A d20 NPC Wiki?

[Fieari]

Hey... something weird. This just popped up at the bottom of an NPC I just posted...

AACK! Sharedproblemreport and problemreport

Here: http://www.enworld.org/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=2406361

Any idea what's up with that?

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I've just counted, and we have 236 NPCs in the d20 Section alone!

This is getting huge, folks!

 

[Roudi]

*shrugs*

The GPL and the OGL are both pretty easy to understand. An OGL NPC Wiki wouldn't be nearly as difficult to manage as you folks are making it out to be. You would just need one or a few people to maintain the site's compliance in the face of so many submissions from people with varying understandings of the licenses.

Oh well.

 

[S'mon]

*shrugs*

The GPL and the OGL are both pretty easy to understand. An OGL NPC Wiki wouldn't be nearly as difficult to manage as you folks are making it out to be. You would just need one or a few people to maintain the site's compliance in the face of so many submissions from people with varying understandings of the licenses.

Oh well.

Why would anyone wish to give up their free time to do this, though? And what would be the benefit? The OGL is there to allow for commercial exploitation of WoTC's copyright work by other publishers, it's neither necessary nor desirable here AFAICS.

Edit: Also, personally I wouldn't contribute to it if it were OGL. I think the OGL is great in its proper place, which is not on fansites. And if you read Ryan Dancey's comment you'll see he appears to agree with me.

 

[Vascant]

What I find kind of funny is about 15% of total hits per day from actual people on my site is from this wiki site. NPC Designer has been created so you no longer have to rely on what other people create and hope it fits the situation the NPC exists within. Before NPC Designer I normally would either have to create all my NPC's by hand or grab them other sources (I imagine I am not alone in that). With NPC Designer I can now create every NPC just the way I desire. I no longer need to rely on other sources.

NPC Wiki does not solve a key problem that exists today, a good source for correct and well stat'd NPC's.

I could be alone in this but hey, thats just my opinion

 

[Iron Sheep]

The GPL and the OGL are both pretty easy to understand. An OGL NPC Wiki wouldn't be nearly as difficult to manage as you folks are making it out to be. You would just need one or a few people to maintain the site's compliance in the face of so many submissions from people with varying understandings of the licenses.

This might be workable if the only allowed source for OGL material was the SRD. It breaks down completely once you start allowing arbitrary OGL content into the Wiki: the compliance volunteers aren't going to have access to all possible sources, and so who's to say if a contributor is using the OGL content from Fred's Big Book o' Feats and Prestige Classes correctly?

Corran

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Since people are talking about NPC designer, I have three questions about it:

1) Does it select magic items well for the DM, or does he have to pick them himself?

2) Does it do D20 Modern?

3) (Extension to #2) Does it choose skills intelligently, or must the GM pick them himself?

If it's not doing 1 or 3, then I'm not seeing any point of using it.

 

[Vascant]

1. Magic item selection is handled 2 ways, you can select certain items you wish the NPC to have and then have the Equipment engine handle the rest or let the Engine handle it all.

2. We are already starting on the date for NPC Designer - Modern and look to have it atleast available for the public to test September 1.

3. The Skill AI is pretty smooth and you will find very few flaws. The system works as it is and is also highly configurable to how your world is designed as well.

Whatever you know or seen in NPC Generation systems, forget it because it doesn't apply to NPC Designer.

Just burning one off as an example..

Gaalen CR4
Female Human Wizard 4
N Medium Humanoid
Init 3 (+3 Dex) Senses Listen +4, Spot +1
Languages Common, Halfling, Giant
---------------------
AC 13, touch 13, flat 10
hp 18 (4HD)
Fort +3 Ref +4 Will +5
---------------------
Speed 30 ft. (6 squares)
Melee +1 club +4 (1d6+2)
Base Atk +2 Grp +3
Atk Options
Special Atk
Wizard Spells Memorized (CL 4, +3 melee touch, +5 ranged touch)
2nd--levitate, minor image (2) (DC 14/W)
1st--burning hands (DC 13/R), hold portal, protection from law (DC 13/W), true strike
0--arcane mark, light, mage hand, touch of fatigue (DC 12/F)
---------------------
Abilities Str 12, Dex 16, Con 15, Int 15, Wis 13, Cha 10
SQ familiar
Feats Combat Casting, Eschew Materials, Maximize Spell, Scribe Scroll.
Skills Climb +6 (+1 str, +5 competence), Hide +5 (+3 dex), Knowledge (Arcana) +9 (+2 int), Knowledge (Local) +3 (+2 int), Listen +4 (+1 wis), Move Silently +8 (+3 dex, +3 familiar), Search +5 (+2 int), Spellcraft +10 (+2 int, +2 synergy).
Possessions +1 club, ring of climbing, potion of cure serious wounds, 3 pp, 17 gp, 12 sp, 15 cp, 100 gp in other assets.
Spellbook Wizard spells known: 0--acid splash, arcane mark, dancing lights, daze, detect magic, detect poison, disrupt undead, flare, ghost sound, light, mage hand, mending, message, open/close, prestidigitation, ray of frost, read magic, resistance, touch of fatigue
1st--burning hands, endure elements, hold portal, magic missile, mount, protection from law, true strike
2nd--levitate, minor image

Background: Adventurer - Mage, Ht: 4' 11", Wt: 133lbs, Hair: Blond, Eyes: Grey, Age: 27.

Gaalen`s cat familiar: hp 9


Now.. Can it be better, yes.. always and RPGAttitude releases an update 5 times a week with the sole focus of making it better.

I will admit, the Equipment Engine has not been tweaked like other systems have been but thats just a matter of time and where users want the focus to be, at this present moment beta testers are finalizing testing of all the scripts and I am coding Epic feats.

 

[Nellisir]

With NPC Designer I can now create every NPC just the way I desire. I no longer need to rely on other sources.

I think NPC Designer is fine, but it's not as broad as the NPC Wiki, since the wiki accept anything anyone thinks of, really. NPC Designer won't generate my talvijotun sorceress without me writing up talvijotuns and modifying sorcerer. Does it do monsters? Will it do an annis sorcerer? What about a huecuva druid, a leopard animal companion skeleton, or a frost man fighter?

I'm not knocking NPC Designer -- it looks like a great program for "standard" NPCs, but it's not the only answer.

NPC Wiki does not solve a key problem that exists today, a good source for correct and well stat'd NPC's.

But if you find an error in NPC Wiki, you can fix it, probably in less than 5 minutes. I can't recode NPC Designer.

Cheers
Nell.

 

[ThirdWizard]

The designer's pretty good, I agree. To nitpick, the example wizard doesn't have any ranks in Concentration and you should probably change Combat Casting to Skill Focus (concentration).