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Fuzzie Fuzz
2010-10-02, 07:16 PM
In an upcoming campaign I'm running, I want to give the players a fun little handout in the form of a little one-page periodical. I can't think of enough interesting ideas, so I'm turning to the Playground: help me come up with some interesting/newsworthy/funny newspaper stories for a small-town paper. Also: classified ads or restaurant/tavern/inn reviews could be amusing.

Thanks!

Ormur
2010-10-02, 07:54 PM
It's not entirely similar but in one campaign the DM handed out a newspaper flyer for a global newspaper with all sorts of background info from all over the world. Some queen dying, incredible heists, political upheaval and so forth. The newspaper itself was plot relevant and used teleportation to distribute throughout the setting.

Fuzzie Fuzz
2010-10-02, 07:57 PM
Yeah, that's the sort of thing I'm going for. Hidden within the various articles will be a few with pertinent plot information, but I need random fluff around these, which will hopefully be rather amusing.

Swordgleam
2010-10-02, 08:33 PM
It would help to know what setting your game is in.

urbanpirate
2010-10-02, 08:53 PM
random carriage/train/ best transit in your setting wreck a great heist from local noble and or cleric and or merchant guild and some natural disaster somwhere close enough to care but not in your back yard and you have the typical real world paper

Fuzzie Fuzz
2010-10-02, 09:02 PM
Swordgleam: Ah, good point. Standard D&D fantasy setting. Specifically, a big-ish walled city on a small island, in a perpetual cold war with another city on the island. Both cities are opposed to and fearful of magic, but allow a certain amount if it's done subtly in order to keep things running smoothly.

urbanpirate: Hmm, good ideas. I'll definitely use some of those.

Jack_Simth
2010-10-02, 09:10 PM
Read your local paper, and translate to fantasy elements. Endangered panda now in the zoo? It's a rare half-white dragon Fire elemental, instead. Local charity having a fund raiser for their soup kitchen? No translation needed. New skyscraper going up? It's a Wizard's tower. And so on. Pick up your regular paper, replace any technology references with fantasy references, change all the names, and plop in a few random substitutions (e.g., every named NPC is also given a race - rolled at random using the Reincarnate table; every named animal is templated with something from the MM, and so on).

Swordgleam
2010-10-02, 09:30 PM
Specifically, a big-ish walled city on a small island, in a perpetual cold war with another city on the island. Both cities are opposed to and fearful of magic, but allow a certain amount if it's done subtly in order to keep things running smoothly.

Read the first bit of 1984. Copy what sort of things they print in their papers - mostly propaganda about their enemy.

Plus a few rabble-rousing articles by zealots about how there's too much magic, and maybe a counterpoint about how a little more magic wouldn't be a terrible thing.

Fuzzie Fuzz
2010-10-02, 11:38 PM
Hmm, good ideas. Some propagandist stuff is needed, definitely. Pulling stories from the real paper is actually a brilliant idea, I'm taking that. That'll actually take care of most of it.

Thanks again!