Storygen

So I wanted to talk about the random story generator that I have on this site. If you are interested in seeing the code or improving it, check it out on GitHub.

Inspiration

This project is meant to be something like an online version of Rory's Story Cubes. The story cubes are dice that are used to generate random stories. Each face has a picture on it that can be interpretted however it makes sense to. Game masters sometimes use them to create stories or details on the fly.

Since I am generally pretty cheap, and I use a laptop as my GM screen anyway, I thought I would make an online version so that anyone can use it for their RPG sessions, creative writing, and what ever else you can think of. All of the images used were made by the awesome people at game-icons.net.

Usage

There really isn't much more to this program other than clicking the "New Story" button and clicking on individual images to "re-roll" that image. You can also change the amount images by clicking the plus/minus buttons or by typing in a number and pressing Enter. I did put a limit on the amount of pictures available, because my server can't handle reloading 300 pictures every time some one needs a new scene.

Interpreting the images can be done however you like, but my suggestion is that you are loose with the meanings. If an image is a dragon, and you are running a game in a cyberpunk setting, it could just signify something large and threatening. Or you could click on the image until you get something more setting appropriate.

Future Plans

The main thing I plan on adding to this program is the ability to rearrange the icons. This will allow for easy manipulation of the images so that they can be arranged in a coherent story line.

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Tags: tool ttrpg web