Tablesmith And/Or JH NameGen

[DMFTodd]

Here's a thread to compare Tablesmith with JH NameGen. I was wondering how they compare since they do the same thing. Personally, I use Tablesmith but am wondering if JH NameGen has any advantages.

So post your comparisons or observations here.

 

[DMFTodd]

I'm not a Tablesmith expert but I'll try to answer FastLearner's comment from the previous thread. Hopefully Bruce, the owner of Tablesmith, will jump in and fill my gaps in knowledge.

and have it produce "Look" half the time and "Looker" half the time.

Tablesmith has a ton of built in functions. I can't give you the exact syntax but I'm sure it can do that.

TS also appears to take the odds from a different perspective, making it slightly harder to change the odds of something coming up. For example in (from what I can see in the layout) TS if you had this:

You can build a table in Tablesmith in 1 of 2 ways. The first way is as you describe (and seems to be the way most people do Tablesmith tables but I don't see why, it's difficult to make changes as you note):

:Materials
1,Wood
2-4,Brick
5,Straw

The other way, is to use relative weights instead of straight numbering. The only difference is a semi-colon before the table name instead of the colon:

;Materials
1,Wood
2,Brick
1,Straw

If you want to increase the change of any one value, you just change the number. This makes it very easy to add new entries any time you want. This is the way I do all my Tablesmith tables.

 

[Maraxle]

In Tablesmith's favor, my program (JH NameGen) does not do maps. Tablesmith does.

 

[Chaz]

Ive been a Tablesmith supporter for some time now. Its a great program. I also downloaded JH Nmaegen, it looks pretty good to so far.
I think it might be usefull to have both if you arent into making your own tables. That way you have access to any tables made for either program. TS does have a large number of tables already made, and has some abilitys JHNG doesnt (yet?) have.
If you are into making your own tables then it depends on perspective of what you want to do then I think. Some projects both programs can do, while others TS can do JHNG cant( maps, etc.).
As a side note, Fractal Mapper 6.0 (another one of my favorite programs) has some table geration ability also. You can click anywhere on your new made map using a city tool and a random city name along with all kinds of city info is instantly generated for you. Pretty darn slick if you ask me.

 

[MythosaAkira]

I'm not a Tablesmith expert but I'll try to answer FastLearner's comment from the previous thread. Hopefully Bruce, the owner of Tablesmith, will jump in and fill my gaps in knowledge.

I'll do my best

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and have it produce "Look" half the time and "Looker" half the time.
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There are a few ways you could do this. One would be to have a group that has both options, and call that group, like so:

;Caller
1,[LookGrp]

;LookGrp
1,Look
1,Looker

Another would be to use the "If" function:

1,{If~{Dice~1d2}=2?Look/Looker}

or

1,Look{If~{Dice~1d2}=2?er}

Or you could:

;LookGrp
1,Look[Er]

;Er
1,er
1,

There are probably a few more ways as well.

You can build a table in Tablesmith in 1 of 2 ways.
...
:Materials
1,Wood
2-4,Brick
5,Straw

The other way, is to use relative weights instead of straight numbering. The only difference is a semi-colon before the table name instead of the colon:

;Materials
1,Wood
2,Brick
1,Straw

That's correct. The weighted/relative probability functionality was added in version 2.0. In addition, if you put an exclamation point after your colon or semicolon, you have a "non-repeating" table. What that means is that once an entry comes up, it's flagged so a subsequent call to the table doesn't return that same entry. There is a function to "reset" the table, to clear all those "don't use me again" flags, as well as functions to lock or unlock individual entries (useful if you have opposing values on the same table; for example, in a "personality" table for NPC generation, if you generate "truthful", you don't need to generate that again, and you'd also probably want to lock out "dishonest", so your results would make more sense).

I've uploaded the "History" file from TableSmith help to my site (at http://www.mythosa.net/TSHistory.html), if anyone's interested in seeing the changes TS has gone through in its fourteen revisions since version 1.0. I should probably put a more formal summary on the site; the blurb I have on the "Utilities" page doesn't really cover all its features.

 

[MythosaAkira]

In Tablesmith's favor, my program (JH NameGen) does not do maps. Tablesmith does.

Not really maps per se, but graphics via HTML. Since the results TableSmith generates are displayed in an HTML window (a Web browser imbedded in the program), you can do some "advanced" things if you know HTML. Maps (using "geomorphs") are one thing, but you could do others as well. For instance, I have a table that "casts runes", displaying graphics of some runestones, as well as the text describing what they mean. One thing I've been wanting to do for awhile is a random portrait generator, using Javascript/DHTML layers and transparent GIFs, so you can use TS to generate random faces for PCs/NPCs. Of course, for any generator using graphics, you need to provide the them - TS doesn't generate graphics, just the instructions to the browser to use them.

You don't need to be an HTML expert to use TS for generating simple things. The option is just there if you want to use it.

 

[Chaz]

One thing I've been wanting to do for awhile is a random portrait generator, using Javascript/DHTML layers and transparent GIFs, so you can use TS to generate random faces for PCs/NPCs

That sounds pretty cool. Id like to see that