Hey All,

I've recently been getting really into the Sine Nomine content generation tools for SWN and Godbound. A few others I've found extremely useful are Paul Gallagher's Augmented Reality (system-agnostic cyberpunk generators) and of course Vornheim courtesy of Zak S.

Are there more tools like these out there that I'm blithely unaware of?

Hot Springs Island is damned fantastic and I fully intend to incorporate that into one of my campaigns (or run it as its own standalone scenario), but I'm more curious about agnostic or mostly-agnostic generation or list content I can pull to generate things for my own settings and adventures (the magic item generators and stuff in the back of HSI definitely count though).

The endless number of "List of 100 [Names, Taverns, Adventure seeds, blah blah] for [Genre] games" products are fine enough I guess, but I'm primarily searching for the real stand-out diamonds in the rough. Masks (list of 1k NPC's) is pretty fantastic, though.

Otherwise, please feel free to post anything at all which you find useful, for riffing off of or developing content for your own games, or anything else (unless you're one of those brilliant masterminds who has never needed such tools or you develop the entirety of your own, in which case I'm poor company!:p); I'm also looking for the sorts of gems that I don't even realize I want yet, so go wild.

The Dungeon Dozen. An unsung hero.

http://www.rpgnow.com/m/product/129931

Quote from: Nerzenjäger;1049383The Dungeon Dozen. An unsung hero.

http://www.rpgnow.com/m/product/129931

Didn't even need to finish reading the description, instant purchase. Cheers!

I really dislike random generators because they tend to generate garbage (see most Judges Guild products as an example). But Central Casting Dungeons is pretty useful for ideas

Quote from: JeremyR;1049387I really dislike random generators because they tend to generate garbage (see most Judges Guild products as an example). But Central Casting Dungeons is pretty useful for ideas

I'm not familiar with the product line you specified, but I don't think that's an unreasonable perspective. I tend to use generators less to produce game content that will directly appear ingame; more often, I just enjoy using them as a source of inspiration and ideas to build off of or twist, particularly when I find myself accidentally over-focusing on a few concepts or ideas/character types/whatever to the detriment of others.

I guess you could describe them as kind of a "creative crutch"; I don't always use them, but they're valuable to me when I come up dry on my own.

P.S. Central Casting Dungeons looks pretty interesting, and it's turned me on to some of the other Central Casting titles. Looking pretty difficult/expensive to acquire right now, unfortunately, but thanks for mentioning it.

Quote from: Antiquation!;1049457I'm not familiar with the product line you specified, but I don't think that's an unreasonable perspective. I tend to use generators less to produce game content that will directly appear ingame; more often, I just enjoy using them as a source of inspiration and ideas to build off of or twist, particularly when I find myself accidentally over-focusing on a few concepts or ideas/character types/whatever to the detriment of others.

Yeah, this. I used to hate random generators, but now I realize that I was probably re-creating the same 5 or 6 adventure scenarios over and over. We all get stale, we all need new inspiration. It's nice to have a random generator say "now try this!" because you never know what might come out of it.

The SWN and Godbound random generators are great. So are the adventure generators in Thousand Suns, a sci-fi heartbreaker that has a few neat ideas in it.

Quote from: Heavy Josh;1049458Yeah, this. I used to hate random generators, but now I realize that I was probably re-creating the same 5 or 6 adventure scenarios over and over. We all get stale, we all need new inspiration. It's nice to have a random generator say "now try this!" because you never know what might come out of it.

Exactly. Thanks for the Thousand Suns pointer, I'll take a look.

I never used GURPS Space 3e for GURPS but I used it a lot for building worlds and solar systems.

Quote from: Krimson;1049492I never used GURPS Space 3e for GURPS but I used it a lot for building worlds and solar systems.

GURPS Space is a gem for sure, the 4th edition one included. Having played GURPS for going on 20 years now I do sometimes lament not squeezing more potential from some of its best supplements/genre books, but I can only run so many campaigns at once you know?

But hey, I've still got time and ambition.

For fantasy I recommend three books from Goodman Games: the Dungeon Alphabet; GM Gems; the Monster Alphabet.

Like many have noted I use them more for inspiration. There are some charts for randomly generating large content but mostly they are designed to describe a specific aspect of a room or maybe a create a whole dragon.

I carry these to games along with the core books, that useful to me. Worth the weight.

Quote from: MonsterSlayer;1049547For fantasy I recommend three books from Goodman Games: the Dungeon Alphabet; GM Gems; the Monster Alphabet.

Like many have noted I use them more for inspiration. There are some charts for randomly generating large content but mostly they are designed to describe a specific aspect of a room or maybe a create a whole dragon.

I carry these to games along with the core books, that useful to me. Worth the weight.

These look excellent, and on sale no less. Thanks!

As much as people might praise Vornheim, I only found like, a couple of tables from there actually useful.

Pulp Egypt
Heroes of Rura-Tonga
Krevborna: A Gothic Blood Opera

Quote from: 3rik;1049962Pulp Egypt
Heroes of Rura-Tonga
Krevborna: A Gothic Blood Opera

Very nice!  I haven't had a chance to check out Krevborna, but I've found that author's Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque trilogy to be a great resource for Gothic and gaslamp-fantasy adventure.  It's ostensibly for OSR D&D, but most of the tables can be used with any system.

Haven't read more than a little part, but Castle Oldskull stuff is impressive by its size.

Krevborna is awesome (I played in the campaign).