How does news travel in your campaign?

[DontEatRawHagis]

Listening to the GENCON panels on the Tome Show and this came up with a lot of the Forgotten Realms writers.

How does news travel in your DnD setting? A few people might have spies that get really reliable information, but there are also the bards who embellish stories to get more drinks.

News travels in my current game by either traders or bards. In fact most of the information around the world's current state of affairs is held by these traders. Many of which are pushing the story forward for the players, by investigating for them.

[BrokenChord]

Well, I suppose it depends largely on the game being played.

If it's D&D, I pretty much do what you do, though governments who enjoy propaganda-based manipulations and have the means to do so often use things similar to newspapers or magical means of mass information spreading to get information out in a certain favorable light before the un-edited version of the information gets around.

EDIT: Also, bi-monthly city-state fairs are a great place to catch gossip from other parts of the land.

[Kid Jake]

I think my players may be horrible people, because my first instinct upon reading the topic was that if news of the players or the general plot has traveled it means they missed a witness somewhere. So news is pretty much spread solely by terrified lone survivors in my campaigns if not my setting.

Doesn't matter which group, it applies to them all equally.

[Averis Vol]

In the game I DM, general news is spread over the inner sea trade routes, at least, if it's in a majorly populated area. All the states are situated around one great big sea, and news gets passed from the guards talking, to the dock workers, to the ship crews. Then one crew to another, to the dockworkers, to the guards...... you see how it goes. Things the PC's are directly involved with also run the gamut but at a smaller scale. Normally their exploits hit major organisations who deal with it first (Whether it's rivals or allies) and then not long after hits the local populace. at first they're taken as rumors, because who's going to believe that a wandering group of sellswords stumbled into the woods and murdered an entire colony of kobolds and their dragon overlord?

But after a while, people start to recognise these same people from the stories; they see the towering behemoth of a barbarian wearing the fur's of Javoc the Primus, the advanced fiendish dire bear that made it's domain in the ghostwoods, wielding his axe nearly as tall as a horse is long. they see the bard with hair so blonde it seems to be made of sunshine who's voice reached the town a day off, playing a lap harp made from the thorn of the tree of life and strung with unicorn hair.

After a point, they are legendary figures who's tales have reach all but the most reclusive of hermits. Messages are recieved by carrier pigeon, magical communing, divination, The Messengers, ale house stories, etc, etc...

[Gracht Grabmaw]

Mostly through courriers and merchants, there's also bards as well to a much lesser extent. The orcs of all people actually invented something like newspapers (with very big and simple illustrations) very early on when one commander was forced into retirement by an injury came upon the idea that the civilians might want to stay informed about how the war is going just as much as the soldiers in the field.

[Slipperychicken]

Personally, I'd like to see more town criers (formal or otherwise) in campaigns, since they're harder for PCs to ignore than newspapers or idle chatter from NPCs. They could serve as a quick way to convey public opinion, current events, and also to help the PCs gauge the impact of their actions.

[BWR]

It depends on the setting, the area in the setting and the news.
In my Mystara game most news travels at the speed of travelers. Mostly merchants but also adventurers and others bring news from one area to the next, which gets spread in taverns or to fellow travelers on the road and then spreads out from there. Governments get information from their diplomats and spies by whatever method is most suited: dedicated couriers of varying speeds and some magic. Countries with lots of magic (Alphatia and Glantri, mostly) can generally get a pretty good picture of whatever event soon after it occurs. Scrying, Contact other plane, Sending,etc. can all be used to get pretty up to date info.

News disseminated from the government is usually done by town criers, official notices on public walls, sometimes magic, meetings in town halls, etc.

[DigoDragon]

Personally, I'd like to see more town criers (formal or otherwise) in campaigns, since they're harder for PCs to ignore than newspapers or idle chatter from NPCs.

I employ those fairly often. One time had a PC who would disguise himself as a town crier and twist the news so that it could sway public opinion away from the party. Was a bit clever on his part.

[Jay R]

It depends on the situation. In the game I'm currently running, the PCs are in a war, and getting a lot of their information from refugees.

More commonly, it's travelers' tales, but those will always include a bunch of exaggerations, mistakes, boasts, and outright lies as well as some truth.

[Palegreenpants]

Pigeon post. :D
In addition to that, government signposts.

[VoxRationis]

Slowly. In my campaign, magic is pretty uncommon, so only certain factions get the near-instant communication that arcane magic can provide. Word spreads most rapidly along trade routes, gradually filtering through to the rural areas. The section of my campaign world the current campaign takes place in is mostly isolated by geography and politics, so word from the outside spreads but slowly. I'd expect a time delay between 6 and 12 months for outside news to become heard in that region. The more organized empires spread word to their officials and agents, but have no particular interest in spreading news on a day-to-day basis. It gives the dynamic of information and relationships a feel similar to [I]Star Trek[I], where each locale learns of the PCs first through the party's interactions, rather than any advance warning.

[jedipotter]

In my world: News does not travel much at all. People only care about local news, things that effect them within a couple miles. They can care less about the rest of the world news. People like to hear stories and songs and such from around the world, but that is not 'news'....that is entertainment.

I think too many DM's do the 21st century news. If someone does an action, it can be known world wide in hours. But in the ''long time ago'' D&D world....news traveled very slow. And most did not care.

Take Farmer Fred in Shadowdale. He runs his farm, and has a couple of drinks at the local tavern. He might hear any number of stories, but not exactly 'the news'. For the most part, he does not care to hear about the world. It's to far away to matter. He will listen to a good story though...

[BrokenChord]

Well, now. That depends on how your setting functions, not how old the world is. I mean, a D&D setting (trying to be) mostly like medieval Europe would probably have a lot more of the peasantry being fairly well-informed of any event in the whole country worth telling about, because the metaphorical grapevine ran through the fairs and similar things, of which the minor ones were weekly and did only stretch maybe twenty miles in any direction, and the major ones were twice-yearly events pulling people from across the country (or, in France's case, from across most of the freaking continent, though I suppose even the rich don't send their money to EVERY such event in hopes of nice stuff coming back).

And people back then were practical enough to realize that major events hundreds of miles away could potentially affect trade locally, thus beating up the economy and making things more expensive or the bartered goods worth less.

(Plus, come on, they're still human. If something was interesting enough, it would find its way to the grapevine.)

Just because they're uneducated doesn't mean they're stupid.

Of course, you could also very realistically make a world in which that isn't the case, and if you do so, then power to you. But isolationism isn't something that you can just assume happens because the year is 1196 or whatever.



*cough* Alright, I'm done nerding out. You can keep enjoying your discussion now.

[Jay R]

News always travels at the speed of plot.

[jedipotter]

Of course, you could also very realistically make a world in which that isn't the case, and if you do so, then power to you. But isolationism isn't something that you can just assume happens because the year is 1196 or whatever.

Well it depends on if it's ''1196''....and where you are. Something like 40-50% of the world did not know it was ''1196'', as that time was only used in some places. And the people 7,000 miles away from the people that say it's ''1196'' don't have a trade infrastructure, so they don't care about far away events. And then there is the 25% or so part of the world that does not care about or even have a concept of 'money'.