thread: 2009-06-22 : Secrets: the Smelly Chamberlain
On 2009-06-22, Adam Dray wrote:
True in RL: Never. I'm with Sean that this feels like a trick question, since the damned NPC doesn't exist in RL. Am I just not getting your meaning?
True in the fiction: When the players assented to it together. It wasn't true in the fiction for the GM yet.
True for some isn't true for the group. Until the players and GM can fix the conflict in the fiction, play breaks down. You cannot have role-play without agreement about what happens in the fiction. As soon as there is a disagreement at the table about what is true in the fiction, the group must resolve it before they can continue play.
Note that I didn't use the word "secrets" anywhere. This has nothing to do with secrets. It's just about agreement about the fiction. Like you say, secrets are just unshared plans for what you want to put into the fiction.
The example you give is interesting because the players have assumed that the GM must go along with them for some reason. Perhaps they feel that majority rules, or that the GM has accepted their input into the fiction about opening windows and stuff so she's validated their contribution.
In any case, there is significant social pressure for the GM to accept that the chamberlain smells bad. The GM's best recourse seems to be going back to the original social contract: either a) "we agreed that you owned your PCs and I owned the NPCs" or b) "I'm the GM, dammit." Meanwhile the three or four players are saying, we outvote you (more social contract stuff).
