The lesson I’ve learned there is just go with the silly thing that pops in your head. Kill your darlings. Stop thinking it has to have the perfect crunch or tone.
Generators Creator interview with creator of everweird.app
Q&A with Everweird
How did you get into creating random generators?
I started outside of D&D. I have been building a little roll-and-write game called Maps & Legends for a few years.
The idea is a pocket-sized solo adventure. You roll dice, encounter something, draw it on a map. So for a few years, I’ve been making random tables for that game.
When I got hardcore into D&D 5e, random tables just made sense to me. I love the chaos they can throw into a game.
What generators are you most proud of creating and why?
I’ve made lots of small ones for my games but everweird.app is the generator I’m most proud of.
It’s a web app that supplies a random detail (a name, treasure item, critical result, wild magic, Deck of Many Things card) with just a click.
What is the most fun thing about creating generators?
I love creating benign details that can blossom into total chaos. Seeing those details snowball together into something wild is so fun to play off.
I have one close friend who supplies tons of the entries on the everweird.app and it’s fun to see how her suggestions play off mine and where they lead us because it’s never somewhere I could have predicted.
What are the most painful lessons you've learnt from creating generators?
It can really make you feel boxed in when you just need that last idea to fill out a simple d8 table. The table or generator itself is meant to help you embrace the unknown but creating one can feel the opposite. Like, “I have to have 8 ideas here.”
The lesson I’ve learned there is just go with the silly thing that pops in your head. Kill your darlings. Stop thinking it has to have the perfect crunch or tone.
There’s nothing to break the seriousness of a game (in a good way) than when you roll “Bruce” on a random name table. Not every NPC is Aegon the Unworthy. Many are Bruce.
How do you use random generators yourself?
I use them in two ways:
1) when I’m prepping a session and don’t want to think of a detail. I’ve written fiction all my life and it’s easy for me to think of plots and characters. When you’re writing a long work you can always come back to add or fix names or details. But D&D has a deadline, your game day. So rather than sweat the details, I have a ton of books, PDFs, and online tables to fill them in.
2) in game. The players in my main game can really sense when I don’t have a detail written down and they’ll needle me: “What was the cobbler’s name?” So, I have to have a resource at the table whenever they try to catch me out.
That second use case is really what inspired everweird.app. Often, I don’t want to stop the drama of the game to roll on a table. So I have the app open on my phone or iPad and just click the category I need.
What is the most interesting generator or tool you've seen?
Oh wow. As you probably guessed, the more chaotic, the better for me. Though I haven’t played it yet, the madness of the Troika RPG tables are really inspiring. That randomness is also designed into the game which is appealing.
I love all the tables in Blades in the Dark (another RPG) because they really help run a prep-less game.
I follow the /r/d100 subreddit, of course, for all their suggestions.
But here’s my big endorsement: I love love love the books of Madeline Hale which are all random tables. Her stuff is so playful but still crunchy. It fits in the game I play with my niece and her friends and in the fairly serious game I play with a bunch of middle-aged nerds. Look her up on Amazon.
What are your next big projects (generators or otherwise) that you can talk about?
My big project with everweird.app is to get it to a level where it can help any DM run an almost prep-less game.
Right now, there is a “Build a Town” button which will throw TONS of random details together into a fully-baked town. I’m working on the random quest board for that tool.
What I envision is that soon a DM can click the button and tell their party, “you arrive in a town...” and literally every detail they need to kick off a game is there.
D&D is intimidating to start playing for a lot of reasons. I want to help DMs (whether they’re new or seasoned) feel like they have the tools to fill in the blanks so they can focus on the elements that are most engaging to them.
Where can people find you on social media?
I’m on Instagram @everweird.games and on reddit as /u/everweird. In addition to the app, I have the website everweird.games where I publish more game ideas, hacks, and tools. That’s where you’ll find Maps & Legends.
Is there anything else you would like to talk about?
YES. You mentioned that everweird.app was one of the few generators you’d seen with a “make a suggestion” link.
I would LOVE suggestions and I give links back to the projects of people who supply suggestions.
I spend so much time programming everweird.app that it’s often difficult to sit down and just write the random details.
Plus, the more varied the suggestions, the richer the whole app gets. I just build the tool. I am not and don’t want to be the voice of everweird.app.
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.
