BRP Generator

[peterb]

I've designed a excel spreadsheet called "Creature Generator" that can be used to generate NPC:s for use with BRP. At the present the spreadsheet can only create fantasy creatures.

New! 2008-07-27. This is now a beta release, no new features or data will be added. If you do download and use this utility please PM me any bugs you may find - TIA.

The spreadsheet can be downloaded here: Creature_Generator.zip

The spreadsheet has been tested on three PC:s. It ran without problems on a Vista PC using Excel 2003 and on a WinXP also running Excel 2003. A Win98SE PC running Excel 97 could not run the macros on the spreadsheet however. It appears that VBA has changed so much that code written for Excel 2003 cannot be run in Excel 97. It also seems that most recent version of MS Office for MAC cannot run the spreadsheet because VBA has been removed from the OSX platform, and when used with Excel 2004 for Mac there are errors because I use functions that do not exists on the OSX platform.

You will need to set security to medium and say yes to activating the macros of the spreadsheet otherwise things won't work.

/Peter Brink

Below is a copy of the information sheet of the workbook:

------------------------------------------------

Creature Generator

Copyright 2006 Steve Lieb (under the title: RQ Roller)

Copyright 2007, 2008 Peter Brink

The VBA source code of this workbbik is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

There is a copy of the GNU General Public License on the last sheet of this workbook. You can also download a copy of the license from <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

The data (the contents of the sheets of this workbook) are offered to the public under the terms of the OPEN GAME LICENSE. All the contents of the spreadsheets are Open Content. All Source Code is "Product Identity". The source code is, as stated above, offered under the GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE as free software.

A copy of the Open Game License can be found on the last tab of the workbook. You can also download a copy of the OGL from <http://www.wizards.com/d20/files/OGLv1.0a.rtf>

BRP Generator:

This is a fork and redesign of a spreadsheet called "RQ Roller" created by Steve Lieb in 2006. This version uses VBA functions and procedures almost exclusively and has a different way of handling user input. The data is however not altered very much.

If you want to contact the author of this version of the spreadsheet, please send an email to peter.brink@brinkdata.se.

How this spreadsheet works:

By clicking the "Create Minor NPC" button on the SETUP page the user can set the properties of the NPC on a form. The choices made on the form are stored and used by function calls from the OUTPUT page. The Miniblock page is linked to the OUTPUT page. By calling a macro the user can save the contents of the Miniblock page to the Report page. By using another macro the user can save the contents of the Report page to a new workbook. The report page is then cleared.

The contents of the "Data", "Weapons", "HitLocs", "Armour" and "Other" sheets can be altered by the user. The VBA procedures and functions need not be adjusted to account for such changes.

Usage:

1) Click the "Create Minor NPC" button on the SETUP sheet. A Form titled "BRP Generator :: Minor NPC/Creature" will appear.

2) Fill out the form. The only mandatory field is the Creature Type combo box. All other settings can be left at default values if desired. The Location, Name and Title fields on the "Basic Data" tab are useful if you want to add some personal details about the NPC. They will all appear on the OUTPUT page.

3) Click "Create" when you are done, or click "Exit" to terminate the form.

4) When the form closes you will automatically exit on the OUTPUT sheet. You can now review the NPC and add some notes if you wish.

5) When you are done reviewing the NPC and wants to keep it, press "CTRL + SHIFT + S", this will trigger a macro that copies the contents of the Miniblock to the Report sheet.

6) You can now flip back to the SETUP page and create a new creature or you can press "CTRL + SHIFT + G" and the Setup form will appear.

7) Each time you copy a Miniblock to the Report sheet it will automatically be placed below the Miniblocks you already has created. Thus the Report sheet stores the output of the generation process.

8) When you have created all the creatures you need you can call a macro to copy the Report sheet to a new workbook. Press "CTRL +r". The Report sheet will now be copied to a new empty workbook. The entire sheet is copied, including page setup settings. The Report sheet is configured with a header and footer and the margins have been set so that three Miniblocks fit into one page. The settings are designed for the A4 format, but they can easily be altered and since the sheet and not just its contents are copied to the new workbook any such alterations are automatically "inherited" by the new workbook.

The Report sheet will be cleared of all contents after the sheet have been copied to a new workbook. Now you can start generating a new batch of creatures.

d20 Character Convertor: (New for alpha 0.9)

Press the "d20 Convertor" button on the Setup page and a form will appear. You can enter the data of a d20 Character on this form and the data will be converted to data items usable with the BRP game system. When you are done press the "Convert" button and the BRP Generator form will appear, pre-populated with the data entered on the previous form. The converted character can now be manipulated as any other creature can, using the BRP Generator.

As of alpha 0.9 the only feature that does not work is the Parser. A parser may or may not make it into the beta stage.

Implementing your own house rules:

Since all game system functions are implemented as VBA functions you can easily modify the behaviour of the workbook. I would recommend that you put all house rules in their own modules, for example "House rules", and copy the functions and procedures that you want to adapt to that module and prefix the copied functions with "my". Your version of the function genStat (which generates STR and CON etc.) would thus be called myGenStat. This way you could benefit from possible future enhancements of the BRP Generator. Keeping your own functions in their own module and using modified names makes it easy to move your functions to a new version of BRP Generator.

The data can also easily be modified. Inserting new rows (new creature data for example) is no problem. Inserting new columns (new categories of data) could however create problems. Making the functions 100% independent of user manipulation of the data is on the "To-do" list.

Revisions

[table]Version|Author|Notes

Beta 0.12|PB 07/2008|Bug fixes. Fixed problem with armour ENC calculation. Fixed problem with deletion of armour pieces. Fixed problem with skill level calculations when user choose to give creature converted from d20 a "default" skill.

Beta 0.11|PB 07/2008|Added 450+ new creatures. Beta release.

Alpha 0.10|PB 06/2008|Updated data to the standards of the new BRP book. Added the EDU stat. Changed name to Creature Generator. Licensed source code under GPL and data under OGL (previous editions where 100% GPL).

Alpha 0.9|PB 04/2008|Refactored arrays as dictionaries. Refactored user-defined types as classes. Added a d20 character converter. Added default options to the setup page. Bug corrections.

Alpha 0.8|PB 04/2008|Refactored user-defined type "armour" to a class. Rewrote the armour selection feature.

Alpha 0.7|PB 04/2008|Added License page and the information page. Finally removed the Collection page. Fixed Report page reformat bug, Max/min racial stat values bug and armour overlapping bug. Removed cells linking to the old RQ Roller workbook.

Alpha 0.6|PB 03/2008|Armour by hit location. Fixed values for stats. Min/Max values for stats. ENC calculation. Save Report sheet to a new workbook.

Alpha 0.5|PB 03/2008|Moved most of the remaining calculations to VBA functions. Replaced the setup sheet with a form. Added a report sheet. Removed name generation.

Alpha 0.4|PB 11/2007|Converted core functions to VBA function.

1.02|SRL 12/12|add broo diseases/chg move, chg qstaff parry base

1.01|SRL 8/10|added name generation, Miniblock format

1.00|SRL|core functions complete, working on name generator[/table]

Edited July 29, 2008 by peterb
beta 0.12; bug fixes...

[Trifletraxor]

A very cool program!

Haven't tried it until now.

2 points: The sentient creatures I made wore no armor, an all creatures are female by default. Is it possible to have sex as one of the variables, with an overweight of males maybe? And some armor for the sentient creatures. The human male did not have any weapons either.

SGL.

[peterb]

New version has been posted. The alpha 0.9 has been re-designed under the hood. A d20 Character converter has been added and you can now add more skills, beyond the default set and the racial skills, when you design your NPC. The link to the zip-file is in the first post of the thread.

[peterb]

A very cool program!

Thanks! Great that it sees some use beyond my own...

2 points: The sentient creatures I made wore no armor, an all creatures are female by default. Is it possible to have sex as one of the variables, with an overweight of males maybe? And some armor for the sentient creatures. The human male did not have any weapons either.

Perhaps "Generator" is a misleading name. The intention is that the user has an idea of what kind of NPC he wants to create. When generating animals and other non-tool using creatures you'll get a default creature but when you create a humanoid you'll only get a "skeleton". The GM will have to decide what armour, what weapons and what skills the NPC should have. That being said some things could be better automated. Gender being a good example.

In the new alpha 0.9 version gender is automatically generated. Some consideration for the race is taken, dwarfs for example are most often males...

When it comes to automatically set armour and the like, I'm somewhat hesitant to add such automatic selection. I suspect that in most cases you'll end up with strange combinations and/or combinations that doesn't fit the GM:s needs. IMHO it's up to the GM to design his NPC. There is of course the possibility of adding some global options that enables or disables automatic selection of armour and weapons. I think it probably makes most sense to take that route.

/Peter

[Trifletraxor]

Good to hear that it developes. One thing I reacted a bit to was that skills of the "superior" creatures still were pretty low. Is it only the stats that are improved with the superior creatures?

SGL.

[peterb]

Good to hear that it developes. One thing I reacted a bit to was that skills of the "superior" creatures still were pretty low. Is it only the stats that are improved with the superior creatures?

Yes. The "Default Stat Level" and "Stat Quality" comboboxes only sets the level of the stats - not the level of experience of the NPC. Experience is governed by the "Default Experience Level" and the skill level comboboxes.