request: play that revealed a big secret in a published game

[Mike Holmes]

Strangely I love my players because they are wargamers first. Thus, they never buy any RPG stuff, and don't care to know secrets before hand. Thus, any secret I reveal in play is something new. I even had the pleasure to run Call of Cthulhu for a couple of people who had never heard of Lovecraft or his work before. Now, that was cool.

"You mean they're walking corpses? Aiiiiiii!!!!"

I am very careful when running this sort of thing. First, I often don't tell the players what game we're playing. That's right. Just say, "I've got this game that's set in the 20's, about a group of friends who have weird things happen to them. Sorta like the X-files set during prohibition." Why must the players know what the game is before hand? Especially if it's about secrets? I didn't even want the players I mentioned above to see the cover of my CoC book.

Isn't that problematic? Don't you need to refer to the rules? Use GURPS. Seriously. There's nothing abour the CoC system that can't bne replaced by GURPS. And GURPS will keep all your secrets for you. Or FUDGE if that's more your speed. The point is, just don't use the system that the secrets come with.

Most importantly, do not use the chargen systems that these games provide as written. They give a distinct forward progress to player knowledge. The worst culprit I've seen for this is, perhaps, Dark Conspiracy. There are actual lifepath choices like Empath and Renegade Android. This seems to me to be getting the players past the most interesting secret right off the bat, which is that there's "something going on". DC chargen text assumes that the players understand that there is something going on, but they do not know what.

This has an advantage, certainly, as the GM doesn't have to figure out why the characters stay together. But this can be overcome easily with other standard methods. Often I allow the players to decide. Just say, "You have to determine a reason why you would not leave each other no matter how hairy things get." Then I let them decide. I've had brothers, and a detective team. whatever.

The advantage to starting with "normal folks" is that the player can really get into the idea that they are not "adventurers" or "superheroes" or even "Paranormal Investigators". Which means that on the first encounter with the abnormal, that they see that they are supposed to react with dismay. Actually it's more subtle than that. Basically, the player is playing somebody who they know would not make any assumptions about the nature of oanything odd. So they just go about things "normally" until whatever happens, does.

Which then further informs every later revelation. If you start with the cool "experienced" character, the players will always assume that their character is sorta immune to these things, and won't be able to get into the feeling that the revelation is supposed to invoke. The player of the experienced character starts with the assumption that the character will approach any odd situation with caution, which reduces the tension. So play everyday people when it makes sense at all to do so.

I call this method the Hitchcock method. Hitchcock's characters were always "just folks" who got thrown into situations that they weren't used to, and had to figure out how to use their everyday reources to get out of.

Believe me, Zombies are much more terrifying when encoutered by the soccer mom than by the ex-green beret. And it's more fun when the soccer mom figures out how to off them.

I used this method with Over the Edge, and it was the best thing I did in that whole game (which dissolved due to GNS incompatibilities). This is another culprit which informs players that there are strange things afoot in chargen, and allows for the characters themselves to be strange. This seems really odd to me as the rest of the text is written with an implicit assumption that the characters who encounter the things on Al Amarja will be normies. In one of the supplememts there is an adventure where a character thinks he is one person but finds out he is another. First, the scenario assumes a normal person and so actually has to produce one as an NPC (woudn't it be cooler if it were a PC?). Second how weird will that seem at all when the other players are aliens and androids? Played with normies, however, the scenario sounds cool as hell.

I can't stress enough that one should just run such games with average folks. I'd like to even see this in a D&D campaign about secrets.  

Pacing is everything in game with secrets. You can't let the cat out of the bag too soon, but if you don't give the players something, they lose interest quick. Take my Dark Conspiracy game. I remember the first really weird discovery in one campaign was two detectives who found themselves led to a gas station at a crossroads far from civilization. You know the place, with a several buildings all not too far away, but not enough to even call it an unincorporated town. It's the middle of the day, and there's nobody in sight. Shoudn't there be somebody around? The buildings don't look to be abandoned. They go inside the garage and start snooping around. The first finds what he assumes is a big oil slick in the garage and the other goes into a parts room and turns on the lights. Body parts on the metal storage shelves all over. The oil slick is dirty blood.

I've never had players wig out on me so well. Sure the characters are PIs. Which means they're used to chasing cheating husbands and delinquent fathers. This is just waaaay beyond anything they'd ever encountered.

OK. now they know that what they are involved in is grotesque beyond their ken. But they know little else. The characters fled, not finding what had caused the carnage. But now the player's appetites are whetted, and they want to know more. What could do such a thing? Why? They're in, and in for the long haul.

Later revelations revealed what might have been aliens, and certainly odd bioscience stuff going on. A man dissolves before their eyes at one point. The game pendedt as I moved (and very reluctantly on all parts), and just as they were about to take the big leap into knowing that there were people who were actively involved in fighting the menace. Which is normally where the game starts. So by starting with normal people I probably added 50% onto the potential life of the campaign.

Yet, at no point were the players overinundated with info they coudn't use, nor bored with the lack of information. DC is great this way, and if done right. There's just so much to learn that can be metted out in small doses that you can go for a long time. What you have to do is set things up so that what they PCs are investigating is important to the characters such that the revelations come "naturally" through the course of their own actions. And further, the revelations must not only be shocking and mind-boggling in their own right, but have the potential to lead the characters further down the road.

Difficult balancing act. I won't say this is easy. We're talking hardcore Illusionism here, the best I[ve ever done to make this all work. My favorite was using "The Weekly World News" as a playaid. I'd show the players a real copy of the WWN, and ask them what they thought seemed most like part of the "Conspiracy" as related to what they were currently looking into. They'd choose something, and go to investigate. Then, no matter what it was, I'd figure out how to wrap up what the story was about in the adventure that I'd prepared. Not easy, but hella fun.

This is just one example of Illusionism in such a context. Done right, the "Secret" RPG can be a hoot. As always you have to have players with the right temperament (the second DC campaign players were big fans of the X-Files). Simulationists only! Narrrativists will find things not engaging enough, and Gamist will likely end up dead or ruining the atmosphere.

Mike

[GreatWolf]

Hey, Mike.

You know, that's almost exactly how I introduce Unknown Armies to people.  Part of the reason is that I don't feel like doing a full data dump, but I also enjoy the "normals in over their heads" feeling, and my players have as well.  When you said:

I call this method the Hitchcock method. Hitchcock's characters were always "just folks" who got thrown into situations that they weren't used to, and had to figure out how to use their everyday reources to get out of.

I completely understood.

At the same time, I tend to use this technique as a tutorial method for introducing players to new games to avoid overwhelming them.  (As I mentioned, Unknown Armies is my best example.)  If I have an inquisitive player, I am perfectly willing to brief him further.  I definitely would not depend on the lack of player knowledge to steer the plot.

Seth Ben-Ezra
Great Wolf

[contracycle]

Thought I'd throw in my pennies.  I ran Conspiracy-X with two different groups, two different setups, interesting experience all round.  In the first place, Con-X does have Big Secrets that are Big and Fun, IMO, although t has to be said we didn't play to the point of revealing any of the major biggies.  In the first game, I used the full-blown cell setup of a group of Insiders, but similar to Mike I had serious doubts about the rules content soI photocopied the chargen section, censored out the bits I didn't want them to know about in classic black line fashion, and then re-copied those.  I didn't want to just obscure, though, I wnated it to be an obvious and appropriate censorship.  This worked pretty well and I had similar good experiences of doling out small secrets or alluding* to secrets very effectively.

The second group was set up as a pair of FBI agents with pregen characters, both characters and players knew nothing about anything.  This was partly because this one of the players first games and I didn't want to waste it with the aforementiond data dump.  They had a much more gosh-wow experience although they did know which game they were playing.  The other player was very experienced, and one with whom I have a very comfortable playing relationship, and all that helped as I had the best of both worlds (he was my drummer I guess).  

I used more special effects the second time around because the characters had much higher thresholds of disbelief regarding aliens and whatnot than the Cool Dudes had, but the Cool Dudes had a perfectly self-reinforcing attitude of superiority which helped carry the portrayal of a MIB; their character and player insider knowledges supported each other.  The secrets were much more easily overcome than the Insiders game, which rapidly settled on the fairly mechanical routine of investigation and surveillance.  

One of the things I really like about conspiracy x is that the secrets are in layers and can be revealed in part or sequentially, and make sense in a different way again when the Big Picture is put together.  I can see this working over the long term but it would need care.  I think this has relevance to the idea of whether or not it is possible to build games that are played once; this would solve the potential problems of ga,es woth actual secrets.

* edited to expand on this.  The importance was not that the secret was X, but that there was a secret - this allowed me to leave real clues and not worry about contradicting myself, so the players could authentically put the pieces together.  Having a consistent backdrop from which to play was a great boon in extrapolating events in game, both for the purposes of obfuscation and revelation.

[Mortaneus]

By far the single best secret I've ever heard of being unveiled in an RPG was in a Toon campaign.  Yes, that's right, a CAMPAIGN of Toon...close your mouths, it's actually possible.

Some friends of mine played in this campaign where they were hired for a gazillion dollars, and sent off all over the world looking for this item called the Tis Bottle.  Now, this isn't just some ordinary bottle.  Nope.  This is a TIS bottle.  What it does, and what's so special about it, they have no clue.

After three real months of play, they eventually found one of the four rumored to exist.  It got broken in the process, so back to square one.

Finally, after a year and a half of game time (and nearly 8 months of play), they finally found and aquired one.  They packed it in a huge iron case, full of styrofoam, and gave it to the mouse to carry (this is Toon, after all).

They laboriously crossed the globe with it, dodging attacks by enemies, and protecting the precious bottle.

Finally, they returned to the city to deliver it.  They took it up into the office of the guy who hired them, unsealed the case, and gave him the unbroken Tis Bottle.

Completely satisfied, their employer had his helpers roll out the wheelbarrows full of money, and bid them good day.

Of course, one of the players HAD to ask what the Tis Bottle was for.

Their employer said, 'Simple'.  He pushed a button, and the floor opened up, revealing a table covered in bottles that rose up to normal level. Each of these bottles was inset in a precision crafted slot, protecting each and holding them secure.  

There was ONE empty spot.

He carefully inserted the Tis Bottle in the slot, making sure it was securely fastened, and then stepped back.

He pulled out a pair of sticks and, with great flourish, began to play 'My coun-try TIS of thee.....'

The GM, while the players sat with jaws agape realizing what they've just spent 3/4 of a year questing for, quickly packed up his books and got out of there before they awoke from their stupor and killed him.

[Ron Edwards]

Guys, guys ...

We're discussing secrets that are provided in game texts, which by the rules and guidelines are intended to be sprung upon the players after extended play. We're not discussing secrets that a GM has thought up, incorporated into the background, and seen realized through play.

Best,
Ron

[Mortaneus]

We're discussing secrets that are provided in game texts, which by the rules and guidelines are intended to be sprung upon the players after extended play. We're not discussing secrets that a GM has thought up, incorporated into the background, and seen realized through play.

Sorry...I just felt that story was too good to let lie.

At any rate, Shadowrun is one game that has a large proliferation of secrets to be unveiled during the course of play.  What happens to Dunkelzahn, who Ghostwalker is, the Harlequin saga (which, btw, is best run if the players don't even know they're in it).  Unfortunately, the placement of the information regarding these events is quite easy to acquire.  All it requires is a moment of flipping through a book on a game-store shelf, or even from merely reading the back cover and promotional materials.  It's in the same vein as the trailers spoiling a movie, in my opinion.