Crimson Longinus
Legend
Well, if we are talking about information that is actually in the setting book, I would not rely it to be a secret to the players, and would not hinge a mystery on it. I would just expect the players to pretend their characters don't know it.Maybe it would be helpful to Crimson to acknowledge that, yes, it can certainly be awkward if you, the DM, were expecting the high priest of Hyperion's identity to be a secret, and it turns out one of the players knows the secret, and either acts on it or blurts it out to the others.*
I think we actually agree on one central thing. That secrets are better if they are real secrets and experiencing them is more immersive that way. I just don't really feel to conclude from this that the divide between OOC and IC knowlege needs to be eliminated. Pretending not to know who the Prime Minister of Thay* is on that my character doesn't know how to make gunpowder really, really do not seem like immense strains to immersion for me. It is really not the same thing than playing a murder mystery where my character doesn't know the murdered but I as a player do.But the traditional solution to that, which is enforcing a "no metagaming" rule, has been very dissatisfying to many of us, for many years. What we've found is that a set of DMing tools (e.g., don't overly rely on secrets, switch things up occasionally so players won't rely on their own knowledge, etc.) not only avoids those problems, but turns out to result in smoother play with more immersive roleplaying.
I mean you could do that. It is perfectly possible. It would probably be somewhat less fun that without knowing the module before, but it is perfectly deable.*Although....just to play Devil's Advocate...if pretending to be ignorant is good roleplaying, wouldn't you want to give the others the opportunity to roleplay also? If it's so easy to separate player knowledge and character knowledge, why not share away? Heck, why not share the whole module and then say, "Ok, now let's roleplay!" I'm being facetious, but also illustrating that pretending to be ignorant is not the same as, nor as fun as, actually being ignorant.
* (I have now said this so many times that if I would ever run a FR game there now definitely would be the Prime Minister of Thay.)