Wide Angle Gaming

[contracycle]

I would like to modify my own comments somewhat.

Firstly, I deliberateloy specified "GM-entity" to generalise from a specific 1-person GM; in the case where the "diagetic gateway" is distrbuted, it would be perfectly valid for a single player to make such an intervention.

In this secnario, the secret has by my definition not beek kept FROM the GM-entity; the player is empowered as a GM-entity and knows the secret, even if not all players/GM-entities know the secret.

In the circumstance when the player is not so empowered, then they cannot keep a secret from the GM-entity AND have that secret have any consequences on the publicly shared game space.  [Incidentally, I feel there is great virtue in seeing the game space as public].

Say for example, werewolf-ism were contagious, and the vector is saliva.  Thus, it is not only the case that when the secret is revealed, it changes the current situation, but also that it implies things about What Has Gone Before, which the GM was unable to take into account due to ignorance.  Lets assume that two weeks previously, our werewolf had given mouth to mouth resuscitation (I'm reaching I know) to another character, does that mean that this other character is now also going to become a werewolf?  Should the GM have perhaps been giving descriptions to the effect that over the last few days they have been drawn to the moon?

So this is my criteria.  A secret which is significant only to the player, or to PERCEPTIONS of the character, are perfectly viable to keep as private secrets.  But anything that is going to have an impact on the shared, public game space, cannot be kept from the person/entity who is responsible for tracking and legitimising cause and effect in that public space.  In effect, abny newly introduced information changes the Situation in which all are engaged.