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Originally Posted by whswhs
The thing I find a problem about Secret is the roll to see if it comes up. I really find that too rigid for my GMing style. Instead I go for a rough frequency approach: 15 or less is effectively every session, 12 or less is the great majority, 9 or less is maybe every third session, 6 or less is around one session a year (given monthly sessions). So a secret comes up maybe in one session a year.
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I see. So, your solution is to make it less intrusive on the narrative.
Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs
As I read Secret, having it come up doesn't mean that it's revealed; it means that having it revealed becomes a threat, and the PC has to do something to cover it up.
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It can come up in two ways. Public exposure is the immediate one. The other is non-public:
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Originally Posted by Craig Russell
If a Secret is ever made public, there will be an immediate negative effect, as described above, ranging from embarrassment to possible death. Furthermore, there is a lasting effect as well – you suddenly acquire new, permanent disadvantages whose point value equals twice that of the Secret itself!
When a Secret appears, it is not necessarily made public. The character must somehow prevent the Secret from being revealed. This may require him to cave in to blackmail or extortion, to steal the incriminating documents, or even to kill the person who knows the Secret. Regardless of the solution, however, it's only temporary – the Secret will appear again and again until it is finally bought off. Secrets may be bought off either automatically through exposure (see above), or with character points over the course of play.
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(I added the bold)
Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs
By the way, the sentence "If he thinks that the Secret should come into play, it does!" does not refer to the player, but to the GM, as the preceding sentence reads, "the GM need not feel constrained by the appearance roll." So this is not something that gives the player control of the narrative.
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Yes. That's correct. The sentence threw me because it has third person and then second person:
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Originally Posted by Craig Russell
However, as for all other disadvantages of this type, the GM need not feel constrained by the appearance roll – if you think the Secret should come into play, it does!
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It really should be
However, as for all other disadvantages of this type, the GM need not feel constrained by the appearance roll – if he/she thinks the Secret should come into play, it does!
It's definitely less problematic, I'd say, for the GM to be the arbiter of when it comes into play, not the player.
However, there is still the issue of "immediately" for public exposure. It's clearly much less of an issue, though, when it's the GM who determines when it comes into play. If it were the player then the player could make it public at any time, causing a potentially severe immediate narrative response.
Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs
In general I do assume good intent on the part of the players.
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Outside of organized play, the assumption of good intentions seems to be rather universal. It seems rare for cooperative tabletop RPG to choose to sit at a table with people you feel are bad.
The desire for character optimization is very common. That's just one example of how intentions can be complex and describing them as good and bad can be problematic. For instance, if three players create mechanically optimized characters and two other players creates PCs that aren't close to being optimized then whose intentions are the good ones? The optimizers can say they want to have a fun game. The others can say the same thing. However, unpleasantness can happen when PCs of very different power levels are mixed. In some campaigns it's fine and in some it's not, even if players in both campaigns have "good intentions".
Competitiveness is also common enough. Some like the tactical strategic side of tabletop. Part of the thing they enjoy is competing with the others at the table to see things like who can be the most clever and such. Different people have different expectations and definitions of fun. The same goes for what constitutes good intent.