We played our first game last night. Once the cylon was revealed an threw me in the brig, my other human ally told me he had enough skill card points to get me out. I kept cautioning him that we were supposed to be discrete, but at that point we were trying everything we could to survive.
Once the reveal is out there, does secrecy go out the window?
No it does not.
So, to clarify, the other human shouldn't have been telling me if he could help or not. I agree, just was hard to convince him that it went against the spirit of the game. He insisted that since it was us against the cylon, we needed to do anything we could to survive.
Secrecy is still important. Humans cannot reveal exactly how much they have in their hands, and that includes effectively saying "I could beat a skill check of difficulty 7 alone."
It's important to note that this also applies to the revealed Cylons. A revealed Cylon cannot tell another Cylon player about his/her supercrisis.
I think the rules say you can't be specific about cards in your hand or what you play in skill checks. Like Sinis said, people can't say stuff like "I could beat a skill check of difficulty 7 alone."
However, I don't think there is anything wrong with someone saying they can help on a skill check as long as they are not specific about how much/what colors/etc.
I don't know. Because you also have to worry about cylons throwing in cards, and the destiny deck. I think it'd be ok for him to say that he thinks you'd be able to get out of the brig, and then tell everyone else not to play any cards, he'd take care of it. It sure does say he has a lot he can play, but it doesn't seem too specific.
We have a house rule that a player can state, "I can't help", "I can help a little", "I can help a lot".
Whether this is the truth or not, it falls within the guidelines for the game... ;-)
Another reason for secrecy is a metagame consideration. If the players know that the piloting and engineering cards are already used from the destiny deck, they will act in a different matter.