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[Muz]

Hey, I made this: https://random-character-generator.com/

The big difference between this and other character generators is that this goes backwards. Instead of trying to build a full world then background, then personality (like DF), this one builds characters and teams that look interesting and generates the world around them. I detailed why on the site itself.

It's still extremely raw, with the data set about 20% of what I originally planned.

Right now, I'm just planning to try all kinds of random things and see if it works and makes it better.

Let me know if you guys have any ideas you want to see.

Next phase: Plot hook/conflict generator

[IndigoFenix]

This is pretty neat. One suggestion: a party generator that splits up the roles of ensembles like the the Five Man Band and redistributes them among various party members in interesting ways.

[Muz]

Descriptions were more effort than I thought. Most of the tropes are bad stereotypes, e.g. stripperific, exposes midriff, dumb blonde, broody brunette. Things that are very common (e.g. likes denim, carries a handbag, wears funny t-shirts) are too far in the background to be tagged as tropes.

Also there's like 5 different shades of blonde, and the one we're familiar with is the rarest type. Of course this depends a lot on location. In some parts of Europe, 90% of the population is blonde. But globally, it's probably less than 20%. Same for dark skin and curly hair, and so on.

Description will probably need more user input. People probably have some setting the based off, whether it's West Europe, Africa, Midfle East, East Asia, and so on. Or if they were making a world with purple haired gnomes, that needs to be worked in too. So I'll put this on hold for now.

This is pretty neat. One suggestion: a party generator that splits up the roles of ensembles like the the Five Man Band and redistributes them among various party members in interesting ways.

Actually that's a good suggestion. The engine is already designed for that. One big flaw I noticed with the current version is that it's there's low reactivity. As in it creates characters too open ended to have plot hooks.

For example, a common plot situation is to have a mystery. If I roll someone as an asshole or a stoic badass, as far as mysteries go, they're as reactive as a potato.

The five man band has at least two people who can interact with mysteries. Or other dramatic situations, like adultery, or accidentally slaying a relative. It's one thing for a guy to be able to kill anyone; it's another thing dealing with the aftermath of it.

Actually, one thing I'm working on now is how they managed to lock themselves into their team dynamic. Is this person a loner? Why? Did they fight with a significant other and now refuse to work with others? Are they ostracized and bullied for being a nerd? Or maybe they're trapped in a deadly situation where rescuers have assumed they couldn't survive.

[Muz]

It's been over a year so brief bump and update. Work and COVID got in the way for a while, but I'm back to daily commits on this project.

I actually went ahead with the team dynamics generator, but stopped at teams of one, lol. It's nice but poor cost-effectiveness. Most of the work so far has been data entry and cleaning.

There was a substantial improvement to quality when I added better data displaying, e.g. generating nerd descriptions rather than saying "this is a nerd".

Next thing I'll try is generating plot hooks. There's stuff like "woobie" or "damsel in distress", but this needs more detail on what exactly the hook is.

p/s the website has crossed 500 users/month from search engines and is apparently top ranked on Bing/Yahoo/DDG. So i can feel less guilty about devblogging.