Your D&D World Needs a NEWSPAPER (Here's Why)

[@litrpgadventures6902]

💬 What would your campaign’s top headline be? Share your ideas and newspaper concepts in the comments below! 👇

[@thetwojohns6236]

@litrpgadventures6902 Stories from the Road: Another group of Arson Hobo children go missing. What's behind the disappearances? Byline- A case of good girl gone bad? Jenna D'Clair reported to have stolen from her parents before running away. An insider talks! Byline- Where did the Copperston Litter go? University officials issue statement. Byline- With children missing, did the Knight Commander really send Prince Rock to the safety of Telaclanar? Byline- The feud between Echo Romo and Lucky Copperston, an analyst explains how the expedition was doomed from the start. Byline- Quick-draw Maya vanishes after making groundbreaking discovery in her Uncles workshop. Was she silenced by the Mockers?

[@OrestisRT]

It was "adventuring group burns down entire town as retaliation for their 'heist' plot failing." The newspaper included newly printed wanted posters for the player characters.

[@irtehdar2446]

"Cat stuck in tree" right next to something about a troll eating a family of peasants. Hoping the players will go for the troll so next session the frontpage headline will read "Will Mittens ever come down?"

[@litrpgadventures6902]

lol sounds like a fun campaign

[@terrorcop101]

3:43 Not to mention ads for local businesses to point players towards magic shops or smithies, decrees made by local guilds, help wanted ads, reports about failed or successful dungeon delves (some of which might be written by the players themselves), there's all kinds of stuff to work and play around with. A dedicated DM might even print off actual newspaper articles using Publisher or Word to help sell the experience. It's a great way to eliminate or subvert the expected cloaked figure in a tavern, by having a player buy a paper off a newsie for a copper or borrow one from a tavern-goer--as an added bonus, players get a little more opportunity to directly interact with the world. On top of all that, newspapers were invented in the 15, 1600s following the invention of the printing press and most D&D campaigns are set in a pseudo-medieval/renaissance era, which makes both inventions realistically feasible.

[@AndrewJohnson-oy8oj]

"Local Newper"? AI giving itself away again.

[@rickway2039]

The Eberron - Oracle of War campaign had a bunch of broadsheets that you could hand out between sessions.

[@glamourweaver]

If any DnD setting was gonna do it, it would be Eberron given the leaning into easily available magic to create a modern technology feel.

[@rlgood]

The Call of Cthulhu rpg has been doing this sort of thing for decades. I think this is a great idea for D&D too.

[@michaelsandy2869]

I would also use the newspaper as reward. Part of the reward for the players is that they see their deeds reported in the newspaper. Even if it is only a local, 1 page bulletin piece.

[@royjaskowski905]

Played an Amber Diceless campaign and appointed myself as “Minister of Propaganda” by making myself editor of the daily newspaper. Now I wrote and spun the reports of our characters exploits. One character thought I was propping him up, as all our wins were credited solely to him, but it was actually just painting a huge target on him for any enemies that might have made along the way, lol.

[@litrpgadventures6902]

Now that’s next-level intrigue! Turning the party newspaper into a weapon of political chaos is absolute genius. Props for the creativity-and for proving that the pen is mightier than the sword (especially when it’s making someone else the target!). Bet that campaign was a blast! 😆📰

[@josephkelly7278]

Isn't that what Bards are for?

[@psy_p]

Exactly! In a medieval setting most people are illiterate so a newspaper is mostly useless. In bigger towns/cities there would be a herald that would announce topics of public interest on a public square, mostly related to the ruler and prominent factions.

[@valberto]

I have a periodical on my "tormenta 20" (Brazilian medieval fantasy RPG) table, called Valkaria's Trompeta. It shows what's happening around the kingdoms of the world, with or without player's input. It serves as a bunch of adventure hooks or a bunch of gossip about what's happening in the world.

[@litrpgadventures6902]

Love the idea, and a great name for a periodical, too!

[@psy_p]

A newspapaer wouldn't be very plausible in a medieval setting. Instead there would be a herald shouting topics of interest on a public square at certain hours.

[@litrpgadventures6902]

Magic papers in public squares that change headlines... depends on the world, though, for sure.

[@cuindless189]

So this was created with NotebookLM...

[@litrpgadventures6902]

It was part of the process, yes, fellow human.

[@biffstrong1079]

Nice. I have a ten most wanted poster in the post offices of my nation. All slightly different. I also in the smaller communities have a local jobs board.A lot of the wanted poster is aspirational.but when they run across one it feels more real Traveller has a similar kind of deal with news and jobs available at the Travellers aid society building. Good idea. Bit of info that gives the word some breadth. Hmm These guys sound very AI.

[@Privatestock10]

What prompts are giving you this art style?

[@thetwojohns6236]

I use this. I have an adventurer's journal/scandal sheet called Stories from the Road. It shares the exploits of known or (im)famous adventuring groups combined with the scandals that emerge when the player characters get involved with pretty much anything. You know you did it when you show up on the cover page. No one seems to know who publishes it, but they always get all the dirt. And since I'm perpetually blessed with players that want to know the name of every book and which are magical etc. They don't care if the book is by itself or they just walked into a library with 200,000 tomes. "I want to know the name of every book in the library? and which are magical? Will they notice if I steal any books?"

[@litrpgadventures6902]

love it

[@cedricklabbe6680]

This was entirely generated by notebook lm

[@litrpgadventures6902]

Nah, not the article or images or videos, but yes, the voices / podcast are NotebookLM, fellow human.

[@cedricklabbe6680]

@litrpgadventures6902 Fair, I meant the voices, I'm excited to recognize it's being used like this

[@litrpgadventures6902]

@@cedricklabbe6680 Sorry, all the pro-horse anti-car people have been coming out heh... It's not perfect yet, but I've been tinkering to make it better...

[@cedricklabbe6680]

@@litrpgadventures6902 Anyone with a brain knows this is a natural progression of the tools coming out. I don't see much point in whining about AI, it's a new tool, use it or lose it. I use it as a database for writing my novel. This is a cool use case too.

[@litrpgadventures6902]

Thanks. This is my real passion... proc-gen hex+cities+dungeon + GenAI kzbin.info/www/bejne/iXTOdaiJrbmhq8U

[@t24t25]

Eberron.

[@litrpgadventures6902]

Eh, Baron?

[@nrogers111101]

Painfully scripted agreeable narrative scrolling through DnD catch phrases simply looking for clicks. I had to turn it off

[@litrpgadventures6902]

Weird. A lot of old school creative DMs with good ideas are liking it.. and leaving more gold in the comments. Sorry you don't get it, fellow human!

[@nrogers111101]

I am an old school dm and i get it. Just the verbal scripted hype is just too grinding@@litrpgadventures6902

[@litrpgadventures6902]

Yeah, the quality isn't 100% yet... hope you stick around for the fellow humans, though...

[@douglaspope-gz1eq]

I actually really like this idea

[@litrpgadventures6902]

I've got some rumor generators... I need to make a "Newspaper AI tool" where you can put in details of your world and get a one-sheet you can print out haha