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[peasant cretin]

Normally when my character first starts out, (s)he'll begin talking to an NPC and "Bring up specific incident or rumor" and Spread-rumor-spam the first 2 pages to populate the map with lairs and camps. This is of course, provided that the first two pages of Spread rumor are local. Occasionally, my character will spawn in an area where all spread rumors are sadly remote. Then I might as well either travel to that remote area, or go for the completely random "Inquire about any troubles."

The usual conversation order is:
- My character: Bring up specific incident or rumor
- My character: Spread rumor of monster/bandit/occurence
- NPC: It is terrifying
- My character: Ask for directions to location
- NPC: Gives location, refers my character to someone else, or expresses ignorance

Sometimes though, after Spread rumor, instead of getting the response of "It is terrifying" so as to move on to the location query, the NPC will deflect by spreading a rumor of their own or expressing some thought or emotion. No matter how many times I might try to spread rumor of say C, the result will always be a deflection, and I'll just have to move to the next rumor as in:

- Spread rumor of A = location
- Spread rumor of B = location
- Spread rumor of C = deflection
- Spread rumor of D = location
- Spread rumor of F = referral
- Spread rumor of E = ignorance

In 40.24, I used to just hit fast travel once I got a deflection and restart the spread rumor spam. Nowadays, I just move on to the next, clear out 2 pages of rumors and ask some other NPC for the rumors that resulted in deflections.

The only reason to spam the first 2 pages of Spread rumor is because the minute you do begin adventuring, there's that accumulation of senseless encounters that'll clog the menu.

[Uzu Bash]

You could go straight to asking for directions and scroll from the back of the list. Whoever knows the last one will know the rest. If you're an outsider, you don't get a list of rumors, so until someone else spreads it to you, you can populate the local map by asking a barrage of 'surroundings' and 'directions' questions. Everyone knows the directions to the surroundings they tell you about. They only deflect if you ask the same thing twice in the conversation.

[peasant cretin]

Ah! Much thanks for the shortcut.

[99Hedgehog]

I always ask for troubles.

[Uzu Bash]

"troubles" is needed for getting necro towers, kobold caves and tombs on the map. The only way to get vaults is extensive interrogation about "surroundings", and that only works if it's in range.

[TheFlame52]

Hell, I just use Legends Viewer to get the general location, then walk back and forth for days until I find it. Vaults are hard.

[Uzu Bash]

I agree; I rely on Legends, and only stop to ask to get a more precise location of a place I'm already interested in going to. After you've followed the advice in this thread for 5+ characters, it's such a tedious chore that you just want to skip it and go into adventuring. Even getting a location only 3 tiles away can be like pulling teeth. It's less of a bother to comb the tile yourself than to hold NPC's toes over the fire for directions.

[peasant cretin]

I still do use spread rumor for small-sized adventurers as it's helpful to know how many kills a semimegabeast has (as this seems to determine item generation--armor being the first thing needed if I'm playing vanilla).

[Uzu Bash]

If you're using Legends Viewer for a map and have a 'well-traveled' party member, you don't even need to ask for directions until they become pertinent. Just spam "surroundings" (or "rr" for a shortcut) and ask your guide for a precise location when you're going that direction.

I still do use spread rumor for small-sized adventurers as it's helpful to know how many kills a semimegabeast has (as this seems to determine item generation--armor being the first thing needed if I'm playing vanilla).

This just isn't viable for large worlds. With my current character, the rumors log became spammed to useless within the second week due to a flood of encounter events and a whole lot of performances. Even if I was willing to sift through through it all for news worth telling, the loading time every single time the 'rumors' topic is selected has gone beyond my tolerance. It's worse than trying to dance in a 4k population settlement.