Player Secrecy

[Lamorak33]

Hi

How do you handle players who want to hide what they do and details about their character from the other players?  This also goes for note passing and going into another room to play out short scenes?

This was a large component of our Vampire:TM game in which I was a player, and I didn't like it then.  I want to dissallow it in my game, but I was wondering if its something that people deal with and its my view thats wrong.  Should I run it the way theplayers want?  The rulebook suggests this behaviour is contrary to 'the band' ethic.

Regards
Rob

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Rob,

I can answer in two ways, both which tend in the same direction, but for very different reasons.

1. These tactics are not well suited to the most commonly-enjoyed Sorcerer experience.

[Clearly this point is overridden by a person saying, "But I want to do these things," period.]

2. These tactics seem not to be what you enjoy or want.

[This point can only be overridden if you choose to sacrifice your enjoyment for no apparent reason.]

In other words, as far as I can tell, you are giving up a very important thing that maybe you ought to consider is worth hanging onto - your own basic enjoyment of play. As I see it, a Sorcerer GM is not an entertainer who lives or dies by whether he or she stroked-off everyone else at the table sufficiently. A Sorcerer GM is a fellow player, one of several, who (although taking a different structural role) has a claim to social and creative enjoyment of the experience itself.

I'd start by choosing people to play with who share your own general standards for that enjoyment.

Best,
Ron

[The_Tim]

I would ask them why they like to use note passing.  My guess is that they want to more accurately simulate the plotting in Vampire or that they are competing against each other.  In the second case talking about Sorcerer should get them to either say they won't play it or get them to agree to not compete in the way that players often compete in Vampire.  In the first case point out that Sorcerer doesn't encourage simulation, at all.  In games like Vampire you can gain tactical advantage in terms of the game system without explicitly using the game system, because in setting logic matters.  So a simple action or precaution can hose another's plans.  In Sorcerer the dice are the dice, the rest is fluff.  In fact the only way to gain advantage in a conflict with another player would be to present the plans for the conflict to the group and get people excited about your plans.

As a concrete example imagine a situation in which two players both want their characters to obtain an item of extreme value.  In Vampire if one of the players announces to everybody "I'm going to help the other guy get it and then use my stealth abilities to steal it after the fact" the plan is going to be blocked by a response of "I hold the object at all times, never allowing my attention to waver from it, and during the day I sleep with it imbedded in my skin so it only comes available at sunset when it is forced from my body" or some other shit like that.  So both players pass their plans to the ST by note.  The ST then decides what, if any, rolls the players have to make and the players can have what is a fair conflict to the extent that the ST is a disinterested party in their conflict.
In Sorcerer those declarations of intention, modified for the game, are the opening negotiations of a conflict.  So if the first player says "I'm going to present a trust worthy front, expressing only mild interest in the object" and the second says "My character is still wary of him, I bring up the time he literally back stabbed Sue," the dice fall and one side has an advantage for the later shenanigans.

[Ron Edwards]

The Tim nails it in one!!

Best,
Ron

[Old_Scratch]

My initial response is that letter passing is atmospheric and conniving and is often used in an adversarial way with the other players as Tim mentioned. But I also see letter passing as a factor in player disempowerment and as a mean of a player trying to "tilt" the game. In my experience it has been a means of asserting some sort of GM power against the GM or players. I've seen players pass notes to GMs to only be opened later and they'll say things like "I had my gun in the pocket aimed at the NPC already and ready to fire as soon as he betrays us" and then announce to the GM when the inevitable betrayal occurs that the GM read the letter.

I'm going to suggest that two things are necessary: one, the adversarial nature of the GM vs players be toned down (which I don't really see as a problem in Sorcerer but may still be baggage brought in from other games) and that the players feel empowered, and I think the best way to do this is before playing Sorcerer to have a discussion with them about Stances and the fact that they don't need to "tilt" the actor or pawn stance and can feel free to slip into other stances if the situation merits it.

--
Garett

[Lamorak33]

hi

Cheers for the input.  These guys are the guys I gamed with the most over the years, although we never do now.  I'd like to get them interested in an RPG again.  I am a hard-on Glorantha nut but they hate it.  However, I think they will really buy into Sorcerer but I don't want it to be like the backstabbing Vampire game.  In fact I don't think that we will be engaging in 'party play', but from your posts I will not allow it anyhow.

Any thoughts on players who want to start games as billionaires!!

Regards
Rob

[Judd]

Any thoughts on players who want to start games as billionaires!!

Regards
Rob

If there cover is Billionaire Playboy and it fits with the theme and vibe of the game, rock on.

In my Dictionary of Mu games I had one character who was the Witch-King of Lemuria and another who was Orphan Kid with Rock.  Kid with Rock absolutely had just as much an effect on the game as did the Witch-King.

There are many things that money won't buy.

[jagardner]

Another possible cause of note-passing is simply inertia: this is the way they've always played and it doesn't occur to them to do anything differently.

When I started GMing Sorcerer, with two different groups, I said, "By the way, we're going to do everything out in the open: no secret rolls, no notes, no going off for private conversations.  The cool thing about this system is that all the players know everything.  Of course, the characters don't know everything, so players can use their superior knowledge to get their characters into more trouble."

Neither group had any problem with that.  It is, after all, a level playing field for the players.  Admittedly, the GM starts out with inside knowledge the players don't have, but the players provide a great deal of input for the initial set-up (particularly by defining their own kickers), so it feels pretty egalitarian.

I've found that establishing an air of openness isn't much different from saying, "Okay for this particular campaign, we're going to use this particular game system."  My players are willing to go along with almost anything if you just make it part of the ground rules.

[Ron Edwards]

Wow, you guys are hitting the bullseye every time.

Judd got it with the billionaire - sure, take "billionaire" as a Cover. J.A. got it with the secrecy-thing.

My advice? Read chapter 4 again and implement it. Those are not fluffy guidelines, those are major rules and worth considering very deeply. And make damn sure to get the backs of those character sheets filled out.

Best,
Ron