# History Generator



## kolvar

I have written a little program to create a bit of back-history for a nation/ realm that can be found here.

The events generated are not completly random, i.e. a library build increases the chance for library destroyed. The chances are not fixed entirely yet, as are which events influence which other event. But it is still good fun to look for what happens to the nation.
The sources can be found at Sources. It is written in php. The Events are in a extra-file and can be edited easyly.

(for all those looking at the code: I had envisioned it differently first, therefor you will find some methods being redundent).

Feedback would be nice.

Have fun


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## green slime

It only stretches back two hundred years.

You can't slot in specific events occuring at a certain time, which would be an advantage if you already had a framework, and only needed certain fleshing out.

Generating names of dynasties and rulers would also be a boon.


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## kolvar

Oh, the time it stretches strongly depends on what you allow to happen, how strong you start the nations etc. (although I confess I never did it for more than 500 years yet). In addition I am looking for some happy events, that will prolong the live of a nation. 
Yeah, the Name-generator was something, I intended to do sometime in the future. 
mhm, slotting in specific events. Well, that is a bit more difficult the way it works at the moment. But I think I give it a try.


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## Old One

*Interesting...*

Kolvar,

Neat little program.  If nothing else, it provides some good filler for a historical timeline.  Do you plan on expanding it at all?  I agree with green slime that it would be neat to be able to place certain events manually within the timeline, then generate other events randomly.  Also, it would be nice to be able to input the name of the rival kingdoms.  Lastly, an extended time line for those long-lived races like elves would be awesome.

~ Old One


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## diaglo

try this one:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20010112e


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## kolvar

I am just at the moment working at an expension. I already have done the placing of Events and working at names. (both probably online tomorrow). 
Filling in of Names will probably not be a feature for the forseeable future (i.e the next month or so). 
My mainproblem is, that the events have to be finetuned and that is a horribly boring work.
concerning the longlived races, I should increase possibilities for the vitality and health ratings. A longlived Race would have to start with health and vitality about two or three times higher than is possible at the moment. In that way, they will not go down that early. 

If anyone could suggest additional events (especially nice ones), I would be most greateful.

thanks so far for the input.


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## kolvar

diaglo said:
			
		

> try this one:
> 
> http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20010112e




Not exactly the same, I think


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## Tsyr

Some events need prequesites...

For example, I got "Rebellion Ends", but there was no rebellion in progress.


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## Scorpio

Sure, there may be some little bugs, but I think you're on to something very cool here, with a lot of potential. Good job so far!


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## Joshua Randall

I like it! The frequency of certain events, sometimes contradictory ones, can spark all sorts of ideas. For instance, what could it mean that for my sample kingdom, I got Loss of Land and Gaining of Land in the same year? Well, I look back a few years and see that the kingdom was at war with a neighbor at the same time that barbarians invaded! Perhaps the barbarians seized some land, taking advantage of the war. But then "my" kingdom fought back, and inside of 6 months, regained the land from the disorganized barbarians.

With some tweaks this could be a very useful generator.


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## kolvar

Rebellion Ends is a bug. I try to handle this one somehow (I know the reason but I hope to find an elegant solution. So far it evades me).

Thanks again.


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## Old One

*You may have started a monster...*



			
				Tsyr said:
			
		

> Some events need prequesites...
> 
> For example, I got "Rebellion Ends", but there was no rebellion in progress.




Like Tsyr said...

Kolvar, you may have created a monster here ...but a good one!

A couple of thoughts...

(1) The old 2E Oriental Adventures hardback had a listing of events by kingdom, province and town (or maybe it was yearly, monthly and weekly events).  Maybe someone could dig that up and post it.

(2) Just to give you more work .  This generator is done on a kingdom level over a span of years.  How about a "local" generator (for a city, town or province) that works on an annual basis.  It would be great for time-pressed DMs that need rumors or adventure ideas and would help add flavor.

(3) Having a prerquisite or even timeline would be neat (I don't know if it is doable, since I am a computer programming idiot).  For example, you could have "Cathedral started" --> "Cathedral completed" --> "Cathedral destroyed" so events would flow logically.

(4) A couple of more ideas for events:

*National Annual Events*

* Cathedral/monument/palace/new capital city...started/completed/destroyed
* Royal/Imperial wedding/birth
* National celebration
* Strange alignment in the stars
* Comet sighted
* National games/olympics
* Tradewar

*City/Provincial Events*

* Bandit/monster activity
* Traderoute closed by landslide/forest fire/monster activity
* Child(ren)/merchant/farmer/noble missing
* Dungeon/tower/ruin/cave discovered in the forest/hills/mountains/badlands
* Major/minor criminal trial
* Circus/play/troupe in area
* Criminal/prophet/noble sighted in area
* Shipwreck
* Major storm/fire/tornado/hurricane
* Reward offered for criminal/rescue/retrieval of item/spell component/book/information

Just a couple of thoughts...

~ Old One


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## kolvar

thanks for the events. I will check the OA (Why did I not think of that myself?).
the scope can "easyly" be altered. You just have to take a different eventfile. The event-file is a text-file (included in the sources (see above)). It is just a lot of boring work. The yearly scope is either interpretation (take 30 years for each month) or I add a little feature. But I think tableSmith got something along this line.


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## alaric187

Good Stuff.  It seems pretty cool so far.  You might want to throw in a variable for detail.  That way it gives a # of events based on duration.  So, if you just want a quick couple of events for 20 yrs on a far away nation, it's good.  If you want a detailed summary of 100 yrs to play with, it's good too.

Plus, it tends to war with and destroy the same kingdoms.  Which can be interesting, but overall ruins the effect of destroying the Kingdom the first time. 

Alaric


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## MarauderX

Very cool.  The only thing I could ask for is more detail to some of the random events.  For instance, take 'Minor Work Of Art' and expound on it (with a link to another random generator page perhaps?).  I guess I am lazy and want someone to add the fluffy flavor for me as my brain would seize up halfway down the list.


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## kolvar

With detail, do you mean, that the number of events, that should possibly happen per year should increas- or decreaseable?
I hope to get the kingdom-destroying stuff fixed when I get the names into the machine.


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## kolvar

@MarauderX: Maybe I will do an additional Generator for Art afterwards, who knows. The Link Idea is good. I have to think about it.


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## alaric187

kolvar said:
			
		

> With detail, do you mean, that the number of events, that should possibly happen per year should increas- or decreaseable?
> I hope to get the kingdom-destroying stuff fixed when I get the names into the machine.




Exactly what I mean.  So, you can set it to give you an event every +-5 yrs or +- 20 years.  Hmm, now that I think about it, it might be easier (well, for us, not for you coding  ) to assign the event a number along a major scale.  Then you could specify what scale you wanted for the history.

So, if it's a 1-10 scale, 1 would give you only rebellions and wars and the like, while 9 would give you all of that plus minor works of art and the invention of the kleenex. So, it would be like skimming your history in a high school yearbook vs. an indepth volume on 100 yrs of a nation.

Names would be awesome.  This is definately cool software.

Alaric


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## green slime

Important events that I didn't notice were:

Marriages. These are used for political purposes, to Strengthen a claim to a  throne, both at home and abroad. It also can lead to a merging of dynasties.

Successful revolution/civil war.
Complete abandonment of Religion/Philosophy/Technology.

Volcanoes
Hurricanes
Landslides
Tidal Waves
Lunar and Solar Eclipses, meteors, comets and other stellar phenomena
Appearance of Strange animals/Lake/Mountain/City/Castle
Disappearance of City/Castle/Forest/Lake/Mountain/Birds/Fish/Children


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## kolvar

@alaric187: your first idea is easier to implement. The second idea got an additonal disadvantage: You would get a start page with all the events having a possibility to modify them, rather unpleasent. But I will look what I can do.

@thanks green slime. The Complete abandonment of Religion I would put under A Religion dies, the others I have to see when I get around putting them in.


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## alaric187

Yeah, I know it's lots of extra work.  Sorry. 

I definately think assigning a level of detail with years would work almost as well.  As long as it is kept random, so +-5 for very detailed and +-25 for slight detail.

Plus, you could add a small table for works of art just to get the DM's ideas flowing.  Something like: painting, statue, building, fresco, religous icon, other.  That would help jumpstart the creativity.

Alaric


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## Ferret

Why not select 2-6 events that happen more often, then leave the rest.


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## kolvar

Well, a bit I changed over the last day:
- random name generation for the countries and coming with this no more countries that have been vanquished ever apearing again (it would be rather random)
- Links can be set (There is at the moment nothing I do link to)
- Events can happen in the right order (no more rebellion Ends befor they start). This allows for rows of events to happen (two or more), too.
- added the long-lived entry to health and vitality: this allows for more years to be generated without having to remove war from the events.
- War can be set to 1/4 to 3 times the probability.
- Events can be given that happen at the given dates (and influence the other results accordingly


What I still need to do:
- adding new events
- looking for pages to link to (I know that there is this thread with 1000 links)
- fixing the probabilites and modifications of events.

The sources and the machine can be found at the links above.


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## kolvar

Ferret said:
			
		

> Why not select 2-6 events that happen more often, then leave the rest.




Should not be to hard to implement. I think about it.


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## Deadguy

I just wanted to say, Kolvar, that you have the core of a very clever and nice game tool for the DM. Just running it gave me ideas for my campaign! Keep up the good work!


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## kolvar

Many Thanks


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## Dogbrain

A problem I have is that they always end with the death of the nation.  There are a few nations that have yet to "die", even after more than a thousand years.  They might voluntarily incorporate into a larger entity or change governments or government forms, but they are still the dominant nation in the new entity.

Examples (at least 500 years continuous existence):

China (from AD581)
Japan (from AD794)
England (from AD1042)
France (from AD1194)
Ethiopia (from AD1270)
Spain (from AD 1492)

Agreed, not many, but the countries have been pretty much free of foreign rulership since roughly the above dates with only a few years' abrogation of that during times of war.  In the case of China, Mongol "conquests" did not put an end to the country.  Instead, the invaders ultimately became Chinese.


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## kolvar

I work on it. That is the main-thing, that bugs me at the moment. On the one side, I want be able to end a nation drastically after 10 years, on the other side it should possibly go 3000 years.

The only way to do more than 500 years at the moment, is to put health and vitality on long lived war, military might and agressivity on lowest level (just got 930 years). But I think, that is a problem with the finetuning of the events, which has to be done sometime in the future, I fear (it is so booooooring).


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## Katerek

The second edition book, the World Builder's Guidebook had some interesting tables that I think were ultimately derived from the source in OA.  

Something you might want to consider is a "frequency" option.  In other words, the ability to set it so that events occur "less" frequent. This would enable a larger scope and the ability to establish a period of prehistory wherein only the highlights are discussed.

example

200 - Nation Born under Great Leader
300 - Nation struggles with a new religious Minority
350-400 - National civil war, two regimes
425 - Nation emerges from war with new face.
(Insert your timeline here)
Campaign begins

Just an idea.


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## Dogbrain

kolvar said:
			
		

> The only way to do more than 500 years at the moment, is to put health and vitality on long lived war, military might and agressivity on lowest level (just got 930 years).





Of the "long-lived" nations that I listed, all but one of them have gone through periods of extreme aggressiveness and very great military might.

In the current day, two of them are still very emphatic about maintaining military might.


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## kolvar

Lets see: 
- added the possibility to do a history without no "nation dead" possibility (either Dark Ages (100-499 years of unrecorded history) or Crisis (just recorded)). I am not entirely happy with this, but what the heck.
- "BC" and "AD" possible (befor and after year 0)
- expanded the event list and added some links
- War Probability can be given (kind of template for other probabilities: so, if you want other events that should get assignable probabilities, tell me).
- fixed a bit of programming, added some comments and rearanged a bit of code.


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## Ferret

This is amazing! Now it's even better! I did get tons of art and librarie and all that stuff. And I warred with all of my neighbors in 200 years and none before that (going from 2000 year history)


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## Scorpio

Coming along nicely. Could be very useful...


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## kolvar

Ferret said:
			
		

> This is amazing! Now it's even better! I did get tons of art and librarie and all that stuff. And I warred with all of my neighbors in 200 years and none before that (going from 2000 year history)



OK ok, I redo the probabilities for Art and Libraries. (OK, I should redo all the probabilities and what influence what, but it is so boring, editing this list).


Anyone got more links, I could add?


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## TheAuldGrump

Very nice!

I used to have something similar, but a lot less detailed, on my old Amiga. The one I created just produced a vague outline and relied on the user to extrapolate the details himself.

One feature that mine had that yours didn't was the inclusion of Miraculous and Secular magic events. If you add such then you may want to be able to turn them on/off seperately.

You may also wish to have this moved to the Computers and Software forum where it is likely to remain on the front page for longer time. (This generator is well worth having visible for a good long time.)

The Auld Grump


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## kolvar

Thanks Auld Grump,

Adding Mystical/ Magical Events is just a bit of adding text to the event-list, turning them off can be done already, although it would be a bit time-consuming, therefor, I should add some lines of code.
I will aks the admins to move the thread.


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## kolvar

What kind of magic events would you like to have?


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## TheAuldGrump

Some examples would be 
Divine or Miraculous
Major curse affecting entire nation. (Plague of Locusts, etc)
Major blessing affecting entire nation.
Curse affecting royal/noble family.
Witchhunts.
Prophecy of coming disaster/wonder/new king.
Death of a god.
Rise of a false prophet.

Secular Magic
Undead army attacks
Wizards battling each other.
Wizards terrorizing countryside, vying for dominion.
Artifact created/destroyed
School of wizardry opened/closed.

The Auld Grump


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## Old One

*Outstanding!*

Kolvar,

I just wanted to stop back by and check on the progress.  I especially like the links to resources on the various happenings...you need to get together with Alish2o...he is the king of historical links.

This is really a great little generator.  One more thing (since I am a coding idiot AND want to give you more work).  Is it possible to have an option to input the names of opposing civilizations instead of having them randomly generated?  Also, an option along the lines of Death of Enemy Civilization, where you actually can input the dead civilization would be cool (Civ A kills off Civ B in 524).

Thanks for all of your tremendously hard work!

~ Old One


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## kolvar

@Auld Grump: put in the events you posted (except those I feel are part of another event). The probabilities are a bit off, probably.

@Old One: I will see, what I can do for the names. I fear the death of civ B will be a bit more difficult, but I will see, what I can do.


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## The_Gneech

Very nice! My suggestion would be to put in fields where the user can type in the names of neighboring kingdoms, but that's relatively minor. All in all, quite cool! Good job.

   -The Gneech


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## Ferret

I don't completely understand coding, but when you name the places why not have a tick box with dead, alive. Then when dead all probabilities go to zero, except maybe: Ruin found in civ b etc.


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## Malcolm

kolvar,

Thanks for making this!
I've wanted something like this for a long time.
I used to use the old OA tables (and the ones from RM) and I'm very pleased with what you made.  

Consider this an encouragment note if you decide to keep sculpting this program.

Oh, and expect more hits. I've already mailed it to about 4 other co-GMs and their players.


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## kolvar

Thanks to Gneech and Malcolm

@Gneech: something along this line I was thinking, too.
@Ferret: I am not completely sure, if I understand, what you mean: when giving the parameters, you want to automatically set all values of a nation to zero?


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## kolvar

Was easier, than I thought. You can now name one or more nations and give end-dates for each nation. If the nation is vanquished befor the end-date is reached, it should not end again.


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