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Old 04-30-2022, 07:10 AM   #1
TerryW
 
Join Date: Mar 2021
Default Every PC has the same Secret

This isn't a problem, I just think it's funny.

My players wrote up basic versions of their characters on their own, and then sent those to me for me to "edit" and make suggestions. We then finished each character up in individual online sessions. It wasn't an attempt at secrecy on my part, it was just easier to do a series of short sessions than organize one big video call.

BUT! Each player took advantage of the privacy to give their character a Secret that would be unknown to the other players. One character is a minor police official with the collapsing Tokugawa shogunate, and took Secret (Spy for the imperial faction). The other PCs are all his various assistants, friends, or otherwise allies, and each one has the same secret.

After the first session (Don't worry, the police inspector survived the attack by the escaped fighting dogs just fine. Any permanent scarring should be purely psychological) the players have basically figured out that a couple of characters are spying for the same side, but the characters still have no clue.

The whiff of disaster in the air is as good as freshly baked cookies.
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Old 04-30-2022, 08:48 AM   #2
Anaraxes
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Default Re: Every PC has the same Secret

Why is it an impending disaster if the PCs are all spying for the same side?

I could see a possible campaign theme disaster, if the game was supposed to be "rebels vs the collapsing Shogunate", as the players all chose to be on the Imperial side. But that's the point where the GM just rolls with the player preferences and runs the "fighting the collapse while pretending to be rebels" game instead. (Hopefully there wasn't too much prepared material that requires the first plotline. Situations and NPCs and events should translate fine.) The collapse might be a struggle against inevitable forces of history and all that, or maybe the PCs are heroic enough to turn the tide. The Secrets are still valid, since the real rebels will be unhappy if they discover the moles. The players will constantly face the choice of choosing to fail their missions against the Shogunate, or maintaining their cover at the cost of doing harm to their cause. That's a potentially interesting conflict, if more complicated than the straightforward rebels-against-the-Empire plot.

If the characters have conflicting Secrets, that seems like more of a problem. Up to your table whether that sort of PC conflict is okay and anything goes in the internal strugge, whether you're happy to retire characters when they get on the wrong end of being caught, or whether you just don't enjoy that -- in which case the conflict should have been worked out during character creation.
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Old 04-30-2022, 10:04 AM   #3
TerryW
 
Join Date: Mar 2021
Default Re: Every PC has the same Secret

They aren't all spying for the same imperial faction. Theoretically, all the PCs are employed to defend the military government of Japan from rising disorder and to prevent civil war. Practically, each PC is a spy for a different pro-monarchy faction that wants different outcomes for the civil war. Not only is there very little communication between the imperial factions, some of them are actively opposed to one another.

The police inspector, charged with investigating rumours that recent riots have actually been coordinated attacks, is in fact reporting to an out of favour faction of onmyoji (Ritualist magicians, timekeepers, and diviners). One of his subordinates reports to a faction that supports rapid modernization, in direct opposition to the traditionalist onmyo faction. The other PCs aren't actively working at cross-purposes, but report to people they know personally in various pro-emperor anti-foreigner groups. There is no central intelligence agency.

As delightful as I find the prospect of a TPK via mutual assassination, I will work to prevent that scenario.
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