"Dnd isn't competitive" rookie moves dnd's a contest of wills and I'm winning.
Ever single player has been given an Awful Secret they are trying to hide from the others.
Our Sorcerer snuck off to visit his aunt after she threatened to kill him and only the two of us know he'll be coming back in one piece.
Our Barbarian is the only pc who knows the Sorcerer's father had a kid. (He does not know it is the Sorcerer. The Sorcerer has been wearing a mask since he was introduced. He also has been told in no uncertain terms that absolutely nobody can be told anything about it.)
Our Cleric worships a god of the same pantheon who literally ruined the Barbarian's life. She learned this at the same time as him.
Our Thief spent the entirety of Act 1 beefing with an unintroduced npc, and punched her as soon as he saw her. The rest of the party think he isn't giving her enough grace.
The pcs canonically don't know about our other Cleric's existence. They were the first person to have a genuine near-death experience.
They have been trying to track down a major deity for answers for the last three weeks. The last time they saw him was five weeks ago. They do not know that he is a god, or a war criminal, or that they will not be able to threaten him.
I've just introduced another deity from the same pantheon as a minor antagonist. He is dead.
The Clerics worship an entirely different pantheon who went to war with the deities already introduced. Nobody knows this.
BBEG2 orchestrated the quiet murders of most elves in the setting. Two of the pcs are elves. They are not impressed.
Their employer is a child. They found this out by sheer fluke.
Absolutely everybody is lying and being vague for the hell of it. All the pvs are doing their best to get answer from them, and also lying and deflecting.
A late arrival pc took five sessions to reveal his class. He just used a spell to specifically avoid revealing his race.
Every time they do get more exposition it raises more questions then it answers or freaks them out a little bit more.
They wanted to do the next session early less than twenty-four hours after the last one started.