Quote:
Originally Posted by Silveras
Don't forget that, wherever you decide to place your rumors, the snippet can be marked as True, False, or Partially True.
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This.
A rumor is just an unverified piece of information. It should be categorized like any information.
That alleged hidden dungeon protecting the treasures of a long-dead wizard? That's a location or adventure-area topic. The mysterious man who has saved many villagers from the dangerous creatures of the dark woods, but whose identify is unknown? A person topic. A rumored magic item? A named-object topic. Etc.
Whether I make a separate topic or article for a rumor depends on two things: (1) is there some truth to it and (2) will it be a major part of an adventure or frequently encountered spanning multiple sessions?
If it is a throw-away rumor that only comes up once, then I just use a snippet in the scene where it comes up and mark it as true, false, etc. Generally, if there is a common rumor with some truth to it that is important to an adventure/campaign or just comes up a lot, I'll create a topic for it and record the various claims and exaggerations as snippets, revealing them as the party hears/learns about them. That way I can build up the story around a person, place, or thing marking the level of truthfulness of each snippet, revealing the level of truthfulness to the players as they find out.
It really isn't complicated, but takes some thought when creating a story, adventure, plot idea, etc. Monsters are an example where there is a lot of options for how to approach rumors. For example:
The villagers whisper about the man-eating snipes that infest the dark woods and can only be defeated by attracting them into a sack using the light of a torch.
That could just be a throw-away joke rumor for one scene. In that case, I just put it into a snippet and note the truthfulness.
If, however, it is going to be a long-running joke, I might also make an "Inhabitant" topic for man-eating snipes to record the various rumors about them—even if the things don't actually exist.
Now, if man-eating snipes are real dangers that the party can encounter, then I will create a mechanics—>dangers—>monster/enemy article.
Until recently, I only put 100% accurate stuff in mechanics articles. But you can mark the truthfulness of snippets in the mechanics articles, just as you can in world-almanac topics. It is just easier to have rumors about a monster (as a type/class as opposed to an individual) in the monster's article. For individual monsters with personality, I put them under the world almanac, in a people—>individual topic, and enter rumors about them in snippets to that topic.
The downside of this approach is that it makes it hard to generate a list of all rumors. You could add a tag I suppose, but for me that's not very useful, as the same rumor can be in multiple topics and seeing a topic name isn't going to let me know what the rumor is without opening the topic. Instead, I would create either a "further info" or "other" topic and list all the important rumors using words that will autolink to related topics and articles when that would be helpful. You could categorize your rumors by using different topics and put them all in a "rumors" container topic.
I don't bother with compiling lists of rumors. That's the player's job. If there is a rumor that serves as an important plot hook, or is crucial to the story-line, I make a plot-hook topic or put the rumor in the story-line topic. I also use user-notes to create post-game and pre-game notes where I'll enter any rumors that I feel the need to remind players of or to bring up again in some way.