Help with conversations, please.

[00HiZaM]

A few months back a group of friends and I got together and it's been great however in the party of seven, 4 good 2 evil and 1 neutral, I'm the DM. there have been occasions where some of them want to keep a secret from the rest of the party and while that's all fine by me the situations have arose while we're playing and I don't know how to let them share these secrets without the rest of the party knowing.

EDIT: I want to know if anyone has a way to do this, because those secrets have really added up to the game and so far it's been a great waste of paper.

Thanks in advance.

[GawainBS]

From my personal experience: avoid this like the plague. Our D&D group dissolved due to such issues. No inter-party drama. In our case, the secret-keepers hid behind "but it's only a game" to just do as they pleased, liberally aided by the DM (their close relative), who rule-0ed us on every in-game attempt to learn more.

[Winterfell]

From my personal experience: avoid this like the plague. Our D&D group dissolved due to such issues. No inter-party drama. In our case, the secret-keepers hid behind "but it's only a game" to just do as they pleased, liberally aided by the DM (their close relative), who rule-0ed us on every in-game attempt to learn more.

I agree to a point. It depends on the group. If the group wants to play a PvP game and everyone's ok with it, then passing notes (or sending IMs if the tech is handy) is fine. They can all have a merry game of cloak & dagger with a fantasy backdrop.

If it's a few players beating up on one, then you might be looking at a problem.

Here's the critical question - is everyone having fun? If not, then the DM needs to redirect that energy into something collaborative. Maybe an urban adventure is in order so those players who like to cause trouble can do so with NPCs. I find that those players who revel in this kind of PvP are less thrilled with hack and slash than with roleplaying. Set aside the dungeons and let them roleplay in a good way.

In any event, telling players how to interact with each other is a good way to kill the mood. The players have to be invested or the game just doesn't work.

To address the original question: what kind of party knowledge are you trying to avoid? The fact that a couple players are conspiring? That's going to be hard to avoid. The content of the communication? Paper works. If they are justing coordinating efforts to rob a bank behind the Paladin's back, who cares? If they are coordinating efforts to frame the Paladin for murder, see points above.

I have an evil character in my campaign. She inflicted lycanthropy on a village of halflings (an awesome adventure hook for later). The party wasn't directly affected, so while the good cleric had an issue, there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. I would have challenged any efforts on his part to prevent something he had no right knowing about.

Last point. Keeping secrets from the other players can be fun, but it can also be dangerous. Consider introducing an item that the evil characters might keep hidden where party knowledge would be vital to their (the evil characters') survival. For example, let them find a magic item with a hidden curse such that only one of the good character could identify it.