Has anyone had experience dealing with secret motivations in their group and how it played out with the rest of the team?

as I recently commented on a post about how to handle a former imperial character, I also have a player who is a former imperial and who still has strong feelings towards them.

This shouldn’t be an issue with one of the players who is kind of indifferent to the empire but two of the other characters have negative, although not strongly so, feelings towards the empire, I’m hoping to introduce it steadily and give the characters time to adjust and not turn on each other but it would be nice to see how other gms have dealt with hidden motivations in the past, espeacially when those motivation can put them at odds with the other PCs

Any time I allow this at all, it's always known to the other players . I've done it a few times over the years and I've never had a problem with it, but not all groups are the same.

good question. I am also thinking about something like this at the moment.

I figured that we don't really know a lot of backstory about one of our human scout PCs (mainly because the player was new to RPG when she picked up the character). I thought it would be good to use it to create some interesting past for the PC - e.g. that she's been actually brought up at a wealthy noble house on a world like Naboo (which would explain her current investment in Presence driven skills and fancy clothes))).

I think I am going to come up with some details of the story together with the player (in secret from other players) ahead of our next session. Now that she has deeply immersed in the game it should only be fun.

But I don't want even her to know the whole story as well. At some point I would definetely tempt her to use the knowledge/connections from her past to save the team / help them complete a difficult task. I guess I would then gradually reveal that she is actually a princess and a heiress to a throne on one of the worlds or something like that.

Sectret plots and motivations are a great way to get some good role play out of your party. Even if the rest of the party never find out about the secret, the fact that you (as the GM) and the player know about it mean that that particular character gets layers of depth.

Something that is always very important when dealing with secret motivations is deciding whether or not the secret will be viewed as a betrayal by the rest of the party. You also need to make the player with the secret know what the ramification of this might be. For example, if the player's secret motivation is that he is planning on scamming the rest of the party out of payment for a job (ie. paying them a lesser cut than they are owed or something along those lines), then you need to make the player fully aware that doing this might turn the entire party against him. It might even result in the party turning on the character and he will be forced out (made become an enemy NPC, while that player has to stat a new character).

In terms of your scenario, I think you should be very well prepared for the PCs who don't particularly like the Empire (even if those feelings are not too strong at the moment), to turn on your Imperial PC. It would be like discovering your partner in crime is actually an undercover cop. They genuinely might not want to work with him without establishing trust first. You (and your Imperial PC) can help establish this trust by creating a scenario where the Imperial is the only one who is capable of getting them out of trouble. If possible you should avoid doing this mechanically (ie. having him come to the rescue in combat) but should be done as a social encounter. Some info the PC has or ability that he has lets them get through a sticky, potentially dangerous situation. In short, have him prove himself invaluable to the other PCs, so when the reveal happens they will feel betrayed and suspicious but will still feel like they need him. Then the Imperial PC will have to work to win back the other PC's trust if he wants to keep things civil. Fantastic opportunities for roleplaying all around

A couple of games ago, my core world princess was a hardcore Imperial loyalist. While we were not working for the Rebels, our paths occasionally did intersect - and she would dime them out on the secret all the time. When the other characters found out, it did make for some rough times in the crew, but they eventually worked it out.

The important bit - the rest of the table knew what she was up to. The characters were in the dark, but the players all knew. So when the shoe dropped, there were no bad player feelings. Everyone was onboard with the story we were trying to tell, and able to keep player and character knowledge divorced. And it worked out great (well up to the point where the game imploded for unrelated reasons before I could fully wrap up her story).

Would being “human,” but instead secretly Anzat count? Because that would get really interesting.