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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5526559" data-attributes="member: 42582">For me, it's partially to do with the content of the "secret agendas". Rarely are these of the planted-here-by-the-evil-overlord-to-spy-on-the-party variety.  More often, they're competing allegiances and interests which from time to time create intraparty tensions about how to make particular decisions, while also creating a longer-term threat (and often the threat is more interesting, for play, than its realisation) of more radically conflicting goals.One of the more extreme examples, from years ago now, was when one PC hired a half-dozen crossbowmen to ambush another group of PCs while they were returning from town to the villa where the party was staying. That was a fairly dramatic event - and cause not only intraparty friction but friction between players - but I didn't feel any urge to keep it secret. In fact, by having the hiring of the assassins be open at the table, I think it helped manage the social dynamics a bit better, by letting everyone in on the "joke" that the hiring of the assassins was.In practice, I find that table dynamics will often work to keep things semi-secret in any event - if one player is telling me about a PC's background or goals, it's pretty natural for the other players to switch off or talk among themselves about something else in the game. So they might have a general sense of something being up, but only switch onto the details when it becomes salient.And every now and then, when a secret involves something that I've introduced into the game as a GM, then I will take the relevant player aside and mention to them what their PC notices/realises. It's then up to them how much they want to share. And if any player told me that they wanted their secret to be treated in a similar fashion I'd be happy to. But most of the time that doesn't come up.The effect of this approach is to increase the influence of metagaming on play - for example, every now and then the players will push events in a direction that is more likely to provoke another player's PC's secret agenda. But for me that's a good thing - it means the game stays more focused on what's relevant for those at the table. And I do this sort of pushing as well - and it's much easier and fun for me to just be able to do this at the table, pushing the player of the demonskin adept or the emerging Vecna worshipper without feeling that I'm doing the wrong thing in not keeping the PC's secret a secret from the players.For those who hate metagaming, or want a stricter in-character immsersive game, then probably this approach wouldn't work as well.</blockquote>

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