Questions about questions.

[Qintopon]

All right I know about a lot of questions to ask once a PC hits up the local bar/eatery/playhouse/funroom. ie. What are some of the rumors around town, anybody you know of need some good fighters?

However, I'm kind of looking for the not so common questions a PC should ask. Any ideas?

[BowStreetRunner]

My recommendation - don't ask too many questions. You are just advertising your ignorance and inviting someone to take advantage of you. Instead, observe.

Find a good vantage point. Look. Listen. Stay inconspicuous and engage in people-watching. Save your questions until after you've acquired a good sense of how things stand.

[Qintopon]

As a relatively new DM can you tell me how to make such an environment amenable to PCs information gathering techniques? I'd still like a list so that I can just give it to a very inexperienced PC, but I also have experienced players who would enjoy the complexities as well.

[Just to Browse]

Good techniques:
Let them overhear conversations where people seem worried. Then they can walk up and offer their services and you can be all the NPCs with surprised faces like "OMG you made a DC 10 listen check!"
Put up signs. If the PCs look for a source of info in the taven and your civilization has lots of paper, Wanted posters and Adventurers Needed signs do a lot of good.
Town Criers' are great ways to announce lots of pertinent information and direct the players to major NPCs. Like the town crier won't know anything about the quest (other than what he's told to announce) but someone gave him that information and he can probably point players to that person.
Have a town bazaar and sell one weird item specific to whatever the quest is (like jars of aboleth mucus if you want them to fight aboleths). Hopefully players will ask what sorts of things there are to buy and you can be the vendor showing off his expensive jars of aboleth mucus, which will get responses (ideally) like "Aboleths? Sweet, let's kill some and sell them for gold"


Newbie characters should look for major hubs of activity, ask generic "you need any quests?" sorts of questions, and try to get maps of the region. That generally gets the plot going, but it requires the game not to be sandboxy.

[Keld Denar]

"Know of any good plot hooks round these parts?"

[Curmudgeon]

If you're trying to gather general information, there's a skill for that (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/gatherInformation.htm). Most DMs I know won't go above a +2 circumstance bonus to the check, no matter how elaborate the effort the player makes in executing a query strategy. So just spend some skill points and don't worry so much.

[ArcturusV]

Depending on the setting? Hanging out near the exits of a town are also a good bet for the guy looking for a quest. Literally all you have to do is wait for a merchant of some ilk to approach the gate and go, "Hey... bandits and gobbos and such are out there. Want an Escort?" BAM. Instant questline.

It's perhaps the easiest thing to get newbies into a quest while also giving the appearance of depth. A player may not like random "Go yonder into thy pit of damnation, and killeth me 10 aberrations..." but having a concrete, in world goal draws them closer. We're going somewhere. Why there? What's in the caravan? Might I later want to take advantage of this? Who are these merchants? Etc, etc, etc.

[DustyBottoms]

"Know of any good plot hooks round these parts?"

I think that might be a tad subtle.