Developing the Sandbox: Rumor Tables

This post is part of my series on developing the sandbox. You can read other posts in the series here. The series will, when necessary, go into detail on the development of my sandbox for Dungeon Module B1: In Search of the Unknown, but will also discuss sandbox development more generally. You can read play reports from my B1 campaign here.

This post will focus on creating rumor tables for your towns and cities. 

What is the purpose of an in-world rumor in a TTRPG? According to the Designing Dungeons course (which is of course preoccupied with dungeons specifically), rumors provide clues to the dungeon, reinforce its themes, and point the players back towards elements of the dungeon they may have missed. More broadly speaking, in a sandbox setting, rumors drive investigation and exploration of the world and help make the world feel more lifelike.

In short, rumors are information. Information allows the players to make choices - as always, the better the information, the better the player's ability to anticipate their choice's impact. Thus, we need to make sure our rumors provide good information.

What about false rumors? That's a thing in Dungeons & Dragons, right? False rumors are, at times, delightful. I'm as big a fan of "Bree-yark" is goblin for "We surrender!" as the next guy but, more often, false rumors are just kind of detrimental to play. As Gus L. points out, they waste time and erode trust  between players and the DM. They serve a purpose opposite to what rumors are meant to accomplish, muddying themes, sending the players on wild goose chases, or paralyzing them entirely.

Since I am currently running my B1 sandbox, let's look at B1's rumor table as an example (as an aside, see this post about B1, Caverns of Thracia, and the hunt for the first rumor table.):

This is not a bad rumor table. It tells the players what sorts of monsters might be found in Quasqueton, that it has multiple levels, that there are secrets within, and what sorts of rooms the players might expect to find there. The information is somewhat pedestrian, but this is an introductory module. The rumors are not only telling the players what to expect from the dungeon, but what to expect from the game itself. 

The false rumors, however, are largely terrible.

Zelligar does have a workshop in the stronghold, but the rumor is "false" because he didn't work on magic stronger than any known to man (he just used it to torture barbarians, stocked it with containers full of mundane junk, and kept a ghost cat in a jar to troll adventurers). There is no 100,000 g.p. gem hidden in the stronghold. There is no curse upon the place or its treasure. The "treasure" hidden in a pool of water is a totally pointless illusion. The dungeon is not filled with guards, and Rogahn and Zelligar have not returned.

While there are kernels of truth to some of these rumors, more of them either set up the players for disappointment or actively discourage them from going to the dungeon - you know, the single adventure site upon which the entire module depends. What happens when the players comb the whole place and don't find any sign of magic "stronger than any known to man" or of a 100,000 g.p. gem? What happens if they decide the dungeon sounds too dangerous? It's full of guards, and Rogahn and Zelligar have come back, too. It's treasures are all cursed anyway, so what's the point?

"But wait," you might say, "you talk all the time on this blog about running AD&D the Gygaxian way, with constant taxes and annoying NPCs who hate the player characters and want them to go away and die. This adversarial bullshit should be right up your alley!"

And you are kind of right. I am trying to run my game in some approximation of that style, and I do find it quite fun. For some reason, I draw the line at false rumors. Why? I don't know. I think I just have a lot of information about this setting that I want to communicate to the players, and I don't want to waste space on my tables with four different (false) rumors about how the dungeon is dangerous. The players know the dungeon is dangerous. What actually makes it dangerous?

That's not to say I'll come right out and tell the players that the magic stone in Quasqueton has a 5% chance of granting a limited wish specifically. Unreliable rumors are good! "An enchanted stone within the stronghold will grant a wish to anyone who chips off a piece of it and places it within their mouth" is a false rumor because the stone does other things besides granting wishes, but the fact that it grants wishes is true. The rumor itself is a bit too on the nose for me, but that's besides the point.

Now, in a sandbox, I don't want all my rumors to be about the dungeon. I want my rumors to also point to other settlements, strongholds, and monster lairs. I want them to give hints about outdoor encounters. I want them to indicate what sort of monsters prowl the town's streets and to clue the players into the political landscape of the settlement or what events I have scheduled on my campaign calendar.

How do you create a rumor table? These posts each have a sort of "generic" rumor table you can roll on almost like a spark table to create more specific rumors. This is neat! I personally don't need this tech, but you might find it useful if you're having a hard time coming up with ideas.

What I've done recently is split my rumor table into three tables. How do I structure that? I will give you a hint - the three tables are derived from this page of the AD&D DMG:

I don't think it's particularly hard to figure out, so I will tell you. Much like modern D&D puts forward three "pillars of play" (combat, exploration, and social interaction), here I think Gygax is putting forward a different (parallel) set of three pillars - dungeon expeditions, outdoor exploration, and town adventures. Thus, my three rumor tables list dungeon rumors, wilderness rumors, and settlement rumors.

"Wilderness rumors" is a bit of a misnomer. Just as the "exploration" pillar is more like the "everything else" pillar in modern D&D, "wilderness/outdoors" is the "everything else" of the sandbox. This includes rumors about other settlements, strongholds, monster lairs, and outdoor encounters. The town and dungeon are both complex enough environments to warrant their own tables, but the other locations in the sandbox really just need one rumor to point the players in that direction (or, in the case of outdoor encounters, give them fair warning).

While dungeon rumors will be hyper-specific, providing information about specific rooms, monsters, tricks, traps, treasure, and other secrets, all other rumors can be somewhat vague - again, just kind of nudging the players that way. Dungeon exploration is the default mode of play in the early game. In most cases the players will not need to be directed towards the dungeon, but they will need specific information about its contents. As the campaign evolves, however, you'll want them to slowly become aware of adventuring opportunities in the town/city and elsewhere.

For my dungeon table, I included those rumors from B1 which I liked, then supplemented them with my own. I basically combed through my version of B1 and thought of every bit of information I might give to the players about the place - again, rooms, monsters, tricks, traps, treasure, and other secrets. These are very broad, and complement each other when combined. Some rumors might simply say "There are goblins in Quasqueton" or "There are orcs in Quasqueton", while others might be more specific: "The goblins and the orcs of Quasqueton hate each other", "The orcs of Quasqueton worship a magic stone" or "The orcs of Quasqueton are at war with one another."

For my town rumor table, I generated one rumor for each element of the town which I wanted to put on the players' radar - that is, its locations, NPCs, and potential encounters. There's a rumor about the wizard who rules the town, a rumor about the lesser wizard who serves him, and a rumor about the cleric who rules her own stronghold. There's a rumor about beasts attacking people, a rumor about spirits haunting the streets, a rumor about a corrupt official blackmailing merchants, and a rumor about a derelict house from which strange lights are seen at night. All of these point to locations or warn the party of potential encounters. I also include a permanent entry on the table for whatever town event is coming up on my calendar.

Likewise, my wilderness rumor table has one rumor for each "wilderness" location, plus a few more for particularly noteworthy outdoor encounters which aren't otherwise covered by my other locations. Brigands terrorizing the countryside would be covered by the rumor about the brigands' stronghold, and owlbears in the forest would be covered by the rumor about their lair - I would not include an additional rumor for those outdoor encounters just because they also appear on my encounter tables. If there are unique or interesting monsters wandering the wilderness who otherwise don't have their own lairs (fey "river women" who don't live anywhere in particular but are sometimes encountered deep in the forest), those get their own entry on the table.

Since I replace outdoor encounters on my tables once they've been used, I update my rumor tables accordingly. You may not have to do this, but I do think a rumor table should be a living document, assuming that the status quo is changing even when the player characters are being somewhat inactive. 

This goes for rumors about the town and dungeon as well. If the first rumor discloses that the wizard and the cleric in town have an uneasy truce, then the next might disclose that the cleric has attempted to assassinate the wizard. If the players already have the rumor about the orcs in the dungeon being at war, the next rumor might tell them that one side has triumphed over the other.

You can go down a real rabbit hole with this stuff, creating subtables for each entry on the main table (you could have a d4 table of rumors about the wizard overlord or the plundering brigands specifically), but I think this is overkill. The rumor just makes the players aware of the thing. If they want more information, they can start asking specific questions, and I have most of the information to answer those questions, if appropriate, as needed. No need to make your rumor tables maddeningly comprehensive.

With three separate rumor tables covering distinct topics, when players go hunting for rumors, I can ask them: Do you want rumors about the dungeon, the town, or the wilderness? I view rumor-gathering as an active pursuit, not a passive one. The players don't just accumulate rumors by existing in town. The players have to say they want to do it, and they have to spend time and money doing it, just like with almost anything else they do in town. Since they are choosing to gather rumors, it also makes sense to me that they be able to choose which rumors they're looking for.

I like this rule of thumb for rumor-gathering from OD&D:

Delta's post on the subject clarifies that this was likely intended as a means for players to find out about expeditions by rival players operating in the same campaign simultaneously, but I see no reason why it can't apply more broadly. I feel there has to be some cost to gathering rumors, and, as Delta points out, this is seemingly the only guidance provided in any edition of D&D. It is a little bit cost prohibitive for player characters just starting out, but that's okay with me. They can either spend less on equipment and get some information instead, or they can go in blind for their first expedition.

It's also worth considering how you choose to present rumors to the players. Do you attribute each rumor to a specific NPC? Personally, I'm fine with abstracting it. I have enough NPCs to worry about as it is, and I can kind of wing it when it comes to where a rumor is coming from based on the nature of the rumor and where the players hear it.

Do you roleplay out the dispensation of rumors? I don't know, do you roleplay shopping? Again, I'm perfectly fine with abstracting this and simply telling the players what they hear. I don't need to tell it to them in a gruff sailor's voice. If they start asking follow up questions, maybe, but I'm only going to spend a significant amount of game time on this of the players decide that it's worth their time.

I also like this post about tying rumors to settlement events, however, again, I think it might not be for me. I have a separate procedure for determining when events happen, and events already provide information about what's going on in the world. It makes sense to me that players should be able to learn about something that's going to happen before it happens. That is, the players should be able to learn that loggers have spotted kobolds in the woods before the kobolds launch a raid on the town.

There's even more to explore. Player characters may have the choice to live at different economic levels and in different conditions. The character who is unwashed and flea-ridden and sleeps in stables does not have access to the upper classes, and the haughty character who dresses in fine silks and gold rings might be shunned by the downtrodden and class-conscious folk. Their affiliations may likewise affect their access to rumors. A paladin will not have access to criminal networks, and a thief may not be privy to the church's scuttlebutt.

What rumors are exchanged by loggers and hunters? How about dockworkers and fishermen? Merchants and officials? Mages at the Wizard's Day ball? Do monsters know rumors? Can you gather rumors in the dungeon?

You can clearly get deep in the weeds with this stuff. For now, I prefer to keep it simple. If you were out drinking at the tavern and heard tell of some cool new rumor tech, I have 10-60 gold pieces with your name on them!