D&D 5E 'The Thing' Inspired Rime of the Frostmaiden Has Player Secrets [Updated]

Made popular in boardgames, such as Battlestar Galactica, the idea of players with secrets can increase the tension of games. Rime of the Frostmaiden introduces 'character secrets'.

“I think the most interesting part [of Rime of the Frostmaiden] is the character secrets... characters can play it one of two ways. They can keep their secret close to their chest and not reveal it to the other players, fostering and breeding paranoia, or they can reveal it anytime they want to, and then wrestle with the consequences of it. That’s left entirely up to the players.”

- WotC's Chris Perkins​

It's not clear if it's a full-fledged traitor mechanic like in some other games, or just an extension of the traits/bonds/flaws guidelines.

UPDATE -- this post (below) has some more information from EN Worlder ikj. "It's a card you can draw at character creation. If you like it you keep it. If you don't you can take another. I don't get the impression it's a 'traitor mechanic' so much as a way to add some interesting twists to character interactions and add some tie-ins with the plot."

In other news, the adventure is very inspired by John Carpenter's The Thing.

“The Thing is a story about an isolated group of people dealing with a monster in their midst, and much of the movie takes place at night. If you take that idea and apply it to a D&D campaign, there’s lot of potential there,” he said over email. “When your setting is a cold, dark, isolated place, the horror comes easily. I was struck by the fact that our previous excursions to Icewind Dale didn’t really lean in that direction, so here was a chance to show Icewind Dale in a different light.”

From Venturebeat.

 

[univoxs]

There was that part with the Wendigo in Rise of the Runelords that reminded me of The Thing. Great Movie and good video game for PS2 and PC as well.

 

[Retreater]

If they are drawing inspiration from the Thing, which has the equivalent of PCs being replaced by a murderous monster, I don't see how "character secrets" can be anything other than PvP. I'm hesitantly open to see what they do - and maybe their inspiration is just "horror in a cold place" - but my interest level just dropped.

 

[Imaculata]

If they are drawing inspiration from the Thing, which has the equivalent of PCs being replaced by a murderous monster, I don't see how "character secrets" can be anything other than PvP. I'm hesitantly open to see what they do - and maybe their inspiration is just "horror in a cold place" - but my interest level just dropped.

But that is clearly not what they are doing, if you read the article.

"Drawing inspiration from The Thing" does not mean "literally making it like the Thing". Characters have secrets that tie them to the plot, not pvp, just plot ties.

 

[Lem23]

I'm fine with dark secrets and betrayal in a one-off or very short campaign, but I tend to run and prefer long cmpaigns of the year to several years variety, and they don;t tend to work as well in those cases. If there's a traitor mechanic built in to this campaign and it's otherwise a good campaign and requires a sense of paranoia from the characters, what I plan to do is tell the players that one of them is a betrayer, have them draw cards from a deck that contains the aces and 2 kings (since I have 6 players - if someone drops out or joins us, I'll reduce or add to that number), and tell them that whoever draws the ace of spades is the traitor, and that I'll discuss that with them later via email.

Of course, the deck won't have the ace of spades in it.

 

[dave2008]

Regardless of the mechanic (and apart from the cards I don't believe there is any mechanic), the intent of the mechanic is quite clear. It's to create an atmosphere where the PCs don't know if they can trust each other.

Actually it is not clear. Crawford even said the player with the secret is free to tell the other players. So it seems the purpose is a bit different.

 

[dave2008]

If they are drawing inspiration from the Thing, which has the equivalent of PCs being replaced by a murderous monster, I don't see how "character secrets" can be anything other than PvP. I'm hesitantly open to see what they do - and maybe their inspiration is just "horror in a cold place" - but my interest level just dropped.

Crawford specifically mentioned that the PC's can tell the secret to other PCs. So it seems a little different. But I could literally be the PC turning into a monster and waiting for that to happen. But I am currently interested in this adventure with or without the "secret" mechanic

 

[Weiley31]

If your Elven Bladesinger isn't giving the human Bladesinger hell for knowing Bladesinging, your Elves needs to question themselves.

 

[MichaelSomething]

This is the perfect thing for a module rule. It's the type of thing that won't work for everyone; but it would work really well for some groups.

 

[darjr]

Yup, it’s modular. In more ways than one. Because if you use it there isn’t any reason why you couldn’t restrict the cards, or make up your own. At least as far as I can see From the video.

 

[MarkB]

If they are drawing inspiration from the Thing, which has the equivalent of PCs being replaced by a murderous monster, I don't see how "character secrets" can be anything other than PvP.

They could be the opposite. If something is posing as the PCs but doesn't have access to their memories, then secrets shared between them can become a means of identity-verification.