Behind the Scenes: The Rumor Mill: A Simple Way to Make Your World Feel Real

No world can exist without them. Research shows that about 65% to 80% of our conversations involve people who are not present. If you include all the things we talk about on social media gossip and rumors are the dominant form of communication in today’s world. If you want your game’s world to feel real, you need gossip and rumors.

One of the guiding principles of the Silver Spire Guild is that they exist to serve the people of Windgrest City. Everyone likes gold and treasure, sure, but this is a guild with principles, too. One of the ways they serve the city’s residents is via what I call rumor patrol.

Niamh sends out two or three adventurers in a group to see what kind of trouble they can find and take care of. Up until now, this has been done randomly. I’ve used a table of resources I have with rumors. These come from reddit, books, other games, etc. Lately, though, I decided I wanted it to be a bit more organic. It was time to create an underground newspaper, The Specter, and stories to go into it.

The stories provides my guild steward with specific missions she can send the adventurers on so that they don’t spend all day wandering around the seaport picking up rusty keys or drinking at dive bars. Because honestly, that’s what some of them do if you don’t give them direction.

To help me generate rumors, I set up a d100 x 7 table. Here are the seven columns.

1. First initial — of the person who placed the ad asking for help

2. Last initial — both initials are weighted for their occurrence in current names in the English speaking world.

3. Occupation — heavily geared to a large seaport in a Renaissance era world

4. Location

5. Verb

6. Noun

7. Adjective

You can roll on as many or as few as you like to come up with your rumor. I usually roll on all the columns and then use only what makes sense to me. That’s it. Just start rolling and see what you can come up with.

Here is a look at the first few rows of the table to give you the flavor of it. You’ll find the link to it at the bottom of this article. Once you have it, you can edit it to fit your game’s location, be it wilderness, space, or cyberpunk Tokyo.

Here are a few that I just rolled up with a potential (unpolished) rumor that I could get from them. Notice that I don’t use everything I rolled.

Rumor 1: B.S. / astrologer / yard / log / cipher / bitter

An astrologer (initials B.S.) found that the herbs he’s growing in his yard are suddenly bitter. He wonders if there is something in the soil.

If this astrologer lives on the Southside, his herbs would be more than bitter; they’d be toxic. But if he lives in the walled city on the North, this could be a whole new investigation. I’ll have to ask a Fate question and roll the dice.

Rumor 2: B.C. / shipwright / guildhall / uncover / grain / filthy

B.C. uncovered that the grain the cook at his guildhall has been using is filthy. He wonders if this is normal.

Hmmm, we did an investigation into missing and moldy grain. We don’t have all the answers, yet, although we’re at a dead end. Perhaps this rumor will jumpstart that investigation.

Rumor 3: F.M. / pilot / shoe shop / transcribe / infant / sturdy

Hmmm, tough. F.M. is looking for sturdy shoes for his baby who just started to walk, but while he was at the shoe shop he overheard some gossip about what the military is up to on the Southside.

Rumor 3 shows how you can pull in details from your existing narrative if the words you get from the oracle don’t get you all the way to a rumor that works. The military is indeed up to no good on the Southside, and my rumor patrols want to hear this gossip for sure!

Rumor 4: L.N. / tanner / birthing room / launder / flag / damp

L.N. found a damp flag belonging to a Phantazari freebooter behind the tannery where he works.

This is a great one for my narrative. My adventurers have recently allied with a ship’s captain. Could they locate and attack the freebooter? You’ll see a more polished version of the rumor showing up in a few weeks, then we’ll see what the guild decides to do about it.

If you’re interested in the spreadsheet, you can see it here and make a copy for your own Google drive.

There’s a saying in the FBI that a rumor is nothing more than gossip with a purpose. In RPGs, rumors can lead to some of your campaign’s most memorable moments. Steal my table and make it your own.

[disclaimer: The Silver Spire Guild is a homebrew solo TTRPG that exists only in my head… and now in yours.]