Your rumor table should be a living document. The latest gossip, after all, is alluring because it’s topical, and the enigma of the table will degrade as PCs learn its content. Here are a few techniques for keeping it fresh.
SAME RUMOR, NEW CONTEXT
When you give a rumor to the PCs, cross it off the list. If you roll the same rumor again, you may want to roll again (until you get a rumor the PCs haven’t heard yet). Being aware that you’ve given this specific rumor previously, however, you might simply make a point of finding a different spin or variation on the information the PCs already have. (For example, if they’ve previously heard that a wyvern has been attacking travelers along the Southway, they might hear about a different group of travelers being attacked. Or from a group of explorers who saw the wyvern flying over the Red Plateau.)
Tip: In an open table campaign, the fact that one PC has heard a rumor doesn’t necessarily mean that the rumor will have truly “entered” the campaign. That PC might never be played again, and there may be lots of other PCs who never even meet that PC (for all of whom the rumor would still be completely new). It may be slightly less obvious that the same thing can be true in a dedicated campaign, as players may forget or simply lose track of a rumor they’ve previously heard. This is what makes the “same rumor, new context” technique so useful, as it can be used to reintroduce the same information in an organic, rather than repetitive, way.
REMOVE AND REPLACE
Alternatively, once a rumor has been heard, you can cross it off your rumor list and replace it with a new one.
You’ll also likely want to replace rumors that are no longer applicable (e.g., someone has killed the wyvern, so it won’t be attacking people along the Southway any more).
You may also want to periodically replace a random selection of rumors (whether they’ve been heard or not) just to keep the rumor tables fresh.
Tip: You can combine these techniques. For example, you might cross out rumors when they’re heard, but only replace them once per month (finding new contexts if they get repeated before then). Or just keep them until they get randomly cycled out.
EVOLVE SITUATIONS
When you’re updating your rumor tables, it’s an opportunity to both evolve ongoing situations in the campaign world and give the PCs a vector for learning about it.
- A wyvern has been seen flying over the Red Plateau.
- The wyvern is now attacking travelers along the Southway.
- The wyvern has attacked a tax assessor’s wagon and carried off a lockbox containing 7,000 sp.
These situations, of course, don’t need to be limited to stuff that was previously seeded on the rumor table. There’s likely lots of stuff happening in your campaign.
CURRENT EVENTS
On a similar note, a rumor table can be stocked with current events and gossip. When you’re restocking, you may want to drop older events and add new ones to enhance the sense of time passing in the campaign world.
Tip: You can think of the rumor table as having certain “slots.” For example, entries 1-4 on the table might be current events; 5-10 point to random hexes; 11-14 refer to random encounters; and 15-20 being where everything else gets placed. This can help make sure that the table remains varied and “balanced” in its content, while also making it easy to, for example, swap out your current events.
RESPOND TO PC ACTIONS
PCs tend to do lots of big, splashy stuff (like killing wyverns) that are exactly the sort of thing people tend to gossip about. So when they do something notable, add it (or the situation that evolves out of it) to the rumor table.
Players love this. (“Hey! That was us!”) It makes them feel important and it’s a great of showing that their choices are meaningful and their actions have consequences. And the possibilities are almost limitless:
- With the wyvern slain, trade along the Southway has boomed. The caravan activity has outstripped the capacity of the Patrol Guild and they’re looking for freelance guards willing to ride with smaller caravans to Maernoc.
- Lord Erequad has issued a bounty for the adventurers who are believed to have stolen the tax assessor’s lockbox (which was originally taken by the wyvern).
- Four hungry baby wyverns have been seen hunting on the Red Plateau.
In a great hexcrawl campaign, the adventure never ends and the rumor table is constantly driving the world forward.
I particularly like the idea of seeding rumors *about the party* and the shenanigans they’ve been getting up to. In my upcoming campaign, I’ll have a starter episode to introduce the characters, and then jump forward 10 years when the consequences of that adventure mature. But the PCs will be heroes of the realm by that point, with songs about their exploits. They’ll be coming across rumors about their own doings, some of them complete bullshit, and some of them from copycats, trying to trade on their glory.
“On a similar note, a rumor table can be stocked with current events and gossip.”
.. I would add gossip about future events too (like upcoming market days). Like noting locations on a map, a calendar of events can constructed and pulled from as time passes.
“You’ll also likely want to replace rumors that are no longer applicable (e.g., someone has killed the wyvern, so it won’t be attacking people along the Southway any more).”
.. remembering of course that there might be some lag between an event (e.g. a wyrven attacking people along the Southway) and when that news reaches the PCs (e.g. after they’ve already killed the wyvern). Another opportunity for the PCs to feel awesome.
This whole series on hexcrawls has been SUPER helpful. Thank you for all your work and content.
If you want to get A smidge more complex and are really willing to give a rumor enough chances then you should probably have two tick boxes and then cross out the rumor. Thus implementing the rule of three essentially meaning that the players have some chances in order to effectively utilize the prep behind the rumor.