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<blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 8767999" data-attributes="member: 6785785">What makes it different is that discovering is something the players do. Revealing is something that happens to them. My point is that such an event… a prominent NPC patron turns out to be a vampire… works far better if it’s something in play that is designed to be discovered. The way you described it, it sounds more like something they never knew and the GM just revealed it to them, thereby casting all their past accomplishments and decisions in a new light. That they were in fact doing the bidding of a vampire.Such a revelation would really bug me as a player. This all sounds like a very strongly GM-curated story. Which is perfectly fine in and of itself, but I don’t know if it has the kinds of levers for players that the OP was concerned with. But I think that such a twist absolutely puts the players in a passive state because it’s not something that they do. It’s something that happens to them. It’s the GM revealing something as opposed to them actively discovering it. Do you see the distinction I’m making? Look at it solely from the players’ POV. I don’t think that such GM presented revelations are necessary at all to remind anyone that there is more to discover. But I think this also depends on the purpose of play. If the goal of play is to explore the setting, then these kinds of things are going to be more important. If the goal of play isn’t about that kind of setting exploration, then they seem kind of out of place.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="hawkeyefan, post: 8767999, member: 6785785"] What makes it different is that discovering is something the players do. Revealing is something that happens to them. My point is that such an event… a prominent NPC patron turns out to be a vampire… works far better if it’s something in play that is designed to be discovered. The way you described it, it sounds more like something they never knew and the GM just revealed it to them, thereby casting all their past accomplishments and decisions in a new light. That they were in fact doing the bidding of a vampire. Such a revelation would really bug me as a player. This all sounds like a very strongly GM-curated story. Which is perfectly fine in and of itself, but I don’t know if it has the kinds of levers for players that the OP was concerned with. But I think that such a twist absolutely puts the players in a passive state because it’s not something that they do. It’s something that happens to them. It’s the GM revealing something as opposed to them actively discovering it. Do you see the distinction I’m making? Look at it solely from the players’ POV. I don’t think that such GM presented revelations are necessary at all to remind anyone that there is more to discover. But I think this also depends on the purpose of play. If the goal of play is to explore the setting, then these kinds of things are going to be more important. If the goal of play isn’t about that kind of setting exploration, then they seem kind of out of place. [/QUOTE]

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