deepest, darkest secret about yourself; the one that you've never admitted to anyone else. Could be the one thing you're terrified of losing, or a crime that no one knew you committed, or the one thing you would never, ever do. Since we're dealing with adventurers - who are presumably going to be in the service of either Good or Evil - any such secret about themselves should qualify. If the players could treat this as some sort of Super-Confession, that ought to get their feet in the door. Also consider that any Secret Society probably needs some initial dirt on their members, to ensure that the Secret Society stays a secret society - this could very well be the entrance fee.

I'd drop some hints that they don't even need to leave the room to provide a secret.

[Crake]

I think the real crux of the issue here is a) why must the secret be so closely held, even from their adventuring party (who they likely trust with absolutely everything) and b) What is a "secret that furthers the cause of good"? If it furthers the cause of good, wouldn't keeping it a secret be a bad thing? Why the secrecy for the cause of good? Unless it's an evil organization and they want to supress the acts of good? It just seems overly convoluted, and why would anyone actually want to join such an organization?

[Jon_Dahl]

Of course the secret society is secretly evil, that's obvious, but I didn't want to say that in the OP since my players might read this. Come on guys.....

[Comet]

The obvious solution is for the players to go "guys, we need one secret for each of us that the others can't know about, let's go our separate ways and meet back here in six months once we've all found one."

And then you're running four or five separate games instead of one which might or might not be cool, I dunno.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Two points come to mind, in light of this most recent post;

1) We can't help you if you don't give us a clear and accurate picture of the situation. If everyone that's posted so far were to turn around and say, "you're on your own," after this latest revelation, I wouldn't blame them in the least.

2) Need-to-know info is just as useful a tool for good as it is for evil. Knowledge is power and that power gets diluted as the information spreads, so I get why any organization would be keen on limiting its flow. However, to all appeareces this group seems, at least ATM, to be an information dead-end. They take in information, say "not good enough" and send the gulls on their merry way.

If the latter is the case, you probably need to lay down some clues for the party that this is the case and that it's part of the plot (sandbox makes this dubious but there it is). If not, you need to be -much- clearer on what it is you're seeking here. Do you even know, yourself?

I'll be happy to help you get from point A to point B, since this cloak and dagger stuff is my bread and butter, but you can't devise a route between A and B until you know where B lies.

[Jon_Dahl]

Two points come to mind, in light of this most recent post;

1) We can't help you if you don't give us a clear and accurate picture of the situation. If everyone that's posted so far were to turn around and say, "you're on your own," after this latest revelation, I wouldn't blame them in the least.

2) Need-to-know info is just as useful a tool for good as it is for evil. Knowledge is power and that power gets diluted as the information spreads, so I get why any organization would be keen on limiting its flow. However, to all appeareces this group seems, at least ATM, to be an information dead-end. They take in information, say "not good enough" and send the gulls on their merry way.

If the latter is the case, you probably need to lay down some clues for the party that this is the case and that it's part of the plot (sandbox makes this dubious but there it is). If not, you need to be -much- clearer on what it is you're seeking here. Do you even know, yourself?

I'll be happy to help you get from point A to point B, since this cloak and dagger stuff is my bread and butter, but you can't devise a route between A and B until you know where B lies.

Thank you, Kelb, you seem a rather agreeable fellow. This has been a sandbox side-quest so far. The players adventure in all sorts of places and meet all sorts of people and creatures. Anything can happen and happens. Just recently they've been to the planes. Since this is a sandbox adventure, I wait for the players to make the first move and go with that. I'm ready to meet them half way. But there's no first move. What seeking is very simple:
1. The PC must know useful but very secretive secret.
2. The PC must do something to get this secret. I'm talking about taking the initiative.
The PC is unable to do this. Within the framework of the campaign world, I have limitless ways to help the situation in-game.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Thank you, Kelb, you seem a rather agreeable fellow. This has been a sandbox side-quest so far. The players adventure in all sorts of places and meet all sorts of people and creatures. Anything can happen and happens. Just recently they've been to the planes. Since this is a sandbox adventure, I wait for the players to make the first move and go with that. I'm ready to meet them half way. But there's no first move. What seeking is very simple:
1. The PC must know useful but very secretive secret.
2. The PC must do something to get this secret. I'm talking about taking the initiative.
The PC is unable to do this. Within the framework of the campaign world, I have limitless ways to help the situation in-game.

For clarity's sake; what criteria are you using to decide whether a secret is good enough to gain membership in this cabal (I'm calling it a cabal now). If you trust your players not to peek, what are the cabal's goals? Do they have any intenion of extending a real membership to the applicants or are they screening for useful pawns and pattsies?

A sandbox is an interesting way to do things but players sometimes still need a nudge in the form of an obvious plot-hook or three. Which way do you -want- them to go with this? Proactive goal-setting is a laudable skill and the desire to develop that skill is a good quality to have but it's not something everyone has and even those that have it can't engage it constantly.

The most imporant aspect to a successful sandbox, IMO, is for the NPC actors to have clearly defined goals and loosely defined plans to enact those goals with the expectation that the PC's, a wild-card in those plans that couldn't be accounted for, won't be involved. The second most important is being able to scatter around plot-hooks to let the players get wind of these plans fairly easily (red-herrings sprinkled about to taste). Then it's just a matter of deciding how these actors react to the PC's (initially) unexpected interference. Proactive players will snap at these plot-hooks like hungry pirahna. Less proactive players will have to be beat over the head with them from time to time. Entirely reactive players don't do too terribly well in sandbox and something more structured might be in order.

[Jon_Dahl]

For clarity's sake; what criteria are you using to decide whether a secret is good enough to gain membership in this cabal (I'm calling it a cabal now). If you trust your players not to peek, what are the cabal's goals? Do they have any intenion of extending a real membership to the applicants or are they screening for useful pawns and pattsies?
.

Not good enough:
- something that a simple roll (knowledge check while sitting at home, GI at the market place) could reveal as well.
- something that you can't realistically use. For anything.

Good enough:
- something useful
- something less useful but interesting (you need interesting stuff in a cabal)

Knowing the names of all the orcish clans would not be good enough.
Knowing the full name of the shaman of the largest orcish clan would be.

Makes sense?

[Yahzi]

One secret per player, unknown to all other players
...
everyone says what they do in front of everyone.

These seem to be mutually incompatible.

If I were one of your players, I would pay a Rogue to make a Gather Information check. If that failed, I would then tell the super secret guy that my secret was this: Good was about to lose an ally, and the only defense was for that ally to Stop Being A Jerkwad. Then I would take my dagger out and clean my nails with it, while delivering baleful stares.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Not good enough:
- something that a simple roll (knowledge check while sitting at home, GI at the market place) could reveal as well.
- something that you can't realistically use. For anything.

Good enough:
- something useful
- something less useful but interesting (you need interesting stuff in a cabal)

Knowing the names of all the orcish clans would not be good enough.
Knowing the full name of the shaman of the largest orcish clan would be.

Whether a thing is useful or not is largely a function of goals. That shaman's name is just a handful of useless syllables unless it gives you some way to either leverage him; e.g. it's a name that he used with a different, failed tribe that largely blames him for the failure and he doesn't want his current compatriots to know about; or its something you can trade to someone more interested than you; e.g. the shaman and his tribe are planning to attack a neighbor and you can pass his name along to that neighbor's resident wizard for some form of arcane attack that requires naming the target such as nightmare or sicking a called minion on him specifically. If he can't do anything for you (leverage) and you don't know anyone who is both willing and able to act on this info, then it's nothing. This goes for any piece of information. If it's not directly actionable and it's not something that can be sold to someone for whom it is actionable, it's not useful.

Interesting is entirely subjective and amounts to "I feel like this counts" rather than any concrete criterium.




Makes sense?

Honestly, it sounds like you're still hedging.

Either you don't trust your players not to be peeking, you haven't really fleshed out this cabal sufficiently to determine what's actually useful to them, or you don't trust the playground to help you. Not much I can do about the first or last of those, but I'm doing what I can on the other.

[The Glyphstone]

Any chance your players have figured out OOC the secret you're trying to keep, but just haven't told you? If they have worked out that the Totally Not An Evil Cult of Vecna, Guys Society is more sinister than they try to let on, they might be trying to earn entry to follow this side-quest while doing as little damage to the actual cause of Good as they can by giving low-value information.

[Jon_Dahl]

Either you don't trust your players not to be peeking, you haven't really fleshed out this cabal sufficiently to determine what's actually useful to them, or you don't trust the playground to help you. Not much I can do about the first or last of those, but I'm doing what I can on the other.

I choose the bolded option. I will flesh out the cabal when it's more relevant. I hate to flesh out something that my players will never access. I hope you understand.

The shaman's name can be used for scrying. You can scry the shaman when you have it's name. You can send it a message, somehow (Planar Binding?) and make your ally/enemy/fishing pal. The cabal can do lots of stuff... Even though it's not fleshed out. Just look at the spell lists. Yes, all of them. I'm sure that the name of the shaman is a little bit relevant.


Any chance your players have figured out OOC the secret you're trying to keep, but just haven't told you? If they have worked out that the Totally Not An Evil Cult of Vecna, Guys Society is more sinister than they try to let on, they might be trying to earn entry to follow this side-quest while doing as little damage to the actual cause of Good as they can by giving low-value information.

Yes, sure. But I will not ask them about this out of courtesy. Let them be smart if they are.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Then we've identified the source of the problem. You've assigned the players with an open-ended task with no real idea of what woud constitute a successful completion of that task. Your players are finding this side-quest impossible because that's exactly what it is.

Either flesh it out or scrap it on a retcon. No progress can be made until you choose one or the other, end of story. Anything as broadly useful as your example -is- just a GI check away and anything more specifically useful requires more specific goals than to simply gather useful secrets. You've painted yourself into a corner here. If you're looking to get some ideas from your players in the secrets they're presenting you need to make it clear that they should be making crap up for you to run with, otherwise you're just faffing about uselessly and complaining about how useless your faffing is.

[Jon_Dahl]

Fair enough. I just hate to work on the cabal without knowing that it will have a major role.

Edit: But hey! I just realized something! My work will not be in vain, because at least you guys will read it and I get to share with you! So even if my work on the cabal will have no role in the game, at least I can share it with you. Brilliant!

[Kelb_Panthera]

You don't need a lot of detail to make this workable.

You have a shadowy cabal of (presumably) vecna worshippers. LE types for the most part, I'd wager. Typical goals for such a group would be to install a puppet regime in the local government, steal arcane* secrets from any/all of the local mage academies/ magic focused churches, eliminate rival intelligence groups, undermine good and chaotic faiths, etc and so on.

Any of those leap out at you as something you'd like to pursue as a side-plot?

*arcane in the english language sense rather than the game keyword sense

[Barstro]

Of course the secret society is secretly evil, that's obvious, but I didn't want to say that in the OP since my players might read this. Come on guys.....
As I stated in my first post; "obvious" to you does not mean obvious to everyone. If your entire puzzle is based on "A", then the fact that your players do not know "A" prevents them from moving forward.


Well, if I were doing this mission, I'd try to make friends with an important NPC and try to share information with him or her ("If I tell you where we found the red dragon's nest, will you tell me something in return? Something interesting that I could use in my quest for greater good, you know...") or I would interrogate an evil humanoid prisoner in an exotic language or with Tongues spell and not share all the information I gain with my comrades.

Is this REALLY that hard?

Yes, it is that hard. You just posted YOUR solution to YOUR OWN puzzle, and I still disagree with it. If the information comes from someone else, then your solution violates my definition of "secret". I also reject interrogating some random evil humanoid because there is no reason to think that such a person would have information that would constitute an "important secret". If you use vague terms, then you are at the mercy of how other players define those terms. If their definitions do not match yours completely, then there cannot be a meeting of the minds.

I like the spirit of your puzzle, but I think the solution you expect is not suggested by the actual question.

[Jon_Dahl]

Okay, here's the deal:

The cabal is actually a cult of Vecna (not the traditional sort).

The cult has various names. Maybe the outer circle mostly uses the "Librarians of Vecna".

The goal of the cult: Create an incredible library, like the Library of Alexandria. The library will be located deep in the underground. Many of the inner circle members write its books.

The hierarchy:
CULT LAYER
Inner Circle - A few epic-level cultists of Vecna. They mostly write the books. They are retired, and there's an unofficial age requirement of "venerable" in order to enter the inner circle.
Outer Circle - Field agents who are also cultists and know the truth about the cult, but don't know about the library. They know that lots of books are being collected... By someone?
SPECIAL LAYER
Connection Agent - Middle men between the cult and the Outer Circle. They are evil, but have some special weakness that the Outer Circle can easily exploit. Connections agents are a varied lot.
LACKEY LAYER
Distinguished Lackeys - People who collect information for "the greater good" and they receive lots of missions from the Connection Agents (or Outer Circle) concerning ancient tomes. Go figure?
The Standard Lackeys - People who work for the "greater good" and try to prove that they can collect secret to help the cause and fight evil. Work for the Connection Agents.
Lackey Candidates - People who haven't delivered a single secret for the cult. Aspire to work for the Connection Agents.

Modus operandi: The modus operandi of the cult is to be extremely decentralized and uses plenty of neutral and good puppets.

Entering the cult: You can enter the Lackey Layer by proving that you can collect information. In order to make a lackey less of a hazard, they may not tell everyone about the things they find. Information goes through the lackeys straight to the Connection Agent, no leaks. If a lackey tells the same stories to everyone, the lackey is worthless and may get assassinated. When providing information, especially the first secret, the lackey should display resourcefulness, determination and possibly martial skill. The secret may or may not be useful. Useful secrets may see the lackey raising ranks faster.

Entering the cult layer happens from knowing someone who knows someone who knows someone. Invitation only! Outer circle is not that big and no one even knows how many members there are, since there are no gatherings or group rituals. The inner circle is so secretive that it may be that they don't even exist. But they are collecting the books, right? So they must exist, surely?

[Kelb_Panthera]

Secret library, eh? That's workable.

The obvious things to put in such a library, especially for vecna worshipers, would be a catalogue of political connections and lesser known magics.

You might steer the PC's toward the former by having their contact make some comment to the effect of, "don't you lot ever learn anything about people that matter?" and broaden acceptable secrets to include anything about who paid who and how much in the background of a guild or two or anything about government corruption to the effect of bribes, nepotism, cover-ups and that sort of thing.

The latter is trickier but you might try something like have a GI check turn up a rumor about -someone- using strange magic and, when they bring this rumor to their contact, have him say that while the rumor isn't good enough on its own, the "organization" would be interested in learning the specifics of that strange magic and voluteer that membership would likely be forthcoming to anyone who brought them such information.

You should probably retcon the requirement for separate secrets for each party member for the reasons already detailed upthread.

[Deadline]

Potential for hilarity if you figure out this is an evil cult. Give their library location to a phalanx of Keepers and get some popcorn to watch the fun.

[Marlowe]

I am confused as to how the OP apparently expected forum posters to figure out the cult was evil as a matter of course, but expects his players not to do so.

Could it be they're deliberately screwing it up because they smell a rat?

[Kelb_Panthera]

I am confused as to how the OP apparently expected forum posters to figure out the cult was evil as a matter of course, but expects his players not to do so.

Could it be they're deliberately screwing it up because they smell a rat?

Genre savvy varies between people. Maybe they're playing it close to the vest, maybe they're genuinely clueless. Only they know for sure and even then they're not necessarily going to be honest if asked about it because of social perception; "will I look smug if I say 'I knew that all along' or will I be seen as stupid if I say 'I had no idea.'"

Hell, we don't even know if they actually were evil when they were first encountered.

Which brings me to a point for jon_dahl;

Are you willing to do the background work for an intelligence game and would your players be interested in such a game? It's a rather noticably different game from the more typical, kick-in-the-door, kill the obvious baddies and take their stuff game. If not, get a bit ham-fisted with the plot-hooks and spoon feed the PC's the info your cabal wants. It'll give an appearence of intelligencia without having to do a lot of work on what the political landscape actually looks like until it becomes relevant. If so, buckle up, you've got a -lot- of plotting (not to be confused with plot-writing) to do.

[ahenobarbi]

Cast Divination and ask "what should I tell this guy". For everyone else ask " what should I tell my teammate X so they will know what to tell this guy" (diety should be smart enough to give you something that will not reveal the secret to you but will to the teammate).

[Fizban]

I am confused as to how the OP apparently expected forum posters to figure out the cult was evil as a matter of course, but expects his players not to do so.

Could it be they're deliberately screwing it up because they smell a rat?
Like Kelb said, I'd expect it's that a group of forumites of indefinite size/genre-savy-ness/riddle skill can simply be assumed to figure it out eventually. Furthermore, based on his previous campaign journal (linked in the signature), we know that the OP is indeed very tight with information and his players aren't exactly quick on the uptake (he ran Red Hand of Doom without telling them what it was about: they got rolled by the horde and kept bringing monks to fight dragons and manticores and archers-quite a read). With the players only given the barest of hint in the context of a self-directed game vs a forum getting the hint on it's own, the odds of figuring it out are a lot lower, especially now that we know there weren't any details on the cabal to begin with. I didn't guess the riddle myself and figured it was nonsense, and if it was presented as a side hook I would have disregarded it immediately and tuned out if the other players kept on about it.

[Jon_Dahl]

You might steer the PC's toward the former by having their contact make some comment to the effect of, "don't you lot ever learn anything about people that matter?" and broaden acceptable secrets to include anything about who paid who and how much in the background of a guild or two or anything about government corruption to the effect of bribes, nepotism, cover-ups and that sort of thing.


You should probably retcon the requirement for separate secrets for each party member for the reasons already detailed upthread.

Works for me! So the Connection Agent might hint that something concerning government corruption might be good. I will not, of course, prepare anything in any way, because this is supposed to be a sandboxy side-quest.


Are you willing to do the background work for an intelligence game and would your players be interested in such a game? It's a rather noticably different game from the more typical, kick-in-the-door, kill the obvious baddies and take their stuff game. If not, get a bit ham-fisted with the plot-hooks and spoon feed the PC's the info your cabal wants. It'll give an appearence of intelligencia without having to do a lot of work on what the political landscape actually looks like until it becomes relevant. If so, buckle up, you've got a -lot- of plotting (not to be confused with plot-writing) to do.

Once they get the secret accepted, yes. Before that, no. Before they get the secret delivered, the whole organization is absolutely useless. The PCs should do something, right?