There's little doubt that Generators are perhaps one of the most useful RPG tools.
Whether they are tables in core books or PDFs, web pages, excel spreadsheets, or dedicated software applications - they can be particularly good at saving DMs a huge amount of preparation time.
I'm extremely interested in opinions and ideas for what would make the Ultimate RPG Generators. What sort of diversity, flexibility and priority would we look for in our ultimate generators?
Hopefully we needn't get stuck on what is possible with particular medium such Excel, books, web pages or software (DM Mastery: NPC Essentials did/does very well as a book for NPC generation).
I'd start with the following suggestions for features:
For me, opinions on how you would implement the Ultimate Generators isn't as relevant here as the following:
- What have you used before that you found really useful (even if only the tables from the DMG!)?
- What short-comings do you find with the various methods you use?
- What improvements would you wish for what you have worked with?
- What could you dream up (something achieveable!) that you haven't seen?
To be frank, this would be more than interesting conversation for me personally. I actually have a program framework that I think might be able to address of those sorts of issues - so for me, there may well be a great achieveable outcome from ideas.
Really, though, this isn't about software (necessarily). Its about whatever you think works for you, or could work really well for you.
Thanks in advance for any interesting discussion or ideas
Whether they are tables in core books or PDFs, web pages, excel spreadsheets, or dedicated software applications - they can be particularly good at saving DMs a huge amount of preparation time.
I'm extremely interested in opinions and ideas for what would make the Ultimate RPG Generators. What sort of diversity, flexibility and priority would we look for in our ultimate generators?
Hopefully we needn't get stuck on what is possible with particular medium such Excel, books, web pages or software (DM Mastery: NPC Essentials did/does very well as a book for NPC generation).
I'd start with the following suggestions for features:
- Does NPCs (complete with feats, spell lists, equipment etc).
- Relevant for different genre (fantasy through to sci-fi).
- Gives intelligent results (feats, equipment etc) relevant for a given race with any class level combination
- An expandable system (even if its an editable document you add to). You should be able to easily make it campaign-specific, or re-usable (such as different wandering monster generation profiles for different areas).
- Does locations (such as dungeons, out door settings or towns).
- Breaks right down to room contents for locations.
- Capable of esoteric "wordy" things such as personalities, plot ideas, adventure ideas, dwarf cries or names of different types.
- Generated results are capable of being changed to suit, so that the generators give a rough indication.
For me, opinions on how you would implement the Ultimate Generators isn't as relevant here as the following:
- What have you used before that you found really useful (even if only the tables from the DMG!)?
- What short-comings do you find with the various methods you use?
- What improvements would you wish for what you have worked with?
- What could you dream up (something achieveable!) that you haven't seen?
To be frank, this would be more than interesting conversation for me personally. I actually have a program framework that I think might be able to address of those sorts of issues - so for me, there may well be a great achieveable outcome from ideas.
Really, though, this isn't about software (necessarily). Its about whatever you think works for you, or could work really well for you.
Thanks in advance for any interesting discussion or ideas
