WiretrippaThis occurred to me the other day, when I was reading the comments posted for my “The Lone Something” rumour (and by the way, thank you very much for your replies!).
The rumours in UA2ed are kinda funny, kinda cool, the sort of thing that we laugh about at parties when we’re all a little drunk and the conspiracy theory discussion we were having has turned into a giggle-fest. But how much do we really use them in the game?
I’m not being overly critical of the idea, it’s great to hear this store-house of kinda-plots being thrown around, but I’m just wondering if we’re expending creative energy on something that may not necessarily play a decent part in the majority of our games.
So, in closing, what do YOU think of the rumours section, both in the book and here online? Do you use them? Would you consider using a rumour to kick-start a plotline? Or do you simply think they’re good for a chuckle?
Wire.
URNOVIThey’re extremely useful for a number of reasons.
Firstly, most importantly, and I cannot stress this enough, they give a feel for the game. They let the PCs know the kind of setting they’re letting themselves in for. It’s the kind of place where people talk like this. Its the kind of place where this sort of thing could be true. This is massivly massively important because it allows players and GMs alike to get to grips with the setting
Secondly they give you cool flavourful nuggets to slip into conversation with random NPCs (no no no, the Reserve is like a Galactic Hyperlibrary which exists in n dimensional metaspace and can only be reached through the proper meditations)
Thirdly they’re just plain amusing to read, and readabiloity is an important part of any book
The TimI use rumours as story seeds. The characters are awash in rumours and if one hits up with their goals they are likely to persue it.
The rumour section here can be great for that. If the players are following some agenda (hunting for a dipsomancer for instance) and a rumour regarding alcohol, dispomancy or something like that is put up it can give ideas for where to lead them or even better pop up when they shake down people for information. Sure it is likely to be crap but it fits into their investigation and helps them get a solid feel for the world.
DionBasically, I like the rumours because I believe in (I think it’s called) Sturgeon’s Law–that 90% of everything is crap. Therefore 90% of what the players hear should be misleading or not entirely truthful. Personally I run into this a lot myself: because of the bizarre way Australian bookshops sort books, I have to spend time wading through the New Age section past such book as “White Magic From the Necromonicon” to reach the books by philosophers of magic such as Yates, Couliano and Mauss. If it’s this hard in RL, imagine how bad it’s got to be in UA…
DionActually, I thumbed through it, and its all about healing spells through drawing on the power of the Old Ones…which is why I likened it to some of the rumours:
“Look, Bob, this spell will cure your disease, and heck, Shub-Niggurath has to be helpful–after all, she looks after a thousand young, how can a mother be bad?”
URNOVIThinking about the rumours again, and the more I think about it the more I feel that games could really benefit from more of this stuff.
I’ve been playing Ars Magica recently, and have been banigng my had against a brick wall trying to work out what on gods green earth actually goes into a Mentem Summa.
Examples of things that exist IC are good
DionRumours work best, I feel, if the players don’t have a complete knowledge of the background of the game. How good are rumours going to be if a player knows alll the secrets of, say, the sleepers?
This is a problem I saw with people who played Mythos (CCG) then played Call of Cthuthlu–it kinda ended up a little D&Dish…because people knew the background too much to swallow interesting–but ultimately false–rumours.
Not that I’m saying that player’s can’t have this information later on–but I know personally because I run UA (and have read all the books) when I play it I don’t think that I’m getting the full possible enjoyment….
And now I’m changing my mind and thinking that if you take some of the rumours as true, then it would keep players with more information off their feet…
The TimI find UA to be a great setting to tweak with. There are a lot of good ideas here and on the list that don’t fit with the printed material. One example from the forum is the example of the godwalker of the Merchant dealing with Satan. On the list it would be the Nazi alternate history thing.
The first time you run victims, er players, through UA it is nice to play by the books. Get people used to the rules, the feel and the way the cosmos works. Then the next times make some of the rumors here true and mess with the cosmology to keep the player’s guessing. It is also fun to make rumors that were false in a previous campaign true in a later one.
URNOVIThe thing about UA is that **nobody** knows the whole story. Hell the developers ahve officially said they don’t know what’s up with the afterlife.
Pretty much every single rumour in the UA core rulebook could be true in setting, because it’s the kind of place where weird shit just happens.
Even if you do know all of the setting details, you still cant write stuff off. If people keep mysteriously spontaneiously combusting you can’t just write it off as “just a bunch of Unnatural Phenomena ™”
Nick WedigOne of the first things I did when I obtained the 2nd Ed book was make notes as to which rumors would be true and which wouldn’t. This worked to provide me with story seeds, and also would mean the players couldn’t immediately discount all the wird rumors that they heard. No matter how odd something may sound, it might be true. At the very least, a couple of people believe in it, which could be exploited somehow on an intelligent PC’s part.
Trent RedfieldI use the rumors in my current campaign. And some of the rumors I post to the site come from my current campaign. They are great story ideas or plot hooks. I definitely like them for their feel, but also for their ability to generate ideas for me to play with and use for my campaign. I definitely vote for useful.
Rich RanalloI dig the rumors sections because they’ve been the best way to explain the game to potential players. UA isn’t a game I can sum up or describe in a short paragraph. But if I show someone a page or two from the rumors sections, they at least get a good idea what the atmosphere is like. That, and since most of what’s written in there isn’t necessarily the “truth,” I don’t have to worry about players knowing too much going in.
James StewartI for one use them regularly in order to build up an atmosphere in my game. Its important to have elements of truth and fiction thrown haphazardly into the scenario in order to keep the players on their toes.
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