My very opinionated thoughts on this topic:

"Good" players that are in it for the fun, and support the gm's efforts to make the game work, are not a problem even if they read the 'GM only' info.

However, "Bad" players, might give the gm crap, ruin immersion, rules lawyer the game to get advantages, whatever.

So I personally as a player and as a gm, have no problem at all with players not knowing all the gm only information.


Ravenloft is a good example of a setting where it just works better if the players know nothing at all about the 'secrets' of the plane.

"Bad" players will start calculating their dark powers rating and crap like that.

Quote from: ggroy;725505Or a kriegspiel version of chess.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegspiel_%28chess%29

Stratego! Woot!

Quote from: Simlasa;725435On the flipside of the issue I hate it when GMs can't resist spilling the beans about the metaplot and secrets of the setting.
Our Earthdawn GM loves the setting and will show us big maps and point out what's going on where. Past, present AND future... telling us that who will win which war and which areas are doomed.
He's already told me, out of game, that my PC's sister, the big goal of his multi-year quest, is dead. GAH! He just can't help himself.
Now, every time he starts into 'the big picture' I start shouting 'Don't DO THAT!'
The elements of surprise and mystery are a big part of what I enjoy in a game. I don't want to know what was down that other hallway we didn't investigate or who REALLY killed Uncle Whatsit... it's better left unknown.
 
I can only imagine playing Kult with the guy, he'd be revealing all the secrets in the first session.

Man, that's profoundly shitty.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Bill;725847My very opinionated thoughts on this topic:

"Good" players that are in it for the fun, and support the gm's efforts to make the game work, are not a problem even if they read the 'GM only' info.

However, "Bad" players, might give the gm crap, ruin immersion, rules lawyer the game to get advantages, whatever.

So I personally as a player and as a gm, have no problem at all with players not knowing all the gm only information.


Ravenloft is a good example of a setting where it just works better if the players know nothing at all about the 'secrets' of the plane.

"Bad" players will start calculating their dark powers rating and crap like that.

I care less as a referee than as a player.  I want to find out things I didn't know.

"HOLY FUCK WHAT WAS THAT?"

A year later after the rules were published we found out it was an Invisible Stalker.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;724988I like separate GM sections and really like separate GM physical books when they are actually sold separately. This allows players to purchase just what they need to play without paying for material they may never use.

As far as players reading GM material, I just assume that players have read all published material for a game as far as campaign planning goes. No big deal.

Same here.
I like being able to refference the DMG while the players are glancing over the PHB. ShadowRun, Rifts, etc its either have more than one book, or pass it round and round and sure enough the players are going to try and memorize the monsters.

Quote from: Old Geezer;726806I care less as a referee than as a player.  I want to find out things I didn't know.

"HOLY FUCK WHAT WAS THAT?"

A year later after the rules were published we found out it was an Invisible Stalker.

Its more fun not to know every detail, for me anyway. Some players seem to prefer total meta game knowledge and I just don't relate. For example, some would want to know the gm was strictly running an 'Invisible Stalker RAW' instead of enjoying the mystery.

GM only rules?  Nah, I don't really have those.

GM only sections in adventures?  Absolutely.  Players reading the adventure is akin to me like someone reading all the plot twists before watching a movie.

Quote from: Bill;727113Its more fun not to know every detail, for me anyway. Some players seem to prefer total meta game knowledge and I just don't relate. For example, some would want to know the gm was strictly running an 'Invisible Stalker RAW' instead of enjoying the mystery.

Such people have toilet training issues.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;727120GM only rules?  Nah, I don't really have those.

The only case I can really see for GM only rules is something like madness rules in a CoC style game. Not knowing exactly how madness is implemented on purpose could be really immersive for players.

I like the element of surprise when i play, so i'm all in favour of GM only material - whether that is monster stats, secret societies and the like.

Quote from: Old Geezer;727222Such people have toilet training issues.

Or at least control and trust issues to some degree.

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;724980Some RPGs (Paranoia and Kult for example) specifically have parts of the game that are "Off Limits" to players.

I mostly only run generic systems and most of them don't seem to have this section as such.

As for adventures, I almost never run anything published and I make shit up as I go along.  My "notes" consist of a white board or battle mat to draw maps on , a blank notebook to keep track of what has happened (and later the same notebook with past notes) and probably the names of the first NPCs and maybe a map or two I think I might use.

I also seldom use specific creatures unless they are generic-ish.  Like an Orc might be a mook with an axe, or it might be a veteran of many battles, and a shaman to boot.  I mostly make up new critters.

On those occasions when I am running a published setting, I inform people that while I will try to adhere the generalities, the specifics may vastly differ from the rumors they might have read in the main books.  The absolute worst reaction to this I've had were from WoD players, primarily Vampire, even when I wasn't even using the storyteller system for that world.

And other than those players I've largely had good reactions to my games.

The worst games I feel I've run are the ones where I tried to prepare and use stuff "as written" because 5 minutes into it the many players typically have better ideas than the one writer (or GM in my case) and I'd just as soon steal their ideas for what is actually going on.

Half of the people I play with are GMs themselves and know quite a number of systems, so a "GM onlyt" part of a book won't work unless it is a completely new system only the current GM knows.

I think that there's a difference between a "GM section" of an RPG book and a "GM-ONLY section".  The former is just a place to deal with those rules that players don't really need to know.  The latter is usually a problematic sort of thing not least because it assumes players cannot make a division between in-character and out-of-character knowledge... and moreso, because those players who really can't will just cheat anyways and look!

Worth pointing out too that in Paranoia the GM-only section is only winkingly a GM-only section. Given that Paranoia is built on taking all of the OOC assumptions of other RPGs and inverting them as much as possible whilst still just about retaining a traditional RPG framework, in fact it's just fine reading the GM-only stuff in Paranoia provided that nobody can prove you did it.