Rumor Gathering Revised?

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.

DFRPG Companion 2 - Shipped Again

Long day today, and a lot of game prep* to do before I sleep, so I'll have to be be brief. SJG shipped me a second, replacement copy of DFRPG Companion 2 today.

Hurrah for that!

I should have a full review up early next week.




* Like writing about 20 more rumors to re-fill the table.

DFRPG Companion 2 Arrived (and damaged)

So, first, hurrah! I received my copy of DFRPG Companion 2.

Unfortunately, the USPS, in their infinite wisdom, chose to fold the package into a tight "U" shape to cram it into my mailbox. This cracked the spine, among other damage:



I'll get a review up later . . . although it's maddening to read a book that has a spine cracked hard enough to make flipping pages difficult. I emailed SJG; we'll see what my recourse is. A cardboard mailing box might have been more expensive but would clearly have been a better choice.

Errata update for GURPS Basic Set

You probably know this already, because if you own these books on PDF you'll have received an email offering up a link to the latest versions of the files.

What changed?

That's trickier. According to the forum post linked in the update email alert, there were "minor errata and tweaks throughout."

Err . . . like what? Did any numbers change? Point costs? Page references? Important verbs? Semi-important nouns?

It's annoying that I get to know something changed . . . but not what. Especially since I still, quite often, use my harcopy books for rules reference. SJG used to list the errata by item. If they're still doing so for this update, I'd like to know where. Does anyone reading this happen to know? My favorite game system isn't going to change just because I can't find it, but it's annoying that I can't put a finger on what changed in the basic books underlying the whole system.

Random Links for 2/25

Here are three fun links for you:

- Erik Tenkar is going to have another podcast, this one centered on AD&D. It's called Unearthed Arcana, after one of my favorite (and much maligned) books in the AD&D series of rulebooks. AD&D is a favorite of mine. It's my native gaming language, for one, and it provides endless fun as we re-read Gary Gygax's willfully obtuse rules as we run it for a few sessions every year.

- Pits Perilous reviews a review of one of their adventures. It's amusing to me as I like Bryce's blog, but he's a contrary indicator for me. Most of the adventures that I ran and enjoyed, he didn't like when he read them. So this review of a review makes me want to read the adventure.

- Chester at CRPG has been playing the Rogue-like "Ragnarok" and suffered this awesome death:

"I ate some creature that turned out to be made of lava."

You'd think you'd notice before you actually tucked in, but hey, clearly the computer GMs like I GM. "You said, 'I eat it.' Take 8d per second until you die."

DFRPG Companion 2 shipped

I received a notice of shipment today for DFRPG Companion 2.

To be accurate, it was listed as "Label Created" today, so we'll see when it goes out. But I should have the new book before the end of the week unless the USPS is especially slow.

Lost City Prep for next week's game

Next week we resume my Felltower campaign. The goal is the gate to the Lost City of D'Abo, where they'll take another try at finding "Rangelgrot" and the other bell.

So I spend what time I had to spend on game today on review. Specially, re-reading all of these posts:

The Lost City of D'Abo
Lost City vs. My Other DF Areas

and of course

Session 67, Lost City 1 - Armoury
Session 68, Lost City 2 - Vegepygmies & Thornies
Session 69, Lost City 3 - Slimes, Why Did It Have to Be Slimes?
Session 70, Lost City 4 - Arachno-Assassins & the First Bell
Session 71, Lost City 5, Part I - Mowgli Battle
Session 72, Lost City 5, Part II - Rangol Grot
Session 73, Lost City 5, Part III - Fort Vegepygmy
Session 101, Felltower 73, Lost City 6
Session 113, Felltower 85, Lost City 7

Plus some assorted others under the Lost City tag.

That done, I've queued up all of my personal material related to the city. I won't spend much time this week prepping new areas, but I will get to revist all that we need for the Lost City. Maybe if you'll want to kibbutz and criticize and comment with some background knowledge you can read the public stuff along with me!