Knights & Knaves Alehouse

Guy Fullerton wrote:

grodog wrote:I have some of my standard pregens available on my site, will dig up the link after retrying home from NTX.

I found these that are at least nominally based on the G/D-series pregens:
http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/te ... on2007.zip

I'll link to those in a few minutes. If you have others, point me at them!

I'll update the contents of the zip file, since I've fixed errata on the PCs over the intervening 9 years

I have 7 1st level characters for Holmes Basic or OD&D (inc Greyhawk) here: First Level Pre-Gen Party

It's a single-page pdf that can be printed or downloaded. The sheet can be cut apart or the selected character(s) can be marked.

More design notes/discussion here:
http://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/201 ... party.html
http://knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/view ... 16&t=13013

Would anyone be interested in scripted pre-gens? It is within my power to make that happen.

----- Short Version -----

I can write a script that can read a blank character sheet in open office format, populate it with values generated from a predetermined set of rules, and produce a printable character sheet.

----- Long Version -----

I have been maintaining a character sheet for AS&SH for use in a game I'm playing in. It automates most of the calculations that take place on a character sheet with minimal input from the player. It is a spreadsheet in Open Document Format so you'll need something like Open Office or Libre Office to use it. (For those not familiar with it, Open/Libre Office is a free and open source office suite available for Linux, Windows, Mac, and even Android as "AndrOpen Office.")

https://8bitgeek.com/Gaming/AS&SH/Character_Sheets.html

With regards to its relevance to this thread, these calculations do not have to be automated within the cells of the spreadsheet itself. I can rip as much or as little of that out as I want and populate the spreadsheet with externally generated values. I can automate the conversion from .ods to .pdf with command line tools in Linux. I'm sure this is also possible in Windows and Mac OSuX but I haven't tried on those yet. I can also convert from .ods to .fods then to .pdf. The nice thing about .fods is that it's XML and I can easily modify that from within a script on the command line. I can also convert from .fods to .ods which would allow me to populate the .fods with the externally generated values and convert the result to both .ods and .pdf files. Having the .ods file would allow you to make manual tweaks to a character sheet before printing it out if you're not 100% happy with the generator's results.

All I need to do with a character spreadsheet is turn it into a template with values that are easy to search for and replace. That is very easy but a little time consuming. Luckily, I only have to do this once per template. Then I can populate it with whatever values I want and spit out a pdf. The values I generate could easily be configured from command line arguments or from a config file and can include inventory, stats, names, spells, etc. And of course if it can be scripted, someone can stand up a web front-end to it so people can generate PDF pre-gens by visiting a web page. This would allow those who don't run Linux to use it. And this doesn't have to be limited to AS&SH. I can do this for any character sheet that exists as an open document spreadsheet as long as I have a set of rules for generation.

There are some interesting possibilities with this too. I could setup a method that would allow you to create a plain text file, maybe in CSV format, that contains character information that you could upload to generate characters in batches. I could even spit out a CSV file with all the character values that are generated so you could store it for future regeneration. This would allow you to do things like update your character sheets to a newer format or specify things like party makeup. For instance, instead of randomly generating class, you could specify that your party needs two fighters, a cleric, a mu, and a thief and that one of the fighters needs to be a dwarf. In this example, you could use that same CSV file to generate characters for any edition of D&D along with some other game systems. You could also use this to generate entire cities of NPCs very quickly. The point is, you fill in as little or as much information in this file as you want and leave the rest to the generator.

If you'd like to see a proof of concept, I could put together a simple ODnD or Basic character spreadsheet (or if there is one that is already preferred by the community you could link me to it.) I would use the latest K&K Social character generation rules to populate the values before generating PDFs. Since this is a proof of concept, I would not include a name generator, batching, or a web front end. It would only be the simplest form of the command line tool that works on a single template to generate simple PCs or NPCs.

Zenopus Archives wrote:I have 7 1st level characters for Holmes Basic or OD&D (inc Greyhawk) here: First Level Pre-Gen Party

Updated, thanks!

eightbits wrote:Would anyone be interested in scripted pre-gens? It is within my power to make that happen.

If you made it, I bet it would get used. Especially if the result were easily editable.

I think a generator scratches a different sort of itch, relative to what I'm looking for in this thread though. Random generators tend to focus on the single-character scale, whereas most peoples' pregen batches are put together on the party scale. Also, it's harder (but certainly not impossible) to make a generator that thoughtfully tunes its choices, like sacrificing bit of gear to achieve a faster movement rate; or recognizing that the character should take the right weapon for TWF (even if his Dex is middling); or not bothering to bring a light source when a magic weapon provides light.

Eight bits, that would be awesome.

Especially for 0e as that is my rule set.

And, especially if you could designate a few things in advance, e.g., class, race, level and start the random generator from there.

Great to know programmers!

Guy Fullerton wrote: Interesting point. I gotta think on it a bit. AD&D is somewhat anachronistic anyway, and gets various historical details "wrong," at least according to some more modern perspectives/research. (Not that I necessarily respect what I've heard in that regard.) So I don't mind if large shields are more prominent in the game than they were in history. I think my players prefer the large shield, assuming the extra 50 cn encumbrance isn't an issue; and I suspect a lot of other players feel the same.

For example, the paladin in hell.

The shield nomenclature of AD&D is inconsistent, but shields of various sizes co-existed through the centuries, so I do not think there is much reason to default in any particular direction when translating. Gygax does not seem to have cared much at all about shield size or type of mace/pick/flail, if we can judge by his modules and the DMG follower lists. An attitude that is consistent with his weapon lists in Swords & Spells [i.e. short sword, long sword, hand axe, battle axe, pick, hammer, mace and flail]. For what it is worth, both in S&S and the DMG battle axe and shield seems to be an acceptable combination.

Guy Fullerton wrote:If you made it, I bet it would get used. Especially if the result were easily editable.

tetramorph wrote:Eight bits, that would be awesome.

OK. I'll try to work on it soon. I probably wont get started on it until next weekend at the earliest. I'll post on the board when I have something working.

Guy Fullerton wrote:Random generators tend to focus on the single-character scale, whereas most peoples' pregen batches are put together on the party scale. Also, it's harder (but certainly not impossible) to make a generator that thoughtfully tunes its choices, like sacrificing bit of gear to achieve a faster movement rate; or recognizing that the character should take the right weapon for TWF (even if his Dex is middling); or not bothering to bring a light source when a magic weapon provides light.

I'll definitely be trying to address most of these issues. I hadn't thought very much about fine tuning because of the difficulty involved, but that was why I was thinking about making the resulting characters editable. I will definitely consider how to handle fine tuning once I get something working well.

Guy Fullerton wrote:I think a generator scratches a different sort of itch, relative to what I'm looking for in this thread though.

Yeah, you're right. I wont attempt to hijack your thread. Once I get something demonstrable I'll start a new thread for it.

Thanks for the feedback, guys!

Looking for feedback on this formatting for an upcoming batch of pregens, complete with itemized encumbrance, and two versions for each dwarf/halfling/gnome (one assuming 9" base move, another assuming 12"):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B79Wm_ ... sp=sharing

Do the weapon/attack sections look okay? Or are they too busy?
The encumbrance details do add noise, but is it at least intelligible noise? They are the bracketed numbers.

Edit: I just caught (and will fix) the mistake on Evollian's sheet, where 6 attacks per round should be 5.

That feels way too cluttery to me. I don't think you need to include weapon speed factors or weapon vs AC modifiers, since they're rarely used, and also don't need to include the itemized per-item encumbrance values (though including the total encumbrance load and capacity of storage items (packs, sacks, pouches) is a good idea). You don't really need the combat table either - providing a THAC0 value should be sufficient.

I also feel like you're overthinking the demihuman movement rate thing. When you're collecting other people's characters, go with the movement rate they assigned. When you're creating your own, decide which way you prefer and stick with it. Note it either way on the cover sheet, the same way you're doing with other house rules.

Guy, I like those templates, but would prefer the following:

Range and ROF get their own boxes
dump the encumbrance suffix, or give each line it's own box to use or not use per DM's preference.

I like where all of this is going. Thanks for posting.

I agree with Foster regarding removing the combat table from the character sheet.

I agree with francisca's general comments on Range and ROF. The area that looks too busy to me is where missile weapons appear in the table (see monk, esp.).

Regarding encumbrance, I think its inclusion very much fits the spirit of what you are doing here. But, the itemized encumbrance in parentheses is having a clunky effect on the sheets. If the main goal of these sheets is convention one-shot play, maybe remove the individual line items. If the sheets are doubling for multiple use purposes, it would be great to integrate a column for encumbrance line items. I think the best result is finding a way to add a column for the encumbrance line item.

Is one of the end goals to produce form-fillable pdfs?

Guy,
I was considering posting my AD&D PCs from my convention games on your site. I hand them out on hand-written paper, but would like to put them into a format similar to this (or the AD&D template you're already using on your site). I'd be happy to enter them into one of the templates myself. Is this something you can share?

Thanks for the feedback, guys! I will make them less busy, and improve the weapon lines. I plan to keep the weapon vs. AC sections, even if a lot of people don't use it, because the intent is for these to be Advanced with a capital A. But I can certainly drop the per-item encumbrance notation, at least in most cases; but I may keep one or two where I made a ruling on encumbrance for something not in the standard list.

Not sure what I'm gonna do with spd/rof/rng though. There's a pretty big layout benefit to not having columns for those. We'll see whether removal of per-item encumbrance makes the existing flow more readable.

Terrex — the template is done with Pages '08 for Mac. I'm happy to share the document if that works for you. Or if you don't have too many characters, I can quickly fill out the template myself.

I'm commissioning a cover illo by Andy ATOM Taylor for the freebie collections of pregens that those test ones will be a part of. Here's his work-in-progress: