Inspiration Pad Pro: Game Designer's Most Powerful Tool

This is not an advertisement or a paid endorsement. Sometimes, I just like to share things I like.

So, one of the tricks used by Dungeon Masters to come up with lots of information very quickly, is to make up random lists of stuff and roll dice to pull items from those lists. It's a useful way to get ideas that you can run with on the fly, or to buy yourself time while the players fight a random battle. However, even rolling on a table and pulling items from a list can be time consuming if the information is rather complex, such as with large treasure hordes. Fear not: just get inspiration pad. You'll never regret it.

Inspiration Pad Pro (by nbos software) is a program that allows you to create and run your own random content generation programs. While the program does use random lists, it can do so much more. It can combine results from multiple lists to create wholly new synthetic content. The true power of this program can not be underestimated. You can randomly generate full character sheets, entire civilizations, dungeons, combat encounters, treasure hordes, character names, star systems, ecosystems, weather, and more! You can even make one generator pull results from multiple other generators! All it takes is some creativity on your part to go out and build it.

First off, head over to their website to download the thing. Get the latest version. There are ways to download the older versions, and they're nice too, but the latest version is a beast. Nbos also makes a few other very fun little utilities, but none of them quite compare to the sheer versatility of inspiration pad.

The latest version of IPP looks like the IDE for a programming suite, but that's mostly cosmetics, don't let it intimidate you with the way it looks. Actually, older versions were dependent on you making your random generators in note pad. It was... fiddly. In the latest version, not only are there many utility improvements, but they have also included a built-in editor to design your generators within the program that runs them! IPP is actually an interpreter: instead of converting code into raw machine language as an independent application, it reads a text file and conducts pre-scripted actions based on that file's content. That means you don't need to spend any time compiling or learn how your computer manages data! Lowest barrier to entry for coding that I've ever seen.

IPP comes preloaded with a detailed help file that explains how to use every command and how to script a generator. It also comes with a stack of premade generators straight from nbos employees, which you can open and learn from! Even if that isn't enough to get you started, nbos has a community forum dedicated to just this program, where you can get help, learn advanced designs, and share generators. Speaking of sharing, here's a website full of fun generators made by other people!

One last gift, here's a generator made by me that you can use: Fantastic Forest.