Having battled my way through the process of generating a few sample characters for Merrie England, I thought there must be a better way of doing this.
So, I have written a rough bulk character generator. It's written in Progress, for several reasons (It's the language I know best; It handles tables better than any other language that I know; I have it at home), which means that the code won't help anyone and I can't make it available as a download (well I can but it won't be of much use).
As a test, I generated 200 sample characters, with random levels if experience, random backgrounds and random professions, but I can pre-select those if I need to.
The generated sample characters is at:
http://www.soltakss.com/samplecharacter.html and the data that I used is at
http://www.soltakss.com/chargendata.txt.
By the very nature of randomly rolled characters, it does throw up a few oddities. For example, an Arctic Fisherman has Craft (Blacksmith) because the crafts are not linked by background.
The data used came from the RQ Deluxe SRD with a few extra skills thrown in from the RQ Game Masters Guide. I haven't yet included the professions from Spellbook, but there's no reason why I can't.
Because I am using a datafile to hold the raw data, this means that I can specify different datasets for different settings. Once I have nailed things down precisely, I'll be using it to generate some characters for Merrie England using the Nationality/Background/Profession combinations from that supplement. But, there's no reason why I can't use another dataset to generate characters from other settings. All I need to do is to add/delete/change the Backgrounds/Professions/Skills/Lists and tweak the code to take into account anything new.
Things are very generic, for example I have Language 1, Language 2, Language 3 and Language 4 as Languages. In a setting specific generation, those would be nailed down.
Now that I have it working, I need some feedback.
The layout is similar to that used in Merrie England and Crusaders of the Amber Shore and seems easy to read. What else needs to be included and what don't you like about it?
I haven't included Runes because I still am not exactly sure how they work in RQM and also because Runes are setting specific. Should I include Runes and, if so, how should I include them? Should runes be random or should they be more focussed?
What about magic? Should I include Runemagic, tied to Runes? What about Divine Magic and Sorcery? They seem to be very setting-specific, so what works for Glorantha would not work for Merrie England, in fact what works for the West of Glorantha doesn't work for the centre.
I haven't included the Manipulation skills from Sorcery as they are not specified in any of the Magic Using professions. Should I include a Sorcerer profession that has Manipulations?
Similarly, I haven't included Enchantments for the same reason. Should I build those in as well?
I haven't included equipment, specifically armour. Should I do so? If so, should the characters come ready supplied or should they buy equipment from their available cash? Should they have detailed equipment lists or just a summary of armour etc?
Should Crafts be linked to background/culture? If I go down that route, should weapons and armour be linked in a similar way?
In general,
What am I missing?
What don't you like about the characters generated?
What needs changing?
Is a list of pre-generated characters like this useful?
Would it be better organised sorted into Professions, Backgrounds or Levels?
Is it better being random or would you prefer certain backgrounds and certain professions?
So, I have written a rough bulk character generator. It's written in Progress, for several reasons (It's the language I know best; It handles tables better than any other language that I know; I have it at home), which means that the code won't help anyone and I can't make it available as a download (well I can but it won't be of much use).
As a test, I generated 200 sample characters, with random levels if experience, random backgrounds and random professions, but I can pre-select those if I need to.
The generated sample characters is at:
http://www.soltakss.com/samplecharacter.html and the data that I used is at
http://www.soltakss.com/chargendata.txt.
By the very nature of randomly rolled characters, it does throw up a few oddities. For example, an Arctic Fisherman has Craft (Blacksmith) because the crafts are not linked by background.
The data used came from the RQ Deluxe SRD with a few extra skills thrown in from the RQ Game Masters Guide. I haven't yet included the professions from Spellbook, but there's no reason why I can't.
Because I am using a datafile to hold the raw data, this means that I can specify different datasets for different settings. Once I have nailed things down precisely, I'll be using it to generate some characters for Merrie England using the Nationality/Background/Profession combinations from that supplement. But, there's no reason why I can't use another dataset to generate characters from other settings. All I need to do is to add/delete/change the Backgrounds/Professions/Skills/Lists and tweak the code to take into account anything new.
Things are very generic, for example I have Language 1, Language 2, Language 3 and Language 4 as Languages. In a setting specific generation, those would be nailed down.
Now that I have it working, I need some feedback.
The layout is similar to that used in Merrie England and Crusaders of the Amber Shore and seems easy to read. What else needs to be included and what don't you like about it?
I haven't included Runes because I still am not exactly sure how they work in RQM and also because Runes are setting specific. Should I include Runes and, if so, how should I include them? Should runes be random or should they be more focussed?
What about magic? Should I include Runemagic, tied to Runes? What about Divine Magic and Sorcery? They seem to be very setting-specific, so what works for Glorantha would not work for Merrie England, in fact what works for the West of Glorantha doesn't work for the centre.
I haven't included the Manipulation skills from Sorcery as they are not specified in any of the Magic Using professions. Should I include a Sorcerer profession that has Manipulations?
Similarly, I haven't included Enchantments for the same reason. Should I build those in as well?
I haven't included equipment, specifically armour. Should I do so? If so, should the characters come ready supplied or should they buy equipment from their available cash? Should they have detailed equipment lists or just a summary of armour etc?
Should Crafts be linked to background/culture? If I go down that route, should weapons and armour be linked in a similar way?
In general,
What am I missing?
What don't you like about the characters generated?
What needs changing?
Is a list of pre-generated characters like this useful?
Would it be better organised sorted into Professions, Backgrounds or Levels?
Is it better being random or would you prefer certain backgrounds and certain professions?
