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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aenghus" data-source="post: 6121644" data-attributes="member: 2656">I used to be a passive player much of the time, but have grown out of it, (mostly because I have to referee nowadays to get a game). Perhaps because of my refereeing influence, I am nowadays much more willing to exchange out-of-character information and trust the players to roleplay and not misuse this information. I've successfully kept secrets in campaigns, and you know what, I now think the games might have been better if the secrets were exposed at an appropriate time.  It's true that the likelihood of exposure can constrain appropriate secrets for PCs, but I never liked secrets that remove a PC from the game if exposed, anyway.Personally I find games with little or collaboration more likely to devolve to "survival of the fittest" with passive players excluded. Lots of note passing, side conferences and private communications with the DM are more exclusionary of passive players IMO, not less. I want the game to be about the group, not a loose association of individual PCs who meet occasionally(not that a game like this can't work, it's just not to my taste most of the time). Conversely collaborative character generation IMO is more likely to give passive players reliable hooks into the game, and is more likely to expose jerks or personality incompatibilities early on, where joining or leaving a game is easier.</blockquote>