When I am building different generators and pages of generators, I think about how the DM might use it, and what they could accomplish if they were using it
Latest generators interview is with the creator of D&D Flavor Generators
Q&A with Creator of D&D Flavor Generators
How did you get into creating random generators?
I was introduced to D&D through my wife and I absolutely love it! We are both teachers and as part of our quarantine summer break I wanted to learn computer programming and pass the certification test so that I could eventually teach computer science in school! This is our setting.
Due to the quarantine forced break in our D&D campaign I became interested in DM’ing a duo’s game with my wife. I found reddit communities that provided many amazing ideas and as a person who enjoys resource management games I immediately tried to figure out how I was going to organize (hoard) it so that I make it easy and available for use as a DM!
Long story short, I wanted to learn computer science and programming and D&D was a new and interesting endeavor to integrate into my computer science learning, and there was a felt need with all of the resources I found and a desire to make it easy to use for myself and others!
What generators are you most proud of creating and why?
I am most proud of the character generator because it was the first thing I built, and it has gone through many iterations to what it is now. There is so much flavor in this generator, and each piece can be refreshed which feels to me so extremely useful when planning random flavorful NPC’s in a game whether before the session or during!
My close second would be the art generator. I was inspired by another Redditor’s d100 list of art pieces and I put a lot of work into my version of it… and trying to imagine the culture and circumstances surrounding an art piece is very fun for me!
What is the most fun thing about creating generators?
I think my favorite part is imagining the possibilities, and the feedback given by the people who see/use it.
When I am building different generators and pages of generators, I think about how the DM might use it, and what they could accomplish if they were using it. I also try to think about as many pieces as possible so that it makes things easier…
Helping people is fun to me!
What are the most biggest challenges of creating generators?
To me it is making the language do what I want it to do, but because I am new this is more of a learning opportunity…
I have had a lot of learning opportunities through making this site, especially with trying to add the choose your race function to the character generator. There are still a few of my tables that don’t behave how I expect or want them to, but I’ve a long way to go before perfect!
How do you use random generators yourself?
Unfortunately, I have not been able to use the generators the way I’ve imagined their use (for campaign planning).
I got a little carried away with my first round of planning my campaign that my wife got a little overwhelmed… Also we as teachers have been dealing with teaching during the pandemic.
One day though I will be using it to build my important characters, build stories, plan hooks, loot and more!
Most of the time I spend working through the random tavern name generator because some are hilarious. My wife and I worked together on it to generate a few templates and to make it have very logical results, however something like “The Wizard's Giant Purple Worm Tavern” makes us laugh like we are in middle school.
What is the most interesting generator or tool you've seen?
I was looking on dndspeak.com at their lists and I saw they had a potion and ailment generator I played around with it and each time it was used it created an instance on the page and didn’t delete the previous ones until you refreshed!
I would like to learn this process to make smaller, less detailed versions of the character and other generators so DM’s can quickly generate 4 or 5 characters with flavor and backstories for a group of captured bandits or something unexpected!
What are your next big projects (generators or otherwise) that you can talk about?
Well, as far as projects for right now I am on pause. Once the school year settles down and I have some time and desire to work I will continue with crediting the different creators that supplied the vast majority of the content in my generators.
While doing that I will continue my web development learning to make the site more user friendly and efficient and continue looking for more cool things to add, replace, or change!
Future projects will probably be related to storytelling, planning, or the logistics of DM’ing somehow.
Where can people find you on social media? Is there anything else you would like to talk about?
I am most active on reddit r/seriousd6, recently more active on discord as serious6#7135.
I hope that if you enjoy using this tool you will let me know, and if you have any ideas for things to add or change you will share!
Thank you for taking the time to read about me and something I made – I hope it helps you!
More Interviews
You can find more more Creator Interviews on Rand Roll.
I have a discord for discussing random tools and tables and I'm also on instagram as rpg_generators with random tables and gens.
