How to DM Secrets, Mystery and Information in D&D

The DM’s vow of silence: A reminder to keep secrets

Dungeons & Dragons players want to find out all the secrets of the game world. But they actually don’t. A large part of the wonder of D&D relies on the DM keeping their secrets. We can conceptualize this as the DM’s vow of silence. We should let secrets be discovered naturally in play, while keeping our vow of silence outside of the game.

To be clear, open communication is another key to a successful game. We should listen to players, openly address concerns, and get feedback on the way we run the game. In fact, much of this article is dedicated to situations where we should absolutely break our vow of silence. Yet, secrecy remains an important aspect of DMing. We call it a vow of silence because it brings both joy and a burden. It is important to the appeal of the game. Yet it also reinforces the sometimes solitary nature of being a DM.

But when it comes to the fiction, often keeping our vow of silence is what we should strive for. A DM can keep the secrets of the world, so that their discovery in play stays meaningful. Breaking the vow of silence, can break immersion. For example, we shouldn’t share an upcoming encounter, the content of a future chapter of the hardcover adventure we are running, or even worse, a plot twist. If we succumb to the temptation to share our awesome fiction prematurely, we run the risk of breaking immersion. Suspension of disbelief might waver, and the motivation for players to come back week after week with it.

Why a vow of silence? Because of the power of secrets.

As a DM we build fantastical worlds filled with secrets, mystery and intrigue. Our campaign world’s history might reach back millennia and span continents, planets or galaxies. Even if the “known” world consists of a lone island, or even a single city, secrets lurk at every corner. Who runs the local crime syndicate? What are those cultists in the basement of that forgotten church up to? Who is the town speaker having an affair with? Secrets like these are what make exploration and investigation exciting and rewarding for our players. Characters must speak to the right people, sneak into the right places, or decipher the right runes. If they do it right, they can discover something they did not know before. Secrets make our worlds living, breathing constructs. They instill our players with a sense of wonder and the thirst for knowledge and discovery.

But these secrets and mysteries rely on a lack of information. Partial information to be more precise. The characters, and the players in this case, need to have some information in order to know where to look. But the adventure hook must contain only incomplete information. Only then do players experience a yearning to learn more.

The vow of silence out of game

As DM we must keep our secrets to generate investment in the fantastical mysteries of our game world. We might play with friends, or we might have regular out-of-game communication with our players. If our players are invested in the game, they might ask in between sessions about secrets of the world. This is a great sign, and an opportunity to sink our hooks even deeper into the player. We can tease them with a hint at more secrets, or more impartial information. But if it is a mystery to their character, it should remain mysterious to the player as well.

That secret society of halfling mages that is secretly pulling the strings in town? The mystical history of the forbidden shrine in the elvish forest that is slowly corrupting the entire continent? We might have spent hours working on an exciting piece of lore. We might feel compelled to share our work. To let our players in on the mystery and intrigue that we have meticulously crafted. But we have taken a vow of silence. And as hard as it can sometimes be, we, as a DM, should let secrets be discovered at the table. In between sessions, the vow of silence is most compelling.

Breaking the vow of silence

Let secrets be discovered at the table

Of course if you never share any of your world’s secrets, your players are probably going to end up confused. If you never share, players will lose motivation pretty fast. Secrets and mystery rely on impartial information. But they also rely on the possibility of discovery and a constant trickle of information. If a character successfully investigates the ancient glyph in the dungeon, they are going to discover previously hidden information. And this is where keeping our vow of silence pays dividends. Because of the power of secrets, the moment of revelation inspires the player and lets their character shine. Secrets are there to be discovered but only a limited supply of information makes the discovery feel special. As a DM, we keep our vow of silence out of game, but we make sure the world is covered in secrets to be discovered during play.

DM Tip: Share secrets to clean up confusion

In a similar vein, we should share information when our players are confused. Especially if that confusion is due to a misunderstanding or a disparity of knowledge between their character and the player. If their character would know or realize something, tell the player. Lets say an evil necromancer conducts a ritual to raise a fallen army from an ancient battlefield. A cleric or a paladin in the party might recognize the foul magic at play in this location. A character with the scholar background might remember that this is the place of the Battle of the Broken Horns. Thousands of corpses lie in these fields ready to serve a new general.

If such a situation comes up, we don’t even have to wait for the players to ask for such information. We can make them roll an applicable ability check to see how much information they uncover. But if the character would clearly know something because of their training or backstory, we can just let the player know – no check required. By seeing the world through the character’s eyes, we set ourselves up to share character-specific secrets at the right time.

Sharing secrets during character creation or downtime

Character-specific secrets can sometimes even be shared out-of-game. This is especially true during character creation. Information about a character’s background, the place of their ancestry in the world, or secrets shared with the character by an organization they belong to are legitimate reasons to stray from the vow of silence. Sharing secret pieces of lore that only the character knows about can immerse players in the game. They get to decide when to share that information with the rest of the group. They become collaborators in our vow of silence.

Downtime can present another welcome loophole to our vow of silence. When we discuss downtime activities, we can share lore that the character might acquire during their activities. While working at the airship docks, a character might learn of the growing threat of harpies in the area. This bit of information might lead to a whole new adventure when the player decides to share it with the group. But remember the power of imperfect information, and the mystery it can create. Maybe the rumors aren’t precise as to the creature that is attacking ships. Or harpies have never been spotted this far south. What is the cause of them venturing so far? The rumors don’t tell. We can stray from our vow of silence to deliver partial information during downtime. The players will then grow eager to discover more back in play.

Unknown Secrets and the DM’s school of illusion

Sometimes our game contains secrets that not even we, the dungeon master, know. At least not fully. We can deliberately leave blank spaces in our campaign world. This way, we can let the fiction of the game to evolve together with the characters. We might improvise a tome describing an ancient society of archmages as dungeon room dressing. We have no idea what that society was, who was in it and whether they are still active. In fact, we didn’t even know there was a book on the shelf. At least not until a player asked “Are there any books on the shelf?” We should savor these moments. They give the players the feeling of moving about in a living world. One that is filled to the brim with magic and wonder.

When a player asks us whether we came up with something on the spot we can fall back to the DM’s school of illusion. We smile confidently and shrug our shoulders. The player will feel teased and excited to find out more, if only to make us flex our improvisational skills. We could come up with a backstory, lore and information about the arcane organization in between sessions. But there is a more mysterious approach we could take. Leave the secret in the unknown and discover the mysteries behind it together with the players. They might speculate about the ancient order of archmages. If one of their ideas sounds especially intriguing, we should run with it. Lean into the ideas of the players, and build on them. Then discover mysteries we had no idea were there.

Keep players guessing as to whether they just stumbled upon the final treatise of the greatest school of drow wizards, or whether it was all made up after the fact. Keep the vow of silence by using DM illusion magic.

Secrets, information, and the DM’s vow of silence

Secrets, mystery, and hidden lore are powerful motivators for player characters. We can think of our responsibility to keep these secrets as a vow of silence. Impartial information keeps players guessing and instills them with a hunger for exploration and discovery.

Open communication is key for a healthy game. Yet, if we dungeon masters are too liberal with information, especially away from the gaming table, we risk nullifying the players’ thirst for knowledge. We must choose the right moments to divulge information, uncover secrets and provide lore and background of our worlds. When we get it right, the players will feel like their characters are part of a living and breathing world. But that requires that we keep a certain shroud of mystery, an imperfect veil of illusion, a malleable vow of silence.