Thread seemed to vanish in the update, so I'll re-enter it. -- I am an old BASIC programming from the days of C64 and Amiga, and I wanted to try to learn how to make an Android application, so I recently started a project to help me learn to make an application The basic idea is to make something that helps a GM or player in character generation using an Android tablet or phone, by automating random table rolls, while using a seed number either input by the user in the keyboard or by scanning a barcode. So I started by picking a very simple character generator, the random mutant generator from The Mutant File by Sean Fannon. Right now it's a simple application that you input a seed number, and it uses that number to generate a much longer string of numbers which generates the character. I want to eventually work in a barcode scanner, allowing people to generate characters from picking up household items (magazines, bags of chips, toy boxes), simply scan them and a character pops out. I hope to use this application for either the GM making background characters, or one off games, where everyone walks in with a candy, magazine, anything with a barcode, and gets the character based on the seed number it generates. Here is a screen shot of the earliest version. I just typed in 1234567890 as the seed and got this: Eventually I want to support multiple books. You simply change books by scanning the new book's bade code (for instance, you scan the book Mutants in Orbit from Palladium Books, and the application switches to generating a random orbit mutant). Suggestions? Comments?
Here is a look at test of the Mutant in Orbit character generator that's being developed. It includes built in notes for playing the character in Champions RPG, or you can play in the native TMNT, After The Bomb or Rifts RPG rules. You can change between The Mutant File and Mutants in Orbit by either choosing book 1 or 2 in the initial prompt or by scanning the bar code of the book in question.
I continue to expand the number of attributes that are defined by the seed number, including stats presented in Palladium and Hero RPG terms. It actually generates them in Palladium, and then uses a formula converting 3-18 to 1-20 to make the Hero stats. I also added support for non-number seeds. You can now enter letters, words and even sentences, which are converted to ASCII values then used as seeds for character generation. For instance here is a Mutants in Orbit character generated using the seed word "Optimus Prime".
Today I got the barcode scanner working. I took my app and scanned the barcode from the back of the Palladium Books RPG called "Mutants in Orbit", which switch it to Mutant in Orbit mode, then I scanned the barcode off a pack of Austin cheese crackers in my lunch, and it spit out a player character for that game based on the seed number read from the barcode.
Okay, added a dice roller option to the menu, because you always need dice rollers... If you pick this option right now it prompts you how many dice and how many sided, then it rolls them individually and adds them up.
Just started adding support for Rifts Phase World random alien race Generation tables. Also the random dice roller works. I need to make the display a bit snazzier. Maybe add a graphical output?
I added a random loot generator for three different Gamma World Modules. You pick Gamma World, then pick which module and how many loot items, and it give you a list. The loot files are placed on the android device as a .txt file, with one item per line.
This seems pretty cool. The system I played the most was Rolemaster FRP (the last edition). I could only imagine what you'd have to build for it considering a character sheet was about 4-5 pages.
You are correct, those pages are MASSIVE. I could take some of the Rolemaster critical damage tables and make electronic version of them though, that might be useful for a player. Just tap the menu for a Critical damage and it pops up and rolls for you. That might be handy. In that game it take 3-4 pages of text and tables just to hit someone with a sword.
Okay, I just noticed that sometimes when I was generating a random super ability or psionic power for Rifts it would have duplication. Took a little imagination, but I decided to add a check string into the generator, so if, for example, the list generated the psionic power of "P.P.E. Shield" twice (which happened), it noticed this and tried for another result. I'll have to keep this code so I can avoid duplicate results on tables in the future. I figure the loot tables can have duplication, that's fine, but some tables do not allow you to have duplicates, like the powers and mutant appearance tables. In this gaming system you only get powers ONCE. They don't stack.
I started working on character generation for the revised After the Bomb RPG. This is the post apocalypse RPG by Palladium Books featuring a ton of mutant animals. My first example character is a mutant parakeet. The program currently generates the basic stats, background, some bonuses for species and background, and start money.
It's fun learning how to add new features to the app. Just figured out to open internet files, so I can simply have an index of characters in the app, and call them up from my web site.
I started a new subroutine of my character generating app yesterday. I made a Rock Lord character generator for the Champions RPG. I plan to combine this with a Rock Lord racial package to result in some quick premade characters. I decided to let work from data from a variety of rock-characters from 1980's cartoons. I included the Rock Lords, Stonedar and Rockon from MOTU, the Rock People from Revenge of Cronos, Crystar, and the various rock themed characters from Inhumanoids. It picks attributes of the characters from those series into character, including pieces of names, powers, colors, which minerals they are made from. Each character also gets one special power. I tried to come up with things from the various series, with a rock theme. I am also working on assigning different attribute bonuses to characters based on what type of rock they are made of, and what the second colors in their body is. Here are three example characters generated from seed numbers...
This is a pretty interesting project. Do you do your development right on your android device, or do the actual coding on a PC, then port files over? I'm intrigued by your process as well as the product, lol
Thanks. I just type the code in wordpad on a laptop with my cell phone connected by a USB cable where I run it. The cell phone has an app that compiles it. The app is called RFO BASIC. You could type on the phone, but I like a big keyboard. Maybe once I get a big tablet with a keyboard might do it all there. I am just learning graphics commands.
Cool, thanks! I love the idea. My wife and I do lots of PathFinder homebrew stuff, so something like that would be a cool tool. I may look into it in all of my "free time"
Had a chance to work on this again. Finished the giant list of mammals for After the Bomb character generation. So now it generates any number of odd mammals.
