How do you keep in-game secrets?

[Bagpuss]

Totally! My players love role-playing challenges, so they don't act on things they know OOC.

The problem I find with this as both a player and a DM is that players avoiding acting on OOC knowledge they have end up acting more stupid than they would if they didn't have the OOC knowledge, they tend to over compensate.

So they don't do detect evil when they might have normally, etc.

 

[Nightfall]

Do it before or after the game. That helps for me.

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

I use the previously mentioned extra notes technique.

So if there are four players and one just got replaced by a doppelganger they would each get a different note...

Note 1: You just got replaced by a doppelganger. Tell anyone and I swear you'll wear your share of the pizza.
Note 2: You think you hear something outside the tent.
Note 3: There's something on your shirt.
Note 4: You notice that your tent-mate's shirt still smells like dead gnoll.

Edit: With everyone getting their own note no one can be sure if any of it was important. The only person in this case that would realize their note is just filler is number 3. However, give that note to the right type of (paranoid) player and he may be checking his shirt for everything from curses to rotgrubs.

 

[mhensley]

In the case of a doppleganger taking over a person, he simply flat out didn't tell the guy. The presumption was simple: The doppleganger has a reason for what he's doing. He won't blow his cover or act any differently than the usual PC until he *has* to. Therefore - there's no reason to tell the guy because it'll change his behavior.

Simple, effective, and totally evil - I love it!

 

[mhensley]

I suppose if you have players like SpuneDagr, you won't have a problem. Such players will enjoy ignoring the charmed, doppelganger situation and keep playing because it's fun - often hamming it up the other way: "Oh, you need some gold and to borrow my super magical item? Of course you can have it if you need it for something" to the Doppelganger.

However, it seems that you have players orientated in the "Us vs. the DM" direction. For such people, D&D is more a competition of wits and less of an opportunity for interesting development. I've played with and DMed both types of players. Trying to enforce things upon the competitive types generally does not work. Unfortunately, the only way to get around it is to outwit them. Have a bigger form of distraction happening while you pass the note for something quite menial: You hand them a piece of paper and ask them to write down their "Handle Animal" check on it for you - the note says "You have been charmed, don't say anything but write down the Handle Animal check anyway."

To make this work, handing out XP bonuses for good role-playing - they will see the charming as an XP gaining exercise - is much better than XP penalties. In my experience, XP penalties never work. You just end up with disgruntled and unmotivated players.

Yep, I prefer a HackMaster type of game where the players have to outwit the DM to survive. My players knows that if I manage to infiltrate the party with something evil, it will ruthlessly kill them. My players are the kind that will gleefully turn on the others. I just have to give them a good enough excuse to do so. ("Its not my fault - I was possessed. I had to kill you.")

This happened in the Sunless Citadel. Some little invisible imp (or something, I dont quite remember now) in that module just started speaking psionically to the most alignment challenged pc. He told the pc that the other players were evil. The pc thought the voice in his head were commands from his god. Shortly thereafter the backstabbing began. TPK, but man was it funny.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

The best way to do it is to take players out of the room when they are alone, and to pass notes to everyone from time to time.

It's a delicate tradeoff, because it means the other players aren't playing while you're out of the room, but it pays off in terms of keeping things secret like charms, dopplegangers, etc.

I think it's a good practice to get into. It's also fun to give info to one player and see how they garble it or selectively parse out the info they want to reveal when they rejoin the group...

 

[Vaxalon]

In the case of a doppleganger taking over a person, he simply flat out didn't tell the guy. The presumption was simple: The doppleganger has a reason for what he's doing. He won't blow his cover or act any differently than the usual PC until he *has* to. Therefore - there's no reason to tell the guy because it'll change his behavior.

The problem with this is that dopplegangers aren't usually capable of all of the things that a PC is capable of.

Generally speaking, in my games, dopplegangers don't choose PC types to replace.

I think it's more fun to have the PC's trying to track down a doppleganger that's loose in a city than for them to be threatened by one in their midst. One is full of action, the other is full of metagaming.