I thought of writing down something about these tools: how I started them, why I started them, and more importantly: what's missing and other people's similar tools.
Since this static page grew up too much I decided to start a blog to write down the ideas I come up with. In that same place, I intend to write down how I came up with things, samples, and whatever I come up with.
The first post contains the retelling of how I started this project.
Looking for other people tools? Don't like my tools? Check out this paragraph style on sections below or go to the section for Other people's tools
The monsters database was my the first tool I created.
What's missing? A lot of things. But a probable first item on the list would be generating encounters. (and mixing it up with the character generator)
Other people's generators:
The spells database was my second quick hack. Like I said, I already had a database, so I only had to tweak it a bit to support Schools.
I reused much of this page for the Scroll and Spellbook generators; and then I used it for the Treasure Generator (to generate scrolls).
Not long ago, I realized that the database was a 3.0 version, so I started filling in the 3.5 version in a separate page.
Other people's generators:
I did this staffs database just for kicks, basically. I was working on the Treasure generator and simply decided I would fill in all the information in a database.
I did this rings database on the same premise as the staffs database: Everything was already typed down, so I simply decided to fill it in a database.
I did this rods database on the same premise as the staffs database: Everything was already typed down, so I simply decided to fill it in a database.
The traps database was also already typed down, perhaps I can use it to fill descriptions for dungeon features.
To create dungeons, I needed to create mazes. So this was an intermediate effort for a larger generator.
I love maps. And quite honestly, I don't really run dungeons all that much; but then again, I love maps. And I love mazes.
Also, this helped me teach myself some graphic handling in PHP.
Not long ago, I added fixed seed values, and 2 extra map styles (because my graphic design skills are not very good and I stumbled upon Squidi's fine art)
More recently, I added an X3D version of the dungeons (still sort of experimental).
What's missing? More algorithms, cleanup the code. More decorations. Non-rectangular rooms.
Note: Treasures, monsters, and NPCs are generated randomly, so the information generated is pretty rough on the edges. Its supposed to be more of a guideline.If you need something fancier, you should try these generators:
Generating cities proved to be a challenge. I didn't like my first attempt, but my second (and current) attempt looks much better. In this second version, I use pretty much the same algorithm I used to generate taverns.
The colors are still too chromatic, and the overall aesthetics need some work; but at least I have something better than my first attempt, which generated cities that were just too square.
What's missing? Figure out better ways to generate a city. Perhaps also use better textures or pick better colors. At this point, I'm probably ready to add city walls.
Some other stuff you might find useful:
Yet another experiment on graphic generation. At least this one I'm satisfied with. Not all taverns make sense (sometimes restrooms are bigger than kitchen and common area)
What's missing? Make the common room proportionately sized to the kitchen and restroom. Decorations: the only decoration right now are a bunch of tables and sometimes a counter (how about a fireplace? kitchen tables?)
Some other stuff you might find useful:
Probably the most incomplete of all my tools. Still, the treasure generator has a lot of information in it. It uses the generation method listed in the SRD documents.
It links to the spells database for scrolls, and to the staffs database whenever one is rolled. This tool, along with the character generator, is referenced by the dungeon generator (for the sake of placing something in the dungeon rooms).
What's missing? Maybe include itelligent and cursed items?
Also, there's one thing I've seen that many people need: the ablity to roll a treasure based on the cost of the treasure. For that, I'd needed to change the way I coded the items generator, and then I added a simple search form. So far only magic shields are pending (they are not accounted for), so the interface should still be considered beta.
Other people's stuff:
These are just sort of simplified UIs to the spells database.
The scroll generator has pretty much all thet it needs.
The spellbook generator is missing something: make a drop down that automatically fills in the number of spells per level according to the class (Work in progess, currently only spells per day for wizard).
This is one of my latest tools. I wanted to be able to generate NPC encounters easily. It comes in two versions: the standard generator generates a bunch of NPCs of the specified level, and the progression generator generates a single NPC and displays it at different levels.
So far it rolls attributes, race and racial traits, adds class levels, calculates saves and base attack, rolls skills and feats randomly, and generates a name (Drow, Elf, Orc, and male Dwarf only).
It may also suggest or equip an armor (based on a randomly-picked class level). So far the armor bonus is only added to AC (no spell failure, max DEX bonus, check for armor feat, update skill penalties, etc).
What's missing? There's a lot of room for improvement here. There's a partial implementation for skills, feats and armor; so the next logical step is suggesting weapons; and maybe some treasure. Then I'd finish armor properly (not just a suggestion). And then I'd make it choose ability increases, skills, and feats with some intent, instead of simply randomly.
Some other stuff you might find useful:
I stumbled upon a couple of interesting pages on name generation:
So I gave a shot to the roll table option and some time later I tried the sillable method for Dwarf names. Currently female and male Drow names are generated (no house names, or last names). It still troubles me that Dwarf names all appear male to me. So for the time being, no female Dwarf names. Sorry!
What's missing? Pretty much everything. The drow names don't consider last names yet. And human/generic names should be sort of a priority.
Some other stuff you might find useful:
I wanted to be able to generate Stores.
Right now it's extremely basic and has no options. It generates a list of items that might be for sale in city shops.
I added some randomness: to see which items can be found for sale; and to vary the price a little bit.
What's missing? A lot. I'd like to be able to skew the results depending on town size. I'd also like to be able to take into account a charisma modifier into the equation (bargaining).
Other people's generators:
Ever try to run a game without dice? Well you could if you somehow printed a table.
Q: Do you know how many XPs do you need to get to level 35? A: 595000.
The XP table now includes the PC wealth by level calculation.
Want to calculate the EL for several creatures of a given CR?
Other people's generators:
This is part of an effort to make my character generator include selected feats. Since I already imported them to PHP arrays, I decided to list them all somewhere.
Other people's generators:
I've been stopped on my tracks several times because PHP-generated pages (or images) must take less than 30 seconds. Otherwise the page indicates a time-out.
This is particularly annoying for image generation (and one of the reasons I haven't done something fancier for my city generator). So I wanted to start on something simpler... and a Cave Generator sounds simple, right?
Wrong. (you saw that coming!)
A 300px by 400px image has 120,000 pixels! If you iterate through them 4 times... that's almost half a million pixels to analyze.
Still, donjon's generator does a good job in generating cavernous terrain.
At the moment I thought perhaps Perl is just faster than PHP, but I really couldn't tell.
So, that led me to my second and third attempts (the third attempt inspired by a blog named Evil Science). Each has its own merits, but I'm still not 100% sure it works.
Some time later, I learned that arrays in PHP, although very practical, are not too efficient. So I tried using SplFixedArray instead of normal arrays and my original cave attempt made quite some progress.
Other people's generators:
I started playing with the idea of generating hex maps. And the Region Generator came to be.
It's still very basic and I still need to figure a way to do a few efficient algorithms. In the meantime, it's sort of usable.
Other people's generators:
Still very preliminary, this generator displays very basic spaceship deckplans.
At one point I realized I could reuse much of the code I've already done and create ship deckplans so I gave it a go.
It's still a very rough WIP, but I think it's good enough as a starting point or inspiration.
What's missing? A lot. This is very much an "alpha" version. Right now: Cockpit always faces left, engines are towards the rightmost room, textures are preliminary, and it's very easy to have a design that doesn't make much sense.
Another relatively new generator, this one generates subsectors for your sci-fi game.
What's missing? Very much. This is another "alpha" generator.
If you're playing Traveller, Cepheus, or another Sci-fi game, you might have need to calculate travel times depending on your ship's thrust.
In true Traveller fashion, thrust is measured in G's
What's missing? I don't know. Any ideas?
The following table atempts to summarize all tools from other people (it's a work in progress, of course).
| Category | Link | Images | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| monsters | D&D Monster Finder | yes | Search by name, type, size, CR, alignment, environment, home plane, or book. Links to images at WoTC. |
| monsters | Monstrous Database | no | Very basic search options. |
| monsters | Michael Sonntag's D&D 3ed Monsters database | no | MS Access app or MS Word document. |
| monsters | D&Dtools | yes | Web page with monster listing. |
| monsters | Donjon's Random Encounter Generator | no | Very complete, includes querying by Plane |
| monsters | DM Tools Encounter Generator | no | Lots of filters by environment |
| monsters | d20SRD: Monster DB | no | Filters by Size, Type, Climate, Terrain, Plane, CR, Alignment |
| monsters | d20SRD: Encounter Generator | no | Filter by Climate, Terrain, Plane. Displays EL and XP. |
| monsters | jsigvard: 5E monsters | no | Nice looking table with search options. Includes monster from many sources |
| monsters | Goblinist: 5th Edition Random Encounter Generator | no | Specify: #players, difficulty, terrain, and options. Also calculates XP. |
| spells | D&Dtools | no | Web page with spells listing. |
| spells | d20SRD: Spell DB | no | Filter by Class, Level, School, Descriptor, Components, Range, Duration, Aiming, Save, SR |
| spells | jsigvard: Spells | no | Includes spells from various sources. |
| dungeon | donjon's dungeon generator | yes | One of the best out there. |
| dungeon | Watabou's One Page Dungeon | yes | Beautiful, practical, organic. |
| dungeon | Myth Weavers dungeon generator | yes | Nice. Generates content for rooms. |
| dungeon | Gozzy's dungeon generator | yes | Good looks. Has option for generating ruins. |
| dungeon | Inkwell dungeon generator | yes | Very popular. Made of pregenerated tiles. |
| dungeon | d20SRD: dungeon map generator | yes | Apparently based on donjon's code. |
| cities | Watabou's village generator | yes | Beautiful, practical, organic. |
| cities | Watabou's Medieval Fantasy City Generator | yes | Beautiful, practical, organic. |
| cities | Watabou's Neighbourhood Generator | yes | Beautiful, practical, organic. |
| cities | A city description generator | no | Also has text descriptions for strongholds, countries, etc. |
| cities | Chaotic Shiny city generator | no | Generates text descriptions. |
| cities | Chaotic Shiny city "map" generator. | no | A city generator with a sort of text map. |
| cities | Inkwell city generator | yes | Very popular. Made of layered images in HTML |
| cities | Inkwell village generator | yes | Very popular. Made of layered images in HTML |
| cities | Myth Weavers Town generator | no | Generates text descriptions for a town (including NPCs). |
| cities | City Encounter Generator | no | Text description. |
| cities | CrystalBallSoft City Generator | no | Text description. |
| cities | Red Dragon Inn Town Generator | no | Text description (for towns). |
| cities | Wizardawn settlement map generator | yes | Made of pregenerated tiles. |
| cities | Procedural City Generation by tmw | yes | Very interesting L-system generator. |
| cities | Great procedural City Generation by watabou | yes | Very good looking generator (voronoi?) that allows a lot of tweaking on generated maps and exporting (PNG, SVG). |
| tavern | WoTC: Instant Tavern Generator | no | Generates name, NPC descriptions, menu... |
| tavern | Chaotic Shiny Tavern generator | no | Generates name, overall descriptions and patrons... |
| tavern | Inkwell Ideas Random Inn Generator | yes | Made of layered images in HTML. |
| tavern | WoTC: Inn Generator | no | Generates name, NPC descriptions, menu, available rooms, conversation topics, events... |
| tavern | d20SRD: Inn Generator | no | Generates name, location, escription, innkeeper, menu, patrons, rumors... |
| treasure | WoTC's Wizard's Barrel, Crate, and Sack generator | no | Text descriptions for contents of barrels, crates, and sacks. |
| treasure | Donjon | no | Very good. With well-thought options. |
| treasure | Myth Weavers | no | Can generate treasures by EL of by number of items. |
| treasure | Aaron Sherman | no | Generates treasures by CR. |
| treasure | Pathfinder Treasure Generator | no | Very nice looking. Many options (such as color-coding results). |
| treasure | Monster Advancer | no | Generate by value, number of items, or party level (Pathfinder style). |
| treasure | Dingle's Games | no | Better looks than mine. Generate by CR. |
| treasure | Wizardawn random treasure | yes | Based on ADND. Also has text-based treasure maps. |
| treasure | d20SRD: Random Treasure Generator | no | Is able to generate several hoards of different level at once. |
| treasure | herokuapp: Magic Store Generator | no | Generates stores that sell weapons, armors, wondrous items, scrolls, and potions. |
| treasure | NPCbase: Magic item | no | Descriptions for unique magic items. |
| treasure | jsigvard: Magic items | no | Searchable table with magic items. |
| npcs | DND 3rd | no | An exhaustive step-by-step PC/NPC generator. |
| npcs | Myth Weavers | no | Straightforward, rolls skills, gear value, spells known, and motivations. |
| npcs | One Sentence NPC Generator | no | Text description. |
| npcs | Seventh Sanctum's General Person Generator | no | Generates random person descriptions. |
| npcs | Birched'S D&D 3.0 NPC generator (Hailscape) | no | Generates complete stats plus mounts, languages, etc. |
| npcs | d20SRD: NPC generator | no | Generates simple stats plus descriptions. Also generates pickpocket loot and items. |
| npcs | Donjon | no | Generates simple stats, descriptions, and character traits. |
| npcs | NPCbase | no | Generates brief text descriptions and backstory. |
| npcs | jsigvard | no | Generates a character foundation and backstory. |
| names | Donjon | no | Many options for type of names. |
| names | Dicelog Yafnag | no | Generic random names. |
| names | Fantasy name gen | no | Names for many races and places. |
| names | Rinkworks | no | Generic random names with many weighting options. |
| names | Nine frenchboys | no | Generic random names with type options. |
| names | WoTC | no | Also generates aliases and may suggest a class and/or race. |
| names | Christopherpound | no | Large lists of names on different categories. |
| names | Abulafia Random Generators | no | Randomized wiki. |
| names | TheForge Fantasy Name Generator | no | Flash-based name generation. Generates names for: generic, creatures, spells, places. |
| names | Isomage's Name Generator | no | Generates names for: Elite, Markovian, and random. |
| names | Behind the Name | no | All sorts of names for real cultures, mythology, ancient, biblical, and fantasy. |
| names | Sam Twidale's name generator | no | All kinds of names based on Markov chains. |
| names | d20SRD: Fantasy Name Generator | no | All kinds of names from humans to draconic and from town name to festival names. |
| stores | Inkwell ideas | no | By store size or custom number of items. |
| stores | LCS localstore | no | Offline. Disappeared from the face of the web some time ago. |
| stores | Donjon Magic Shop Generator | no | Select location and store type. |
| stores | d20SRD: Magic Shop Generator | no | Supports different store types; reports misc shop details along with wares. |
| xp | d20SRD: Encounter calculator | no | Many fields to calculate individual XP earned by party members. |
| dice | d20SRD: Dice bag | no | Rolls dice. |
| feats | jsigvard: Feats | no | Clean-looking 5E feats. |
| caves | Gozzy's Cave generator | yes | Quite nice. |
| caves | donjon's dungeon generator | yes | May generate cavernous dungeons (select layout). |
| caves | Curufea cave generator | yes | Generates caves from premade tiles (not fully connected). |
| caves | Isomage cave generator | yes | Caves that have a very real feel. |
| world | Watabou's perilous shores | yes | Beautiful, practical, organic. |
| world | Graphic hexmap world. | yes | Graphic hexmap world. |
| world | Dave's Mapper | yes | Uses randomized hand-drawn tiles. |
| world | Gozzy Wilderness | yes | Wilderness Map Generator (great graphics) |
| world | Hexographer | yes | Generates regions, towns, and star-maps. |
| world | Isomage's Wilderness hex maps | yes | Generates regions with several preset templates. |
| world | Wizardawn world map generator | yes | Generates hex map made of image overlays |
| world | d20SRD: Fantasy world generator | yes | Generates big hex maps |
| world | azgaar: Fantasy map generator | yes | Beautiful map generator with many details (open sourced). |
| world | HexTML | yes | Hex map editor with collaboration and presenter options. |
| general | donjon's generators | yes | Many tools, very good. |
| general | inkwellideas' generators | yes | City generators, very popular. |
| general | Gozzy | yes | Has a few generators (dungeon, cave, wilderness) |
| general | Dave's Mapper | yes | Randomized tiles. Hand-drawn styled maps (cities, dungeons, caverns) |
| general | Isomage's Island generator | no | Randomized island generation for the Agon RPG. |
| general | ANAmap (Anaximander RPG map editor) | yes | Tool for manual map drawing. Flash-based, allows PNG export and saving design file. |
| general | Wizardawn post-apocaliptic maps and tools | yes | Generates Post-apocaliptic maps, Scavenging lists, Sewer maps, Suburb maps, and World maps |
| general | d20SRD: Demographics calculator | no | Many settlement details. |
| drawing | A map drawing editor for web and mobile | yes | Simple map editor with many object brushes. Can export and save online. |
| drawing | The Tiled map editor for desktop | yes | Map editor with many features. Supports 2D, hex, isometric. |