Secret Identity

[DRD1812]

I've got a buddy who dipped into Vigilante late campaign (16th level). I'd like for his secret identity to come into play, but I'm drawing a bit of a blank on my tropes. How do you build a plot around secret identities without threatening to make the class feature worthless? Do any of you guys have good vigilante plots to share? My brain is coming up short trying to transition from fantasy to superhero, and I could use the help!

Comic for illustrative purposes.

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

The main issue of secret identities is that you have to be pretty much locked into a single location and have lots of non-work friends/family/jobs with significant screen time for it to mean anything.
For the most classic example, remove Clark Kent's family, job at the Daily Planet, Jimmy Olsen and Lois (etc.), and you'd have him be basically Superman all the time. Clark Kent is Kal-el's attempt to be normal and that only works if he's actually interacting with mortals.

Without knowing anything more about the characters and campaign, all advice will be shots in the dark. So for one shot in the dark, taking inspiration from Superman, this is the PC's chance to be a normal person again. At 16th level you are powerful. You're probably quite famous too (depending on the setting), so getting anything done in town without everybody crowding around you can be a pain. With a secret identity you are just another normal guy who can meet people, go to parties, live a quiet life without everything you do being gossiped about.
Stories would be typical hang out with 'mundane' friends, get into trouble, and try to solve the issue without giving away your true power.
The sort of story that requires quick thinking and improvisation as well as pure game mechanical power.

[Dave Justus]

First off, I don't think you drive that. Let the player use their secret identity as they desire and respond to that. Some players might want their secret identity to primarily be flavor, a refuge from their heroing and perhaps a way to keep others safe (Hawkeye for example.) Others might use it more actively, particularly to gather intelligence (Zoro, Batman and Superman all fall in this category.) Let the player use their class feature, don't try and use it yourself.

As to the particulars that depends so much on the details that I can't think of any generic advise I would give.

[Meirril]

From a GM perspective, you have to give the players a reason they don't want to be known. Very few campaigns feature powerful groups that act in the same space as the players. It is an even more strange circumstance when the players want to avoid notice. But there are ways to make that more desirable.

Celebrity can be wonderful. It can also be annoying. Have lots of random NPCs trying to have a few words, shake hands, get an autograph, by the party a drink, ask them for lunch or dinner. Have this actually take time the party is trying to use to do something and suddenly that secret identity sounds convenient.

Also having people react differently to the adventurer and the secret identity is totally appropriate. A common joke in our group is 'Adventurer Pricing' where a simple shot of whisky costs a gold. There is no way a real person would pay a gold coin for a common drink! Have both merchants and normal people react more relaxed and less trying to take advantage of the secret identity than they would an adventurer.

Or you could have suspicious people following the PCs around. Who are these suspicious people? Some are fans. Some are trying to gather any information for information brokers. Some are minor theives trying to scope the party out for an unlikely robbery, some are agents of the crown trying to keep track of the party and figure them out, some work for the enemy, some work for minor nobles with an interest in the party, some are undercover guards seeing what adventurers are doing. Lots of people have a reason to keep tabs on high level adventurers, and most don't have magical means to do it. And very few groups would go around murdering all of the (harmless?) snoops.

[Derklord]

Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:

The main issue of secret identities is that you have to be pretty much locked into a single location and have lots of non-work friends/family/jobs with significant screen time for it to mean anything.

For the most classic example, remove Clark Kent's family, job at the Daily Planet, Jimmy Olsen and Lois (etc.), and you'd have him be basically Superman all the time. Clark Kent is Kal-el's attempt to be normal and that only works if he's actually interacting with mortals.

This. The secret identity stuff makes no sense to exists, because no one drives across town and sits down at a table to watch someone play Clark kent at the Daily Planet. First, the part where superheroes are in their civilian identity is the part that we don't normally play out in Pathfinder (downtime, basically). The secret identity exists to ground the characters, because being Batman 24/7 drives you crazy (Yes, he tried that. Yes, he got crazy.). And second, whole secret identity thing doesn't work at all unless it's either a solo campaign, or every single member of the party is a Vigilante because if Bruce Wayne hangs around with the entire Justice League sans Batman, even someone with an Int score of 5 will make the connection.

It's a badly designed, badly written* class feature for Batman fanboys who are too stupid to find the disguise rules in the CRB.

You might say "hey, Batman does a lot of work in his bruce Wayne identity!", and you're right. But not only is that a construct and not his real self, but practically everything he puplicy does as Bruce Wayne is only relevant because Bruce Wayne is a billionaire. Which means this is either completely irrelevant in a game, or your character might as well have "recieved the Nobel Peace Prize, the Vulcan Order of Gallantry, and the Tralfamadorian Order of Good Guyhood" in their backstory. To add insult to injury, if you want to roleplay out Bruce Wayne at the fundraiser, you need to focus on a single character, while the other players are watching from the sidelines.

The whole secret identity thing (and especially the Renown chain of social talents) only works in a game if it steals the spotlight. I think that spotlight stealing, party splitting, and creating a Mary Sue should not be mandatory to make class features work.

You know what the real irony is? Switching the social and vigilante identities around makes the class better, because now you can have the "high society" identity without the need of a Mary Sue character.

*) For the record, I call it "badly written" because lots of stuff just isn't covered. For example, what if my social identity (that I announce on the village square) is "Bob the veteran sellsword", am I still in risk of exposing my vigilante identity when I use Shield of Blades in my social identity? What if the observer has never seen or heard of my vigilante identity, do they still figure it out somehow when I use a vigilante talent in social identity?

[DRD1812]

Dave Justus wrote:

First off, I don't think you drive that. Let the player use their secret identity as they desire and respond to that.

It's a good point. As basic as it sounds, straight up asking the dude "how do you pictures NPCs responding to this other persona" seems like a good first step.