Building a Generator

Source: Pixabay

Michael Raston is a machine.

Recently on his blog, Michael wrote up a "how to" guide to building tables and making generators for gaming purposes, sort of as a favor to me -- really I asked him to outline his process, and the result was an out of this world, in depth blog post on the topic. I highly recommend checking it out.

This post is NOT that post, by any means. What follows will be a set of tables I wrote up myself, inspired by what Michael does, and an example of how I would make it work for me. But the real quality can be found directly at https://lizardmandiaries.blogspot.com/2021/09/how-i-write-generators.html

Okay so, here goes:

	Locale	Theme	Descriptor	Monster, Base	Monster, Type
1.	Monastery	Memory	Wet	Bat	Goblin
2.	Crypt	Mirrors	Diseased	Slug	Hobgoblin
3.	Vein	Dreams	Empty	Crab	Orc
4.	Hollow	Reflection	Mossy	Fish	Skeleton
5.	Vault	Death	Moldy	Goat	Zombie
6.	Shrine	Decay	Broken	Cat	Vampire
7.	Tomb	Time	Ruined	Dog	Wight
8.	Castle	Loss	Slimy	Spider	Golem/Statue
9.	Tower	Guilt	Bubbling	Bear	Fiend
10.	Ruins	Power	Crystalline	Insect	Dragon
11.	Temple	Regeneration	Hot	Bird	Troll
12.	Forest	Destiny	Melting	Jellyfish	Ogre
13.	Passage	Magic	Metallic	Plant	Ooze
14.	Canyon	Belief	Slippery	Turtle	Gorgon
15.	Grotto	Wisdom	Forgotten	Frog	Ocular Devourer
16.	Hill	Fire	Mysterious	Bull	Octopus Headed
17.	Cave	Water	Open	Elk	Sphinx
18.	Keep	Air	Smooth	Snake	Robot
19.	Gate	Earth	Cracked	Lizard	Elemental
20.	Hall	Life	Burnt	Shark	Lich

Art by Dan Smith

Okay so let's dig in a bit to this series of tables and see what we can make.

First off, the lists are not EXHAUSTIVE; the goal is to get 20 (or fewer if needed) motifs for each list...just some key concepts I can roll up and quickly turn into an idea for something.

Lets take the first two columns to start: Locale and Theme.

My first results on those two tables are: Halls (20), and Mirrors (2).

Okay, So our players are going to explore the Mirrored Halls of Mynroma. Sounds good.

Let's roll again.

Vault (4) and Decay (6)

The Vaults of Decay

It doesn't have to be anything in depth at this time, just something to generate ideas. And now that we have a dungeon or two, we can use the rest of the chart to describe the interior and populate it with monster types. You can also roll multiple times for each column.

Moldy (5) and Metallic (13)

The interior of the Vaults of Decay are covered in mold, but there are some sections constructed from metallic paneling -- very artificial in nature.

And now some monsters:

Slug (2) Lich (20)

Plant (13) Gorgon (14)

The idea is to combine these to create new kinds of monsters. The list is not meant to be literal: while you could create a Slug Lich, it may be better to turn this into some kind of slow-moving but powerful arcane creature that, if slain, returns to life unless its special cocoon/phylactery is destroyed. It hates its immortal existence but longs to destroy all living things it encounters.

I chose gorgon for the classic presentation of Medusa with a snake-body, so a plant-based snake-bodied creature that maybe spews some kind of organic substance that can turn things into stone.

So the Vaults sound like pretty dangerous place. I can keep utilizing the various tables and combining results to determine other monsters to face, modify those monsters with the descriptors instead of using them to describe the interior of the dungeon, and do this over and over until I feel comfortable with what I have.

The point is that the table is a starting point, to help get the creative process started, and at anytime you can switch into manual design mode and make something. Or use the generated results as is. Even better, have your players make random rolls to determine the dungeon and what they'll face there.

I love the idea of a Random Treasure Table too, and may add that. As it stands, all told, the above chart can generate over 3 million combinations (if my math is right) and it's just a starting point.

Thanks again to Michael Raston for encouraging me and helping me get started!