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Delving Deeper: Secrets and Metagaming · Dissonant Whispers: A DnD Actual Play Podcast

• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Delving Deeper with Oleander Hawthorne and Delphine Alendra.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Delving Deeper is our metagame series where we talk about our characters, our sessions, anything in the game that has happened, or generally ask our counterparts what the hell are you thinking?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: We are currently camping at Goodnight's Medieval Encampment, which is a lovely place in Alberta, Canada, and we highly recommend absolutely anybody get to it.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: They even have DD weekends.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: They do.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: They're very cosplay friendly.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: We are being eaten alive by bugs, so there's gonna be much swatting.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's a bad bug season this year.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, anyways, our uh what we want to talk to about today is secrets and metagaming.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, specifically, uh secrets, we will start with.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Do you keep secrets from your party, like your other players, not just keeping secrets from the other characters, which is a whole nother thing in itself, but keeping secrets from your other players, and I advocate always keep secrets from your players.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: The reason for this is you are going to have all of this information, and it takes so long to have the information come about.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes months or even more.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's a year, your information hasn't come out.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Players forget to sit on that for a year.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's very hard to sit on it for a year, but players will forget that they don't know that information, and so then when your character has this big reveal, such as being a tiefling and not an elf.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: And nobody cares because the players themselves forgot that their characters don't know that.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a big impactful thing, and you want to be able to have a reaction.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Having getting getting honest reactions from your players at the table is so satisfying.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then when everybody has forgotten that they didn't already know the information, you cannot really fake it.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: You can't fake an honest reaction.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you can't fake not knowing stuff uh very well, uh, unless you are really good at not metagaming, which is a whole other skill.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's a mosquito on the back, sorry.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: We're getting all live here.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: So you want to talk about metagaming a little bit?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you've done that secret?
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: No, we'll go back and forth.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: We'll go back and forth.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so because they are tied to each other.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, part of the whole metagaming thing is um what is reasonable for your character to know versus what you actually know.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um so again, our whole party, the players might have known that my character was not an elf, my character was a tiefling, but their characters didn't know that.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: And they forgot that.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't know that, and they've forgotten a lot of things.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of things over time where it's like they forgot we don't actually know that information.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: And we might be having reactions in character because it's hard to turn off the metagaming.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it meta it, like I say, it goes beyond just knowing, say, that trolls are resistant or um vulnerable to fire, things like that, or that vampires regenerate.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um you have to think about what your character knows.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: So with Delphine, she's a very learned character, she's probably done a lot of reading, she's spent the last 80 years just hopping from one library to the next.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: I've played a lot of DD.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: I know a lot of things, just I can't help but remember these things.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: But if I make a poor roll on my vampire knowledge, turns out Delphine's study did not include vampires.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: She didn't know a whole lot.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I don't know, they're undead, they're evil, they might be.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think I we knew staking them was a smart idea, cutting off their head was a smart idea.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: That actually, no, we only learned the cutting off their head in combat.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: We learned that in combat because I didn't roll very well.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I couldn't play it as though Delphine knew all that I know about vampires because she rolled poorly.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: One thing that I particularly enjoy in a separate game uh that that I've played is that sometimes, so for example, a veteran player knows a lot, they don't necessarily roll the best, but maybe they learn information that is not accurate because just because you find it out from other characters or the DM, or you know, it's the general knowledge, doesn't mean that it's actually accurate.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's true.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it's because the DM DMs, as many can probably test, you like fucking with us, don't you?
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Really like you gotta get your rocks off somehow, and sometimes that's fucking with your players.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I that that's one thing that I really enjoy as far as metagaming.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: You and it it's it's actually really fun when you get veteran players and really new players together, and so then the new player, they're gaining this knowledge, and it's not accurate knowledge, but they're like, I know things, and so they're learning along with their characters, so they are giving really honest reactions.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Are you talking about our other game, our ladies' game?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe maybe another game that we play.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I I love the fact that you have to really balance what you what your character is going to know reasonably.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you can make an argument for something.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like I can make an argument with a character is, you know, filthy rich because she's raised by a dragon and who's gonna, you know, living in a lavish lifestyle, and so, you know, send her daughter off into the world with lots of gems.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, not a dragon.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Her daughter's not a dragon.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: She thinks she's a dragon.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: She's a dragon.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: She's red, just like mom.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: She's red, she has horns.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: She's totally a dragon.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: So back to secrets.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, why would you not keep a secret from your counterparts?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, like we said, sometimes it's just, it takes so long, and you have a secret, and you really, really want to tell them because you're holding this all by yourself in six months.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes other players can't help but like drop little nuggets of um information alluding to a certain secret that you've trying to wait for an appropriate time.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: So some sometimes, yeah, in the case.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, I just need to get it out because someone's gonna fucking say it.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh sometimes you want to be able to spitball with your partners on what is going to be a great idea for how do I reveal this, how do I use this.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, do you have any ideas for how I'm going to play this into my character, how I would react.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many things that are because it doesn't always make sense for you to just drop that ball.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because you have a secret for a reason.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: You've been keeping it for a reason.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: You're not just gonna fucking say it.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: You need to like work out a scenario of like, okay, if this happens, if this comes up, then I'm going to like this is what my character would probably then when they would let it out, and you need like another character to help facilitate getting it out there.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: In a reasonable, believable manner.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I we but then sometimes you just have two people waiting for the fucking situation to present itself, and now you're both getting antsy.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it is it is really hard something to I I I do like what you're saying about it's not an appropriate thing, you wouldn't just spit it out because so many of those things happen.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you're not you you do need an actual event to occur or a conversation or the okay, I'm gonna hold on to this until I mean how many times have you and I been like we have planned out whole conversations?
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: We've never had the opportunity in our game to have those conversations because we've been wanting an appropriate time for it.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: We've been wanting a girls' chat between Oleander and Delphine for like a year and a half now.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like the opportunity's passed.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because so much happens so continuously, and then you don't get the downtime with your characters to be able to deal with the things because they're I mean, maybe it's only been a week or you know, days or whatever in-game, but in real life six months.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: So then sometimes it just doesn't feel like it's relevant anymore.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: But we're at day 45.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Day 45.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Day 45.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Of a two and a half year long campaign, day 45.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have anything else to add about uh metagaming?
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, just you know, keep in mind the information you know, the skills you know.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you know a lot about maps, but your character's not likely to know about a lot about maps, you're gonna be shit out of luck.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um if you decide in canon your character can't read, but then you're trying to figure out a way for them to know certain information.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: How did they learn that if they can't read?
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you can't try and schmooze an ability to read later on, saying that you would just recognize it.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: And just like you know, sometimes, like I said before, the dice determine it.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: If you rolled shitty, that's that's your knowledge is later.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Did not happen to read that book.
• 10:03
  unknown: Exactly.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Or conversely, is the fun part is when you get, say, like your barbarian who rolls a real good art cana check for an unknown reason.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, you just had the moment of inspiration.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: That you remembered hearing this nugget 20 years ago.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: In a battle story.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: In a battle story.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that's why you know this completely obscure magical fact as a barbarian.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: But your wizard rolled shit on, but for some reason you rolled like 25.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Who knows?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, those are the most fun, actually.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: I like that.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: I I love those ones that are just super out of place.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, wow, you're like a savant.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: What the fuck happened there?
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's like when uh rogues can't pick locks all of a sudden.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's just honestly.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Or they're my favorite.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: I enjoy that a lot.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: So our rogue's not sneaky sometimes.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: When he's not sneaky, he is so unsneaky.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really when he is, it's like he he poofs right out of existence, like broke the fourth wall and ran away.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: But other than that, he makes giant clatters and breaks things, and it's great.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: We love it.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Always ends well.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, uh, I highly suggest at all times that you keep secrets from your counterparts, if at all possible, if it is necessary information that you want an honest reveal for.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: And keep in mind the information you know is not necessarily information your character knows.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for joining us for delving deeper with Aleander Hawthorne and Delphine Alandra.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll see you next time.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Getting eaten alive by mosquitoes.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Come to Good Night's Encampment in Alberta.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's super fun.