No doubt many of you are familiar with the lists of rumors that crop up at other LARPs. As with all things, I thought to myself, "How can we leverage the online system to make this better?" Today, I'm proud to unveil my answer to that question: The Rumormill.
The Rumormill is a system for creating tidbits of information (i.e., rumors) and distributing them to PCs based on any number of different criteria. Plot can define rumors to go out to characters of a certain class or race, characters of a particular level, characters with a particular skill, a hand-picked list of characters, etc. The rumor then goes out to every eligible character's very own custom rumor list. It's dynamic information distribution at its finest.
You can find your character's rumor list on his or her character sheet; just click the "Rumor List" button at the top of the page next to View, Downtime Queue, History, and Edit. (Note: This will only appear for active PCs. Thus, NPCs and new PCs that haven't been played for at least one event do not have rumor lists.)
Here's the catch. Rumors may or may not be reliable; however factual they may sound, they could just as easily be heresay. Also, you have no idea how you came across a particular rumor. It could be because you have a class or skill, it could be because you were hand-selected to receive it, or it could even be random. Did I mention plot can do that, too? Thus, rumors may be incredibly useful (e.g., you're the only one who knows about an adventure hook), or they may be a widespread lie. It's up to you to figure out which.
In the future, I'm considering skills that allow players to affect the Rumormill directly. Maybe a Gather Information skill that allows you to use downtime to get rumors to which you wouldn't otherwise have access. Or a Gossip skill to create a spread rumors of your own. I'm open to suggestions.
Oh, and before you ask, rumors will be printed for you at the game. You're welcome to print your own ahead of time, of course.
What does everyone think? How can this idea be improved even further?
maybe allow all characters to use the rumor list to gather rumors, but give them a gather information skill to increase their chances and maybe a skill that allows them to determine if it's a lie or not.
"I'm not locked up in with all of you, all of you are locked up in here with me!" Rorschach - Watchmen