Insight doesn't have any effect on rumours - other than getting an idea as to whether the person spreading it believes it or not.
It depends how much of your world you mean by "throughout", or do you mean time-wise through the duration of the campaign?
Normally PCs go looking for rumours, rather than just randomly hearing them.
there's a rumor going around that you have never actually played a game of D&D. --- Question: Do I believe this? do I not? or did I just make it up on the spot? Why is your insight an "either/or" option?
Throughout meanbs yes, the entirety of the campaign/world.
*Normally* sure, but DMs have the option, to just have NPCs actually talk to one another as indistinct conversation, rather than just be video game NPCs where they never talk or do anything unless interacted with by the party. Are the taverns your adventurers in just completely quiet except for what the PCs are saying? I believe PCs, aside from just "go looking for rumors" can be like: "what is the table next to me talking about?" "what do i hear at the market" "whats the town crier saying" all of those are very different than "I go looking for rumors"
I'm very confused by the poll options, so I'll respond in text form.
I have pretty robust criminal undergrounds in my settings, where "rumor runner" is a legitimate job. Most of the time, these are just people whose trade is learning and selling information, but they also double as disinformation agents in espionage scenarios. I also exclusively run intrigue campaigns, so rumor plays more of a role in my games than most tables might see.
Regarding misinformation, I find that I rarely have to feed my players false information because they come up with their own wild and cockamamie conspiracies that function as red herrings. If anything, my rumor runners are far more likely to withhold information rather than lie - unless, of course, the party contracts them to lie on their behalf. Really, the only NPCs I've had give false rumors were villains who had no reason to tell the truth. Oblique, vague answers and omissions work for me better. And yeah, insight checks are pretty common at my table. It's, frankly, my personal favorite skill.
For me the question is: What purpose do the rumors serve?
If I want to lore dump, I often just... Lore Dump. Sometimes it's as simple as "okay here's what you all know about this by your backgrounds". Sometimes it's an NPC saying "oh, this is how this works". But rumors aren't great for world building per say because they lead to the big question of "is this how this homebrew world works or is it just a rumor?" And sometimes that's good and sometimes that leads to disconnects. I'd rather avoid the conflict and go right at "here's how the world works."
If I want the PC's to follow a quest, or have an option for a side quest, then I'll use rumors in a more direct RP sense and make it clear that I'm waving a possible hook at them. For me, I don't do well with the "random dungeon delve" and I prefer that every side quest have a story to it as well. So if I'm going to make the side quest, I kinda want the PC's to follow it and not shrug it off, or worse yet not find it.
If the PC's want to say "we want to listen to local rumors" I will happily just make up stuff off the cuff and tell them "this probably won't lead to anything" unless in the time between sessions I think of something.
I'm a bit confused about the poll format, where are there 1-5 buttons for what I think is a survey of five options?
There's a lot of magical media and a lot more traveling in many D&D worlds than "historical medieval Europe".
Poe once wrote, "Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see."
I don't have a rumor mechanic but I use rumors in the game. Generally, I allow players to declare actively at a venue (like a tavern or market) or passively presume during down time activity that the players will be able to gather the proverbial word on the street. Whisper Bards sort of have this built into their character feature in that the class has an innate ability to determine power dynamics, they may not know the truth of a conflict but they definitely can determine the ramifications of a conflict. But so can most characters (I just lean on the whisper bard or give them the most space if this is going on). So, yeah, they get a sense of what the town's talking about. There may be official proclamations and reactions to them, there may be mysteries or scandals are reactions to them. It's all 'motivating exposition' rather than a challenge or test, the design is to either get the characters to pick a side of dig deeper into the uncertainty.
Insight may be able to deduce disinformation being attempted, but misinformation isn't an insight thing beyond maybe the rollers wisdom as to the NPC's credibility. Remember disinformation is the intentional dissemination of lies or other distortions of the truth. Misinformation is just having bad info and not being aware the bad info you're sharing is bad. Insight won't be able to determine misinformation, actual knowledge disputing the facts either already known by the PC or gathered during the course of investigation determines that.
One of my favorite BBEGs is Fraz Urb'luu whose whole thing, at least in my game, is exploiting the tendency of people to "come to believe" things. Some characters who cross paths with him wind up cynical almost to the point of nihilism. For a BBEG like that, word on the street and official records both have their uses.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Running West Marches-style games, my players usually choose a place they want to go to and gather intel about it before they go. For example, the ruler of Novaspezch knows for a fact the Sanguinomicon is guarded by a mummy to the East, and his court wizard knows the mummy is named Pharaoh Ro'shah. However, the innkeep's information is entirely rumours such as the mummy being guarded by fearsome big cats (partially true; they have long been dead), and that there's a pearl the size of his head (true; what he doesn't know is it's essentially a plug stopper for a giant pool). A lot of inspiration I had for this came from Mörk Borg's Rotblack Sludge adventure, where some rumours are false, some are half-true, and some are true, all of which are rolled on tables.
In answer to why the Insight skill check would matter, it would rarely if ever matter. Most rumours are spread by people who believe them, and if challenged, would probably shrug and ask to be left to get back to their work or would give a lead ("Well, I just heard it from [so-and-so]"). I would absolutely let the characters chase down rumours (and then have more emphasis on Insight); Novaspezch is a small barony, and if there's one person starting all these porky pies, they can be confronted (and the players can then decide if some rumours are better than none; see Chief Hanlon from Fallout: New Vegas).
Zero is the most important number in D&D: Session Zero sets the boundaries and the tone; Rule Zero dictates the Dungeon Master (DM) is the final arbiter; and Zero D&D is better than Bad D&D.
"Let us speak plainly now, and in earnest, for words mean little without the weight of conviction."
Insight doesn't have any effect on rumours - other than getting an idea as to whether the person spreading it believes it or not.
It depends how much of your world you mean by "throughout", or do you mean time-wise through the duration of the campaign?
Normally PCs go looking for rumours, rather than just randomly hearing them.
Insight does more than just tell if someone is lying. With a high enough roll, you could tell if someone believed something, but with low confidence, or that they were excited to share the information more because it was juicy gossip than because it was true and important.
I agree that the poll layout doesn't make sense to me :)
In terms of information in the game world. Yes. There is information to be found and information that may just be over heard. Some of it is relevant and some irrelevant to the plot line the players are currently involved with though some of it may be relevant to the other plot lines going on in the game world. Putting these "rumors" or pieces of information into the story can make later events in the player storyline make more sense.
Examples:
Running a homebrew game, the party heard rumors of a big battle on an island off the coast several hundred miles from where they were. Royal troops had fended off some sort of incursion. This later tied into explaining events happening in the character storyline later in the adventure. There are lots of bits and pieces of information provided; some useful some not; some of which could be side quests, some not; and some which offer some important information or information that may become useful a few sessions down the road.
Does insight play a role in any of this? Generally not. They are rumors, the person passing the information along may or may not believe it, I'll probably include that element in the narration if it is obvious that the NPC really believes it or is very dubious. However, it is up to the players to put the pieces together and decide whether the information is useful to them and whether they want to take actions based on the information. The only time insight would play a role would be when the characters suspect an NPC of specifically trying to spread misinformation then insight reveals whether the NPC believes the information is real but pretends they don't or doesn't believe the information is real but is pretending that they do. In my experience, that is where insight comes in, if someone is just telling a story or passing along a rumor then whether they appear to believe it or not is something that doesn't need a check.
When running Out of the Abyss
1) There are events in the module that are caused by earthquakes like a rock fall happening when the party is being chased by the drow. This kind of event makes a lot more sense when the DM describes the occasional shaking from earthquakes as happening fairly regularly in the underdark. It makes the event with an earthquake that has an impact later much more believable if the party have experienced a few of them already.
2) One of the suggested distractions allowing for an escape at the beginning of the module is a demon battle taking place in the cavern. Without something to distract the guards, the odds of the prisoners escaping (unless the DM is very generous with all the guards and their servants falling asleep at the same time) is really poor. However, again, without foreshadowing, the demon battle coming out of no where just seems too coincidental. When I ran it, the characters could here screams/cries of some sort of battle echoing from some distant cavern several times over the week of their captivity. They were also able to notice that this made the drow nervous and on edge. When a demon fight finally spilled into the cavern with the prison, the characters were able to take advantage of the confusion and distracted drow to recover their equipment and escape.
The poll layout doesn't make any sense to me either. For example, the way I handle rumors is:
If the players try to locate rumors, they'll generally find some. If they want to find useful rumors, that's probably a Charisma check of some sort. If they don't try to hear rumors, they'll only hear about the really really obvious stuff.
Side quests are generally not rumors, they're someone with an agenda who wants the PCs to pay attention to something.
If the PCs seem lost for what to do next, I'll do something to offer an option. That might be a rumor, but it's usually something solider.
Insight helps for knowing why someone is repeating a rumor. This mostly matters if the motive is "get someone to do something" or "have fun with the newbie".
When running *homebrew* worlds and campaigns:
edit:
1: Almost never
2: Rarely
3: average/occasionally
4: Often
5: All the time
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Insight doesn't have any effect on rumours - other than getting an idea as to whether the person spreading it believes it or not.
It depends how much of your world you mean by "throughout", or do you mean time-wise through the duration of the campaign?
Normally PCs go looking for rumours, rather than just randomly hearing them.
there's a rumor going around that you have never actually played a game of D&D. --- Question: Do I believe this? do I not? or did I just make it up on the spot? Why is your insight an "either/or" option?
Throughout meanbs yes, the entirety of the campaign/world.
*Normally* sure, but DMs have the option, to just have NPCs actually talk to one another as indistinct conversation, rather than just be video game NPCs where they never talk or do anything unless interacted with by the party. Are the taverns your adventurers in just completely quiet except for what the PCs are saying? I believe PCs, aside from just "go looking for rumors" can be like: "what is the table next to me talking about?" "what do i hear at the market" "whats the town crier saying" all of those are very different than "I go looking for rumors"
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I'm very confused by the poll options, so I'll respond in text form.
I have pretty robust criminal undergrounds in my settings, where "rumor runner" is a legitimate job. Most of the time, these are just people whose trade is learning and selling information, but they also double as disinformation agents in espionage scenarios. I also exclusively run intrigue campaigns, so rumor plays more of a role in my games than most tables might see.
Regarding misinformation, I find that I rarely have to feed my players false information because they come up with their own wild and cockamamie conspiracies that function as red herrings. If anything, my rumor runners are far more likely to withhold information rather than lie - unless, of course, the party contracts them to lie on their behalf. Really, the only NPCs I've had give false rumors were villains who had no reason to tell the truth. Oblique, vague answers and omissions work for me better. And yeah, insight checks are pretty common at my table. It's, frankly, my personal favorite skill.
Medieval nations didn't have that much movement between cities, so rumours would generally remain local to the area that they are about.
For me the question is: What purpose do the rumors serve?
If I want to lore dump, I often just... Lore Dump. Sometimes it's as simple as "okay here's what you all know about this by your backgrounds". Sometimes it's an NPC saying "oh, this is how this works". But rumors aren't great for world building per say because they lead to the big question of "is this how this homebrew world works or is it just a rumor?" And sometimes that's good and sometimes that leads to disconnects. I'd rather avoid the conflict and go right at "here's how the world works."
If I want the PC's to follow a quest, or have an option for a side quest, then I'll use rumors in a more direct RP sense and make it clear that I'm waving a possible hook at them. For me, I don't do well with the "random dungeon delve" and I prefer that every side quest have a story to it as well. So if I'm going to make the side quest, I kinda want the PC's to follow it and not shrug it off, or worse yet not find it.
If the PC's want to say "we want to listen to local rumors" I will happily just make up stuff off the cuff and tell them "this probably won't lead to anything" unless in the time between sessions I think of something.
"Teller of tales, dreamer of dreams"
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I'm a bit confused about the poll format, where are there 1-5 buttons for what I think is a survey of five options?
There's a lot of magical media and a lot more traveling in many D&D worlds than "historical medieval Europe".
Poe once wrote, "Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see."
I don't have a rumor mechanic but I use rumors in the game. Generally, I allow players to declare actively at a venue (like a tavern or market) or passively presume during down time activity that the players will be able to gather the proverbial word on the street. Whisper Bards sort of have this built into their character feature in that the class has an innate ability to determine power dynamics, they may not know the truth of a conflict but they definitely can determine the ramifications of a conflict. But so can most characters (I just lean on the whisper bard or give them the most space if this is going on). So, yeah, they get a sense of what the town's talking about. There may be official proclamations and reactions to them, there may be mysteries or scandals are reactions to them. It's all 'motivating exposition' rather than a challenge or test, the design is to either get the characters to pick a side of dig deeper into the uncertainty.
Insight may be able to deduce disinformation being attempted, but misinformation isn't an insight thing beyond maybe the rollers wisdom as to the NPC's credibility. Remember disinformation is the intentional dissemination of lies or other distortions of the truth. Misinformation is just having bad info and not being aware the bad info you're sharing is bad. Insight won't be able to determine misinformation, actual knowledge disputing the facts either already known by the PC or gathered during the course of investigation determines that.
One of my favorite BBEGs is Fraz Urb'luu whose whole thing, at least in my game, is exploiting the tendency of people to "come to believe" things. Some characters who cross paths with him wind up cynical almost to the point of nihilism. For a BBEG like that, word on the street and official records both have their uses.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Running West Marches-style games, my players usually choose a place they want to go to and gather intel about it before they go. For example, the ruler of Novaspezch knows for a fact the Sanguinomicon is guarded by a mummy to the East, and his court wizard knows the mummy is named Pharaoh Ro'shah. However, the innkeep's information is entirely rumours such as the mummy being guarded by fearsome big cats (partially true; they have long been dead), and that there's a pearl the size of his head (true; what he doesn't know is it's essentially a plug stopper for a giant pool). A lot of inspiration I had for this came from Mörk Borg's Rotblack Sludge adventure, where some rumours are false, some are half-true, and some are true, all of which are rolled on tables.
In answer to why the Insight skill check would matter, it would rarely if ever matter. Most rumours are spread by people who believe them, and if challenged, would probably shrug and ask to be left to get back to their work or would give a lead ("Well, I just heard it from [so-and-so]"). I would absolutely let the characters chase down rumours (and then have more emphasis on Insight); Novaspezch is a small barony, and if there's one person starting all these porky pies, they can be confronted (and the players can then decide if some rumours are better than none; see Chief Hanlon from Fallout: New Vegas).
Zero is the most important number in D&D: Session Zero sets the boundaries and the tone; Rule Zero dictates the Dungeon Master (DM) is the final arbiter; and Zero D&D is better than Bad D&D.
"Let us speak plainly now, and in earnest, for words mean little without the weight of conviction."
- The Assemblage of Houses, World of Warcraft
Insight does more than just tell if someone is lying. With a high enough roll, you could tell if someone believed something, but with low confidence, or that they were excited to share the information more because it was juicy gossip than because it was true and important.
I agree that the poll layout doesn't make sense to me :)
In terms of information in the game world. Yes. There is information to be found and information that may just be over heard. Some of it is relevant and some irrelevant to the plot line the players are currently involved with though some of it may be relevant to the other plot lines going on in the game world. Putting these "rumors" or pieces of information into the story can make later events in the player storyline make more sense.
Examples:
Running a homebrew game, the party heard rumors of a big battle on an island off the coast several hundred miles from where they were. Royal troops had fended off some sort of incursion. This later tied into explaining events happening in the character storyline later in the adventure. There are lots of bits and pieces of information provided; some useful some not; some of which could be side quests, some not; and some which offer some important information or information that may become useful a few sessions down the road.
Does insight play a role in any of this? Generally not. They are rumors, the person passing the information along may or may not believe it, I'll probably include that element in the narration if it is obvious that the NPC really believes it or is very dubious. However, it is up to the players to put the pieces together and decide whether the information is useful to them and whether they want to take actions based on the information. The only time insight would play a role would be when the characters suspect an NPC of specifically trying to spread misinformation then insight reveals whether the NPC believes the information is real but pretends they don't or doesn't believe the information is real but is pretending that they do. In my experience, that is where insight comes in, if someone is just telling a story or passing along a rumor then whether they appear to believe it or not is something that doesn't need a check.
When running Out of the Abyss
1) There are events in the module that are caused by earthquakes like a rock fall happening when the party is being chased by the drow. This kind of event makes a lot more sense when the DM describes the occasional shaking from earthquakes as happening fairly regularly in the underdark. It makes the event with an earthquake that has an impact later much more believable if the party have experienced a few of them already.
2) One of the suggested distractions allowing for an escape at the beginning of the module is a demon battle taking place in the cavern. Without something to distract the guards, the odds of the prisoners escaping (unless the DM is very generous with all the guards and their servants falling asleep at the same time) is really poor. However, again, without foreshadowing, the demon battle coming out of no where just seems too coincidental. When I ran it, the characters could here screams/cries of some sort of battle echoing from some distant cavern several times over the week of their captivity. They were also able to notice that this made the drow nervous and on edge. When a demon fight finally spilled into the cavern with the prison, the characters were able to take advantage of the confusion and distracted drow to recover their equipment and escape.
1: Almost never
2: Rarely
3: average/occasionally
4: Often
5: All the time
it would be like that.... I will make an edit in the top and state this clearly for folks now.
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Ok - so how do you answer the second question? "Do you have "rumormongers" that spread rumors through out?"
2) No.
It seems to me that the 5 questions in the poll ARE the different answers to your question ... so the rating system doesn't make too much sense.
The poll layout doesn't make any sense to me either. For example, the way I handle rumors is:
you run every campaign the exact same way every single time?
Bold choice...
Do I really need to explain "frequency" to people?
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