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Tormsskull
2007-07-09, 03:13 PM
Hi all,

So in our last session (I'm a player this time around, yeah!), the DM took one of the players off into another room to give him secret information of some kind. I know that when I DM I often do this as well to provide different players with information that their characters alone would obtain. However, it can (and did in this case) put the other players on edge. They were immediately suspicious of the other player, wondering what the information could have been.

So, does your group's DM give different players secret information at all? Do you think it is cool or do you think it is disruptive to the game?

Also, what about players writing things down and giving them to other players? Basically keeping secrets from the DM. What do you think about that?

The Great Skenardo
2007-07-09, 03:17 PM
I do that all the time, just to play with my players' minds. :smalltongue:
Sometimes, after a person does something like opening the musty tome in the forgotten library, I'll ask to see his or her character sheet, roll a dice, then take the player out into the hallway.

Then we'll chat about the match or plans for the weekend for about two minutes or so, and go back inside. The look of unease on the other players' faces is priceless. :smallbiggrin:

Inyssius Tor
2007-07-09, 03:18 PM
Yeah, I think that would be a really good idea (along with rolling empty Spot/Listen/Knowledge checks, and meaningless Will saves)...

Actana
2007-07-09, 03:22 PM
The DMG2 has stuff about that. As The Great Skenardo (not too praising name is it?) said, you just get a player out of the room, and talk trash with him. Do it with other players, and sometimes, when you really need to, give away information only that player should know. I haven't tried it though, being away from tabletop games for a while.

Person_Man
2007-07-09, 03:25 PM
I avoid passing secret notes or taking players into another room. I also highly frown upon individual PC's going off on their own and holding the party hostage until they're done spying (which often necessitates having everyone else in the room leave so that they don't hear what's going on somewhere else in the game world).

Though it "realistically" would happen all the time for an adventuring party, it tends to breed distrust and grind game play to a halt. If you say something, you should just be prepared to say it to everyone in the party. If your plot requires you to tell something to only one player, you should re-write your plot. And sneaky PCs should learn to scout 50-100 feet ahead of the party, rather then spending a day in the dungeon by themselves skulking around and disarming traps, even if it would make more tactical sense for them to be by themselves (so that they could easily escape, or be Disguised, or whatever). Or better yet, learn how to use Invisibility Sphere and Silence.

Jayabalard
2007-07-09, 03:33 PM
If your plot requires you to tell something to only one player, you should re-write your plot. That seems a bit excessive; just because it isn't easy doesn't mean that you should arbitrarily cut out that many different types of plots.

Counterspin
2007-07-09, 03:34 PM
I've had it both ways, from running a character who was an enemy plant in an entirely open, no secrets game, to a game with standard "step outside" methods. Both ways have worked fine.

Kurald Galain
2007-07-09, 04:23 PM
I've had it both ways, from running a character who was an enemy plant in an entirely open, no secrets game, to a game with standard "step outside" methods. Both ways have worked fine.

Ditto, actually. If the players can handle it, it's quite nice to say everything "on the table" even if the characters don't know it yet. On the other hand, to surprise the players, it's nice if they don't know the stuff either.

LotharBot
2007-07-09, 04:29 PM
In the 1-20 campaign I just finished, I only once took a player out of the room... and that was when he'd died and had a face-to-face meeting with a group of gods who were going to resurrect him and grant him a special power for the sacrifice he'd made. I had both IC and OOC reasons for it -- IC, the other players were still alive, and OOC, I wanted to give him the option of allowing the character to stay dead and changing to a new concept if he so desired.

I did pass a small number of notes around. Sometimes it just makes sense... "you can see a bad guy down the hallway." He has to decide whether he'll signal people or just run off and attack.

But I did establish, from the start, that I wasn't the sort to turn player against player, and I expected my group to play as a team. If I'd enchanted someone, yeah, I'd have had them turn against the party... but for the most part, any secrets I told to specific party members were expected to come out after a couple rounds of combat.

cubecrazymonkey
2007-07-09, 05:53 PM
My group tends to use secrets pretty well. Sometimes the DM will pass notes of privileged information, usually when only a single player has succeeded on a search check or something like that. It can be done discreetly or publicly, making the other players realize there is privileged information.

But the fun thing is this: my parties almost always have highly incompatible characters, and it turns to in-party grappling and subdual damage. In cases like this, I may have a little chat (in room) with the rogue while he searches the room for Loot, and if the other players are completely unaware of what's happening I may deny them their spot checks unless they specifically request it. Most of the players have no idea how much wealth our sneaky little friend has accrued while they're busy being belligerent and oblivious.

Basically, I think secrets are a nice way of tweaking party dynamics, and maybe rewarding the players who choose not to be jerks all the time.

Kiero
2007-07-09, 06:17 PM
No secrets, surprise is overrated. Not only that, it's rare that a reveal can be handled skilfully enough to be entertaining to everyone. Plus that means everyone else can assist in making that secret work at the IC level.

Diggorian
2007-07-09, 06:31 PM
Last time I got a PC sidebar (that's what we call the secret chat elsewhere), DM gave me the choice to play an evil elven ghost possesing my good raptoran barbarian, how could I say no?

After I blinded the party rogue, stole a priceless spell book, got waylaid by an opposing party who took it, lost the ghost and my memory of it, returned to my party, and getting nearly sneak attacked to death by the rogue; a rift of distrust was formed amongst the party that eventually led to my freaked out barbarian leaving the party as I retired him.

Still, I encourage the sidebar as it adds spice. We dont get distrustful as players cause we've been gaming for so long and metagaming makes the story lame.

horseboy
2007-07-09, 06:56 PM
I don't use them very often, when it does occur, it's usually during a smoke break. Everyone is leaving the table anyway, you just grab one or the other and ask/tell them the juicy tid bit of data while everyone is leaving. Then it's up to the player to decide to tell during the break and gives the players a few minutes to come up with a (hopefully) good plan.

The Great Skenardo
2007-07-09, 07:02 PM
The DMG2 has stuff about that. As The Great Skenardo (not too praising name is it?) said, you just get a player out of the room, and talk trash with him. Do it with other players, and sometimes, when you really need to, give away information only that player should know. I haven't tried it though, being away from tabletop games for a while.
It's more like a title. :smallwink:

I do like to throw a few red herrings out there, just to poke people who metagame excessively. I think one way to cut down on the time these things take is to have a small deck of pre-prepared secret notes that you can pass to a player, based off of what the day's adventure is likely to entail.

nerulean
2007-07-09, 07:08 PM
Sometimes these work nicely as background information. I'd be loath to do it in the middle of a session, if only because information like that generally comes out quickly in my group and it wouldn't be worth the trouble, but for things like deep secrets hidden in the past that only a single character would know, then go right ahead and tell his player before the game starts.

Kyrsis
2007-07-09, 07:15 PM
As a player and DM I don't mind having secrets. Even if it's something the individual is going to say right away, it can be more fun to have that player explain things the way they see it rather than from the DM's view. As a DM, if it's a short bit of insider info, I'll have pre-written the notes to keep pace. My players like it; they feel more involved when they work through things themselves.
It works especially well in WoD games, where players tend to keep more secrets.
I'm also a fan of, as a player and DM, having the DM roll certain things like listen/search/spot. Even if someone is good at not metagaming, sometimes it still happens unintentionally. A few Vampire games ago, we were tyring to track down a headquarters building to steal some info and the ST rolled one of the character's rolls to use the map and find the right building (as we were unfamiliar with the area and the map we had only has building numbers, not actual labels) and we ended up in the wrong building without knowing OOC. It was a lot more interesting, to say the least.
But to each their own. Every group has different styles and preferences, it's keeping a fun game going that matters.

Raltar
2007-07-09, 07:18 PM
I'm in the middle of several PBP games and just recently there were cases where character actions were taken to private messages simply because if your character wasn't with that one, they wouldn't know wtf happened. I'm a player and not the DM, but if I was, it would work the same way. I wasn't bothered by it because the justification was solid. I've had several listen/spot checks sent to me in the same manner when not everyone makes the check, basically letting me use the information as I saw fit. No one needs to know how many spellcraft checks I made when scribing a scroll to my spellbook except for the DM and myself.

SilverClawShift
2007-07-09, 07:48 PM
My party used to pass paper notes, but we've since come up with a way that's a lot more effective and usefull.

Laptops.

All of us allready had laptops (not very good ones either. Old clunkers, mostly). Everywhere we play has a wireless internet connection (my place, the DMs place, and one other players place).

So we fire up chat programs and go to town. We all tend to open an IM convo to each other and arrange the boxes in a general pattern along the lines of where we're sitting, to minimize mix ups.

If the DM needs to give a secret? IM. Two people, copy + paste. You want to set up a secret with the DM?

If the party splits, and plans on being split for a substantial length of time, we'll make temporary chatrooms. "Party_Sneakers" for when the rogue and the invisible wizard go off alone. "Party_RoamingKillers" for when the Barbarian, Duskblade, and Cleric go off alone. Ect.

We still communicate verbally in a general sense, but it's not worth trying to listen in on other party convos, because they throw the important half into text boxes.

It really works ridiculously well for keeping in-character knowledge in character. Not exactly a cheap solution if you don't allready have laptops though.

We also have a text database of 'critical info' on classes, races, and spells, that we continuously add to when we get new books. Just the raw number rules, descriptions of abilities, ect.
Since we all have laptops right there, we can check on information we need without having a stack of 2 lb books in the middle of the table.

Anxe
2007-07-09, 08:33 PM
Players should never keep secrets about their characters actions from the DM. Having the DM talk to another character in secret is good though. I do it often enough and it never puts my players on edge. Maybe they're just used to it. I should throw a doppleganger at them.

Damionte
2007-07-09, 08:56 PM
Not only will I give the different players different information I am a big fan of gaming the players.

The players at the table love to use out of game knowledge to influence what's goign on in the game. They always do. Even the most veteran players do this.

So I'll do things like toss in an extra discription of somethign else in the room that is unimportant. I'll pause to roll dice behind my screen, just to roll dice. The players don't know why I rolled those dice. I rolled them so now they're on edge.

I'll even pass a player a note, or take em in the other room, look them in the eye and just say... "Hi". Bring em back to the table and let the others tear thier hair out wondering what the player is hiding from them.

All of this keeps them on thier toes. It also makes it easier to squeze in things you really want to hide in this manner. You pass enough bullpoop notes they'll take them for granted and won't notice the note that actually has the player doing soemthing.

They won't notice that this time, i really was makign spot/listen checks behind my screen.

BCOVertigo
2007-07-09, 09:21 PM
I had a mildly annoying issue the other night with my players. One of them had previously mowed down about 15 werewolves and in the process gotten infected. I took him into the other room while giving my dog a bath(he had muddy feet and I figured the added noise of running water would help) asked him how he wanted to handle it, told what abilities he'd gain when the transformation occured and explained how the lychanthropy would change his personality for the duration.

When I got back into the room one of the players told me she would be leaving a few sets of chains and padlocks behind. When I asked why she said it was for the infected character to be restrained with, even though he had repaired all injury from that fight and had been alone when it happened. At that point I admit I went into wtf mode at the fact that they had eves dropped in addition to metagaming pretty hard, ruining what I had intended as a little segment of horror campaign to break up the normal routine since they were staying in a recently abandoned and burned village and it was the first night he would shift. I was even toying with the idea of putting the traditional dark thunderstorm outside!

Really I can't blame her as she's never really done any RP so all of this could have been glossed over if she hadn't responded to my somewhat dejected explanation of IC vs OOC with the kind of look that asks "Are some kind of moron?" As though she, the person who had recently acted as producer in a freaking non profit play, had no idea what I was talking about.

The majority of my current group basically sucks at RP and nothing I do seems to change that, although I did just write "+500xp for having a personality" on one of their sheets, so maybe the others will see it and start emulating that behavior, even if they don't yet understand it.

Sorry for the rant, this really isn't the thread for it and it didn't start out this long but it's out now so....:smalltongue:

TheOOB
2007-07-09, 09:28 PM
I only pull the PCs aside when I need the PCs to roleplay differently without the other players knowing why, usually due to mind-affected spells, though normally I try to talk to the players before the session.

As for the party splitting up, I keep everyone together, nothing will happen that the players shouldn't know.

BCOVertigo
2007-07-09, 09:38 PM
I only pull the PCs aside when I need the PCs to roleplay differently without the other players knowing why, usually due to mind-affected spells, though normally I try to talk to the players before the session.

As for the party splitting up, I keep everyone together, nothing will happen that the players shouldn't know.

Lychanthropy is pretty mind-affecting I would imagine, and the player had to leave much earlier than everyone else and in so doing missed a bbeg, so I did a special solo mission for him to make up for it and explain where his character went (A lich who was also the enemy of the bbeg had just been forced out of his lair-ish place and had no time to rehide his phylactery so he gave it to the PC to run with. Don't point out how stupid that is to me because I thought it up on the spot and had planned on the bbeg's forces capturing the phylactery anyways before the lich got back up.)

Edit: I just realized that might not be directed at me. If not, sorry, writing all that made me a bit testy. I think I'm gonna go get on wow for a bit now....

RandomNPC
2007-07-09, 09:50 PM
as a player i took the DM and a wizard down the hall and set up a deal to detect magic and signal at people so i know who to steal from.

as DM every last note i pass out gets read out loud before the turn is resolved anyway, so i just started asking: are you going to tell everyone or keep it to yourself? before i write the note.

i have had a few moments, like the above mentioning of leaving behind chains and manacles for the werewolf, i have a point where i say "know what, your character doesn't have any reason to think that."

Matthew
2007-07-10, 06:17 PM
Sometimes I do it, sometimes I don't. Most of the time everything is out in the open (including my Die Rolls), but sometimes it can be fun to pass a note or speak to somebody 'in private'. Preferably, everything like that is out in the open and the Players are trusted to act 'in Character' (or not, as they choose). Sometimes, though, it is just dramatically appropriate to keep some information out of the loop.

Jimmy Discordia
2007-07-10, 06:59 PM
When I DM, my parties tend to work pretty well together, so it's rare that a secret note or a conversation in a side room leads to much in-party suspicion, unless there's reason to believe that the character in question might be magically compelled or something along that line.

With that said, I pass notes all the time, mostly to inform players of things their characters see or experience that the other characters wouldn't know about. My players have a tendency to suspend role-playing during combat (or when they expect combat to be forthcoming), so if I were to simply announce that the scouting rogue has spotted an enemy, the fighter-jock types would just charge in regardless of how far away they were and whether it was realistic at all that the rogue could have given them a signal. At least this way, I can force the rogue to actually do something to let the other characters know what he's spotted. I assign XP penalties for reading notes of this nature out loud, or otherwise announcing in-character knowledge that the other characters should have no way of knowing. Forcing people to role-play is fun. :smallamused:

Dairun Cates
2007-07-11, 12:36 AM
Another room? Post-it notes are so much more efficient. Besides, with post-it notes, there's the ability to pass the "wrong note" to a player. Still, I see nothing with putting the players on edge. It keeps the game interesting.

LotharBot
2007-07-11, 12:51 AM
For my d20 rolls (enemy spot, listen, initiative, etc.) I've taken to pre-rolling them before the session even starts, and just writing down the roll values. That way, when I make a secret check, I don't have to roll dice and have my players wonder what's going on.

Jimbob
2007-07-11, 01:51 AM
I also roll about 20 of my next important rolls, listen checks, if the elf finds the secret door stuff like that, but even rolling when nothing about gets the group all thinking there could be some thing there, and checking there character cheets gets them going as well i find. But I love writing notes for one person, its up to them if they tell any one adds a bit of a twist in my eyes!

Prometheus
2007-07-11, 01:31 PM
Most of the time all my characters are together and learn information together.

However, when only one player does learn information or have a certain effect, say Charm Person, then I usually just say it aloud. Everyone in the room is roleplaying, and it isn't that difficulty to roleplays as if they didn't know.

The two exceptions are:
-Me telling the group as a whole that if there was anything they wanted to do without the other players knowing, just pass me a note (we had a Rogue and a Paladin who disagreed on the ethics of stealing). Whenever he stole, he just said it aloud, and the player of the Paladin was forced to grit her teeth and pretend she didn't know anyway.
-When the party collectively walked into a malfunctioning teleporter that put them each in different random (DM-chosen) locations about the dungeon. They had to find each other again, but even so, all the notepassing became encumbersome and the players ahd to ignore some information anyway. It was amusing when the robotic scout drone controlled by one character was smashed to bits by the Fighter or when the cowardly Rogue was trying to decide whether the green ooze seeping out from underneath a door was a sign of danger or sign of an ally in combat (it was the latter and he needed the aid).

valadil
2007-07-11, 01:58 PM
I like secrets but understand that not all groups want to deal with that kind of playing. One of my favorite maneuvers is to pick on a certain player who is a powergamer and very opposed to note passing. I'll choose someone else at the table and send them a note that reads "Look at powergamer, then look back at me and nod." Wheee, paranoia.

....
2007-07-11, 02:10 PM
Taking players away is invaluable for games like CofC and WoD, to me.

More than once, during a Cthulhu game, I've taken players off when their chatacter walked into a room alone or something, then had them run back into the game room screaming or crying or just going back to their seat and staring blankly off into space.

Also done things like killed the lights, or, once during a zombie game, I had my little sister go outside and tap on the glass while we were playing by candlelight at night. :smallcool:

I do it sometimes in D&D, but the payoff is much better in a game where the players know they could die at any moment.

illyrus
2007-07-11, 03:23 PM
I've found that oftentimes a situation can wait till after the game and be told where the other players have no idea a conversation even transpired.

As far as the PCs keeping a secret from the DM when I DM, they better not expect it to work if it involves something the PCs do. Developing a secret battle plan, sure thing, fine with that. Enacting a secret plan that involves the PCs buying magic item X without informing me... yeah sorry, you never purchased it because you never told me, tough luck.

Jimmy Discordia
2007-07-11, 03:54 PM
I've found that oftentimes a situation can wait till after the game and be told where the other players have no idea a conversation even transpired.

As far as the PCs keeping a secret from the DM when I DM, they better not expect it to work if it involves something the PCs do. Developing a secret battle plan, sure thing, fine with that. Enacting a secret plan that involves the PCs buying magic item X without informing me... yeah sorry, you never purchased it because you never told me, tough luck.

Seriously. I keep my own copies of my party's character sheets behind the screen; my rule is that if something isn't on my copy, it's simply not true. Your copy of your sheet is a convenient reference for what your character has and what he can do, mine is the absolute truth, and it is so because I'm the DM. If you want to change something on it without the rest of the party knowing, you pass me a note.

EDIT: I should add that this is a practice I only adopted once printers that also functioned as copiers became ubiquitous. I'm not so anal as to actually hand-copy my players' character sheets or anything. :smallsmile: