|
|
|
 |
| Other comments left for this publisher: |
|
|
|
|
|
In my opinion, there is nothing worse in a pen & paper RPG than a dull paladin player character, (and paladins are admittedly my favorite character class!) but crafting an original code of honor for your paladin is rarely simple. This short table-based generator is a nice little tool for helping spur your creativity, or for when you've reached your wit's end. Obviously, being table-based, there are some limitations inherent, but those are hard to complain about in a free supplement. It's well worth the look, especially in light of the price!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
This is a nice tool for adding a bit of color and flavor to the paladin, and this can be very good, as they can be seen as too flat by many. As any random table based generator table set you must think about the relationship of each part of the code as you build it. I am neutral on it overall because I feel most people forget to add the spark of human creativity that such tables need.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Fantastic aids. I love these kinds of products as they help to get the creative juices flowing when I'm hitting a wall. Even if I don't use all the maps or ideas in here, there is still plenty for me to process and fit into games at a moments notice, or with a little tweaking. Love it!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
If you are creating a tavern in a hurry, this eight-page PDF isn't going to fill all your needs, but if you already have something in the works, then it will do a great job in augmenting your work.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Having GM'd sci-fi and near-future games for almost thirty years, I have finally decided to get into running medieval fantasy games. While I would still recommend picking up some references for medieval communities and history, this ingenious PC program is INDISPENSIBLE for doing several very important things:
This is the natural starter-point for developing a fantasy city, which you would then flesh out with all the references and cartography. This program even does some of the gridwork, for example with generating a market area. You can't beat it.
The very first feature you see is the city generator, which develops for you the character of the city you aim to build; what I mean here is what you say to the players. It provides you with what is called in literary criticism 'local color', and with the many (!) other tools provided (including a fascinating and highly entertaining tavern generator), you build the city up from there.
It's a superb tool whether you're just creating a bare-bones mental image of a city community for your players to flesh out in their minds, or as I suggest (and do), are building a full-fledged homebrew supplement but need a starting point to give you the creative juice-flow to begin such a daunting project.
EASILY WORTH THE PRICE.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
This is a nifty toolkit for whipping up a quick NPC, or groping around for inspiration when the GM juices aren't flowing. Installation is painless, and the author is responsive and supportive. It would be well worth it at several times the price.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
A nifty little program that generates descriptions and pictures of individual zombies. While I could possibly imagine getting some use out of the descriptions, the pictures created by the generator look more like modern art than zombie photos.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
A nice little overview of a fantasy culture, presented completely system-free so that you can easily drop them into any fantasy campaign. The Valok are a tribe of poets and musicians with a very long (and partially forgotten) history. Lots of inspiration for adventure and character background here.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
A nice little overview of a fantasy city, presented completely system-free so that you can easily drop it into any fantasy campaign. The artwork is sparse but charming. Includes a pair of NPC character sketches that the PCs might encounter while visiting.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
I got this program recently as I was having trouble with thinking up variety for my kingdoms. I think the best thing about it is you're encouraged to just keep clicking to generate new options and piece things together from there. I highly suggest grabbing it if you're looking for good creative prompts. Also I sent an email to their representative and she was very friendly and responsive. I'll definitely be a return customer!
I'll give a review of the features bit by bit so you know what you're getting into if you do choose to purchase.
There are 8 tabs, though they're all mostly covered under Kingdom & Hooks:
*KINGDOM & HOOKS*
This is the meat and potatoes of the generator, which sort of combines every specific tab together into one cohesive (or sometimes, not so cohesive, which can also be fun) kingdom. This is good for a quick launch point, and gives you
1) kingdom's name
2) the type of ruler (king, queen, oracle, etc)
3) prominent places (ex: Hopestop Mounts, Turtleweb Fen, Ni'ak Summit)
4) a few laws
[This can turn out quite nonsensical or silly, but is still fun and can be very inspiring for culture-building purposes. For instance just now I got these three: "The penalty for a juvenile illegally selling body parts is a flogging.", "The penalty for striking a messenger bird is a small fine.", "The penalty for a guard wounding a dog is a considerable term of servitude." Sounds like this place really likes animals and... corpses.]
5) recent events (gossip, natural disasters, political coups. Very interesting)
6) notable individuals (gives a prompt for each character, making for an intriguing launch point for character-driven plots)
7) army
[This is a really cool feature. Sometimes it comes up with rather basic armies, but for instance I just got this: "Aly'raom's army relies heavily on stealth and the use of tridents. They have been known to use pooka mounts and priests. They are famous for patriotism and for their terrifying armor. Each division contains 10 battalions of 490 soldiers. Currently, they are suffering from divided loyalties."]
8) current fashion
[Honestly, though fashion would seem to be least useful, I find it immensely helpful for making unique-looking cultures. The popular colour options can be very "ugly" combinations, but as an artist that sort of thing is a fun challenge. I've already made a fashion style based around one of the prompts, which uses nothing but dark yellow, dark gold, and bronze, with dark blue highlights. Came out surprisingly cool looking, despite traditionally ugly colours. It gives a cohesive feeling to each culture without going too far out into the deep end or using overly specific descriptions, which lets your brain work to picture it.]
From there, each subject is further broken down into its own tab, so if you're needing specifics to be changed about your kingdom, or you want to add to the laws or fashions or what-have-you, you can just tab over to the specifics and generate as many as you need without overwriting the kingdom tab.
Finally there's the flag tab. I find this tab really cool for more European fantasy type games, though it takes quite a lot of clicks to get to a point where I start finding unique or eye-popping stuff. I seem to get a lot of grey, forest green, and brown-red, but I think that may be luck of the dice more than a lacking program. Additionally, you can lock any colours /shapes/etc you like and keep rolling till you build your perfect flag. Also, there's a toggle for Heraldic colours only, which is great for more traditional charges.
All in all I really, really enjoy this program, and will probably look into more of their stuff in the future. They're really accessible, so if you ever have problems I'm positive they'll be able to help out. 5/5 from me. :]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Chaotic Shiny productions has a lot of great generators, including this one, up on their website for free. Just click on the Publisher Homepage link to the right. By providing the free generators for download, they can help you run games when you're away from the Internet.
The zombie generator includes all of the bells and whistles we've come to expect from CS: you can edit the text generated, copy and paste it into other game materials you're preparing, and voila! You've got a solid description of several individual zombies. One thing that's difficult in a zombie game is that dangerous situations are normally about hordes of zombies, making horrific descriptions of individual zombies fade into the background. The Zombie Generator is appropriate for situations in which someone unexpectedly opens the door to a closet and a zombie falls out, or a zombie is found to be inside the safe house, or comes crashing through a window, and the presence of just one zombie provides the horror and danger of the encounter.
It's free, what do you have to lose! Check it out, you won't always be on the Internet (if you do, you DO have Chaotic Shiny bookmarked, right?)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
My facilities only permitted black and white printing of the maps, so I cannot fully evaluate them. To me, some of the terrain features seemed rather randomly distributed without natural connections.
The players versions and DM's versions of the stories about the places on te maps were much better. They were not as fully fleshed out as many commercial ones, in that they decribed towns as such, rarely going into detail about specific buildings (aside from some interesting ruins) or about NPC characters. Given the level on which they were written, though,I thought they did a good job of setting up potential poltical and economic connections (especually conflicts) among the towns, potential adventure hooks and the like. I have not had a chance to use them in actual play, which is the real test, but they looked promising.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Quite a 'random' little generation tool, as my grandchildren would say. I I like its speed and its variety. It will not give a perfectly formed and quirky character, but that should always be the GM's role. However it will churn out enough NPCs to keep the players reeling on their heels. Well worth the money. Could be of use in inventing characters for a short story, setting up character conflict etc.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
The maps and surrounding text are not really "complete"; but offer a wealth of great ideas and "follow-ons" for any campaign. These were well worth the price!!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
maps were a bit crude in graphics but would serve well as handouts to players
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Log In 
