We're scheduled for Felltower on Sunday. But I've hit a bit of a wall for rumors. The PCs have repeatedly hit the same area over and over. There isn't much more to say about it, nothing new discovered to prompt new rumors.
Therefore I'm simply going to either skip them entirely, or if I get an idea or so, I'll put them down and give them out if enough accumulate to allow for a die roll. Or I might just skip - if they're nothing to say, and the PCs already have a plan, what's the point of derailing them?
Rumors need not just be about where and what the party has recently done. You can use them to remind players of areas they seem to have forgotten about. The rumor mill recycles old stories again and again. You can include things learned by previous players/characters but not known by the current set. They can be prompts that maybe it is time to look into some area that was beyond the party until recently (I know you don't like pushing the players in any direction even gently, I'm just saying as a "this is also an option now, you might have considered out of reach"). And they can be used to reveal new areas exist if you expand your dungeon between sessions. The game is all about the PCs but if only the PCs every enter the dungeon and see anything what is the point of rumors, all they can do is parrot back what the PCs have revealed after adventures, so a group of delvers seeing a foreboding entrance nobody noted or which was unearthed by a recent rock slide seems fair game.
ReplyDelete(And I'm anonymous because it won't let me select my Google Account. Must be some new security setting on the work network.)
I can - but I feel like I'm either recycling material, or prodding them to check things out that they'll prioritize over other areas. It feels a little too much like GM suggestions than neutral reminders. Besides, they have hundreds of rumors written down, and people periodically go through them and comb them for hints.
DeleteI don't expand the dungeon much - there are levels underneath where they've explored, and many, many areas there. I haven't felt a need to give them a larger smorgasbord than they already have. At this point, I prefer rumors to springboard off of what they've accomplished rather than remind them of what they've decided to pass on for now.