What to do when a player spoils dm plot secrets?

[Bountyhunter]

So the situation I've found myself in is one I imagine I'm not alone in experiencing and I was hoping for some advice.

First you need to know some backstory. Just before my last session I pitched an idea to a player where their character is impersonated by a doppelganger and sold into slavery. They were 100% for it and since we are playing kingmaker they relished the possibility of molding the kingdom towards a third parties wishes. But then the bad came in. They started acted like they were a bit superior that luckily fizzled out by the end of the session but served to annoy the other players and myself. It also lead to other players questioning him "How are you giving a plus 5 to economy instead of your usual +3?" This is due to the doppelgangers superior stats. Luckily the other players haven't pieced to together and assume it's some dark ritual.

The doppelganger has a desire to slowing take control of the kingdom from within by looking for other doppelgangers within the city and step by step taking each position of importance. I rolled each turn a 1d50 where 50 means a doppelganger is found (this is to reflect the difficulty in finding one and persuading them to help). Within the first few turns I roll a 50 and our doppelganger player has a friend to help him out. After that an npc that is the significant other of a player is killed and replaced but not before the players realize there is at least one doppelganger within there city.

Now after the session the worst comes in. The player controlling the doppelganger tells the player whos lover is impersonated what happened. I learned of this over text from the player controlling the doppelganger who just couldn't seem to resist telling someone(I very specifically told them to tell no one).

I had considered wrapping the arc up short but then I heard the best/worst news I possibly could have. My third player says this is the most fun he has had in over a YEAR. By this point he is the only one who doesn't know what's going on. I haven't seen him this into d&d in a while and I don't know if I could bring myself to cut this short.

[fishyfishyfishy]

Yikes, this is difficult. I would call out that doppelganger for being a jerk. Totally not cool to ruin the experience for others. At least you know not to trust them with any major secrets now. How you handle it beyond this really depends on a lot of factors.

[Beheld]

Well you could try not lying to your players at all, and trusting them to separate metagame knowledge.

Or you can keep lying to just that one guy, and hope he's fine with it when it gets sprung.

But for right now, you haven't stated how the player who was told feels, it may not be a problem at all for them. If it isn't, why can't you trust them to separate in and out of character knowledge?

[Geddy2112]

If everyone is having fun, then roll with it.

The only major problem is if the player who knows starts hardcore metagaming. Just keep an eye on it or politely ask them "now that you know, can you keep this OOC knowledge OOC and continue on?" The players are already suspicious something is up, they already know there is something wrong with the doppleganger character, and have no reason not to be weary and stop asking questions. Eventually they are going to figure it out or something big will go down a la a big reveal.

I have had players hit the nail on the head of a plot secret or encounter, and if they do I politely ask them not to spoil it for everyone else and play along. Players are always happy to oblige.

[Bountyhunter]

Well you could try not lying to your players at all, and trusting them to separate metagame knowledge.

Or you can keep lying to just that one guy, and hope he's fine with it when it gets sprung.

But for right now, you haven't stated how the player who was told feels, it may not be a problem at all for them. If it isn't, why can't you trust them to separate in and out of character knowledge?

The reason I haven't told them is because it gets rid of a lot of the suspense. The player who was told seems concerned because they admit they have trouble metagaming. They're more of a combat focused sort of person and they have trouble role-playing. Something they are working on.

[Barbarian Horde]

I personally grit my teeth and just create a bunch of hooey on the spot to deal with the situation.
Case and point
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I had what my players labeled as Hitler dwarf. Dwarf cleric that preached to the masses about dwarf superiority. How the lesser races should pay tribute to them. As the main pinnacle of the majority's faith he was a well respected individual. My players were told explicitly to not engage him for a he is a devious and cunning by one of the other opposing dwarven factions. When they approached the guards trying to bluff their way in to his villa. I had a guard run off to report lesser priest who in return reported it to my co-dm (head priest). I ask my co-dm what he wanted to do so he said I want to cast clairvoyance on the guest lobby. After the guards let them in (cause my co-dm told me he wanted the guards to allow them in) had them wait in a lobby under the pretense that they would have to wait for the priest to finish up his blessing on a handful of commoners.

(this is where it derailed) I just bs my way through this.

Mean time while he was spying on them, they discussed how to kill him.
So this is when my co-dm was like damn well they went off track fast. I want all my guards centered on me now. Send a messenger to council for city guards. We rolled a 1d20 to see how many turns for the guards to respond which was eight. Priest can heal him self at any time back to full but I tell my co-dm not to do it keep himself low. He takes escape route and the players catch up to him. At this point the city guards are in the upstairs area looking for the invaders. My players realize they have ****ed up by attacking the head priest. Whom has refused to heal himself to sell the fact that these invaders broke into his home and attempted murder... I ended up sending all my players to prison and had to go to court whom with the king's aid do to a personal request of a particular faction got them off with community service followed by a massive fine instead of just straight up beheaded. Though the problem is now that they got caught trying to murder the head of a religion, I had to role 1d100 anything under 75 was automatically considered unfriendly in terms of attitude. Which my co-dm decided not to heal and keep his wounds to show what the "devils" had attempted to silence him, but how instead he thwarted them off. anything over 75 was considered borderline hostile.

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Point is just bs your way through it.

[nedz]

I ask my co-dm what he wanted to do so he said I want to cast clairvoyance on the guest lobby.

...

Mean time while he was spying on them, they discussed how to kill him.


Doesn't this require Clairaudience ?

Maybe you just elided some details ?

Back to the thread:
Technically the doppleganger is an NPC and so you could cut to the PC escaping from slavery ...
Hopefully he won't see that coming.

But yeah - player revealing the plot too early thus ruining suspense has wrecked your drama. Time to move on and discard it, as above.

The player may whinge, but they did the dirty.

[Darth Ultron]

This is a great example of why a DM should not tell players secrets.

And, yes, there is the one variant of game play where the Buddy DM tells the players everything always. But if your not the type that is telling the players every detail about the game and then asking them to pretend to have thier characters react like they don't know....

Never tell your players secrets.

Though, you also can't do things like ''replace a PC with a monster'', but that is OK, as you should not do that anyway.

You simply can't have real suspense or mystery or dozens of other things...unless it is real. Having a player do the ''Oh, um, yea, my character does not know where the crime took place...but, um, they will randomly, um, search places...and, um, randomly search The West End Garden...um, for no reason...'' is just way too fake.