History Generator

[alaric187]

Yeah, I know it's lots of extra work. Sorry.

I definately think assigning a level of detail with years would work almost as well. As long as it is kept random, so +-5 for very detailed and +-25 for slight detail.

Plus, you could add a small table for works of art just to get the DM's ideas flowing. Something like: painting, statue, building, fresco, religous icon, other. That would help jumpstart the creativity.

Alaric

 

[Ferret]

Why not select 2-6 events that happen more often, then leave the rest.

 

[kolvar]

Well, a bit I changed over the last day:
- random name generation for the countries and coming with this no more countries that have been vanquished ever apearing again (it would be rather random)
- Links can be set (There is at the moment nothing I do link to)
- Events can happen in the right order (no more rebellion Ends befor they start). This allows for rows of events to happen (two or more), too.
- added the long-lived entry to health and vitality: this allows for more years to be generated without having to remove war from the events.
- War can be set to 1/4 to 3 times the probability.
- Events can be given that happen at the given dates (and influence the other results accordingly


What I still need to do:
- adding new events
- looking for pages to link to (I know that there is this thread with 1000 links)
- fixing the probabilites and modifications of events.

The sources and the machine can be found at the links above.

 

[kolvar]

Why not select 2-6 events that happen more often, then leave the rest.

Should not be to hard to implement. I think about it.

 

[Deadguy]

I just wanted to say, Kolvar, that you have the core of a very clever and nice game tool for the DM. Just running it gave me ideas for my campaign! Keep up the good work!

 

[kolvar]

Many Thanks

 

[Dogbrain]

A problem I have is that they always end with the death of the nation. There are a few nations that have yet to "die", even after more than a thousand years. They might voluntarily incorporate into a larger entity or change governments or government forms, but they are still the dominant nation in the new entity.

Examples (at least 500 years continuous existence):

China (from AD581)
Japan (from AD794)
England (from AD1042)
France (from AD1194)
Ethiopia (from AD1270)
Spain (from AD 1492)

Agreed, not many, but the countries have been pretty much free of foreign rulership since roughly the above dates with only a few years' abrogation of that during times of war. In the case of China, Mongol "conquests" did not put an end to the country. Instead, the invaders ultimately became Chinese.

 

[kolvar]

I work on it. That is the main-thing, that bugs me at the moment. On the one side, I want be able to end a nation drastically after 10 years, on the other side it should possibly go 3000 years.

The only way to do more than 500 years at the moment, is to put health and vitality on long lived war, military might and agressivity on lowest level (just got 930 years). But I think, that is a problem with the finetuning of the events, which has to be done sometime in the future, I fear (it is so booooooring).

 

[Katerek]

The second edition book, the World Builder's Guidebook had some interesting tables that I think were ultimately derived from the source in OA.

Something you might want to consider is a "frequency" option. In other words, the ability to set it so that events occur "less" frequent. This would enable a larger scope and the ability to establish a period of prehistory wherein only the highlights are discussed.

example

200 - Nation Born under Great Leader
300 - Nation struggles with a new religious Minority
350-400 - National civil war, two regimes
425 - Nation emerges from war with new face.
(Insert your timeline here)
Campaign begins

Just an idea.

 

[Dogbrain]

The only way to do more than 500 years at the moment, is to put health and vitality on long lived war, military might and agressivity on lowest level (just got 930 years).

Of the "long-lived" nations that I listed, all but one of them have gone through periods of extreme aggressiveness and very great military might.

In the current day, two of them are still very emphatic about maintaining military might.