Over the 9 years of my Felltower game, I've generated hundreds of rumors. All of them available to the PCs in a big document I update periodically for them.
I use some house rules to allow multiple rumors for characters with Carousing. That's found so many rumors that I've needed to cap the totals.
The problem I've found is that I routinely need between 12-15 rumors per session, given a large group, multiple characters with solid Carousing scores, and a fair number of in-town bonuses on those same characters.
I've been timing myself, and found I need about 2-5 minutes, averaging about 3 per, to make up rumors. Plus dead time in between lost for other productivity . . . 15 rumors might take as much as an hour. That's a solid hour of game prep time, usually fairly last-minute, as I try to get ready for the upcoming game. We've cut from 1d30 rumors to 1d20 to often as not 1d12 as I run out of time and ideas pre-game.
I've tried to just write them as I think of them. That's failed. Unless I'm staring at a half-blank list and perusing the previous rumors so as not to duplicate my own prior ideas, I don't write.
I think I'll do this to slow down the tide. Changes in italics.
Rumors
Characters in town get one rumor, not guaranteed to be unique.
Characters with Carousing may roll to hear more rumors. On a success, the character hears one additional rumor. On a critical success, the character hears two additional rumors. A maximum of three rumors can be heard by one character through Carousing and staying in town.
***
I think that can save me a lot of time. My players love the rumors, but they take more time than I have currently to devote to writing them. So let's see if cutting down the automatic uniqueness per person and the 4-5 rumors most guys Carousing would get will get me some of that time between sessions back.
You don't need to give them a free one rumor. After all, in your game, the players are going to go to Felltower, period. In games where there are multiple destinations, one free one is more handy since that ensures the players get at least one destination.
ReplyDeleteIt's partly a reward for paying upkeep and staying in town. People lose that rumor when they camp out, or do too many things in town.
DeleteThree plausible, significant (i. e. worth mentioning) rumors sounds to me like the maximum someone would hear. All sorts of rubbish, as well, sure, but no more than 3 worth investigating. And overlapping? Definitely. That's how real rumors work.
ReplyDeleteShould we have the guys who only get one rumor go first? Seems like that would make it less likely that they wouldn't get a unique rumor...although as I write this I'm not even sure that matters! But this sounds good; I can understand that after a while, it gets really hard to come up with the rumors.
ReplyDeleteBut overall, I think the carousing roll changes are the best. Success = +1, critical success = +2, that makes a lot of sense.
ReplyDeleteAt what point do the PCs start hearing rumors that are related to their current and/or past activities? Or are just straight up retellings of past exploits (filtered through time, alcohol, misunderstandings, and/or the plain "telephone game" effect, of course.)
ReplyDeleteI don't recycle their own adventures back as rumors, but I do give them rumors that feed off of what they find. So they hear about things they've run into, monsters they've fought, places uncovered by their delves, etc.
Delete