Refactored NPC Description Generator

Rewrote the Mannerisms and Distinguishing Marks code in the generator to produce what I find to be a more pleasing distribution. It also allows me finer grained selections from the choices. Distinguishing Marks are divided behind the UI into Major and Minor Amputations, and other Marks, this allows me to vary the incidence of missing limbs vs tattooing for example. Mannerisms have been divided into Speech, Hands, Eyes and Body in a similar manner. Both of them have received some new entries.


Oh and Happy New Year. Watching the little princess while her parents are out, she's abed, so off to Smite an Ale.

Who's got their back?

One of the (many) pieces missing from my campaigns has been the relationships between NPCs. Patrick Halter over at Renovating the Temple has a nice graphic of the relationships in the village of Hommlet, which has inspired this post in an elliptical manner.
     In my reading of classical history one of the things I've noticed is the importance of legally recognized tribal relationships in the political systems of both Athens and Rome.  Now, for whatever reason, I've always had a conception that  tribe was a social organization of blood relatives, this isn't necessarily the case in the classical world, as the Romans created brand new tribes several times during the Republic.  Layer on top of that the client-patron relationships cultivated by the Romans and you find that bilking that merchant just brought you the enmity of a whole slue of people. (By the way, this is still common in less developed {less socially mobile?} parts of the world, read about some of the troops experiences with local suppliers in Iraq.)
   Getting back to my point, along with generating an NPC's description, I'll need to generate their tribe and patron/clients.  Obviously minor NPCs don't need all the details, but I do need to have idea about who they can call on for support if the party gets out of hand.

   The diagram above lays out the relationships between the Roman hierarchy and the rulers in the area, along with other NPCs mentioned in 20 Questions.  Of importance to this discussion are the seven families who rule the city of Apollonia, where their characters will initially be based.  Most of the NPCs that the party will meet will trace a relationship to one of the seven families, or to their enemies as given in the table below.

Family	Prominent Individuals	Interests	Allies	Enemies
Paileos	Aurelius, Archon of Apollonia	Agriculture, Shipping	Romans, Apistos, Trapezitos, Proskyntos	Roz, Listeios, Emporos, Mith, Perseus Tuetella
Apistos	Damon, Boule	Agriculture	Paileos, Proskyntos	Trapezitos
Roz	Aristarchus, Boule	Agriculture, Shipping	Listeios, Emporos, Mith, Romans	Paileos
Listeios	Taulus Listeios, Boule	Agriculture, Ship Building	Perseus Tuetella, Roz, Mith	Romans, Paileos, Elos
Trapezitos	Gauis Trapezitus, Boule	Agriculture, Ship Building	Paileos, Apistos	Listeios, Elos
Proskyntos	Epaphroditus, Boule	Agriculture, Macedonian Trade	Paileos, Apistos	Roz, Emporos, Mith
Emporos	Onesimus, Boule	Agriculture	Trapezitos, Listeios	Paileos
Mith	Hyllus Mith	Illyrian and Macedonian Trade	Romans, Listeios	Paileos, Proskyntos
Geraki	Asteropaios	Metalwork	Miraditorum, Mith, Proskyntos	Perseus Teutella, Elos
Elos	Cadmus Elos	Asphalt, Ship Building	Paileos	Romans, Miraditorum, Geraki

With this back ground I can create Alcon the Smith.  A relative of the Proskyntos, when the players bring in some dwarf made armor for refitting, he'll pass the word to Epaphroditus who would like to break the Geraki monopoly on the dwarven trade.  This may lead to contact from Proskyntos or, if Asterpaios hears of it, an assassination attempt as the Geraki work to maintain their lucrative trade.

Note that all of this is invisible to the players, unless they decide that their characters would like to find out why the assassin was sent.  It however enables me, as the DM, to determine which factions will approach the players as the characters become more powerful and thus more valuable as allies, and which hold grudges against them.

Hmm, maybe I'll add a campaign customization to my NPC Generator to determine which family they are aligned with. 

NPC Description Generator

I've added a new page 'Utilities' with a on-system specific generator to determine an NPCs appearance, distinguishing marks and mannerisms.

Give it a try and let me know any issues you find or things you'ld like to see added.

I've tested in it briefly in FireFox 17, IE 7, and Chrome.  Having done my share of web development, I'm sure someone, somewhere is running an odd patch level of an obscure browser that the JavaScript will break in.

Movie - The Hobbit

  Finally went to see the Hobbit, with my bride and the squid who had seen it earlier, a very good show.  Close enough to the book that I couldn't cavil at much of it, loved the songs they included.  Christopher Lee's lines as Saruman were more bureaucratic than guileful, but my biggest gripe was the music for the end credits, where was Led Zepplin with Misty Mountain Hop?

Building Campaign Maps 6 - Encounter Areas

 Using the techniques I've already shown, adding layers and a grid, I'm going to add Encounter Areas to my map.  This will be a separate layer for my use rather than something for the players edification.  The first step is to add another layer name 'Encounter Areas'.  The key difference is that now I'm going to change the opacity of the layer, so that previous (lower) layers can be seen through what I draw on the new layer. 

The Opacity control is located in the Layers dialogue box. Here I've set it to approximately 25%, or conversely, what ever I draw will be 75% transparent.

The next step is to add a hex grid to this level, using the same settings previously used on the Grid layer.  The only exception is that I changed the line color to blue. With the Opacity reduced, that makes the superimposed hex grids look purple.

Then I just had to choose which natural features comprised and separated the Encounter Areas, and (tediously) filled in each hex in the encounter area with the Area Fill tool.


In the end I have twenty one encounter areas, in a cool looking map.

Book Report - Mazirian the Magician

   A big part of our canon, this is the retitled Dying Earth stories by Jack Vance, included in the original Appendix N.  Along with the titular story it contains Turjan of Miir, T'sais, Laine the Wayfarer, Ulan Dhor Ends a Dream and Guyal of Sfere.

  I have to admit this is the first time I've read it, I never found Vance's works before. When I was younger my reading turned more to Heinlein and hard science fiction, than to fantasy.

  The stories themselves share a common setting, and are loosely linked. Turjan was Mazirian's prisoner, and was freed by T'sais' sister T'sain.  In Turjan's prequel, he steals an item from Prince Kandive the Golden, uncle to Ulan Dhor. T'sais has an encounter with Laine, which sets up the reader to applaud Laine's subsequent demise.  Guyal merely passes through the landscape sketched by the previous stories on his journey to knowledge and perhaps wisdom.

  Inspirations:  It's all here Vancian magic, strange monsters, mighty wizards, devil-may-care rogues.  These stories are what Gygax and Arneson were trying to recreate when they brought role playing to life.

Read it if you haven't already.

Seven Games

Over at The Ongoing Campaign, faoladh has a list of the top seven RPGs he's played and run. So here's mine

Games Played
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 1st Edition
Traveller
Chivalry & Sorcery
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 3rd Edition
ShadowRun
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 2nd Edition
Call of Cthulhu

 

Games Run
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 1st Edition
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 3rd Edition
Chivalry & Sorcery
Traveller
ShadowRun
Call of Cthulhu
Space 1889

I would have loved to have played RuneQuest or Empire of the Petal Throne more than the once or twice I ever was able to, but so it goes.

What's in your lists?