One of my players is going to be playing as a force sensitive exile. Narratively, it makes sense that none of the other PCs in the group know that he is force sensitive. I'd like to take this a step further and make it so that the other players don't know either, setting it up so they figure it out in the same way their PCs would.

My question for you guys is how could I allow him to use force powers without using the force dice?

My first thought would just be to always give him one light side pip to use for the first few sessions until some players start to figure it out.

My second idea would be to have him secretly request to use a power and to have me make the roll and then have him perform a fake request out loud. That one seems a bit too complicated, though.

Any other ideas?

First, it really depends on the power. What power(s) is he wanting to use at the outset?

Pre-rolled results. Before game starts, roll up to 10, 20 Force rolls and store them in a file. Then just describe the scene and be "creative"

In one of my games my players entered in a dark side place that replicates one of them. We rolled all necessary checks to do that off-game to have a major impact and don't generate doubts. To asure a major surprise I told the one who was replicated that he will act as his dopplegang and I gived him enough info to interpretate it. The result:

- One player laughing a lot.

- The other 3 just awesomed with that scene XD

It was incredible

If it is a power check that involves another skill, and something the other players wouldn't notice, I had considered this and since I have the dice roller I would just have the player make the roll with a phone or tablet and it would include the force dice in the pool but nobody would see it and know the Force was involved. Otherwise if it's straight up Force use it is tough to pull off.

It would be tough to do with actual rolling of the force die. And if he used a dark side point it would just blow his cover immediately as you flip a destiny point.

The only way to do this would be to keep all players rolls secret from each other so they couldn't see him use the force die(and you'd still need to avoid use of dark side points to avoid flipping off destiny) for his abilities. And even then its only going to work if he's using it to boost his rolls and not active use of force powers.

IE: you're not going to keep telekinetically moving items a secret, or outright attacks. But you'd be able to keep a mind trick secret, maybe.

Have him roll 1 yellow challenge die and 3 purple die whilst you roll the force die.

He expends the required number of destiny points to use the power your roll indicates (as in YOU turn them over and the players remain unaware hopefully) and explain to the players what is currently happening as you hand him a piece of paper which can be blank or hold whatever he wanted to do from before making the roll.

If they query it he/she can use their rolled narrative die pool to explain what they were trying to do (ie lie if he wants) and if the players push the situation just remark it wasn't important to what the rest of the group was doing.

I personally hope they use the narrative die pool for force power use in force and destiny but even if not nothing says you can't use it to cover things like hiding force power use under the guise of them using a supposed skill they have that they're not that good at they can even roll two yellow challenge dice if they catch on that that's not enough dice and even thank them for noticing what they missed!

The only people who know what to look for are other force users and those let in on the secret... if they don't know how could they possibly know what to look for?

Player-focused mechanics, rules transparency and rules lawyering all conspire to make this problematic at a meatspace table.

My suggestion is to employ one of the many fine convert means listed above, but to not drag-out the secrecy overly long. Revelation should come by session 2 or 3, lest the whole cherade become tedious and insulting. Events should draw the PC's together, to conspire, and you'll get a lot of mileage from a shared secret with such existential gravity.

Of course, this depends a lot of players. Some "tricks" are nice if you want to give some surprises to your players, but, if they use to get angry or a jealous by the others story then, use transparency.

I have the immense luck that my players doesn't gete angry by this things because this add some surprises and mysteries to our game sessions, but in the past I wasn't so lucky with my players XD

One of them wanted to be secretelly a mandalorian hidding that from the others and when they discovered his origins they get angry... but whe were 15 years old then. No one of my players will get angry with things like that now XDD

Thanks for all the suggestions, everyone.

I think that if you be sure everyone understands the difference between player knowledge and character knowledge you will be just fine. Then you can have him roll out in the open and the other characters should react accordingly without pointing at him and screaming, "I know you're a Jedi!" and calling the local Imperials. KISS applies here.

I think that if you be sure everyone understands the difference between player knowledge and character knowledge you will be just fine. Then you can have him roll out in the open and the other characters should react accordingly without pointing at him and screaming, "I know you're a Jedi!" and calling the local Imperials. KISS applies here.

My players are definitely capable of separated knowledge, but that doesn't lessen fun associated with actually figuring out a secret rather than roleplaying your character figuring it out.

Also some people freak out when another player adds in a Force User in this system.

When i start my game im going to roll a die to decide which player will become an exile. Since i think becoming a jedi isnt usually a choice. And i will give time before i reveal to even that player they are force sensitive.
So they may be hunted by force hunters and take awhile to realize that why they are being hunted.

This means they might not neccesarily have any talents etc to begin with, ill let them invest into it after they are aware of their ability.

You know your group of course, but in my opinion this isn't something I'd want to keep up more than one session, especially given how tricky it would be to activate Force powers and just plain tell the GM what you wanted to do, if you had to keep everything Force-based a secret.

IMO it'd be a fun gimmick for one session but would be better off being revealed to the players, even if their characters didn't know.

You know your group of course, but in my opinion this isn't something I'd want to keep up more than one session, especially given how tricky it would be to activate Force powers and just plain tell the GM what you wanted to do, if you had to keep everything Force-based a secret.

IMO it'd be a fun gimmick for one session but would be better off being revealed to the players, even if their characters didn't know.

This. Having the other players in on the secret is a great way for the to RP their characters wondering what's going on. It'll allow for the secret to be kept longer from the characters , and makes the final reveal to be that much better when the table knows the secret and can RP appropriately…and the table would know best when it's time for the great reveal.

-EF

I agree with the above. let the players in on the secret, but let them know the characters wouldn't know unless it was obvious, the better they can play it up, the more fun it is for them.

Secret rolls are annoying, deceptive, and can make the players uneasy

It sounds like a great idea to keep this from the other players. Lots of fun. Set up a couple of basic secret code phrases / words that mean "I am using power X". If you play with a laptop, send emails to their phone where you cannot convey the results in a discreet manner. Failing that, just txt the player but leave a pause before hitting send so it's not obvious their "txt" is from you. (They should have their phone on silent, too).

You should be able to get better and better at communicating secretly with practice and the addition of new signals (roll the special dice means you should roll a Force dice for the player as well, drumming fingers means willing to spend dark side, etc.).

I love this idea.

I find that players often get cranky when secrets like this are kept overly long. Players will begin to think the GM and the PC With the Secret are conspiring against them or that the game is focused more on them than the group as a whole. It can create friction. Friction leads to disintegration. No disintegrations.

Perhaps a way to handle this is to hand-wave a few very minor uses of the character's Force abilities. Don't worry about the dice. Give that player some extra information if he has Sense. Or for an Influence use, allow the player to send the stormtroopers on their way with just a simple, inexplicable statement, "these are not the droids you're looking for." This sort of thing. Make the other players curious...

Then set up a scene one or two sessions down the road where the Force using PC has to openly use his abilities in front of the other characters. In a rock slide, one character becomes trapped and the Force user has to use his Move to rescue him. (You don't even have to use the dice here either. Just narrate it.) Work with the player ahead of time, in private, to create this reveal scene. That way he is onboard with your plan and can role-play it appropriately. Then the secret is out and the PCs can have a nice role-playing scene where they talk about it.

After that, of course, the hand-waving freebies are done and the PC can roll Force dice in front of everyone.

I'm on board with letting the players know. Less complicated, plus if your players are smart they will figure it out quickly anyway.

I've had games where players have wanted to keep secrets from each other. "I'm actually a villain out to destroy the party" or "I'm a special race/class that they can't know about". This basically results in a lot of note passing, private conversations with the GM, and a lot of disruptive game play. Eventually I just decided to enforce an Anti-Meta policy at the table. I don't hide secrets from people, but I do expect players to play on their characters' knowledge. If they don't know a fact in the game, they are not allowed to use that fact as part of determining their character's actions. Surprisingly this can lead to a lot more fun in the game. Not only does it not slow everything down, but it's actually quite enjoyable watching people "play stupid", because some players do it so well it's like an art form to them.

I mean I guess if you are going for a surprise twist you could make an exception. But it's something that you really should set up with the players involved in advance so that it doesn't get in the way of the game.

For example I ran a D&D: Ravenloft game a while back where one of the characters was having a nightmare (brought on by supernatural forces). I got the rest of the group together early and explained to them what was going to happen. They were going to repeat the events of the previous game, but they were going to act like it was all completely normal. I was going to fudge every single dice roll, where the difficulty for all of their rolls would always be low enough to be successful, and the difficulty for the nightmare having character would always be too high. Some great roleplaying from my group and some terrifying visuals later, and the mighty Paladin of the group was convinced she was useless, powerless, and a cause of great suffering by all of those she has ever come in contact with.

The twist was kept to a single gaming session so that the other players could follow simple instructions and avoid having to clear things with me in disruptive ways.

Player made twists aren't a bad thing, just work them in appropriately and with limitations.

Another example of making secrets that became a legend in my old RPG group.

We were doing a home brew star trek game and the GM decided to do a version of the TOS episode " What are little girls made of " where all but one of the players was replaced by robot duplicates, but were allowed to give a clue that was out of Character. one player added "R" to everyoens name (R'Bob, R'Ann, R'Luke) similar to Asimovs Robot books, another just mirrored moves when playing chess, another quoted Asimovs three laws of robotics. Sadly the player that was suppose to be normal was the STUPIDIST one of the group.

3 hours later... another person (kibitzer) showed up to watch the game and within 30 minutes there was a silent conversation between him and the GM went something like this

Kibitzer mouths the words and points to the players: They are all robots?

GM nods

Kibitzer points to player being tricked: He doesn't know

GM shakes head

Kibitizer facepalms

In short, it went horribly wrong, and when the player finally realized what was happening after a total of FOUR HOURS had no clue on how to fix it. All the other players and the GM were frustrated to the point of screaming and pounding their heads against walls

I mean I guess if you are going for a surprise twist you could make an exception. But it's something that you really should set up with the players involved in advance so that it doesn't get in the way of the game.

...

Player made twists aren't a bad thing, just work them in appropriately and with limitations.

Kibitzer mouths the words and points to the players: They are all robots?

GM nods

Kibitzer points to player being tricked: He doesn't know

GM shakes head

Kibitizer facepalms

In short, it went horribly wrong, and when the player finally realized what was happening after a total of FOUR HOURS had no clue on how to fix it. All the other players and the GM were frustrated to the point of screaming and pounding their heads against walls

Timeless Truth: Your players aren't Sherlock Holmes. Don't expect them to figure something out because of clues you leave, NO MATTER how obvious they might be to you or other players.

Anecdote: My wife loves surprises, but hates knowing about the surprise in advance. If I just bring her home some imported Cadbury chocolate from England (she's a Londoner) or set up a romantic date and then spring it on her last minute (with enough time for her to get ready, childcare in the bag, etc) she loves it. But if I tell her much earlier, "I've got a surprise for you tomorrow/next week/in two hours," it drives her crazy not knowing what it is.

The point is, your players will usually appreciate being "in the know" if there's something to know, unless the whole point is for them to figure something out. And if that is the point, make it so whatever they're supposed to deduce is painfully obvious. Drop clues like, "he seems to be speaking in a very robotic kind of way. [insert player character name] isn't quite sure what's going on." So that way, the player catches on but at the same time can keep playing stupid. That way, he feels doubly smart instead of frustratingly stupid.

Disclaimer to the above: the "you" can be read as the formal "one," rather than being directed at kinnison or anyone else in particular

Timeless Truth: Your players aren't Sherlock Holmes. Don't expect them to figure something out because of clues you leave, NO MATTER how obvious they might be to you or other players.

In this situation:

If you want the players to figure something out quickly, they never will.

If you want them to figure it out slowly and only truly realize it after it is too late, they'll figure it out immediately and dash your plans.

the PC intelligence test.

Put them all in a room with no visible exits and a countdown. There is a button underneath the countdown that resets the countdown.

See how long it takes them to let the countdown reach zero which opens up an exit for them.

I'm a big fan of the players knowing what's going on. It can take a mature group to not meta-game with that knowledge, but I enjoy playing that way. It's fun to act stupid.

My group has done a mix of stuff in the open and stuff secretly. Sometimes we pass notes to the GM, but that's usually something for the short term that's resolved in the next few minutes and they just don't want other player's actions messing up what they are doing or they want the surprise. We've also played a great D&D game where one of the characters was an evil prince who was trying to take over the kingdom while the rest of us were the normal do-gooders. The group was able to play along. We didn't go out of our way to look into his secret, but he did have to take measures so that we didn't stumble upon his secret. Such as learning spells to hide his alignment before any of the rest of us were able to cast detect evil type spells. Although, the player was also talking to the GM on the side about some of the bigger kingdom changing events or killing off his brothers in our down time. Once the game was over, it was fun to find out the extra depths to which he went to play a secret evil character.

For me, it's part of the social contract to not meta game. Players need to make characters that work with the rest of the group and they need to make it so that their character will have a reason to work with the group. Have a loner character? He needs to RP a reason to stick with the group. The same goes with a secret force user. The rest of the players should be able to respect the secret force user and not meta game. The players should be able to play their characters like the characters don't know, until the force user slips up and/or lets the rest of the group knows they are a force user.