How do you handle it?
We had a situation where IC all the PC's save one found out a secret about an NPC. That lone unknowing PC would have killed this NPC on the spot had he known this particular secret. The rest of the party knew that this would be an unjust killing on the part of their friend. This NPC was also a friend and quite useful.
The friction arose because in order to keep that PC from metagaming, we all agreed that the Player would not have any OOC knowledge of this secret as well. None of us knew this secret OOC before it was found out about IC, either.
I had raised a concern to the GM, "Will *insert Player's name* be okay with us keeping this from both him and his character?" The GM said he'd known the guy for years and he's not the type to get upset at game stuff.
Last session ended with the NPC's secret coming out in the open. The Player in question left in a hurry, barely said a word, when he is normally wanting to go hang out after game. We all got the vibe that he is upset. Now, the rest of the table consists of me, Mr. Neph, This Player, his brother, and their friend of many years. We've known the three of them about a year.
I know he's probably going to be okay, it just threw him for a loop. Most likely due to the fact that he was the only one who didn't know, even OOC. Probably a bit hurt that we wouldn't trust him not to metagame. But based on what I know about him, this player is mature, he was just extremely caught off guard, which is was the GM wanted so the reaction would be more organic.
But have any of you ever dealt with this situation before? How have you handled it?
Maybe talk to the player and ask him to continue and ask for why he seemed upset so hopefully it doesn't happen agian.
The gm is planning on it. Like I said, I think it was more shock than anything else. I was just wanting to hear others stories on this subject.
Not when he was discussing our usual after game hangout before game started.
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I tend to pass notes for secret things to the players whose characters know them, and let them decide to tell or not. But then the rest of the table knows something is up and can speak up if it bothers them.
Of course, this can also go badly. In my Pathfinder game, one player brought in a new character that became our contact with the employer of the group. He got a lot of character knowledge that was never shared with the rest of the group and effectively ran the party due to that fact. When he bailed and our characters contacted the employer directly, a great deal of things came to light.
My group has a very good capacity for dividing IC from OOC knowledge. Once in a while a thing might get through, but it has never caused a problem.
That said, I do like handing out notes in order to keep tension going on. My players themselves tend to hand me lots of notes themselves as well, since pretty much every campaign we have one or two characters carrying out a parallel story that will eventually unfold into the main plot, usually with lots of "Ohh"s and "Ahh"s, and the occasional "You bastard!".
Keep in mind, though, these are people I've been playing with for the last 15+ years, three of which I've known since kindergarten. We learned to roleplay together and have become a very tightly-knit group that seems to have developed telepathic links when sitting in the table.
My luck with secondary groups (particularly at game cons and the like) has been much less satisfactory.
It's funny, in a game right now I know an NPC's secret that I have no idea if anyone else knows or not. I think it's a matter of either no one else knows it but me (but likely they know stuff I do not), or both we and our PCs all know this secret, but none of us know that we know.
God I hope that made sense.
Anyway, given the nature of the secret, I think it's okay. I don't think anyone would be mad about it. And though we are all vet players, I think we can be prone to metagaming (sometimes in my experience veterans are worse about metagaming than newbies), so I can deal with wanting to keep secrets.
But this is also a situation where again, I think we ALL know something the others don't know (or think the others don't know). So we're on an equal playing field.
Sounds like in your case, part of the issue might be that the guy feels a bit singled out. Sounds like y'all are friends so hopefully talking it out will resolve the tension. No one had ill intent so as long as folks are open and honest about dealing with it, hopefully no harm done in the long term.
I am completely used to some players having information the others don't. It's more fun this way as long as one of the players does not monopolise it. Taking GM on a side for secret declaration, or GM taking a player for a short solo scene is the norm for my group. Eight year campaign where 2/3rd of the major PCs had their secrets and agendas or just wanted to impress others by solving the problem or getting the information was fun.
W confidently: I *need* to speak with you first!
GM: Uh...
J desperately: But I LOVE you!
All three were old buddies from school.
Yeah, this guy getting upset really threw us for a loop. He never gets mad. But when you try to keep a vampire's identity from an undead scourge there will be trouble.
He never once tried to detect undead with this NPC, though.
Could he be angry one himself instead of others for falling for the deception?