Location Events: Making Rumors Natural
One of the most-used ways for players to gather information about the loaction they're exploring is by searching for rumors going around settlements. It's a good, solidly-built system: it makes players engage naturally with the NPCs of the settlement and can provide hooks to whatever the GM needs to.
But after a while, I've found, they get stale. Like chacking for traps in every room of a dungeon, it becomes the most optimal thing to do when visiting a settlement, making it an uninteresting choice. Besides, after a while, the system gets quite stale, and it's easy to see the pattern of each settlement having a series of seemingly arbitrary rumors attached to it, which the inhabitants spout out when prompted.
Common sandbox-building wisdom states that when the players are dropped in the adventure setting, the balance of power should be very delicate and ready to collapse or violently shift following the player's actions. So, to show the players the ever-shifting state of faction relations, I propose the mechanic of Location Events.
The Mechanic
When preparing a location, lay out a d6 table, detailing the Events it might be going through at any given time. Assign the first five entries (leaving the last one blank, representing a Neutral State) to factions or locations present in the general area; for each of those, write an event that might be happening in the location regarding it.
Every time the players enter the location, roll on the Location Events table. The location is going through that event when the players enter it.
Following significant happenings in the narrative, like players neutralizing or angering factions, modify the Events accordingly, or strike them off the list, replacing them with Neutral State entries.
Example: Blackstone Village
The village of Blackstone is a humble town, known for its long history of master stoneworkers. A crumbling, centuries-old wall surrounds it.
| d6 | Location/Faction | Event |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Whiterose Monastery | The townsfolk are setting up a feast for the monks coming down from the Whiterose Monastery, in preparation for the yearly blessing ceremony. |
| 2 | Ork Fortress of the Purple Horde | The townsfolk are all sitting on the wall and on the roofs of their houses, looking towards the castle. A cloud of dust, as the one kicked up by an army on the march, is moving from it; they are worried the horde might be coming for them. |
| 3 | Royal Army's Tax Services | Many villagers are standing on their doorsteps with small bags of coin in their hands and grim expressions on their faces. A small patrol of tax-collector soldiers are going around collecting the tribute for the king, and extorting the townsfolk for extra goods. Nobody likes them, not even the mayor. |
| 4 | Temple of the Undead Wolf-Idol | A few villagers are gathered in the town square, where the priest is celebrating an exorcism rite. A farmer has been bitten by an undead, and must soon be sealed away lest the disease spread. It's the third one this week. |
| 5 | Kobold Woods | The blacksmith and the clothweaver are boarding up the windows of their shops, waiting for repairs. Just last night, the kobolds broke into and sacked every single house down the main road. |
| 6 | - | Neutral State. |
Why Do This?
- This system offers an easy, straightforward way to deliver information to the players. They can still ask for rumors, and a casual conversation with the townsfolk will probably reveal some other facts about the environs, but having one main rumor ensures the players will have at least one new location to be interested in.
- It enhances instability. The idea of a location with shifting power balances isn't well conveyed by a series of location that are the same each time. Even if the lists of NPCs and rumors stay constant throughout the campaign (although having them change is advisable), having the NPCs in the location have something different to do and talk about every time makes it feel more realistic.