Automatic computer assisted character generation

joppeknol · 09-02-2013, 10:39 AM

After glossing over call of cthulhu's source book, I realized that one of the advantages of random creation is that it takes much less time. Character creation in GURPS is complicated because you have so many choices. Randomly selecting them would make GURPS more suited for one night casual events without resorting to pregenerated characters.

A problem here is that randomly rolling statistics and skills makes very unbalanced characters.

A solution might be to use templates and lenses to structure the character generation. You choose or roll a template, fill it in a random way, apply some randomly selected lenses (things like: 'heroic, wealthy, 'social', 'expert', etc), fill them in a random way et voila: One randomly generated character that makes sense. The player can invent a story that fits the characteristics and he's good to go.

The above is still a lot of work. However, that process can be fully automated with some software. It would give GURPS the option of quickly creating a full-fledged character.

A a proof of concept, I wrote some python scripts that can do this. More information and the zip-file with source code can be found at https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5159392/readme.txt.
Basically, there are two main files that demonstrate the idea

createknight.py creates random knights based upon a lightly simplified version of the knight-errant template in Banestorm.

createlady.py creates potential brides for King Conall (caithness, banestorm). It selects randomly from a set of primary, secondary, and background skills, but doesn't try to balance point totals. The primary stats are also randomly chosen (within a certain range). Also, the amount of points put in each skill is done according to a random distribution that has a reasonable average but on the right side to infinity. Thus, there is a very small chance to have a princess that is the world best dancer, or horse rider.

Disclaimers
A lot of situations are not covered right now. Also, the scripts were made while exploring the problem and will need to be rewritten if this turns to be useful.

I must also admit that I cannot commit myself to the further implementation of this idea. If anyone else wants to pick it up and create some nice software, feel free to do so. I might work further on this but I cannot promise anything due to limited time.

Questions for the hive mind:
Is this a useful idea? Would you use it if it were available in a more user-friendly form?

What would be a useful user interface for this program? Most user interfaces restrict the choices that are available. What basic functions should the user interface have. Only the generation within templates? Some randomisation in stats and skills? There are tons of ways to do this. Can there be a concensus?

How to deal with copyright? Unless sjgames develops this idea, we cannot simply put every template in the program. Create the templates ourselves? (we do need to create a set of lenses.). Spread the program without the templates?

What kind of implementation would fit best? A desktop application, server-side web application, or maybe something completely in Javascript?

09-02-2013, 10:39 AM	#1
joppeknol Join Date: Dec 2009	Automatic computer assisted character generation After glossing over call of cthulhu's source book, I realized that one of the advantages of random creation is that it takes much less time. Character creation in GURPS is complicated because you have so many choices. Randomly selecting them would make GURPS more suited for one night casual events without resorting to pregenerated characters. A problem here is that randomly rolling statistics and skills makes very unbalanced characters. A solution might be to use templates and lenses to structure the character generation. You choose or roll a template, fill it in a random way, apply some randomly selected lenses (things like: 'heroic, wealthy, 'social', 'expert', etc), fill them in a random way et voila: One randomly generated character that makes sense. The player can invent a story that fits the characteristics and he's good to go. The above is still a lot of work. However, that process can be fully automated with some software. It would give GURPS the option of quickly creating a full-fledged character. A a proof of concept, I wrote some python scripts that can do this. More information and the zip-file with source code can be found at https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5159392/readme.txt. Basically, there are two main files that demonstrate the idea createknight.py creates random knights based upon a lightly simplified version of the knight-errant template in Banestorm. createlady.py creates potential brides for King Conall (caithness, banestorm). It selects randomly from a set of primary, secondary, and background skills, but doesn't try to balance point totals. The primary stats are also randomly chosen (within a certain range). Also, the amount of points put in each skill is done according to a random distribution that has a reasonable average but on the right side to infinity. Thus, there is a very small chance to have a princess that is the world best dancer, or horse rider. Disclaimers A lot of situations are not covered right now. Also, the scripts were made while exploring the problem and will need to be rewritten if this turns to be useful. I must also admit that I cannot commit myself to the further implementation of this idea. If anyone else wants to pick it up and create some nice software, feel free to do so. I might work further on this but I cannot promise anything due to limited time. Questions for the hive mind: Is this a useful idea? Would you use it if it were available in a more user-friendly form? What would be a useful user interface for this program? Most user interfaces restrict the choices that are available. What basic functions should the user interface have. Only the generation within templates? Some randomisation in stats and skills? There are tons of ways to do this. Can there be a concensus? How to deal with copyright? Unless sjgames develops this idea, we cannot simply put every template in the program. Create the templates ourselves? (we do need to create a set of lenses.). Spread the program without the templates? What kind of implementation would fit best? A desktop application, server-side web application, or maybe something completely in Javascript?