Random Nation Generator

[Jan van Leyden]

Jürgen, you might be able to get some ideas from Daan's Box of Flumph. It's a random kingdom generator which focuses on the population, including the citizens' ancestry.

 

[Connorsrpg]

I wrote a whole system for creating realms (from nations to villages) for 3e (and adapted to a SAGA kind of hybrid.

It was done similar to character generation with skills, feats etc. It included campaign turns (expanding upon a system developed for Dungeoncraft in Dragon mag in the famous Ray Winniger series).

Worked well for me, but found in the end that maybe I don't need so many details (such as battle rules).

I still use it it generate realms' traits, such as races, type of realm, government etc, and one day plan to make it more useful, such as by just rolling options for the outcomes of war (rather than trying to play it out with own system).

I found combining 2 elements of governments worked. The system of gov can be seperated from who forms it.

Anyway, this looks interesting, but I am not sure how it will work as a wiki - guess I need to check the character one.

C

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

OK, I've created a first prototype for this generator. What do you think of it so far?

Oh, and this has pretty much exhausted my Procrastination Time Bank for today... and tomorrow and Friday as well. Thus, I'd really appreciate it if someone would help me write up entries for the various government forms...

 

[NewJeffCT]

OK, I've created a first prototype for this generator. What do you think of it so far?

Oh, and this has pretty much exhausted my Procrastination Time Bank for today... and tomorrow and Friday as well. Thus, I'd really appreciate it if someone would help me write up entries for the various government forms...

You might want to do something to eliminate conflicting entries. I tried 3 dominant terrain types and came up with "Desert" and "Archipelago" and one other that I think was something like "Forests" or "Wooded"

Of course, I guess that could mean a large kingdom with a chain of forested islands, but they also control a desert area on the mainland.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

You might want to do something to eliminate conflicting entries. I tried 3 dominant terrain types and came up with "Desert" and "Archipelago" and one other that I think was something like "Forests" or "Wooded"

Of course, I guess that could mean a large kingdom with a chain of forested islands, but they also control a desert area on the mainland.

That's what I thought. Only the smallest nations have a single terrain type, and for those you can limit yourself to a single dominant terrain.

Unfortunately, the wiki software won't be able to avoid all inconsistencies - I can't really use a random result to have an influence on other random results. But I suggest seeing all this as a challenge rather than a limitation - after all, fantasy worlds often have some very strange terrain features, and trying to justify them might be half the fun.

(And since we are discussing terrain, the Terrain page only has a very small number of terrain types listed. Anyone interested in writing more?)

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Given that the Wiki also lists a large number of Real World People of significance, I think I will also be able to add a "Major Personalities" category. These people should be seen as inspiration for similar NPCs, of course - you will get disbelief from your players if Isaac Newton shows up in your campaign setting, but if you change the name and context a bit, you can still have a brilliant alchemist/scientist in your setting whose presence the players will accept.

 

[haakon1]

CIA World Factbook is great.

For D&D economics, I like the North American Industrial Classification System. It lists just about every form of economic activity, and it's well organized from very broad (agriculture) to quite specific (berry growing). Obviously, much of it is irrelevant in a medieval economy, but you could delete those.

NAICS - North American Industry Classification System Main Page

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Added new categories for "Major Personalities" and "Major Projects".

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I've also added a "Hot Political Issues" category, which is powered by all sorts of news headlines represented in the wiki.

Quite a few political issues of today are easily recyclable for other settings. And isn't recycling real world material for gaming what the Arcana Wiki is all about?

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

CIA World Factbook is great.

For D&D economics, I like the North American Industrial Classification System. It lists just about every form of economic activity, and it's well organized from very broad (agriculture) to quite specific (berry growing). Obviously, much of it is irrelevant in a medieval economy, but you could delete those.

NAICS - North American Industry Classification System Main Page

Thanks - I will look into this.

I plan to submit my PhD thesis on Tuesday, so I should have some more free time after that.