How to reveal information they cannot reasonably know

[weckar]

Many types of fiction allow for multiple viewpoints to give the audience information the characters do not have. This both provides context and sometimes direction to the story.

In RPGs, this seems like a difficult or impossible thing to pull off, but in my current situation a variant of this seems necessary:

The players are in charge of the secret crown prince to an occupied nation. They are on the run as the last remnant of the legal army, with the long-term goal of taking the nation back. Thus far the party has been quite good at setting their own short-term goals in that direction, but has been having trouble following up on those goals due to indecision or lack of information on the bigger picture. They do have a retired general with them who is technically still their superior, but I'd like to avoid playing that card to drive the plot if at all possible (he instead spends most of his attention as the official legal guardian of the prince).

As is, they don't even have a real idea of WHO is occupying their country - even after I have dropped multiple hints per session.
This information could possibly help them to taking decision and making action, but I am unsure how to provide such information while they are on the road and seeking out magical relics (They figured securing the national supply of confiscated magical goodies before the oppressors do would be a good direction to take for now - and I agree).

I feel like I'm rambling a bit, so I'll generalise the question as much as possible: How to give the characters information they cannot know but the players feel like they are allowed to act on WITHOUT active diviners in the party?

[Gallowglass]

Many types of fiction allow for multiple viewpoints to give the audience information the characters do not have. This both provides context and sometimes direction to the story.

In RPGs, this seems like a difficult or impossible thing to pull off, but in my current situation a variant of this seems necessary:

The players are in charge of the secret crown prince to an occupied nation. They are on the run as the last remnant of the legal army, with the long-term goal of taking the nation back. Thus far the party has been quite good at setting their own short-term goals in that direction, but has been having trouble following up on those goals due to indecision or lack of information on the bigger picture. They do have a retired general with them who is technically still their superior, but I'd like to avoid playing that card to drive the plot if at all possible (he instead spends most of his attention as the official legal guardian of the prince).

As is, they don't even have a real idea of WHO is occupying their country - even after I have dropped multiple hints per session.
This information could possibly help them to taking decision and making action, but I am unsure how to provide such information while they are on the road and seeking out magical relics (They figured securing the national supply of confiscated magical goodies before the oppressors do would be a good direction to take for now - and I agree).

I feel like I'm rambling a bit, so I'll generalise the question as much as possible: How to give the characters information they cannot know but the players feel like they are allowed to act on WITHOUT active diviners in the party?

The next time they go to retrieve one of the at-risk magical relics, they find an enemy group there ahead of them. They fight and defeat them taking at least one prisoner then question the prisoner to get some of the information that they have been missing the clues for.

If you really want to fix this, the group they take out has some kind of magical communication device. Let them use UMD to tap into the communication device to get more information by eavesdropping on enemy communications. Then you can feed it as they need it.

Or, perhaps, they stumble upon ANOTHER group of on-the-run survivors of the military. This group has information they have gathered that they can share. The group try to convince the party to give them the crown prince to take out of country while they stay to continue getting the relics. If they say no, the other group try to kidnap the prince in the night. If they say yes, the other group takes the prince then, later that day, while passing through a destroyed village, they find a survivor who lets them know that the other group have decided to try and defect to the oppressors. Shockers! they are going to give the crown prince to the oppressors to try and curry favor. Now its a chase scene to save the crown prince.

On a general level, if you have an oracle, witch or diviner or other character with mysterious ties to a higher power, you can use that player to provide behind-the-scene information. My experience has been that the player appreciates the extra flavor that gives their character.

[BowStreetRunner]

Easiest way to do this is through other people.

DMG page 153 and Cityscape page 57 have rules for Contacts, which might prove helpful as sources of information.

Otherwise, even if PCs aren't actively pursing Gather Information checks you can always arrange NPC encounters. One idea here would be to encounter a minor 'lieutenant' from the occupying force who is on the lam after getting caught embezzling for himself. The PCs will have a chance to help him and he can have some useful info for them.

[Darth Ultron]

I feel like I'm rambling a bit, so I'll generalise the question as much as possible: How to give the characters information they cannot know but the players feel like they are allowed to act on WITHOUT active diviners in the party?

In general, if a player wants to know something, they should have their character take actions to learn it.

But a helpful oracle is a good idea.

[BowStreetRunner]

In general, if a player wants to know something, they should have their character take actions to learn it.

The issue then becomes whether it is something the player just wants to know, or something the DM needs the player to know.

[Darth Ultron]

The issue then becomes whether it is something the player just wants to know, or something the DM needs the player to know.

If the DM feels the player needs to know something, they can just tell them.

And if the DM really wants to, they can go full to ''make each other person in the game a CO-DM'', and tell them everything about the game.

But even in a more normal game, you can just have coincidences. Like in any fiction when someone turns on the news...it is amazingly something they need to know about the plot.

[NamelessNPC]

I've recently discovered the Apocrisiarius (http://archivesofnethys.com/MonsterDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Apocrisiarius). It's a CR 7 LE outsider from the Plane of Shadow that cannot physically tell lies. Over a series of questions the party should be able to discover many things, and they can be sure that no one is playing them. Maybe they can encounter one? It's PF, but whatever

[GreyBlack]

Don't.

I'm not even joking here. Don't reveal that information. Maybe leave some hints around, like, for example, a journal detailing some meetings between two of the big bads to arrange a deal, but otherwise, don't reveal it. Keep the PC's guessing. If they want to investigate it, then leave clues around, but don't make it explicit unless the PC's actively want to know.

ETA: I'm editing this because there's actually some more to it than this, but not much more.

PC's, from time to time, don't really care about story and plot so much as putting the pointy end of their sword into the bad guys. If they don't want to put in the leg work to figure out some big conspiracy, then don't force the matter. Let them act on whatever information they have and let bygones be bygones. However, if they act on poor information and they wind up actively hurting the "Good guys" (whoever they may be), then make it abundantly clear that they could have acted differently, with bigger outcomes.

My favorite example of this comes from my own DM'ing experience. A party of 3 was told to retrieve MacGuffin XYZ from some catacombs by a librarian after the MacGuffin was stolen from the city library. They did so without any real research on the MacGuffin, but throughout the adventure, I'd have little moments in there where I'd let on that there was more going on than meets the eye: A goblin artificer who surrenders himself, asking the PC's if they knew anything about who they were working for. The day they left, discovering that the Librarian herself had left town. Finding a doorway inscribed with the same insignia on the Librarian's medallion.

The PC's, however, chose not to act on this information: they executed the goblin, they didn't care that the librarian had left town, and paid little attention to the insignia (there was more stuff in there, but I forget it off the top of my head). At the end of the act (I plan all of my adventures in a 4 act structure), it was revealed that the Librarian had orchestrated the thievery of the book so she could study the contents and remake the world in her own liking, setting up Act 2, wherein the PC's actually joined forces with the character who would become the Big Bad of the adventure in order to stop her from remaking the world.

This isn't to say more stuff didn't happen off stage (like, A LOT of stuff the PC's couldn't know) that wouldn't come into play until later. However, they didn't need to know it. Doesn't mean they couldn't have figured it out if they did some more research.