Secrecy and Misdirection
Secrecy and Misdirection can be your friends... or your worst enemy.
The hardest thing about Role Playing on an cooperative game like
Jupiter's Children is entertaining others. One of the most often used
methods to entertain is to keep other players ignorant of some aspect
of the scene, or series of scenes, they are going into. It's
something most people are familiar with from their Table Top role
playing, not to mention other media. It can be very effective on-line
as well. But it has to be done while keeping in mind that this is an
environment of cooperation, that other players can say 'no' if they
want to, and that everyone should be able to offer OOC suggestions and
input.
Secrecy and Misdirection can add mystery and drama to RP that might
otherwise never be there... But it shouldn't add stress to the /players/
of the characters. A good guide to tell if one is handling these elements
properly is to consider if one is keeping quiet to add to the role play...
or if one is keeping quiet to manage the role /players/.
If one finds themselves misdirecting people OOCly, then one has definitely
gone too far. Giving false clues in the course of RP that are accepted
because of viewing through their character's eyes is one thing. But
carrying on the deception OOC is another.
While it's easy enough to do in the Real World with table top games ("no,
that story about a crashed starship in the mountains isn't true"), a mush
isn't the same environment. In a RL game of Traveler (or anything else)
the players have the option of withholding snacks, not driving you to the
airport, or even a smack upside the head. There is a decent level of
comradery present even in the spontaneous meeting of players at a
convention that isn't always there in an online game.
If a group of people have that on-line, that's wonderful. But it's best
not to assume it is there or take it for granted... and even better not to
take players for granted. It tends to bite you on the ass.
So don't overdo secrecy. Lots of people get so caught up with the levels
of misdirection and intrigue that they can forget they are playing with
other people. Most people really are perfectly capable of playing their
characters as if clueless about a situation even if they know most or all
the details OOCly. If someone doesn't have any idea, they can't decide
ahead of time if they are agreeable to the course of RP or not. Being
sneaky about something in order to surprise people often seems like a good
idea but just as often causes problems.
The times it doesn't are due to the ability of the other players to handle
surprises and the unknown, not your ability to keep something mysterious.
Most of the time players that allow mysteries, which generally ammounts to
uninformed consequences on their part, do so because they trust the people
they are playing with. Don't take undue advantage of that. If someone
asks you flat-out about something, answer them clearly and honestly.
Unless you know someone really, really well, chances are you cannot
determine with 100%% accuracy ahead of time how they'll react to just
about anything, much less what you might have planned.
In short: Be honest, be direct, and realize it is better to trust people
to play responsibly than to try and take responsibility for their play.
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