Thursday, February 21, 2013

Random Inqusitor Warband Generation

You may have noticed that an "Oldhammer" day is forthcoming at Wargames Foundry (31st August of 2013), and that one of the events at the same is a Realm of Chaos Warband bash, the rules of which are located here.  Based on the bonkers early Chaos rules as presented in Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness, players create a "hero" and then make their retinue to form a warband.

So what about random inquisitor warband generation?  To be sure, most options are constrained by available bitz and base figures, but leaving that aside, there is something to be said for random generation of characters.  Random generation often leads to different ideas than you might have if you were planning things out more rationally, giving a different set of strengths and weaknesses, and for role playing games, can create emergent role play just from stats alone.

Example Process for generating a random Inquisitor and Warband:

Roll for Starting Profile: 3d6






















3 to 4 Level 4 Psyker
5 to 6 Level 3 Psyker
7 to 8 Level 2 Psyker
9 Level 1 Psyker
10 to 11 Level 1 Blunt
12 to 13 Level 2 Blunt
14 to 15 Level 3 Blunt
16 to 18 Level 4 Blunt
[4 is better than 1, Level 1 rolls 5 times on the retinue chart, level 2 4 times, level 3 3 times, and level 4 twice, Psykers level 2 and higher roll one fewer times on retinue list]

Retinue List
3d6 Name #  Included Concepts
3 Alien, Other 1 Ork, Tau, jokaero, Necron, Human Null, Vespid, Hrud, Zoat, etc.
4 Alien, common 1 Craftworld Eldar, Kroot, Harlequin, Squat
5 Creature d2 wardog, grinx, servo skull, cyberhound, watcher in the dark, psyber eagle
6 Mutant d3 twist, scaly, Ogryn, Ratling
7 Investigator(s) d3 Enforcer, arbite, police officer, detective
8 Assassin(s) d2 Death cultists, blades for hire, bounty hunters
9 Adept(s) d3 Scribe, savant, researcher, dialogous
10 Guardsmen d4 Veteran, recruit, mine wiped, retired, skitarii
11 Acolyte(s) d2 Acolyte, interrogator, Explicator
12 Scum d6 Thug, muscle, gun slinger, servitors, body guards
13 Cleric(s) d3 Preacher, abbot, missionary, confessor, Commissar
14 Techpriest 1 Priest, enginseer, electro priest, magos
15 Psyker 1 navigator, astropath, battle psyker, witch, telekine, mystic, sage
16 Sister(s) of Battle d3 SoB, Crusaders, repentia
17 Space Marine 1 Deathwatch, seconded marines, Grey Knight
18 Daemon host 1 Bound, unbound, daemon weapon

Fluff rolls:
d6 Ordos: Malleus/Hereticus/Xenos/Other
d10 Philosophy: Thorian, Amalathian, Monodominant, Istvaanist, Recongregationist, Xanthist, Antiquarist, Casophilist, Horusian, Other
d6 Sex: M/F/Unknown
d8 Home World Type: Feral, Hive, Imperial, Void, Schola Progenium, Noble, Forge World, out of sector (names if you have them)
 
Thoughts?  Obviously the infamous d1000 personal attributes table is missing, but I am sure we can fudge something together...

Useful links:
Dice Roller:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/dice/dice.htm
Inqusitor stat roller:
http://www.geocities.ws/dagwklub/Inquisitor/random.html
Name Generator:
http://www.malleus.dk/Ordo/NameGenerator.aspx
Dark Heresy character generator
http://www.malleus.dk/Ordo/NpcGenerator/Default.aspx

4 comments:

Porky said...

1 Amalathian of the Ordo Malleus, a female voidborn lvl. 2 psyker

1 Techpriest, a male forgeworlder
1 Acolyte interrogator, a male hive worlder
1 Acolyte explicator, Schola Progenium
1 Wardog
1 Cyber eagle

Great tool. Random generation does tend to add interest and I'm already intrigued by this group.

If you wanted to put together a whole new d1000, I'd definitely contribute some entries. It could even be a long-term crowdsourcing project. Anyone who wanted in could maybe reserve a block of entries, possibly a multiple of ten, then put together a themed sublist and leave or link it in the comments.

Lasgunpacker said...

Thanks Porky... the idea of a d1000 chart is pretty daunting to say the least, but the original chart only had ~130 options, which is much more achivable. The question is though, do you make it all appreance, or equipment/stat changes as well?

Also, not sure why the format on this is screwed up, but it is annoying. So much for WYSIWYG editors...

Porky said...

If you wanted to go for it, I'd plug it too and jump in right away.

I was thinking appearance or features with no effect in terms of rules, but when I started rolling specific entry ideas around in my mind, I realised many could have minor rules or more measurable effects attached. It could be interesting to have a mix of appearance and equipment / stat changes and not worry overly about balance - some entries cosmetic only, others potentially very powerful. That might not be everyone's cup of tea though. Your call.

Re the formatting, if it's only the spacing that's the issue, and you're using the Blogger editor, you should be able to switch to the HTML view and remove the line breaks, i.e. each use of
. The mismatch between editor version and final really can be a pain.

Porky said...

Ha - the software seems to have assumed I wanted a line break in my comment. The code element to be removed is a 'br', followed by a slash, inside inequality signs, i.e. < >.

This...

www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_br.asp

... but with the slash.