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Tool for generating treasure & merchandise in a fantasy campaign
I have been using a spreadsheet to track and manage an almost 3000 item list of things my players could buy and how much the items could cost. The campaign takes place in a big city so 'shopping' is important to them and it spawns all kinds of fun adventures. In any case the spreadsheet wasn't very useful for generating truly random treasures and it was only moderately useful in generating random pricing. After a great deal of searching I found a very nice tool called "Inspiration Pad Pro":http://www.nbos.com/products/ipad/ipad.htm. This tool is free and runs on Windows systems. The description from their site:
"Inspiration Pad Pro is a free program you can use to generate all sorts of things for your campaign. Generate names, town information, encounters, treasures - you name it! Inspiration Pad Pro uses text files called 'generators' to tell it how to generate information for you. You can create your own, modify existing generators, or just use the ones included with the program as-is. Because of this, it's easy to customize generators to the needs of your own specific campaign."
I have taken my spreadsheet information and turned it into a set of text files that can be used by IPP. Here is the blurb in the include Readme file that I have included with the zip of my files:
This zip package includes the files necessary to generate treasure in a Valdorian Age campaign using the InspirationPadPro2 tool. You can download a copy of the InspirationPadPro2 tool from http://www.nbos.com/products/ipad/ipad.htm. It is a free program and it is very useful.
These random generation files have been "tuned" for the Valdorian Age campaign material. They have also been further "tuned" to fit my version of the Valdorian Age Campaign Material.
After you have installed the InspirationPadPro2 tool, locate the directory C:\...\nbos\InspirationPadPro2. You will then need to copy the Common\va directory to C:\...\nbos\InspirationPadPro2\Common and Generators\ValdorianAge directory to C:\...\nbos\InspirationPadPro2\Generators
When you start the InspirationPadPro2 tool the Valdorian Age should be one of the options.
The ValdorianAgeTreasure.ipt file is setup to generate many more mundane items than a typical fantasy campaign treasure pile. My players like finding 'useful' things in the treasures they come across.
It is very important to realize the Valdorian Age is a campaign world where monsters and magic are extremely rare. How often items show up is based on this rarity and the costs reflect the rarity as well.
One area where there is a great deal of detail has to do with the bookbinder.ipt file. My players are very interested in books in the campaign world. Their characters will spend coin on books. So I have created a very complex book generator. It is highly customized to the campaign world (people, locations, etc).
To adapt this material for another campaign the following files will have to be changed:
1. coins.ipt - This generated is highly skewed to generate copper and small amounts of silver coins. Finding gold coins has a 1 in a 1000th chance of occurring.
2. colleges.ipt - These are the magic colleges. The outcomes have been adjusted away from certain types of magic (Black Magic, Conjuration, Elemental, Necromancy, Shamanism, and Witchcraft) and towards other types (Alchemy, Song, Divine, Wizardry, Divination, etc).
3. historictimes.ipt - This is very specific for the Valdorian Age campaign world. Extensive changes need to made here for this file to work with other campaign worlds.
4. holidays.ipt - This is a simple file to change
5. oldgods.ipt - List of deities in the Valdorian Age and it will need to be changed for another campaign world.
6. people.ipt - This is another area that will require extensive changes for another campaign world.
7. places.ipt - This is another area that will require extensive changes for another campaign world.
There is at least one bug in the files. There are times when a "Novel" is generated but the 'place' that should be generated with the novel's title doesn't appear.
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You can find the zip file at "ValdorianAge.zip":http://www.jcdisciples.org/files/ValdorianAge.zip
"Inspiration Pad Pro is a free program you can use to generate all sorts of things for your campaign. Generate names, town information, encounters, treasures - you name it! Inspiration Pad Pro uses text files called 'generators' to tell it how to generate information for you. You can create your own, modify existing generators, or just use the ones included with the program as-is. Because of this, it's easy to customize generators to the needs of your own specific campaign."
I have taken my spreadsheet information and turned it into a set of text files that can be used by IPP. Here is the blurb in the include Readme file that I have included with the zip of my files:
This zip package includes the files necessary to generate treasure in a Valdorian Age campaign using the InspirationPadPro2 tool. You can download a copy of the InspirationPadPro2 tool from http://www.nbos.com/products/ipad/ipad.htm. It is a free program and it is very useful.
These random generation files have been "tuned" for the Valdorian Age campaign material. They have also been further "tuned" to fit my version of the Valdorian Age Campaign Material.
After you have installed the InspirationPadPro2 tool, locate the directory C:\...\nbos\InspirationPadPro2. You will then need to copy the Common\va directory to C:\...\nbos\InspirationPadPro2\Common and Generators\ValdorianAge directory to C:\...\nbos\InspirationPadPro2\Generators
When you start the InspirationPadPro2 tool the Valdorian Age should be one of the options.
The ValdorianAgeTreasure.ipt file is setup to generate many more mundane items than a typical fantasy campaign treasure pile. My players like finding 'useful' things in the treasures they come across.
It is very important to realize the Valdorian Age is a campaign world where monsters and magic are extremely rare. How often items show up is based on this rarity and the costs reflect the rarity as well.
One area where there is a great deal of detail has to do with the bookbinder.ipt file. My players are very interested in books in the campaign world. Their characters will spend coin on books. So I have created a very complex book generator. It is highly customized to the campaign world (people, locations, etc).
To adapt this material for another campaign the following files will have to be changed:
1. coins.ipt - This generated is highly skewed to generate copper and small amounts of silver coins. Finding gold coins has a 1 in a 1000th chance of occurring.
2. colleges.ipt - These are the magic colleges. The outcomes have been adjusted away from certain types of magic (Black Magic, Conjuration, Elemental, Necromancy, Shamanism, and Witchcraft) and towards other types (Alchemy, Song, Divine, Wizardry, Divination, etc).
3. historictimes.ipt - This is very specific for the Valdorian Age campaign world. Extensive changes need to made here for this file to work with other campaign worlds.
4. holidays.ipt - This is a simple file to change
5. oldgods.ipt - List of deities in the Valdorian Age and it will need to be changed for another campaign world.
6. people.ipt - This is another area that will require extensive changes for another campaign world.
7. places.ipt - This is another area that will require extensive changes for another campaign world.
There is at least one bug in the files. There are times when a "Novel" is generated but the 'place' that should be generated with the novel's title doesn't appear.
=============
You can find the zip file at "ValdorianAge.zip":http://www.jcdisciples.org/files/ValdorianAge.zip
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killervp
"A God...Rebuilt":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/a-god-rebuilt
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Just trying to help out.