Have you guys thought about adding a feature to randomly generate NPC characters? Like if my party meets some random person that I need to invent on the fly, I could tell Realm Works I need maybe a male dwarf, or just any wizard, or whatever details I have... and then Realm Works invents the name, traits, characteristics, and all the rest.
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- The Lone Wolf Development Team
Randomly generate NPC characters?
- Thread starter sequel7
- Start date
Dark Lord Galen
Well-known member
Sequel7,
As the varied amount of gaming systems might impact the detail of this (in the near future anyway) and until the emergence of the ability to collaborate realms with market place support, a stop gap measure that you can customize to fit your needs might be a modification of this thread....
http://forums.wolflair.com/showthread.php?t=50225
It presents all types of Possibilities for customization and randomizing.
Of Course you could use a hyperlink to attach to an external generator of your own choosing (there are several freebies out there)
Your suggestion is certainly of good merit.... but may be on the distant horizon in relation to many larger more pressing "desires".
None the less, keep them thoughts coming....
DLG
As the varied amount of gaming systems might impact the detail of this (in the near future anyway) and until the emergence of the ability to collaborate realms with market place support, a stop gap measure that you can customize to fit your needs might be a modification of this thread....
http://forums.wolflair.com/showthread.php?t=50225
It presents all types of Possibilities for customization and randomizing.
Of Course you could use a hyperlink to attach to an external generator of your own choosing (there are several freebies out there)
Your suggestion is certainly of good merit.... but may be on the distant horizon in relation to many larger more pressing "desires".
None the less, keep them thoughts coming....
DLG
Let's look at this from a different perspective. 
Yes, once sharing of work in the marketplace is available, you will be able to instantly do something about a situation "Like if my party meets some random person that I need to invent on the fly". Let's look into the future just a few weeks to months down the road....
Instead of hitting a shiny red GENERATE button like you'd find on any old web site, you'd navigate over to the sexy marketplace zone, casually type 'wizard, level3, Pathfinder, grumpy' into the search box. And voila, 47 fully statted and amazingly well detailed wizards will pop up (of which you notice that 42 are free from the community!) Your party now has a new nemesis and you make a mental note that you really should upload that inn map you made last week so other can use it too.
Yes, once sharing of work in the marketplace is available, you will be able to instantly do something about a situation "Like if my party meets some random person that I need to invent on the fly". Let's look into the future just a few weeks to months down the road....
Instead of hitting a shiny red GENERATE button like you'd find on any old web site, you'd navigate over to the sexy marketplace zone, casually type 'wizard, level3, Pathfinder, grumpy' into the search box. And voila, 47 fully statted and amazingly well detailed wizards will pop up (of which you notice that 42 are free from the community!) Your party now has a new nemesis and you make a mental note that you really should upload that inn map you made last week so other can use it too.
Dark Lord Galen
Well-known member
Let's look at this from a different perspective.
Yes, once sharing of work in the marketplace is available, you will be able to instantly do something about a situation "Like if my party meets some random person that I need to invent on the fly". Let's look into the future just a few weeks to months down the road....
Instead of hitting a shiny red GENERATE button like you'd find on any old web site, you'd navigate over to the sexy marketplace zone, casually type 'wizard, level3, Pathfinder, grumpy' into the search box. And voila, 47 fully statted and amazingly well detailed wizards will pop up (of which you notice that 42 are free from the community!) Your party now has a new nemesis and you make a mental note that you really should upload that inn map you made last week so other can use it too.
"sexy market place zone" ROFLMAO
and we can then all have this....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt_E-iY6f58
but until then AEIOU all you have is .....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqJ2jYumJJo
but I like how you think...
To inject some reality (via Sturgeon’s Revelation), if there were 47 good ones there'd also be 423 characters that are horribly statted, with barely any detail, or not a wizard at all. Your job is to find one that works for you in that mix of ~500 characters.
Good luck! :)
ObTopic: I think it depends on whether you need game stats or not. Game stats are better handled outside of Realm Works by a proper character generator for the system. If you just want some generic personality traits then doing it inside Realm Works might be feasible. I generally just use the Mark I Brain to randomly come up with that sort of thing, though.
In the future, you might be able to download and adapt a character from the marketplace. I doubt that you would want to do this on the fly, but it might work well when planning. We won't know until the marketplace is better defined and we see how people use it.
Good luck! :)
ObTopic: I think it depends on whether you need game stats or not. Game stats are better handled outside of Realm Works by a proper character generator for the system. If you just want some generic personality traits then doing it inside Realm Works might be feasible. I generally just use the Mark I Brain to randomly come up with that sort of thing, though.
In the future, you might be able to download and adapt a character from the marketplace. I doubt that you would want to do this on the fly, but it might work well when planning. We won't know until the marketplace is better defined and we see how people use it.
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As part of the Kickstarter, we partnered with Engine Publishing and will be providing their awesome Masks product to backers. We'll also be offering that for sale to those who don't get it with their Kickstarter support. We've already got Masks folded into Realm Works and it's freakin' awesome. Once users see it, I envision there being many similar resources being put together by other publishers - and probably many more shared for free by users in the community. So the future for this is pretty much exactly what @AEIOU prophesied.
I'm scared to think what a sexy marketplace actually looks like...
@Parody: I do have the same concern about the quality of content and how content gets up-voted. For me, the stats are easy but the personality and flavor is always difficult on the fly so I'm hoping I can just salvage the tasty pieces and toss the rest to the hounds.
Interestingly, the layout of the Individual topic seems to me to be equal parts Masks and Dragon Magazine #184. The seven sentence NPC was a great concept eons ago and I was really surprised and happy to see the Individual layout incorporated much of its intent.
@Parody: I do have the same concern about the quality of content and how content gets up-voted. For me, the stats are easy but the personality and flavor is always difficult on the fly so I'm hoping I can just salvage the tasty pieces and toss the rest to the hounds.
Interestingly, the layout of the Individual topic seems to me to be equal parts Masks and Dragon Magazine #184. The seven sentence NPC was a great concept eons ago and I was really surprised and happy to see the Individual layout incorporated much of its intent.
The goal is to let users who've purchased content rate it based on a few factors. We also plan to let users post reviews of content they've purchased. I'm sure this is something that will evolve based on how well things work initially and what feedback we get from users. The Beta team will get the first peek at all this stuff, so we won't be creating things in a complete vacuum.
Interesting comparisons. We developed our structure completely independently of those two publications. We then looked at Masks and tweaked a couple things, but the changes were minor. I've never actually seen Dragon #184, so it's nice to know we did a good job on our own.
All my issues of Dragon date back to just after they entered double-digits for issue numbers (yes, that's late 1977, which was a year after I first started playing D&D). I only picked up an occasional copy after the early 80s, and I never saw #184. I've got the old Dragon Magazine archive on CD, so I'll have to see if it's in there (it's the first 200+ issues, right?) and take a look at it.
Dark Lord Galen
Well-known member
Yes its there (p21) and like you I have that same archive, and though the archive issues go up to only 250 issues in a PDF format and mainly deal with game editions up to 2e D&D, its still a great source for core ideas. I agree with AEIOU, if your rendition is similar this is GREAT news for those periphery NPCs...................
All my issues of Dragon date back to just after they entered double-digits for issue numbers (yes, that's late 1977, which was a year after I first started playing D&D). I only picked up an occasional copy after the early 80s, and I never saw #184. I've got the old Dragon Magazine archive on CD, so I'll have to see if it's in there (it's the first 200+ issues, right?) and take a look at it.
Sidenote of similar application.....
Often random encounters within an urban setting become one of two extremes .... well fleshed out NPCs or the atypical scruffy barkeep or sour attitude dwarf with little defining their motivations.... And as you have pointed out elsewhere, sometimes you don't need a WHOLE other category or Herolab Profile but need just a bit of flavor..... this would fill the gap nicely.
In the late 1980's Midkemia Press / Chaosium took a similar approach with random encounters in a urban environment. Three renditions of a supplement called Cities took this approach as well.
The first two editions (published by now defunct Midkemia Press) were more D&D 'esk (d20 based) the third edition (published by Chaosium), was converted to 1d100 and made more universally generic. All would be good candidates for templates in generating either random tables (suggested elsewhere in another thread) or as idea makers for fueling something along this application.
Incidentally, Cities was a precursor to the Thieves World supplement, RuneQuest and Cthulhu.
For any interested *(and I have no affiliation)*
Located here
1st ed
http://www.amazon.com/Cities-Gamema...2683567&sr=1-7&keywords=cities+stephen+abrams
2nd Ed
http://www.amazon.com/Cities-Guide-...2684890&sr=1-4&keywords=cities+stephen+abrams
3rd Ed
http://www.amazon.com/Cities-Create...2684890&sr=1-1&keywords=cities+stephen+abrams
and a digital version is available here
http://www.midkemia.com/
gloranphile
Well-known member
Ha! This is one of those supplements I used back in the day and loved so much I created a table within Inspiration Pad Pro 3, and linked out to via Realm Works. It's great!
