Over at the rpg_generators subreddit I'm writing 30 days of Visual Gens (link to list of posts). [in Nov 2022]
And here they are gathered in an article. [Updated with all of the days]
Day 1 - Heraldry and Shield Designs
For November I'm posting daily with visual generators for your RPGs. Aiming for no text in end visual. Maps were covered in 31 Days of Map Gens. And lots of gens in 31 Days of RPG Gens. Leave a comment with your favourite visual generators.
- Draw Shield has a Create a Random Shield page with lots of customisation options to choose from.
- Iron Arachne has a Heraldry Generator which creates a pretty traditional looking shield with a few filters for the resulting coat of arms .
- Azgaar has Armoria which creates several shields at once. Under "Options" are all sorts of ways to modify the choice. (including a cool lot of banners)
- Worldspinner has a Heraldry Artist with an option to "Respin" for a random one
- Roll for Fantasy also has a Coat of Arms creator, although not with any random elements.
Day 2 - Story Dice, Story Constructor and Random Icons
Rory's Story Dice are fairly well known for giving pictures on dice to give ideas. Onto some online versions...
The RPG Story Constructor has images with text prompts. and the ability to lock some dices / images. And ability to specify fantasy / sci-fi / modern and horror.
ESL Story Dice Online is a simple gen which rolls more mundane images (5 at a time, with option of 9).
I've also built fairly limited ones using game icons for Fantasy (at Chartopia), Cyberpunk (bright colours) and Seas / Pirates (also bright colours). It's a project I've been planning on returning to for a while!
Day 3 - The Myriad Visual Tools of Watabou
The non-map Visual tools of watabou could have taken up several days. But here they are in one post.
- A Sigil Generator with option to create many at once. And the more basic Rune Generator.
- Proc Gen Tarot (which does have text labels)
- A Constellation of stars generator
- Autumn Wreaths of leaves and flowers followed in season by the Winter Tree generator
- Stick Figures generator
- Compass Rose Generator (with option of removing the directional labels)
- ProcGen Locomotives which is good to know as my players have created a Train Cult for Blades in the Dark.
- Proc Gen Mansion which does have a map version but it's the visual 3-d model that's important here. Put an Island Garden nearby.
- And an Antlers generator from a skull
Day 4 - Fantasy Character Portraits with DM Heroes
The character generator at DM Heroes is mostly about the Portrait. The portrait (and filters) can be edited with many options (not just from the dnd races)
I've never found a tool that can get equal this one for random character portraits. Without going into AI-gen which will get covered later this month.
Day 5 - Sigils and Teleportation Circles
Today are two generators which take text inputs to help create...
- A Sigll over at Sigil Engine.
- A Teleportation Circle over at 5e Magic Shop. Mine was called 'M 25'
Other sigil and magic circle / teleportation circle suggestions welcome.
Day 6 - Artbreeder
When speaking of Visual generators Artbreeder has to be mentioned at least once.
You can create landscapes, characters, portraits, sci-fi, buildings and "general" among others. Upload images and create parents and customise the generation parameters as you want for your games.
Day 7 - HB Token Builder
HB Token Builder is a character / VTT token with a variety of attire and equipment, with a random option, in fantasy and sci-fi.
Day 8 - This X Does Not Exist
This X Does Not Exist is a list of gens for People, Memes, Vessels, Snacks and other items that have been created by GANs (generative adversarial networks).
Some of them are quite specific but I could see some useful for a Cyberpunk or Modern game.
Day 9 - Generator Mix Random Images
Today's generator GeneratorMix doesn't create an image, it simply returns a random ones on various topics.
My favourite is the Random Insect Generator. And the Random Plant Generator also looks useful.
It has large sections of Random Food and Drink Generators and Human, Animal & Nature.
There is a list of others in the Other Generators section, including Items, Cars, Pokemon, Drawings.
Day 10 - Artflow.ai for Portraits and Landscapes
Another popular AI generation site is Artflow, which can create portraits and landscapes from prompts. (my requested "gnome with massive ears" actually had them)
Day 11 - Flag Generators
Flags are a textless visual tool everyone is familiar with. For RPGs they can belong to factions, nations, ships, cities and maybe adventuring parties!
We have...
- Scrontch's Flag Designer comes with a slew of options & colours for Division, Overlay and Symbol with a random button below the flag.
- flag gen is a Twitter Bot with many variations made by u/nthness with lots of research on heraldry design.
- Random Flag Generator at Sci-Fi Ideas with a variety of icons and colours.
- Last Generator Mix (from day 9) returns a number of Random Flags from real world countries (lots of adverts)
Day 12 - Random Image Generator
Over at Cool Generator is a non-rpg-specific Random Image Generator (ad-heavy) with filters for Category (such as animals, feelings, places), Image Type, Colors and keyword (text field). Apparently it has 1.9 million images to generate from for inspiration.
Day 13 - Random Character Miniature Generator
There is a Miniature Generator over at Anvl which has a "Generate a random character" button, which will build up all the elements of the miniature in layers.
It looks like everything can be customised from there. And they can be mounted on a horse, giant rooster, bear, throne or wheelchair.
Day 14 - Tarot Card Generators
Roll for Fantasy has a Tarot Cards tool with options for a single card or shuffle the deck. Below are 15 different spreads for alternative ways to use the cards.
The Tarot Card Generator has more traditional images with their meanings. It includes reversed cards and other spreads from the menu.
I was hoping to find a fantasy "tarot-like" generator with made-up card names and images, but still searching!
Day 15 - Visual Dice Rollers
As gamers dice rolling comes naturally so here are some visual ones.
- Dice Tray at DM Tools will throw the selected dice across your screen
- Teal 3D will throw them too and also total them up (which you may or may not want)
I'm sure there are others out there (this is a gaming subreddit) with more options so leave a comment if you've got a favourite.
Day 16 - Nightcafe AI Art Generator
Nightcafe AI Art Generator allows you to create many kinds of images in many styles using a text prompt, and gives a few credits to try it out for free.
And there are different algorithms to choose from too.
Day 17 - Random Spaceship Model Generator
I had a long look for random spaceship model generator and could only find Shipwright, which is nice but has no filters. (but you can download a 3d model of it)
There was also some blender scripts, so if anyone has used any of these or has another spaceship model generator leave a comment.
Day 18 - Random Symbols Generator
Today's is a random Symbol Generator at eggradients. It produces a small random symbol. There is also a random color generator.
I was hoping to find a better symbol / icon generator (ran out of time) so any suggestions welcome
Day 19 - Free AI Art Generator at Neural.Love
The Free AI Art Generator at neural.love has a few styles including Fantasy, Cyberpunk, Steampunk and Creepy and a text prompt. It has 5 credits for free (there might be ways to get more)
It generated some badger-themed adventurers for me without any problems.
Day 20 - Random Animated Sprite Generator
I'm note sure how useful it is, but the Random Sprite Generator produces cool pixel art animations.
There are lots of ways to customise the generation (10 buttons under the Generate button) and a github project if you want to make your own version.
Day 21 - Visual Generators of Deep-Fold
Deep-Fold is a creator on Itch whose 2d Spaceship Generator was mentioned in a comment.
But among their other generators is a pixel planet gen, a starscape generator a random monster gen (image and desc from 2000 ai-generated entries) and a space-background generator. Most of them have solid customisation options.
Day 22 - Shrike Glimpses - Skyship Journey Tapestry of AI-Art
The Shrike Glimpses over at itch by sadpress picks 9 images of skyship journeys with a dreamlike space-fantasy vibe.
It's an example of how a tool can be created using AI-generated art around a particular theme.
Day 23 - Alchemy Circles Generator
This time is a quick one with Alchemy Circle Generator by CiaccoDavide. It has a github project for those wanting to fork their own version.
Day 24 - Random Monster Appearance Tools
Today is some tools for picturing monsters.
- Random Monster Generator creates cutesy creatures and you can specify a seed. By Fadrik Alexander on itch and has a github page
- The Book of Monsters from Deep-Fold has a collection of 2000 monster images (with descriptions)
- BestRandoms has a Random Monster Generator taking them from 100 TV / movie monsters (so there's more lore about them if you want to dig in)
- Lastly Generator Mix has images of random Prehistoric Animals.
Day 25 - What are Your Favourite Visual RPG Tools and Uses?
We've had 24 days so far of Visual Tools, (not including maps!),
So what are your favourite visual tools to use with RPGs?
How do you or your group use them?
Leave a comment below! (original post with comments here)
Day 26 - Zero Dice for Images, Cards and Runes
angent Zero has the Zero Dice generator which combines several options offering icon images (including modern option), Playing Cards, Runes and some dice (including Fudge dice). Option of keeping results that have been rolled.
They also have a number of other generators.
Day 27 - Subreddits for Visual Generators and Ideas
So other subreddits related to visual gens include...
- r/proceduralgeneration - lots of the tools there are visual, although many aren't practical for use in RPGs
- r/aiArt - Examples of AI art, new developments and ways to use it. r/StableDiffusion is another for AI Art.
- r/storycubes has posts about various story cubes and using them
- r/dndai AI has generated images for dnd games.
Edit - Added suggestions from u/dungeonHack and u/Raistli378
Day 28 - The Visual Builders of Meiker
So meiker has many visual builders (dress up games, doll makers and character creators) for rpg characters, all with a Random button available.
Some distinctive ones I found include Fantasy RPG Character Maker, Cyber Character, Rooted Magic and Droid Maker, plus many for elves, vampires, princesses and furries.
There are also some other takes such as a Pumpkin Maker and Dream Horse Maker (including a bat-winged unicorn)
And of course you can make your own versions.
Day 29 - Encounter Builder: City Scenes from Inkwell Ideas
A simple gen from Inkwell Ideas with random city images from a selection of 100.
Day 30 - A Few More Visual Gens
Less remaining tools this time than normal after one of these runs.
- Heroforge has a custom miniature builder (but no random option I could find)
- Friends is a cute 2d pixel monster creator on itch by SnoopethDuckDuck
- Midjourney is one of the most mentioned AI art platforms (but had no free version I could see)
Also thinking about it I didn't go into fonts or find much in the way of pdfs either.
Future Months of Gens
I'll be doing more of these in the future. In the past we had 31 Days of Map Gens.
Next one will be Solo.
Other strong contenders include Space, Sea, Dungeons, Cyberpunk, Fantasy Cities and Generator Sites.
