PC Secrets

1. PC Secrets

   #1

   (I am quite sure I have seen something like this before, but not on the Citadel. So... )
   
   
   What would a PC keep secret even from other PCs?
   
   Secrets have to be designed together with the Game Master, not only at character creation. The GM may even give the PC a secret, without his/her knowledge, especially if the character background is poor, and/or the GM knows the player won't feel insulted. A secret is often connected to some kind of disadvantage, but it surely can have its pluses. If the characer doesn't know, better don't make it a heavy minus ("The local Assassin's guild is after you for some reason, by the way.") I think it's better to tempt players with more potential for their characters, with character-depth being a bonus.
   
   A few examples.
   
   Genetics gone wild:
   The character has a little inborn deformity, strange birthmark or perhaps a rare disease. In any world resembling our cruel reality, it is better hidden from public, superstitions can harm a lot.
   
   Hooks/Effects:
   - "The true king/Great Enemy shall be known by..."
   - "We are looking for werewolves, they are reported to have..."
   
   Moon influenced
   One of the PC's ancestors was a were-creature. In the simplest form, (s)he could get a +1 to all rolls at full moon, and a -1 when the moon is completely dark. There could be minor special abilities, like affinity to certain animals. The character could be also a sleep-walker, without knowing it. See Ria's thread about the Wild Ones if you want to expand it further.
   
   Hooks/Effects:
   - a PC unknowingly meeting their wolwen grandfather can be great fun for the DM ("What do you mean I find that simple hunter strangely familiar?")
   - the character could be immnune or much more susceptible to lycanthropy
   - if heavily wounded, probably when dieing from wounds and blood loss, there is a chance for the disease to suddenly manifest as in does in true lycanthropes. Although this may seem as cheap healing, it is still a form of character death, only postponed: the Curse starts to manifest, the PC is slowly turning NPC. Has interesting potential, but not for everyone.
   - magical protections against lycanthropes surprisingly target the character, or things like woflsbane are allergen for him
   
   It's the Family:
   The character's family is for some reason less popular. A hangman is socially outcast, like could be a grave-digger or a sewer-cleaner. Because of this, the PC has been avoided and had few (if any) friends in youth. Hating this, (s)he set out into the big world to find lots of friends and action, without a need to mention childhood. No wonder you join some freaks in the first bar without thinking twice!
   
   Hooks/Effects:
   - The PC can have knowledge or skills quite useful for adventuring. Could also be used to blood and unafraid of the Dead, which beginning PCs should be...
   - You get recognized by someone...
   - The father has died, and no one is willing to take on that dirty job. So where is that son anyway? He simply HAS to take it.
   
   Intimate
   - "That man is actually a woman!" (ever heard of this one?)
   - Maybe the chaste/celibate character is in truth homosexual...
   - A player of mine can play only every other week. What does the PC, a fighter with a relatively high Charisma do while missing in action? A gigolo!
   
   
   Anything else?

2. PC Secrets

   #2

   A PC might have been involved in a adventure that turned out badly, maybe somebody important died or it was important and they failed. This could lead to something if other members of the PCs group start hearing clues from him or somebody they meet, maybe they meet somebody else who was part of this adventure.
   
   Perhaps a PC had a part of his life he's like to forget, or an old position that ended poorly. Perhaps he/she was and advisor to a reagent but the regent was assasinated and many were accused. The PC was forced to flee from the court.

3. PC Secrets

   #3

   Enemy
   
   Not the traditional "kills on sight ____" enemy. Maybe a long time ago, the character was terribly humiliated by someone. It might be a public event, or even something completely innocent. But still, you have not forgotten, and you have sworn to take revenge. Not to kill, but repay with all that has accumulated throughout the years. That's a motivation. :twisted:

4. PC Secrets

   #4

   With regards to the family one, what if it was the character that hated or was embarrassed by the family? A social climbing person of fair influence would not want it known that he's only the miller's son.
   By the same token (and one I think is personally much more interesting), the character has gone the other way. I ran a character who was a thief for a long time. She was a very good thief, nothing very remarkable about that. Then the others find out she's the youngest daughter of a nobleman. OF course, this works best if the player knows about it beforehand. ("What do you mean, 'Your father is Lord D'Artos?' Is there a reason you never mentioned this?" "Well, he was a bastard.")

5. PC Secrets

   #5

   I've kept my class a secret sometimes, it never lasts more than a few days, but it's fun to have them guess what on earth I am. (expecially with weird pretige classes)
   
   More players need to come up with a family history. Even if it's only "my family all died in a raid by some general I don't remember". 'corse this means you want to talk with the DM beforehand about it to make sure it's OK to be the ofspring of a noble.

6. PC Secrets

   #6

   I once had a character who hired himself out as a yojimbo to nobles, but he actually had a disease that he wanted to hide from others, so he would never actually protect the nobles, just be around them.

7. Secrets can get you killed.

   #7

   One of the best secrets I have traded to GMs for some experience for was "Being one of the ones, or the ONE, who killed off" insert player's family.
   
   That way they lost their family and they still have to roleplay that obligation.
   
   Of course, once they get upset about it, I have to kill them... being lawful and having taken a contract to kill the entire family off.

8. PC Secrets

   #8

   Assassin.
   
   One of our players was an assassin on another job that happened to match where we were going. It happened at the very beginning and it was one of those rushed "you meet blah blah, hey wanna adventure? Sure lets go" type meetings to get the game started. (I know, I know, but we didn't care about deep fleshed out adventuring at the time, only got together once every couple months so we wanted to get right into it.)
   
   Anyway, we traveled to the city and followed the DMs plots and rumor had it an assassination had taken place in that city. Debated about checking it out but decided against it (can you guess who was against investigating) and we went on to the next city that the DMs plot led us.
   
   Another assassination and again we ignored it although we had to assume something was going on.
   
   Long story short it took us 4 assassinations to figure out it was one of our group doing it and it didn't take long after that to look at all the past clues to figure it out. It was pretty funny and very fun.

9. PC Secrets

   #9

   A pyromaniac.
   
   Most adventure teams have the person that loves torching stuff, but take it a step farther to one that does it secretly.
   
   Entering a dungeon, our pyro friend is the last one in and sets the surrounding countryside on fire. During the adventure the dungeon fills with smoke or they exit out of the dungeon into the blazes or they simply come up into devastation.
   
   Cities mysteriously catch on fire wherever they go. Smoke always seems to come up from the direction of the mornings campsite.
   
   Pyro like to watch the fire, part of the reason so your pyro will probably be lagging behind in many cases when the fire sprouts. If the pyro is smart he will probably case these things first. Make sure this is a nice hill ahead where they can look back and see the blazes, top of towers, tall buildings in cities...etc.

10. PC Secrets

    #10

    Of course, why didn't I think of that...
    
    A Spy!
    
    Working for the government, or for a foreign government, or for someone else. The most practical mission would be "freely" serving to the institution. As adventurers get around, and learn a lot, having a spy in an adventuring group is useful. Your foot-soldier gets training (if he/she survives), and can get into favour of powerful people. With proper manipulation you can have a powerful party do your bidding one day.
    
    - the common fighter background: worked in city guard, but was fired for some reason. Asked to keep an eye out on a group of troublemakers, he reports regularly, but finds adventuring more and more addictive. As his superiors ask for more "favours", he starts to feel drawn in two directions...
    
    The Spy may be an option for more withdrawn players.
    
    ---
    
    And now one secret that will soon be discovered, and few will care:
    
    A secret smoker. (especially good for those still-teenage characters ;) )

11. PC Secrets

    #11

    Your character could be a enemy that changed his or her appearance and became a "good" guy for some reasons. The enemy could be setting the PCs up, or could be trying to change its stripes.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    

12. PC Secrets

    #12

    Crossdresser. Either way for various reasons.
    -Hiding identity to keep a different type of respect.
    -Plotting (or had) revenge on somebody and needs a good escape.
    -Because they are psychologically bent.
    -Thief trying to steal something in a wo/man only establishment.
    -There are probably others....
    
    Same type of thing-
    Elves pretending they are men, men -> elves.

13. PC Secrets

    #13

    Anorexia (Difficult to keep secret, but still)
    Bulimia
    Varous diseases

14. PC Secrets

    #14

    They could be royalty trying to run away or vise-versa someone poor trying to disguise as royalty

15. PC Secrets

    #15

    The PC could be a wanted criminal (whether you are innocent or not).
    
    Someone is trying to track him or her down to get revenge.
    
    The past is too painful to talk about (murdered lover or family, abused, raped, beaten, pestered and so on).
    
    The family you come from is too famous and you 1. wanna get away from all the fuss, or 2. don't want to attract attention too much (maybe in combination with your mission).
    
    Someone gave you a mission and you swore to keep it a secret.
    
    You have been lovers or very close to some wellknown criminal, and either are ashamed or do not want to have a duscussion about it.
    
    Any kind of mental disease (from bipolar disorders to Alzheimer...), or physical disease that might disable a group (always notice how people that got bitten in vampire movies pretend to their group nothing happened?)

16. PC Secrets

    #16

    Crossdresser. Either way for various reasons.
    -Hiding identity to keep a different type of respect.
    -Plotting (or had) revenge on somebody and needs a good escape.
    -Because they are psychologically bent.
    -Thief trying to steal something in a wo/man only establishment.
    -There are probably others....
    
    Same type of thing-
    Elves pretending they are men, men -> elves.

    
    
    Inspires to to this likely secret:
    
    Carries a wig.
    
    Has little or no hair for some reason (weird accident, stress, age, genetics, ...) and wants to keep it private because of:
    
    - pride/needing good looks
    - people laughing about it
    - would be easily recognizable (coupled with another secret)
    - is a completely different race than appears to be, or mutated, hides unusual marks/deformities, third eyes, etc
    - was scalped and is badly scarred now
    - reasons to be shaved (Religion? Monk of some kind? Prophecy? Superstition?) and other reasons to hides it
    - has tools hidden in and under the wig (thief stereotype)
    - a tatoo, royal birthmark, or the number 666, or whatever
    - ...

17. PC Secrets

    #17

    Sexuality. Say the princess of a kingdom, next in line for the throne, and of marriable age, is actually a lesbian?

18. PC Secrets

    #18

    Alcoholic
    
    Most of the time in the game there is the one that is always the one drinking too much at the first bar they come across in any town.
    
    This alcoholic keeps it a secret though.
    
    -Never gets drunk in a bar so it is not obvious.
    -Never goes one way or another with opinions of the drunkedness of others.
    -Always has some kind of booze on them and is always drinking it but always presents it as water.
    -If anybody wants a swig then his deft and agile hands and drunken skills swap the skin he was drinking with one that really does have water.
    -The person has mad skills when drunk, but if he is sober he is deadly and almost unbeatable. Problem is the players never see him sober. If/when they do it will be an amazingly beautiful and deadly thing to watch.
    -The alcohol he gets is always the best and might even be a rare brew. He drinks anything that might no be immediately recongnizeable in his breathe. Perhaps he even has some skills to doctor the smell of it.

19. PC Secrets

    #19

    Previous posts in this thread have hit around this, but never quite: Your character can "pass." He or she is of a shunned social caste, ethnicity, or even other species. However, due to whatever reason, the character's appearance is close enough to an "acceptable" caste, et al. to pretend to be one of them. This is not quite the same as a disguise, but can be augmented & enhanced cosmetically.

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