Star Wars RPG Character Gen Spreadsheet

[Mojomoe]

Heya all -

I've been quietly working on something for awhile that I wanted for my games, an editable, spreadsheet- (Excel) based D6 character generator. Something where I could select a few variables - level, profession, species - and kick out functional D6 stats, possibly with some sort of bio and personality info.

I know we've got the old, venerable .EXE for character gen currently, but it always struck me as relatively light on features, and uneditable to boot. I didn't want to post until I had something substantial - it turned out solving the math on skill distribution and force ability was a REAL challenge - but what I have now is real and useable.

Therefore, I wanted to put it to the community - a), would such a tool be useful to people out there, and b) are there any features people would like to see in a character generator? For example, one thing I'd love to see is auto conversion from D6 -> D20 -> SAGA -> FFG. That could be cool, to have your new character in all formats automatically!

I should note beforehand that the idea is to make a useful character *generator*, not builder. As in, if you wanted to make a new intro character, your best bet would be to select some ranges and generate a rookie, then tweak from there. My current plan is to add every known D6 species, but that can take some time.

To solve the problem of skill distribution in a meaningful (ie, not random) way was to give each character a Profession, as well as a Major Focus and Minor Focus. For example, Han Solo would be a Pilot with a Major Focus in ranged combat and a Minor Focus in either deceit, business, or gambling. It's a way of making well-rounded characters that have understandable skill sets.

So, what say you? Would this be useful , and what would you like to see?

[DougRed4]

It's a very cool idea, and I can see some people using it. I've got one player (who makes all his character sheets in Excel) who would probably appreciate it.

That's a lot of work, though. Personally, I enjoy making up D6 characters, as it's so quick and easy (for all but advanced Force users, anyway).
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[Mojomoe]

Well, let me pick your brain.

What's tough about making advanced Force users for you? Because I've got all the interlinking and interdependent Force skills included in the base version of the generator. Is there anything it might be able to do that would make it easier for you?

[DougRed4]

It's not so much that it's tough, just that there's so many Force powers that it takes quite awhile to go through them all and pick (for somebody who can pick and choose what they want). I built an experienced Sith Lord/Inquisitor and he ended up having pages and pages of all of the stuff he could pull off.
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[cheshire]

I'm sorry I haven't had much time to comment thus far. I'm really interested in how this project progresses. Hopefully I can add my comments later, but I think it's awesome that you're willing to invest the time in doing this, and I can't wait to see the result.
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Before we take any of this too seriously, just remember that in the middle episode a little rubber puppet moves a spaceship with his mind.

[Mojomoe]

Absolutely! I'd be glad to hear your thoughts as work on this progresses.

Two of the things that I'll need feedback on are skill correlations and character levels.

With skill correlations, since D6 isn't cleanly divided into Classes or Careers as with D20 and FFG, it can be difficult to say exactly what skills go with which focus. For example, you have a Space Transport pilot - do you automatically expect him to be good at bargaining? What about ranged combat? There are certain correlations that I've tried to make - Assassins, for example, get an automatic bump to ranged weapons and thrown weapons, people who are deceitful often have matching skills in pickpocket and gambling. These will always be rough approximations, but through testing and feedback I can get them turning out results that are more or less expected.

Currently I have a simple 0-100% probability of a character having each skill - rare skills might be 0-5%, more common skills (like Blaster) might be 25%, Dodge might be 60%. That percentage is then influenced by their Career, Major Focus, Minor Focus, and Level. Higher level characters are more likely to have more skills, and so forth. Professions can also influence each other - if someone has a Piloting AND a Deceit focus, they are increasingly more likely to be proficient at Blaster skills than having either one alone.

The second one is character levels - again, lacking any kind of true "leveling" system, I can only represent character levels with total # of dice sunk into skills. This is, of course, a completely varied result, and it has been pointed out more than once that D6 NPC character stats are sometimes WAY off the power charts. Currently, however, I've got the "levels" divided into what I felt were meaningful divisions that someone might be looking for when they rolled a random NPC - Amateur, Professional, Elite, and Hero. The actual D values I have stubbed in, however, will need testing. Does it turn out a Hero or Professional character that people feel is accurate? Or are they over/underpowered?

These are the interesting parts to be working on, and it would help to know what people might be using the generator for so I can find ways to create expected results.

[griff]

May be having an NPC professional have a preset number of skills at a preset D value. Say like one skill at 6D and two at 5D for their three highest % skill (Communication Specialiast - communications 6D comm: encryption: 5D, comm gear repair 5D.) The higher the attribute the more number of skills in that attribute?
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"EXECUTE ORDER 67. Wait a minute, that doesn't sound like order 67..... No, wait. Yes, yes it does. EXECUTE ORDER 68" Palpatine's last moments - robot chicken.

[Mojomoe]

That's an interesting idea... Doling out preset skill "blocks" according to discipline? And then modified by level.

What, though, if you wanted a character that had a wider distribution of skills at any given level? Someone who was a jack-of-all-trades, rather than tightly focused? It seems that the wider distribution of skills - still within disciplines - is a fairly good representation of what D6 can do, I mean as opposed to other more tightly class-based systems.

If I'm understanding, you're suggesting this in lieu of a Skill D total for a given level. Instead of evenly distributing a set number of level-based D over any number of skills, you'd instead expect to see a variable number of D, but with tight limits on how many D each character gets in their "block" profession skills?

[cheshire]

Have you seen the NPC generator that Gullomen did all those years ago? I think I've got a copy floating around on my 4shared, but I can double check.

It had a several options where you could pick a hired gun, a pilot, a dark Jedi, etc, and then you could select whether they were novice level, experienced, verteran, or advanced. Even though those ideas are relatively loose, it gave you an idea of the progression, and you could generate a few to see what the skill levels were like.

It might be a place to glean a few ideas.
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Before we take any of this too seriously, just remember that in the middle episode a little rubber puppet moves a spaceship with his mind.

[cheshire]

Here's the Gullomen generator:

http://www.4shared.com/file/puRivvJu/NPC_Generator.html?

I have a few others located here:

http://www.4shared.com/dir/9688168/f35baae0/sharing.html#dir=lT2wwISL

They might be good for inspiration.

Again, I'm sorry I don't have the time to comment more fully, but I hope to get back to more active posting in the near future. Things are kinda crazy right now.
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Before we take any of this too seriously, just remember that in the middle episode a little rubber puppet moves a spaceship with his mind.

[Mojomoe]

No worries!

The force ghost of real life claims us all from time to time. Love to hear your perspective when you free up! Thanks for posting these btw

At the very least, I'm currently at work and can't check the dl link you have - is it the standalone .EXE that allows you to pick various careers/char levels, about 15 species, etc? The one that lets you pick "mostly humans" as an option? If it's the one I'm thinking of it was my primary inspiration.

If I remember correctly, one of the problems with that one is that it doesn't split by Attribute - it instead groups all skills into one clump. That and it seemed like a great base start, but wasn't necessarily expandable, at least to me.

Were other people satisfied with this generator, or were there things they wished it could have done but didn't? Those would be great data points to get for my generator!