Character Creation Tool

[Steve of the Red Fez]

A while ago I released my simple character creator. I have since worked on it and it has evolved into something much more robust. I figured this group, which has been so welcoming and helpful, might get some use out of it. 

Here are a few of the features:

• A random name generator for Imperial humans, dwarves, elves, and halflings;
  
• Supports creating all core races, as well as halflings, all new human choices (Averlander, etc.), and all new dwarf types;
  
• Support for generating three entirely random careers;
  
• Generating three random careers chosen only from your specific racial choice! That's right, no more, "okay, draw another career";
  
• Calculating your current remaining character points in real time;
  
• An easy-to-use interface. Just click a few buttons and select from a few menus and you've got a character;
  
• Helps you make an informed choice by showing you the skills and special ability for whichever career you've selected;
• Shows you all of the racial special abilities for whichever race you've chosen;
• Tells you all of the equipment you start the game with based upon which wealth level you choose.

So what doesn't it do?

It won't help you choose talents or actions. This is by design. If you play on the tabletop (or mimic that style), each player gets to choose a unique action or talent. Once they choose it, the card is theirs. This prevents anyone else from taking it. Obviously, I can't do that here so it isn't included. Also, it's a HELL of a lot of typing!

What still needs to be done?

• It doesn't support Ogres (yet);
  
• The name generator doesn't support female names (I need to build in a radial button that allows you to choose male or female names);
  
• I am looking to update the formula to prevent the user from raising a stat beyond 5. This is more of a wish-list item since it tells you on the screen not to go beyond a 5, but for new players this would be helpful;
  
• I am looking to update the formula to prevent the user from spending points down to less-than-zero. Again, a wish-list item since you can see how many points you've spent (and it's color coded too).
  

A special note: The only place where I have diverged from the core rules is regarding starting equipment. The following are my two changes to the default equipment:

• If a character chooses to begin play at a "comfortable' wealth level, they are now permitted to choose a bow along with all of the other choices. It just seemed odd that no one could ever begin with a normal bow. Crossbows and longbows, sure, but not a regular bow?

• If you choose to begin as an "affluent' character you get the option to take an exceptional quality hand weapon. The reason for this is simply because all of the other weapons provide something special (heck, you are affluent, right?). The difference in cost might seem significant, but it is far more satisfying to begin play as an affluent character who bears the heirloom sword of your ancestors rather than a plain old sword. Oh, and don't worry. The extra fortune die is not going to change the course of mighty nations, even for a starting character!
  

If either of these changes are not to your liking, just tell your players that they are not available, but neither will have any real effect upon your campaign.

Let me know what you think (and report any bugs you find)!

--Steve of the Red Fez--

[Steve of the Red Fez]

I just caught a slight oversight which I've fixed. When you choose a Stirlander character it doesn't calculate his wealth correctly (it should cost a point more for "comfortable" and "affluent"). I'll post up the fixed version when I get some feedback so that I don't end up posting a hundred different versions. 

[Philippe Boujon]

Cool, I am looking forward to check it out tonight! What do you need to finish ogres? 

Also, if you ever wanted to add talents and actions, RC Ryan on the FFG board built a complete list a component that you could use to feed your generator. I'll post the link to it tonight.

Now, what I'd love someone to build is a generator that allow you to advance a character and more importantly, an NPC randomly.

So for ex, if I want to build an master thief, ex-thief, elf, I can enter this into the generator and it build a random NPC with advances taken randomly. Obviously it wouldn't choose the talents or actions.

Sent from my iPhone

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<Warhammer Character Creator.xlsm>

[Ceodryn]

Hi Steve,

Here is the list of component I meant, which may help you for further efforts on your Character Creator: http://sdrv.ms/Pd4lHP. It's on the skydrive of the creator of the list.

Also, would there be a way to save your Character Creator to a format readable with Open Office and iPage, like a basic .xls (Excell 2007) format? 

Cheers

Philippe

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<Warhammer Character Creator.xlsm>

[Steve of the Red Fez]

Of course, now that I have posted the file I felt motivated to do a bunch of updates. It now supports female names and Ogres. I'm posting it here.

[Steve of the Red Fez]

I've looked over the file you posted. While it's useful for a reference it doesn't really help in character generation because it lacks all of the details of what the action/talent actually does. That's part of why I didn't include them... I feel that the only useful way to choose actions and talents is to see what they actually do rather than just reading the names (which sometimes don't mesh very well). This is why I give the details of the racial abilities, career skills and career ability. 

If people feel that having the names of action cards and talent cards would help then let me know, but without the relevant stats it seems like choosing blindly. What do you think?

[Steve of the Red Fez]

Unfortunately I cannot downgrade the file to an older file format without losing most of the data. It's a limit of MS Excel. The fact that there are a couple of macros in it further complicates the issue. If someone knows of a solution, let me know.

By the way, my wish would be to find a way (or, really, to find someone to do this for me) to convert this so that it could generate characters using a browser... ESPECIALLY a browser on a mobile device! That would be awesome.

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<Warhammer Character Creator.xlsm>

[Petar Kalmar]

can you make it work in open office i tried but not one of macros are working and i dont have the time to remake them all

[Ceodryn]

Hi Steve,

The tool is very nice, I like where it's going. Here is my feedback on the tool. Keep in mind however that my feedback is in regards to the tool being for the entire community. 

- Font of the drop boxes, and results is small. It is Calibri 9. Maybe you could bump this to Calibri 12. I am using a Macbook pro with retina display, which also explains why the font is so small on my screen.

- Random 3 careers have currently a bug. I tested a Human Middenlander, and got Halfling Chief, Ironbreaker, and other non-Human careers. I also got Pedlar twice within a 3 careers selection.

- I would indicate what the primary chars of the selected career are, in addition to adding the +1.

- Overall, you may want to have more explanations for new players, but being careful as not to be influential: For example, you have text such as "so more if often better", or "only 1 skill", "this is honestly...". All that text is very influential, and I see new players buying more actions, more talents, etc because of it. It isn't always a good thing to start with many actions and talents :).

- I like however the text that explains was actions are, you should do the same with talents. The text should be displayed before anything is selected.

- You should have pre-selected any option that is automatically given as per RAW, like 1 action, 1 skill

- For skills, you may want to say "trained" instead of "possess". In WFRP3 everyone has all the skills, training is then what matters.

- For the Ogres names, a great resource is Imperial Ogres 2nd edition WFRP pdf and http://www.ogrestronghold.com/name_generator.php

Finally, while this tool is your creation, you may want to allow others to modify it (currently the file is locked). You should however include credits.

All my comments are based on a tool for the community. I understand what you created is perfect for your new players, but maybe have a personal tool, and then one you release to us :). That way, you can also keep the RAW rules for the equipment.

In any case, it's a very nice tool, easy to use and clear in its results. I do not know how to make it browser based, but that would indeed be a neat feature.

Cheers

Philippe

[Grolsch Van Eyke]

I am using a Macbook pro with retina display, which also explains why the font is so small on my screen.

Did you get a new shiny computer ? I seem to recall for the Piggy adventure you had an old warhorse laptop...don't drop it in the harbor :-D.  

Regarding the generator, is it possible to include a random physical/mannerisms traits list ? I like the idea of creating various NPC's so easily it would be nice to have a few quirks to give them to make them memorable.

Thanks for all the hard work!

Curtis. 

[Grolsch Van Eyke]

I'll second Phillipe's comment that the three random choices sometimes have redundancies.

[Grolsch Van Eyke]

Along the lines of using a Mac Phillipe, how are you using FG2 with it ? Boot camp, Wine or something else ?

[Philippe Boujon]

Both, I have boot camp installed feeding parallel 8, but I also have fg2 in wine. If I am a player, fg2 in wine is enough but as a GM I prefer a window environment. Although this new shiny computer us mostly my wife one, I still use and GM on the old one, depending if she is home or not.

Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 12, 2012, at 11:53 AM, Grolsch Van Eyke <seajac...@gmail.com> wrote:

Along the lines of using a Mac Phillipe, how are you using FG2 with it ? Boot camp, Wine or something else ?

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[Steve of the Red Fez]

Before I begin, thanks for the feedback. It is extremely useful. I've addressed each of your points below. I'd like this to be an open dialog (especially regarding the Ogre issue), so everyone should feel free to chime in.

• Font of the drop boxes, and results is small. It is Calibri 9. Maybe you could bump this to Calibri 12. I am using a Macbook pro with retina display, which also explains why the font is so small on my screen.
  
• I would really love to increase the size of the font. In fact, the earlier versions had a much more readable font size. However, UI design is a constant battle for screen real estate versus delivery of content. The goal is to keep as much as I can on a single screen without scrolling around so that you can view your character "at a glance". The biggest difficulty on this front came from the expanded races... specifically, the ogre. This one race required so much space that the entire ability section had to redesigned just to accommodate it. Honestly, I considered dropping him from the final product all together just because its inclusion had such a negative impact upon the entire UI. Without the ogre I could easily bump the font to size of the racial abilities to 11; if I edited the "eternal grudge" ability of the Karaz-A-Karak dwarf, I could get to 12... but only if the ogre were removed. This was a huge frustration since most GMs I know don't allow ogres in their campaign, but I wanted this to be a complete toolset.

• Random 3 careers have currently a bug. I tested a Human Middenlander, and got Halfling Chief, Ironbreaker, and other non-Human careers. I also got Pedlar twice within a 3 careers selection.
  

• You're right. This was a bug that arose in a last minute change I had made. Thanks for catching it! It is now fixed and will be in the next update. Regarding the redundant selections... yes, that sometimes happens (I once got performer, performer, performer). I will see what I can do about this. 

• I would indicate what the primary chars of the selected career are, in addition to adding the +1.
  

• This is one of the points I'd have to disagree with. I am attempting to reduce the screen clutter. I believe too much information can be overwhelming which is why some things are presented as they are. Since having your stat go AND displaying what got raised is a redundancy, I have to err on the side of ease of viewing. I can see your point, but at this time I'll keep it as is until I can find a way to present the information in a easy to digest manner.

• Overall, you may want to have more explanations for new players, but being careful as not to be influential: For example, you have text such as "so more if often better", or "only 1 skill", "this is honestly...". All that text is very influential, and I see new players buying more actions, more talents, etc because of it. It isn't always a good thing to start with many actions and talents :).
  

• This is true. I could easily remove the commentary. It was there to guide all of the new people who join my game since they would inevitably ask me whether or not they needed to take such-and-such number of action/talent cards, but that isn't everyone's experience.

• I like however the text that explains was actions are, you should do the same with talents. The text should be displayed before anything is selected.
  

• I'm not sure what this is referring to. I don't currently have any actions in this version. Maybe you mean racial or career abilities? Also, what text should be displayed before what is selected?

• You should have pre-selected any option that is automatically given as per RAW, like 1 action, 1 skill
  

• I do not pre-select anything because the "Please choose..." dialog (as well as the differentiation in color) is a cue to tell the player that it is an interactive field that they need to click on. When it simply says "1 action" it reads less like an option and more like static information.

• For skills, you may want to say "trained" instead of "possess". In WFRP3 everyone has all the skills, training is then what matters.
  

• Fixed. When I wrote it i wasn't even thinking about that but it is a good point.

• For the Ogres names, a great resource is Imperial Ogres 2nd edition WFRP pdf and http://www.ogrestronghold.com/name_generator.php
  

• If there was a way to get to the source data for the name generator it'd be great. As it stands, I have to keep clicking names and writing them down which is pretty tedious. Anyone have access to a source file of some sort?

• Finally, while this tool is your creation, you may want to allow others to modify it (currently the file is locked). You should however include credits.
  

• I can give the password. I keep it locked to prevent clumsy users from accidentally changing things that result in breaking it (a lesson I learned the hard way all too often).

Thanks again for the comments. Let me know what you think regarding what I've said.

[Steve of the Red Fez]

Just got the data for the Ogre names. They will be in the next version.

[Steve of the Red Fez]

 I've been wondering how people would feel if I included the various new High Elves which Yepesnopes' created in his incredibly well done "Book of the Asur"? At least he racial choices if not the actual new basic careers? It's probably the only chance we've got at seeing a High Elf expansion and it is remarkably well done. I haven't gotten to play with any of it yet. Does anyone have any thoughts?

[Steve of the Red Fez]

Here is the updated version. Some fixes are included as well as ogre names.

On Thursday, October 11, 2012 1:57:28 PM UTC-5, Steve of the Red Fez wrote:

[Ceodryn]

Steve, I made this post sticky as several new members have asked about where to find the Character Creator.

If you have any update to it, please post here.

Cheers

Ceodryn