With the talk of Dramatic Irony and what the players know versus what their characters know, I thought it would be a fun time to ask this question.
Do you pull your players aside for hidden scenes the other players don't get to know about?
Depending on the group this seems to be more or less popular. In particular I've seen it used a lot where PvP could come up, or where players wanted to surprise the group with ideas. I've also seen it used as a way of the GM playing a meta-game where he deliberately hides something from players, telling them different things away from the table, and seeing where things play out.
Personally, for my current games, I don't do it. I trust my players to be cooperative with each other and myself in telling the story. However, that does mean I lose out on some of the benefits from this technique in exchange.
What about you? Do you use it? If so, why? If not, why not?
Yes, I do this. Except I don't deliberately hide things from my players. I've had a stretch where my players weren't functioning as a group at all. There was a group, yes. But they were all individual players trying to do their own things. With the total lack of teamwork they failed to accomplish anything and the group nearly fell apart completely. Then I started providing my players each a different part of a story, and they had to work together to reassemble it and figure out what was going on. Or they all encountered a situation but they were all given a different perspective and had to figure out what really happened. Once they figured out they were all given different pieces of information, they finally started to work together. I have to add however, the players were aware others had been given information too, just not exactly what. There was no deliberate misdirection going on. And seeing we're still playing, it seems to have worked well. :)
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