Big Secrets and Big Plots in Roleplaying Games
>Copyright 2000 by Heather Grove. Based on an article from Volume 1 Issue 1 of the Twilight Time Newsletter.
So many roleplaying game plots revolve around secrets. GMs try to
make sure that there's always another mystery in the game for the
characters to run after and solve - lots of people love a good mystery.
Secrets add spice and interest to a game. They make your players go
nuts trying to figure out what's going on.
They're also intrinsic to many plots. In order to stop the bad guy
from executing his evil plan, you need to find out who he is, or what
he's trying to do, or when, or how. Maybe you need to uncover his
dark secret in order to stop him, or you need to discover an unlikely
ally. All of these are secrets. Secrets help you to add more to a plot
than just "kill the bad guy."
The Problem with Big Secrets
Really big secrets are the ones that entire huge plots revolve around.
They're secrets that might well change the world the characters exist
in. And they have a few inherent problems.
Once you've revealed a big secret, that's it. In a way it's all over.
Many players will be disappointed to return to smaller things,
and it's difficult to keep coming up with large and important secrets
to throw at your players. Large secrets also tend to make players
jaded: what's so exciting about finding out the villain's amazing
world-altering secret when you've already
done it twice this month? Your next secret will have to be even
bigger and better in order to cut it, and there's a limit to how far
that can go. Even before you hit that limit, things will likely start looking
ridiculous.
You could instead try to make your secrets last, but this too can backfire.
Holding a big secret just out of reach
for too long frustrates people. In addition, not all players enjoy
solving big secrets. Some people just aren't good at mysteries, and
feel frustrated when presented with them.
Big secrets are an all-or-nothing thing. If you have
a bunch of small secrets and your gaming group finds one of them
out before you expected them to, it doesn't throw your game off all
that much. If you have only one big one, however, then an ill-timed
guess or discovery can throw off your entire story.
Variation in Secret-Keeping
One solution to these problems is to vary the size of your secrets,
to play with plenty of little secrets as well as the large ones. If
you want to play with a big secret, work a bunch of little ones
into the plot to be solved first. Or you could create your large
secret out of little ones, so that as your players uncover the small
secrets they start to put together the bigger puzzle. They get small
revelations that eventually become one large one. (This latter
technique may require some experience and practice.)
All of this allows your players to feel like they're getting somewhere
and keeps them from becoming frustrated. This allows you to draw out
the big secret at the end of the plot as long as possible without
irritating people. Your players will feel the euphoria of revelation
and progress without having to solve a great mystery of the universe
every week.
It also means that you can surprise your players without completely jading
them, and without having to change your entire world around every
Saturday. If your players come to expect that large secrets are rare
and special things, then they'll treat them that way. Such secrets will
have more significance and more appeal. They won't create the expectation
that next week the party will get to discover another fundamental
secret of the universe.
Too many earth-shaking changes makes more work for you - every time
you shake things up you have to re-think your NPCs and re-write the
details of half of your plots. It may also make your game seem a little
ridiculous (although this obviously depends on the genre and system).
Varying the size and epic-ness of your secrets and plots keeps this
from happening.
Small Secrets
Play with plenty of little secrets in between the big ones. Why
does the prim and proper lady down the street go out every Thursday
at midnight and not return until noon the next day? What's that blue
flickering light that shines from your neighbor's basement window
at night? Why can't you remember last Tuesday morning, anyway?
The "best" and most inspiring RPG material I've seen is always
material that contains dozens of tiny, throw-away mysteries. Almost
every paragraph mentions some weird oddity and doesn't really
explain it. These are small things, not secrets that will change the
nature of the universe. But they inspire, they provide material for
the party to play with, and they provide excitement and revelation without
disrupting your universe.
In addition, they give the players who can't solve mysteries to save
their own lives something to play with. Small mysteries tend to be
much easier to solve: You follow the prim and proper lady. You sneak
into your neighbor's basement. You ask people around your neighborhood
whether they saw where you went last Tuesday morning. Not all mysteries
involve webs of clues and payoffs. Even someone who swears up and down that
they hate mysteries may find some fun in hunting down the easy answer
to a small question. You're no longer stuck with a choice between
leaving mysteries out entirely or alienating one of your players.
Add More Secrets
If, despite your best efforts, your players solve your big mystery
several weeks early and throw off your entire game, then add a few
more secrets. Sit down for a few minutes. Call a ten-minute time out
if you have to in the middle of the game. Think about what other
unsolved details there might be to the plot. Think about any small,
adjunct bits that the group hasn't solved yet, particularly if they
require the group to work their way through the rest of the material
you had planned.
Worst case, accept that the secret is out. See if you can cannibalize
the material you prepared for that mystery and use it for another,
new mystery. And this time, throw in more small mysteries to distract
and mislead your group. If they have to solve one mystery before they'll
even know to start on the second, you can better control where in the
plot they are.
Secrets and Plots
As you may have noticed, the title of this article is "Big Secrets
and Big Plots," yet I've mostly talked about secrets. This
is because in the context of this article, the two concepts are largely
interchangeable. Big secrets tend to make players jaded; big plots tend
to make players jaded. Your next secret will have to be bigger and better;
your next plot will have to be bigger and better. You should vary the
size of your secrets; you should vary the size of your plots. I guess
this is because the secrets in your games are a
subset of your plots. While secrets may be part of a plot, they often
are a plot in and of themselves.
So vary the size of your secrets, but don't forget to apply this to
your plots as well.
My thanks go to Marshdrifter for pointing out the problem of
letting the secret out too early.
