@ Dave the Game: You are a walking Tropedia Dave! If I ever write a book or publish my trope posts, I,m picking you to write the preface!

@Greywulf: Excellent tips! The ‘listen and pick the players secret’ is awesome.

Hmm… I’m unsure as to the exact recipe, but I believe it would involve cooking blindfolded.

Is there a TV Trope for that? I mean, running series do this all the time… “Tune in next time where you’ll see these random scenes.”

You know… I was planning a “Prison Dungeon”, involving a Tarterian dragon (from the 3e Draconomicon) where the players were going through a prison to rescue someone… Now I’m tempted to pull one of my party aside and have them rebuild their character as a Changeling (from Eberron) who’s impersonating that character, and they’re actually rescuing one of their own… and have to fight the changeling when it’s done…

Here’s two other great things to do with Secrets:

1) Let the players come up with them.
I do this A LOT when playing Mutants & Masterminds, mainly because I’m a Lazy GM ™. We ran many unprepared scenarios and I have half an ear listening to the players’ chatter. If one of the says “I reckon the Green Lady is behind this. Who else would want to raid a museum and a nature reserve?” then that becomes the climax. The look of satisfation on the player’s face at the end of the session because HE WORKED IT OUT FIRST is worth it.

2) Use the Great Reveal as a to get players to the game
“But you’ve GOT to make next session. That’s when you find out who killed your father and why that amulet embedded in your chest glows when redheads are around.”

I mean, who could resist?

greywulfs last blog post..Comments on ShouldIStayOrShouldIGo: Yeh. I could always move greywulf.net (and this blog) over to hcoop too…… Later. We’ll see

There they are to meet someone who has information for them. The doors open… and there’s a fat guy with glasses in a funny t-shirt who says “Not what you were expecting, right?” And offers them Doritos. He says some cryptic things before sending them away.

It wasn’t really a big element, more of a 15 minute gag.

Man, that game was just TV Tropes the RPG…

Dave T. Games last blog post..“Guitar Hero IV” will feature a Band… of Rock…

In my d20 Modern College game, I had a sub-system of hidden allegiances that I was never able to implement very well. I also had a new character to introduce.

So before the game, I told the group that I had to talk to each of them individually about their allegiances. This provided the cover story.

I told each player that they had been replaced by actors playing the part of their character, and gave them specific character traits. I also told them that they all already knew the new character, and should just act like she’s always been there.

…Except, of course, for poor Mike. I gave him an actual mission for his allegiance, as the only one who had not been replaced by an actor.

Mike first sort of just rolled with the idea that there was this new person there that everyone else seemed to know. Then there was a typical plot that they began to investigate. Then he started to notice that everyone else in the party was acting weird.

He eventually did a full-on flip out (Mike was an awesome roleplayer who never took in game stuff personally) and the rest of the story played itself out, and he was able to escape and find his real friends. There was a reason for all of that happening, of course, that may have made some amount of sense… but who cares! I managed to successfully inflict the Truman Show on a player. Mike may never have forgiven me, but I know that everyone had a blast.

One of my favorite adventures I’ve ever run.

Dave T. Games last blog post..“Guitar Hero IV” will feature a Band… of Rock…

But yea…the matrix trick will be nice if I decide to transition from D&D into a d20 modern campaign sometime…what fun that will be…