Passing notes at the table

[Lanefan]

Are you kidding? I encourage it! But really; there's not many reasons for players to pass notes to each other unless they're plotting against each other.

Come to think of it, I encourage that too!

Said it better than I was about to.

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

No. I stopped allowing that a number of years ago. It slowed down the game and players would use it as an excuse to do questionable acts that the others wouldn't know about rather than roleplay it.

Isn't that the point, that some characters are doing things they'd prefer the other characters not know about (usually along good/not-so-good lines)? If my thief wants to spend her evening cutting a few purses in town while the goody-goody ranger sits in the inn, I'm going to pass the DM a note. It's up to the DM to advise the ranger's player I'm nowhere to be found if he asks, but that's it; he has no right as either player or character to know what I'm up to if I don't want to tell him.

Lanefan

 

[Crothian]

Dude, we've played Paranoia together. You SO lie.

I was referring to my normal games. Then I later remembered Paranoia and posted about it.

 

[Elf Witch]

I don't see any reason to not allow the passing of notes between players. It does not always mean that they are plotting something evil.

For example my roommate and played twins in one game and we had a physic connection we could communicate telepathically with each other. So if I wanted to tell her something mind to mind I past her a note. The DM encouraged this. We were never plotting against the party.

Now in combat we could only pass a note if we didn't do anything else that round.

Other times we passed notes because usally we were the only two females in the group and the notes were a long the lines of do you have a tampon or since we are roomates one of us would pass a note did you lock the door , turn the oven off things like that.

 

[Mallus]

I don't see any reason to not allow the passing of notes between players.

Here's one... it slows down play.

While it can be a fun tension booster, my groups rarely pass notes. Everything is done verbally, out in the open, in a language we all speak. It is by will alone we keep players and character knowledge separate....

 

[Elf Witch]

Here's one... it slows down play.

While it can be a fun tension booster, my groups rarely pass notes. Everything is done verbally, out in the open, in a language we all speak. It is by will alone we keep players and character knowledge separate....

It never slowed down play when it was players passing notes to each other. Now passing the DM notes does slow down play while he reads it and answers. But sometimes I think there are somethings you don't want everyone else to know or you play with some players whom have trouble getting player knowledge out of the game.

 

[Li Shenron]

I voted no (I always have to be in the minority), but I don't so much "disallow" but rather "disregard". I VERY rarely passed a note myself as a DM, and if it's a player passing a note then it most likely means he's up to something he doesn't want the others to know, and probably that means something not nice.

 

[shilsen]

Isn't that the point, that some characters are doing things they'd prefer the other characters not know about (usually along good/not-so-good lines)? If my thief wants to spend her evening cutting a few purses in town while the goody-goody ranger sits in the inn, I'm going to pass the DM a note. It's up to the DM to advise the ranger's player I'm nowhere to be found if he asks, but that's it; he has no right as either player or character to know what I'm up to if I don't want to tell him.

Lanefan

Conversely, people in my groups (and this applies to more than one, including some I play in and some I DM) thoroughly enjoy watching other PCs doing stuff their characters don't know about, including things that are inimical to their PCs. For us, it's entertaining as heck to watch other PCs get into trouble, do things that'll screw the group, etc. Ofen we'll even be egging on the players to have their PCs do things that our characters would hate them to. But then, as Mallus (whose CITY game I'm in) noted above, we can separate player and character knowledge easily and do so by choice, not compulsion.

YMMV, and evidently does.

 

[DragonLancer]

Isn't that the point, that some characters are doing things they'd prefer the other characters not know about (usually along good/not-so-good lines)? If my thief wants to spend her evening cutting a few purses in town while the goody-goody ranger sits in the inn, I'm going to pass the DM a note. It's up to the DM to advise the ranger's player I'm nowhere to be found if he asks, but that's it; he has no right as either player or character to know what I'm up to if I don't want to tell him.

Yes, but I call it roleplaying by the other players to ignore or not react to what other characters have done outside of IC knowledge.

 

[Lord Ipplepop]

We allow it at our table. The DM and players pass notes all the time, as long as it is a serious, in-game type of note. Another rule is that the DM reads all player to player notes, just so s/he can keep more of a control over the game. Very, very, very rarely does s/he forbid whatn the players are planning.