Computerized Character Generators AKA Chargen…

… have saved me from an old age spent building characters with pen and pencil and calculator. I’ve never been one for min/max’ing a character design to ensure I get absolutely the most possible “stuff” for my points. Some systems are more forgiving than others with combinations and permutations galore which, one one hand, makes them perfect springboards for out of the ordinary designs. On the other hand, it’s easy to get lost in the minutia.

I am exceedingly grateful for those folks that take the time and effort to program a character generator for any system, much less build one for a system like Pathfinder or Shadowrun where there are just short of a gazillion available options from innumerable possible sourcebooks with unlimited potential.

I claim writer’s privilege for the hyperbole, but the idea is still sound.

Sourceforge is a nice resource for anyone with a complete lack of programming ability to take advantage of their more talented brethren. With a little searching, automated character sheets can be found that range from a “simple” digital version that can be modified without buying twenty-five erasers, to those that calculate derived statistics or qualities from the data you put into them. And don’t require twenty-five erasers…

Heroes from Another World

Another great thing about character generators is that you can quickly build characters that can be used for utterly different purposes than intended. For myself, everything goes back to the stories that are trying to find a way from my brain onto paper (yes, I use paper; more on that in a later post).

Need a psychic for a superhero campaign? Try building a character using the Mage ruleset. Need a semi-mystical martial artist for a street-level campaign? Try designing an adept in one of the versions of Shadowrun. Need a nearly invincible armored biowarrior for a cyberpunk setting? See what happens if you create one from a Warhammer 40K system.

They’re going to need translating and won’t fit perfectly, but that’s where the craft and imagination of writing can take over. It may provide a spark of creativity to create a character that’s a little off-the-wall and many times those are the most memorable characters: the ones that don’t quite fit.

For use within a specific framework of pen and paper gaming or computer RPGs, those details and calculations are critical to ensure fair treatment. Fiction, my fiction anyway, is rarely going to be based around fair treatment of the characters, however. Mixing and matching different systems brings fresh perspective and generates new ways of looking at the staid (or even stale) concepts. As a writer, this is a very precious resource for me.

DDW