Ghosts of Saltmarsh is out and I've tried doing a few things to support it. And then thinking how generators can support RPGs or adventures.
[Cover photo by Sam Beasley on Unsplash]
When Tools Supports a Niche
Often random generators do something specific, like create a name, city or maybe a character for a particular system.
But what I like is when several generators are used to support a particular game, theme or adventure. Morrus of EN World talked about did this when he built generators to support his own WOIN system.
The generators of Starfinder Tools are built with one system in mind and a few of the chart collections at Chartopia are focused around a particular adventure.
Saltmarsh Generators
When Ghosts of Saltmarsh was announced for as D&D adventures with a nautical theme I decided to support it in some way with random generators. It helps that pirates and seas is also a popular theme that is almost its own genre.
This started with a Generators Guide to Seas and Pirates which highlighted what tools you can use with Saltmarsh. Second was a first version of Pirates Story Icons which will hopefully give ideas for including the Saltmarsh adventures.
Last was more pragmatic as I created PDFs on DM's Guild for Saltmarsh Encounter Tables, the generic Sea Adventures. And also Saltmarsh Encounter Tables, which uses creatures from the Ghosts of Saltmarsh book as well as the Monster Manual. Giving an easy way to use the new monsters even if you never get to run the adventures.
More Generators Built Around a "Thing"
I would love to see more generators supporting particular adventure paths adventures or small games.
When Pathfinder 2 comes out I'm hoping to see several generators to support it. I'll be working on an encounters generator for it to start with. It would be great to grow some sort of ecosystem!
What would you like to see tools built around? Maybe something around the next D&D mega-adventure, the next Pathfinder Adventure Path, a Savage Worlds setting or a new and unknown RPG?
What tools out there already do this?
Let me know in the comments, over at reddit r/rpg_generators or on my kofi.