"Current Clack"

[Chronosome]

Hey, all.

I'm not too sure about Greyhawk or Dragonlance, but I know that back in the days of my running a published setting (Forgotten Realms and Spelljammer), supplements used to have "current" news, rumours, and tales for their locales.

"Current Clack" was the Realmsian term.

Now that I'm running a campaign in my own home-grown world, I miss the seeds of plots and news that those dealies provided. Made the world seem more real.

So, I'm going to start that stuff up again since, my PCs feel like the biggest badasses on the planet.

Now, the potential conversation in all this...hmm...questions:

Do you do this? Do PCs often hear of the world's happenings or are they unaware of the next village until they get there?

How do you do this? Bards? Newssheets? Really LOUD dragons?

Do you "age" your news? If, in Month Three, bandit attacks are on the rise, do Paladins of Banditbane* end the attacks by Month Five (assuming the PCs are uninterested in the obvious plot hook)?

Do you pack the "airwaves" full of this stuff? Do you offer more than your PCs could possibly follow up on?

I look forward to your opinions, etc...

(*Feel free to design the prestige class. )

 

[diaglo]

check out the Story HOur: Game Over, Hit Reset. page 7.

yes, we do use current clack. we have from the campaign's start. and continue to do so...

 

[Zappo]

Do you do this? Do PCs often hear of the world's happenings or are they unaware of the next village until they get there?

How do you do this? Bards? Newssheets? Really LOUD dragons?

Do you "age" your news? If, in Month Three, bandit attacks are on the rise, do Paladins of Banditbane* end the attacks by Month Five (assuming the PCs are uninterested in the obvious plot hook)?

Do you pack the "airwaves" full of this stuff? Do you offer more than your PCs could possibly follow up on?

Yes to all! IMC (Planescape), I periodically hand out a newspaper published in Sigil to the players, containing news from the multiverse. It has much, much more stuff going on than what the PCs can get involved into, and some of it is often too low level or too high level for them. The events progress on their own. The paper is weekly, though I arbitrarily slow it when the players are in downtime or spending large amount of time out of touch, so that they don't miss numbers (I don't write them , but I do translate them, and it takes ages!).

 

[dreaded_beast]

while all this is very good for the campaign, it can be sometimes frustrating for players to hear about possible adventures and not be able to participate in every single one of them, heh

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I use "Current Clack"; diaglo posted the link to our campaign Story Hour.

I use it as a set of rumors and general information. Somethimes I'll post a list as a summary of what information gathering activities have revealed; other times I'll have the list but bring up the individual items in NPC conversations.

I try to mix big events with relatively minor information (someone's sick, the cow died, etc) to make it feel more real.

I work in NPCs the characters have heard of or met (just about all the people referred to in the clack in the link above are NPCs the party has had some sort of contact with at some point).

Clack evolves. Plot hooks not pursued change or get closed out by later hooks. Actions the players take generates new clack, as well (in the example above, the party had at one point been delcared heroes of the town, then got taken our by a near-TPK. The new party gets to hear about how great the old characters were).

There's always more than the PCs can follow up on -- just like in the real world, you have choices to make. In a list of 15-20 rumors, there are maybe 2-3 major plot hooks, which are referred to tangentially by 2-3 rumors each. There might be another 1-2 minor hooks, plus a number of essentially dead end, meaningless, or flavor items -- though I never tell the party which is which!

I find it's a relatively simple tool to add a lot of depth, fun, and character to your campaign.

 

[barsoomcore]

I used to post Barsoom rumours on the Barsoom website but I haven't done it for a while. They're not on Barsoom just at the mome so it made sense to hold back. Plus I'm lazy.

Everywhere the players go, however, they end up hearing bits and pieces of news about what's going on the world, and there's always FAR too many things for them to get involved in them all. There's wars and plagues and marriages and executions and smugglings and mutinies and births and deaths and kidnappings and rebellions and trade deals and betrayals and.... it just goes on and on.

I probably spend as much time on that stuff as I do on the adventures the players are actually interacting with. I think it's absolutely critical to the campaign -- every bit as important as how many hit points this NPC has or how much gold that monster has collected.

 

[Chronosome]

Good stuff, guys. Thanks.

 

[AJA]

Absolutely. I loved the "Current Clack" sections in the old FR products also. The FRCS has them as well, although IMO they are weighted too far towards "adventure hooks" and not enough towards "general world color."

EN board member SHARK put it very well a couple of months ago when he wrote (in the course of conversation), "The world doesn't wait with baited breath for what six people sitting in a tavern somewhere are going to do this spring, regardless of how high a level they are. The world just has more important things to do."

I love that quote.

I think Current Clack (whether through village gossip, bard's tales, or one-copper broadsheets) helps to flesh out a world, to make it live and breathe beyond the walls of the dungeon the PCs are currently delving.

[ self pimp ] My own version of such "background color" can be seen in the Waterdeep Herald Archives. [ /self pimp ]. It utilizes the "newssheet" format, and "ages" as events unfold. Since I often post new editions to the REALMS-L mailing list, I also tend to attach small "what this means" or "what really happened" sections to each event, in order to impart some out-of-game notes to those reading it.

 

[Chronosome]

[ self pimp ] My own version of such "background color" can be seen in the Waterdeep Herald Archives. [ /self pimp ].

It utilizes the "newssheet" format, and "ages" as events unfold. Since I often post new editions to the REALMS-L mailing list, I also tend to attach small "what this means" or "what really happened" sections to each event, in order to impart some out-of-game notes to those reading it.

Great link, mang! I'm glad you pimped dat...

It's one fine ho!