From another thread (paraphrased):
A bad (racial) reputation is going to wear off eventually. After 1-2 levels on the local level you are no longer just "some goblin." You are now the goblin that saved the mayor’s daughter, and even though it scared it s+$!less to do so also brought back her pony. After 3-4 levels you are now on the regional level. The goblin that travelers say killed those Norborgor cultists that were attacking temples. After 5-6 levels you are just Timmik the Pathfinder. After 10 levels you are Timmik the Great.Depends how localized the campaign is frankly. If you were rolling something like Hell's Rebels where you spend 95% of the game in one city, it'll probably pan out like that eventually. Things get more iffy on more globe-trotting campaigns unless news of your exploits spreads via Fantasy Facebook considering how most of these games are over and done in under a year in game.
Now, this particular conversation came from an “Are Goblin PC’s ever viable?” thread, but that’s not the part of it I want to talk about. I’m more thinking about
via Fantasy Facebook
Isn’t that pretty much precisely what Bards are for? Not so much their role in an adventuring party as in history. Bards collected and spread tales and songs of great deeds. Am I the only GM who uses this function of Bards to spread the notoriety of my PCs?
Example: I’m running a game that started as a Homebrew campaign before moving on to complete the “Rise of the Runelords” Adventure Path. In the last adventure between moving from my homebrew setting into Sandpoint, we had a guest player come in for the session, playing the Iconic Bard Lem. The party was Level 4, so when they got into Sandpoint, I was going to want to send them directly to Thistletop. While they were talking to Lem, they shared the story of how they had escaped from the dungeon of Queen Mirabel and slew the dragon Blackfang (out of the Beginner’s Box adventure, which I tacked on to the second level of their dungeon. Incidentally, Blackfang isn’t dead, but Lem didn’t know that. He rolled abysmally on his Sense Motive check.)
Lem’s player left after that session, and we established that there were a few weeks between when he left and when they left the city they were in, meaning that there was time for Lem to stop in Sandpoint as he raced to catch up to his traveling companions. I decided that he arrived shortly after the Goblin Raid on the city, and while stopping at the Rusty Dragon, shared the song he had composed about the Slayers of Blackfang with Ameiko. This meant that when the party arrived in Sandpoint, several people recognized them from the song, and had reason to feel comfortable asking these brave warriors to stop the Goblins of Thistletop.
Surely I can’t be the only person who uses Bards this way, can I? It seems to me that players should find that the word of their exploits does spread beyond just their local area. Anywhere that the PC’s deeds are known, traveling Bards should have a chance to hear about those deeds, and then when that Bard moves on, the stories of the heroes should have a chance of being spread. (And hey, sometimes the stories of their embarrassments and accidents should spread too.)
How fast and how successfully their legend spreads is, of course, going to vary from GM to GM and campaign to campaign, and how much the GM wants their players to become known across the world, but it seems like Bards very much are the “Fantasy Facebook” that does virally spread the tales of great heroes.
In Eberron (& possibly in the more advanced areas of Golarion, I wouldn't know) there are actual newspapers and reporters. The reporters may be bards but certainly don't have to be.
If Bards are the Facebook of the fantasy genre, then my bard PCs should be making millions selling the personal data of my adventuring companions.