Random Character Generator

[funkaoshi]

I wrote a random character generator. It defaults to making "Basic" D&D characters.

I added support for "Little Brown Books" D&D characters, but as I'm less familiar with that system I was hoping the people here could help point out anything I might have missed. Briefly: its 3d6 in order for attributes, random equipment based on buying things with 3d6 x 10 starting gold, d6 for hit dice, no no thieves, random languages when you have high intelligence, a random spell if you're a magic user. I want to add support for Greyhawk and Holmes D&D as well. The systems are similar enough it should be easy to do.

Thanks.

[Deleted]

Hit dice are d6+1 for the Fighting-Man.

edit: And Fighters are called Fighting-Men!

[funkaoshi]

Thanks! This is exactly the sort of stuff i'm looking for. Also, Were there no women war gamers? (Actually, don't answer : I'm guessing that's a discussion that's happened a million times already.)

I'm going to guess someone here could also tell me if Mentzer and Moldvay are more or less identical at first level in terms of rules?

[monk]

Base AC for Basic D&D is 9. I think 1e switched to 10. Cool generator!

[Deleted]

Even in the Dragon Magazine, back in the day, there was a bit of discussion about the fairer sex and how many were involved in the hobby. I believe that, pre-1990's at least, the number was no more than ~10%, depending upon what source you used. TSR and Gygax spent a lot on market research regarding this subject.

Experiences vary. Most of the groups I have participated in here in Austin have included at least one woman.

[funkaoshi]

Good catch on the Base AC. I've fixed that and the fighting-man HD calculation.

I was just being a bit facetious with my comment about war gaming and gender ratios, because the fighter was formally the Fighting MAN. Fighting Man or Fighting Women seems more evocative.

[Deleted]

Oh, I knew that was tongue-in-cheek ... but I rarely miss the opportunity to wax pedantic!

[funkaoshi]

It wouldn't be a gaming forum without a little pedantry!

[Necropraxis]

I think there are one or two instances in the LBBs where fighting men are also referred to as fighters.

[Deleted]

Depending upon how finely you slice it (do you count Tables? References to fighter ability?) there are just under 40 references to "fighters" as opposed to Fighting-Man or Men in the TLBB.

[Deleted]

References to fighter or fighters in the OD&D TLBBs:

Volume I: 15
Volume II: 18
Volume III: 6

That's a quick search of the PDFs and not exhaustively checked.

[Koren n'Rhys]

That's pretty cool, funkaoshi, thanks for sharing! I just spent some time clicking reload and cycling through characters and never saw any demihumans come up in either Basic or LBB. Are they in there at all?

[funkaoshi]

No, that's actually the next thing I need to work on. It works by using the prime requisite to pick your class. I'd need to make it a tiny bit smarter to pick between all 6/7 classes.

[Finarvyn]

funkaoshi, you get an EXALT for this. I just spent some time playing with it and seems like it could be really useful for throwing together a party quickly. (Or, creating some fast NPCs!)

[funkaoshi]

Thanks. Glad you liked. I'm hoping it gets some use.

[Vile Traveller]

Extremely cool, funakoshi. Exhalt!

[blackbarn]

Very cool, and useful! Thanks for sharing this.

[funkaoshi]

The generator will now generate Elves, Dwarves, and Halflings. (It wouldn't pick them as playable races before.) The distribution is about 80% / 20% between the 4 Human classes and the 3 Demi-Human classes. (75% / 25% if you use the Little Brown Books generator that doesn't include the Thief as a playable class.)

[blackbarn]

Nov 17, 2012 0:06:28 GMT -6 funkaoshi said:

The generator will now generate Elves, Dwarves, and Halflings. (It wouldn't pick them as playable races before.) The distribution is about 80% / 20% between the 4 Human classes and the 3 Demi-Human classes. (75% / 25% if you use the Little Brown Books generator that doesn't include the Thief as a playable class.)

Very cool! I have been playing with this on my phone ever since I discovered it. Great resource. Along with a few other random tables online I can make interesting random characters in a couple minutes! Exalted!

[tog]

Neat!

In just the half-dozen or so times I've tried it, I've gotten two demihumans (a hobb *ahem*, halfling and a bald elf).

Any chance later on of support for rolling higher level characters?

[llenlleawg]

Sept 27, 2012 8:24:57 GMT -6 @dubeers said:

References to fighter or fighters in the OD&D TLBBs:

Volume I: 15
Volume II: 18
Volume III: 6

That's a quick search of the PDFs and not exhaustively checked.

This is interesting, because it means that fighter(s) is actually more common in the LBBs than fighting man/men!

I know that common lore insists that "fighting man" is by far preferred, but I did I quick check in my pdfs, and I came up with the following for fighting man/men:

Volume I: 14
Volume II: 11
Volume III: 6

So much for the common lore that one is more properly in line with the LBBs by saying "fighting man" rather than "fighter"!

(As a side note, I noted on another thread that, in Holmes, the use of fighting man beats out fighter 2 to 1, although Holmes switches back and forth even on the same page.)

[llenlleawg]

Sept 17, 2012 11:32:41 GMT -6 funkaoshi said:

I'm going to guess someone here could also tell me if Mentzer and Moldvay are more or less identical at first level in terms of rules?

Offhand, the only difference at 1st level I can think of between Moldvay and Mentzer is that Moldvay Magic Users only have one spell in their spell book (and cannot add another until 2nd level!), whereas Mentzer MUs at 1st level have Read Magic and a second spell (and, happily, can always add more spells, even more than they can cast).

I'm not sure about the Halfling/Dwarf saves in Mentzer (I don't have my copy at hand), but on that score there was a change from Moldvay's Basic to Cook's Expert. In Moldvay, the saves are Death Ray/Poison: 10, Magic Wands: 11, Paralysis/Turn to Stone: 12, Dragon Breath: 13, Rods/Staves/Spells: 14 (B26). In Cook, these are improved to Death Ray/Poison: 8, Magic Wands: 9, Paralysis/Turn to Stone: 10, Dragon Breath: 13, Rods/Staves/Spells: 12 (X24).

[funkaoshi]

Feb 24, 2013 20:00:01 GMT -6 tog said:

Any chance later on of support for rolling higher level characters?

Honestly, I think it's pretty unlikely i'll work on a higher level version of this thing. It's reasonably simple right now because it doesn't need to think about what happens when players are Level 2 or Level 5. I think the differences between editions are more noticeable beyond level 1.

[funkaoshi]

Feb 25, 2013 8:25:20 GMT -6 llenlleawg said:

I'm not sure about the Halfling/Dwarf saves in Mentzer (I don't have my copy at hand), but on that score there was a change from Moldvay's Basic to Cook's Expert. In Moldvay, the saves are Death Ray/Poison: 10, Magic Wands: 11, Paralysis/Turn to Stone: 12, Dragon Breath: 13, Rods/Staves/Spells: 14 (B26). In Cook, these are improved to Death Ray/Poison: 8, Magic Wands: 9, Paralysis/Turn to Stone: 10, Dragon Breath: 13, Rods/Staves/Spells: 12 (X24).

Interesting. Thanks for the extra info. At some point i'm going to improve how you navigate the site, and add an about page. I'll try and include the assumptions the generator makes there, and comment on little changes like this that people have noticed between editions.