Ones and Zeros: WISHY-washy-ness #6

WISHY-washy-ness #6

July 28, 2002	WISH
WISH asks us to discuss secrets. I'm going to be wishy-washy on this one. Sometimes it's good to have a player surprised. A revelation of an unexpected relative caused one House of Cards player to say "Gah...". We have lots of secrets in the mix, big and small, for the HoC players to discover. I've had what I thought were some spectacular failures with "public secrets". The secret identity of a champions character I once ran is my major example. David was a spy and a member of a really bad family of not-so-good-guys. I don't think the players tried to use OOC knowledge, but it seemed like OOC attitude leaked into some of the characters' interactions with him. Turns out he was on the outs with his bad-guy family, but that didn't have anything to do with it. I'm not sure how much of this had to do with the secret or the public knowledge of the secret, but it didn't leave a very good taste in my mouth. It's no fun feeling like you've contributed something to the game and had it used against you in an unfair way (used against you in a fair way is different). I'm sure the others who were involved feel differently, of course. The revelation of the secret wasn't a very big deal and it should have been. Of course, this doesn't mean that it is wrong to have revealed secrets, just that it didn't work in that case. It added a layer of unworking complication to an already poorly-working campaign. However, I've seen some really good play with the great superhero secret ID issue. In a different Champions campaign, there was a scene where another player went to his Mafia Princess girlfriend's house to explain why he'd stood her up for a date. Of course, he was out heroing, but she hated his hero ID. So he hems and haws and generally fails to do much of anything, and she accepts his apology and watches in mild surprise when he runs out of the room to deal with this week's superfight. Off she goes to her bedroom where she opens her scrapbook of superhero clippings of our team leader (not the character in question, mind you!) and say "My Boyfriend is...a Super Hero!" and smiles. It's a brilliant scene that only worked because of the public nature of the private secret ID. So, I've seen both work and both fail and I think it has a lot to do with how it's done and how collaborative the game is. I've seen games where the players don't share character sheets and others where they plot out in advance how the revelation of this or that secret will affect their characters' relationship. And I don't intend to make the plot of House of Cards a public secret, or even any of the interesting and unrelated flavorful side-secrets...
.:Posted by Michael on July 28, 2002 1:51 PM:.