Most Detailed PC/NPC Character creation system.

[kato13]

I was hoping to tap the brain trust here about any gaming systems that have very involved PC/NPC creation systems. I am trying to automate a process so something with as few choices as possible would be ideal.

In the past I have done similar things like a name generator.
http://games.juhlin.com/tools/names.html
Which spits out 100 names randomly generated by using US social security name data.

And a couple hundred earth like planets (for a potential Stargate game)
http://games.juhlin.com/planet/list/planets.html
(I stitched together the planet tables from the stargate RPG, a solar type table, the list of all resources listed in the CIA factbook and a planetary photo generator I found)


Similar to how I made planets, I want to make interesting random people using s series of randomized steps which are based on statistical data. Modern or Near future would be ideal but any source might be interesting.

For example one of the steps would be to check for mental illness using the data from this thread.
http://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.php?t=46

The charts would be a starting point as this has a 40% chance for mental illness (a rate I would probably limit to perhaps child soldiers, victims of human trafficking etc). The rate could be 1/20 of that for someone with very little hardship.

I am looking to string together a series of steps to make some interesting personal backgrounds. Things like aptitude, interests, hobbies, quirks, likelihood of higher education, numbers of languages spoken etc would all add flavor. If any games have charts with even more detailed data I would be very interested in seeing them.

I think I plan to use this for some type of fiction project, but it might just end up being a reason for research. When I made the planet generator I had a lot of fun researching the possibility of life sustaining planets for each star type, how to do the math for planetary distance, etc.

Let me know if you guys have any thoughts.

Thanks

Kato

[Raellus]

I doubt that this is what you're looking at doing, but it's kind of amusing. It generates a different NPC (or PC, I guess) every time.

http://whothefuckismydndcharacter.com/

[Silent Hunter UK]

It would be lovely to see an automated or semi-automated T2K character generator.

[pmulcahy11b]

For example one of the steps would be to check for mental illness using the data from this thread.
http://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.php?t=46

The charts would be a starting point as this has a 40% chance for mental illness (a rate I would probably limit to perhaps child soldiers, victims of human trafficking etc). The rate could be 1/20 of that for someone with very little hardship.


I can relate to that!! Without medication, I'm barely sane.

[Targan]

My Gunmaster:2000 conversion has a very complicated character generation system. Family background, childhood education, year-by-year tertiary education/career generation, individual progression for each skill in each of those years. Bolted onto the already fairly complicated Harnmaster character generation system. So darn crunchy you could crack your teeth on it.

[kato13]

I have seen that Harnmaster was pretty detailed (picked up the core rulebook at an auction a few years ago), but I have only seen references to Gunmaster.

Was Gunmaster an official published release?

Did it update things beyond combat like the Occupations tables for a more modern setting?

Currently both sites that seems to have links related to it are down.
http://www.Warflail.com and http://www.lythia.com/forum/

I would be interested in anything you would be willing to share.

[ArmySGT.]

These threads always remind me of Traveller.

Roll for your third term.. Oops your character died... start again.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I seem to recall that Cyberpunk 2020 had a moderately involved PC creation process. It followed a "lifepath" system and because the game was skill based (like T2k) rather than level based, PC generation had to give out skills like T2k but determined by special abilities & career as dictated by the PC's "Role".
The lifepath created a character background similar to T2k but if I remember, had aspects of childhood, number of siblings and so on.

[Draq]

Cyberspace by I.C.E. was like that too. So many idiosyncrasies... I always wanted to combine it and some version of traveller

[Targan]

I seem to recall that Cyberpunk 2020 had a moderately involved PC creation process. It followed a "lifepath" system and because the game was skill based (like T2k) rather than level based, PC generation had to give out skills like T2k but determined by special abilities & career as dictated by the PC's "Role".
The lifepath created a character background similar to T2k but if I remember, had aspects of childhood, number of siblings and so on.

I stole bits of the Lifepath system and added them to my character generation system.

[kato13]

I am still thinking about this and I had a bit of a revelation while watching Westworld.

I will try to avoid obvious spoilers, but the next few paragraphs and the page i link to might have a very minor one so avoid it if you don't want to know anything from the show I would avoid the concepts below.


******SPOILER

Within the series they say that a personality can be defined broadly by 120 character traits (119 as Coordination is duplicated so I added Fine Coordination to round out the numbers).

I still may cut down a bit as some seem to overlap. Like I can't see a huge difference between a few they listed like Grit/Perseverance/Determination

END SPOILER*******



So I created the page below to make random values for the traits using a pretty strong bell curve. Scores are rated by 1-100 with both extremes being very rare (1 in a million.)

http://games.juhlin.com/tools/traits.html (reload to get a new person)

This is a very basic generation at the moment and as I said I think the traits need to be tweaked.

Some potential tweaks.
Removal of duplicate concepts.
Scoring clearly defined counter traits as opposite values (Generosity/Selfishness) or simply removing one.
So traits should probably be related or contribute to each other.

If you guys can see other clear duplicates, if you find it in any way useful or have any other suggestions let me know.


Edit Oh Bulk apperception is considered to be the ability to absorb and process new information so would be close to intelligence.

Here are the other definitions the original list make felt might be necessary
Bellicosity -> inclination to fight
Brusqueness -> bluntness
Bulk apperception -> conscious ability to expand one's knowledge
Capriciousness -> how erratic and unpredictable
Facility -> aptitude
Fastidiousness -> neediness
Literalism -> how literal you take things
Lugubriousness -> melancholiness
Ribaldry -> vulgarness

[pmulcahy11b]

Fastidiousness -> neediness

I wouldn't call fastidiousness "neediness." More like "fussiness."