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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Almacov" data-source="post: 5410737" data-attributes="member: 15613">I'll occasionally leave open ended plot hooks for DMs when building my character, which can involve secrets. Sometimes even the character doesn't know about them. I had a character with a one-night stand in a tavern written into his backstory, and gave my DM this on a list of plot hooks: "-The half-elven woman Sloane met in the pub has placed a special arcane mark on the back of his neck, with an inscription meant for him. Sloane has no idea."I also had another character with an emotional need for leverage over anyone she associated with, who naturally wound up building a fair number of secrets of her own.Some had to do with leverage over PCs, but not all did - she wound up being somewhat secretive in general.At one point she had to enter a dreamspace to fight off a demon. (An encounter which happened privately, away from the party.) The demon offered power to her in return for being spared, promising to not return to her plane within her lifetime. She accepted, gaining some neat homebrew magic.The rest of the players, naturally, assumed she had destroyed the creature, and were mostly oblivious to the deal for the duration of the game.I think secrets can be a nice way to let characters feel more distinct from their fellow party members. Whether they're large secrets or little ones, they make the character's experience feel a bit more special.One of the players in my 4e game is running a Paladin of Zehir that doesn't remember being anointed as one. Or much at all about the cult, for that matter. Too the outside world, and most of her inside world, she's lighthearted and absent minded. A little forgetful. Not sinister in the slightest, but a little... unsettling, sometimes.Most plot-impacting secrets I've seen that work out well are ones where the player has woven an open-ended plot hook into their backstory, and let the DM develop a secret around it independently.My DM for the game with Sloane came up with some really effective things to do with the one-night stand hook.</blockquote>

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