NEW SA Category: Secrets

[Alan]

I was just mulling over the Riddle of Spice and hit on an SA idea I thought appropriate for the Dune universe: The Secret.  It would be similar to a passion and you could have up to two at once (though no more than 5 total SAs as usual).  A Secret would be some secret the character desires to keep either about himself or someone else connected to him by another SA (such as Passion).

[Ingenious]

I could see this working in certain other schemes other than Dune. What happens when someone learns the character's secret though? Will there be a fight? To the death, or just to incapacitance? Maybe cut out the guy's tongue that knows the secret? I see this only working with huge, dramatic, life-altering secrets though... such as the 'son' of a King not being related by blood..  spies, secret agents.. sorcerors.. etc.

Also it sets up the possibility of a conflicted character, which is fun. The character may have deep loyalties to his lord, but has a secret he's trying to keep from him.. if the character resists sucessfully from telling it.. and his lord finds out from someone else.. the character might be repremanded in certain instances.

I would advise dealing with this on a case by case basis.
-Ingenious

[kenjib]

Also, other players can start to figure out the secret based on when he gets bonus dice.  This may or may not be a good thing.

[StahlMeister]

It could be that I didn't understand it correctly, but isn't it just a "Drive" or maybe "Destiny" SA?

[Ben Lehman]

I think that this ought to be Drive, Destiny, or Faith -- depending on what the secret is, and how the player wants it to interact with the game (to be discovered, to not be discovered, to have the character do horrible things to cover it up, to have the character live in denial, so on.)

I recently played in a game where the central character was a Gentleman Thief -- you know, dapper man-about-town by day, dashing master-thief by night (I was his chipper street urchin sidekick.)  Since he wanted his secret identity to come up during play, but not to actually be permanently unmasked, he took "Destiny: Who was that mysterious masked man?"  Essentially, this kicked in every time someone was on the verge of discovering his identity, and gave him bonus dice to cover it up and convince them otherwise.

Did I mention I love the way that the SA system works?  It can model everything from idiot-savants to human relationships to superpowers.

yrs--
--Ben

P.S.  The same character also had the spiritual attribute "Passion: ... with *Style*" which gave him bonus dice for adding unnecessary flourishes and witticisms to his actions, like kissing the girl in the middle of a rapier fight.

[Valamir]

I agree with Ben.  The key questions are:  what activity do I award dice for?, and what activity do I allow dice to be rolled during?

Is the pertinent activity "keep X secret at all costs"? then it sounds like a Drive to me.

Is it "Secretly in love with Y"? then it sounds like a passion.

Is it "Secretly a woman in disguise" then it probably isn't an SA at all but rather a Flaw of some kind.

[Alan]

Hi all,

Yes, certainly, a Secret could be modelled as a Drive.  Any Passion and Faith could also be called Drives - just as any Faith and Drive could be worded as a Passion.  And Conscience is just a specific kind of Drive or Passion.  The point of choosing to elevate a term to SA category status is to emphasize its use to players.  

I would use a separate category in settings where secrets have thematic importance.  Much of the Dune setting, for example, is built on the axiom that special knowledge brings power.  Characters in that world use special knowledge at all levels, from mental disciplines to secrets about people's weaknesses and strengths.  A Secret category would represent the latter.

What happens when a secret is revealed?  The only mechanical effect would be that the player could no longer benefit from the SA, except to spend remaining points on improvement and insight.  If the player has been working the SA, this is a significant loss.

[Valamir]

again, The key questions are: what activity do I award dice for?, and what activity do I allow dice to be rolled during?

[Alan]

Exactly Ralph.  If I want to encourage clandestine behavior, then I can reward it with SA dice.  A Secret would give a player a specific bit of backstory to play against - and the SA would be activated when that secret gives the player an advantage in the fantasy situation or when some event or person threatens to reveal the secret.  Play which develops the secret and its importance to the character would earn SA points.

I just remembered that Drives have to be about a specific goal and Passion about a person - so they aren't interchangeable as I suggested.  But then a Secret would be neither a Drive nor a Passion by those definitions.

[Valamir]

By Secret what sort of thing do you mean?

"Knowledge that Prince Karelva killed his first wife"

or

"Knows the secret art of Khunjab"

If the latter, I could see using the SA mechanic to represent the advantage the secret art gives you...add dice whenever the secret art applies, earn dice for studying and increasing ones knowledge of the art.  It wouldn't really be an SA...but it could model certain skills that are more mystical "chi" oriented rather than use the standard skill system.

But I'm not seeing the former being playable as an SA at all.

Can you give an example of a Secret along with sample situations where you award dice as a GM and situations where the player would call on them?  I'm not seeing it.

And secrets could be framed as Drives and Passions in the manner I did above as an option.

[contracycle]

Hmm, I like the idea.  I agree that most things can be construed as a drive, and therefore I think is worthwhile labelling this drive explicitly, if it strikes you as good to do so.  I can see it; I would say though that it would only be appropriate where the fact of ther secret itself is significant.  If the character is wracked by the secret, or is keeping a secret where one would be a grievous social taboo, or gravely embarrasing, it could see it being quite useful for the encouragement of in game character portrayal.  I actually think this is perhaps one of the more interesting uses of the idea, becuase potentially a lot of the behaviour for which you allow the SA bonus would be self destructive.  I think "secretly in love with Y" can be different if the fact of the secret is itself a big issue, rather than the love part, like if its sleeping with the enemy.  You could see a character committing suicide to keep a secret, perhaps, or using it to scale a cliff in a desperate attempt to escape capture and torture.  If it gets revealed, it can be bought down and replaced with a passion, I believe, so that would allow quite a natural progression.

I supose I would sum this up by saying it would be matter if the issue of the secret was itself a moral problem.  You could have a character with both a passion and a secret and have them both as drivers, I think, and both would delineate different aspects of their moral dilemma.

[Mike Holmes]

I'll argue the opposite once again. We don't need more categories, IMO, what we need is to have only one. That is, most SAs can be modeled with the other forms of SAs they're so broad. That's why you never need new categories, because there's nothing special about any of them that works inherently differently.

I can state any SA as a Drive. My Passion for Eliza could also be called a Drive to Make Eliza love me, or somesuch. My Faith could be Drive to Promote my Faith, or Drive to be more Faithful. Just as an example of how that one SA type could be extended to cover anything.

My point is that there's no reason to limit these to categories (not to Drive, not to anything). By just saying that they're SAs, something that's important to the character, and letting people define them any way they want, I think it would be easier, and you'd get better responses. All the current categories make nice suggestions and examples, but I see no reason to make people think that they can't go outside of them.

Mike

[kenjib]

When I first read it, I thought he was saying that the secret SA was kept secret from the other players.  If this were the case, then I could see why there might need to be a new category - it does operate differently from other SA's.

It could be fun too - how about an intrigue based game where every player has to have at least one secret.  Whenever someone gets extra dice from that SA the other players raise an eyebrow and try to figure out what's going on.  What if every player has to have a secret that is actually a fatal weakness - and they get bonus dice when they have to conceal it or attempt misdirection.  Next, make all of the players somehow competing over some resource or political power.

To make things even more byzantine - what if they only get these dice when they request them from the Seneschal, so that players can opt to not use the dice when they don't want to.  They get the benefit of raising no suspicion, but lose the benefit of the dice.

I think that there are lots of other possibilities here.  The Riddle of Paranoia...

[Alan]

"Knowledge that Prince Karelva killed his first wife"

Yes.

"Knows the secret art of Khunjab"

No, that is covered by skills and proficiencies.

I'm not arguing that TROS is broken and needs a new SA category.  I'm arguing that, for some settings - when the group wants to emphasize secrets as a theme - it is appropriate to add a new category.  Consider Conscience - it is the Drive to Do the Right thing - yet it has its own category.

[Valamir]

Please don't think I'm criticizing the idea.  I just haven't been able to get my mind around how you're thinking it would be used in play.  Your explanations of why you'd like it are sound and I can certainly get behind them, as you say, for appropriate genres.  But I just can't see the actual application.

Knowledge that Prince Karelva killed his first wife

Pretend I'm a player with this Secret as an SA.

As GM, tell me what sort of rolls and what sort of situations you'd allow me to call upon this SA for bonus dice in.  Tell me what actions I can take during actual play that you would award me with extra dice for.  That's the part I'm not seeing.


The only concievable uses I can think of for it are 1) blackmailing the Prince and hense rolls involving said interaction, and 2) ruining the prince by revealing the secret.  Niether of these sound like SA material.  They sound more like 1 shot bonuses that a player would be awarded by the GM.  Mechanically they seem to me to be better suited to be treated as a Gift than an SA.