Rumour Has It

Reading the latest Pathfinder adventure has reminded me of something I meant to talk about:

Very often in published adventures, and especially in Pathfinder ones, there is a provided list of rumours. Usually, some of these are rumours that turn out to be true while others are red herrings that actually turn out to be false. (Though the PCs may well never confirm the falsehood of the latter sort, of course.) So far, so good.

But where I think these adventures go wrong is in the means of giving the PCs access to these rumours: generally, the adventure says that if the PCs ask around then they can roll Gather Information (or equivalent) and if successful they are rewarded with a random rumour. Which may, of course be false - some reward that!

I'm inclined to think that there are at least four ways this can be improved. In order, from best to worst:

1. If one of the PCs is trained in Gather Information (or proficient in the D&D 5e equivalent, or whatever), just give that PC the entire rumour table. No roll, and it's assumed they're automatically doing the "ask around" bit as a background task... but there's no guarantee that the rumours are true.
2. If the PCs ask around, just give them the entire rumour table. No roll, but no guarantee that the rumours are true either.
3. If the PCs ask around, select (randomly or otherwise) a rumour for them. But in this case, all rumours should be true.
4. If the PCs ask around, have them roll Gather Information, and if successful give them the entire rumour table. But in this case, all rumours should be true.

The point here is that the rumours help flesh out the adventure - in general, the DM should want to have the PCs have access to them. That being the case, you want the barrier for entry to be as low as possible. Hence the above.

(Of course, this also ties into my view that characters trained in the various 'knowledge' skills should equally be given some sort of "Five Things You Know..." regarding the current adventure. This serves the dual roles of adding depth and flavour to the adventure and also rewarding clever play, as players may then use that information to their advantage.)