Poll: What Types of RPG Random Generators Would You Use?

[ChaosGenerators]

I'm going to put this poll in as many places as I can and collate the results.

 

[Blue]

To expand out on game prep, some I use or would like to see:

City generators that give me some notable inhabitants, how much money they likely have to buy things, types of services offered, random color bits to throw in, including multiple districts. High level map (with only major points listed) also good.

"Interesting" treasure - description of art & jewelry, one line summary of books (or at least interesting titles) that I can influence categories (cult, arcane, ancient, etc.)

Monster stat block generators so I can have everything in one place without reentering.

Character generator I'm focused on the rules - but I want them to have all the rules. Missing a new supplement for months means I likely wouldn't use it. And also work with common types of house rules.

Oh, and a wishlist other: Campaign logging integrator
Some simple entry where players can put in recaps, comments about NPCs or anything. And it auto-tags and combines. So if I write a recap and it includes an NPC, info about that is also in the NPC write-up.

NPCs need to be able to go by different names, in case they just have a last name or a campaign nickname like "bald bully guy". Including going back and consolidating if we find out that "evil mastermind dude" and "Crown Price Lotar" are the same person at a later point.

Really wishlist is looking for occurances of non-dictionary words and offering them up (by frequency) as potential new topics/pages. That would auto-populate with the info already written about them if selected.

Easy for two different people to email in recaps without having seen each other's and they both get tagged for the same page since it's the same session.

 

[Lanefan]

I'm going to put this poll in as many places as I can and collate the results.

Generators as in something online intended to replace my own dice and charts?

None, unless they were customizable to the point where it'd be quicker to write my own (which, for a few things e.g. random magic items, I have).

 

[LordEntrails]

Encounters and events are things that to me you do during prep, not during game play.

Specific things I look for generators for are; names, events, npc descriptions, demographics (villages and town with names of places, people, etc)

 

[practicalm]

For the other, I've always loved the pick 3 GURPS books and run a campaign generator.

I usually like to do a quick city generator when the city isn't the focus of the current campaign but the players are passing through.
I love insult random generators especially for NPCs.
And Random Name generators are just fun.

 

[ChaosGenerators]

Encounters and events are things that to me you do during prep, not during game play.

I´ve just realised I should have been more specific. This was referring to random encounters and "something happens!" kind of events such as a pickpocket, unexpected weather or a street cryer with news of a local scandal.

 

[dragoner]

All of them.

 

[Legatus Legionis]

.

 

[ChaosGenerators]

When we don't have enough players for a regular game, we usually pull out our "random dungeon" PCs.

A quick game, were attacking monsters and collecting treasure is the name of the game. Role player the characters/plot development is NOT for this type of play.

Sounds like you could use something like the 5 Room Adventure Outline for your quick dungeons!

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I find myself turning to the random tables when the PCs come across treasure I haven’t planned for in-game. Same goes for when they start talking to NPCs and I am stuck for a personality. Also, random events that aren’t combat and I didn’t prepare for.

I rarely use random generators for adventure prep, pretty much only when I’m stuck. I generally find myself relying on them when I need a quick and interesting thing in the middle of a session.