Job/Quest Generator - Community-sourced content

[Gerald.Lock]

Inspired by @JohnnFour 's community-sourcing efforts for the 5-Room Dungeon project, I'd like to community-source a bunch of content to populate some genre-specific variants on this generator structure

The form uses the term 'Job' to refer to any call to action involving an initiator (client / patron / etc.) and a reward (reason to take up the call, relevant to the PCs).

Generator syntax is Verb the Object for the Client because of the Reason. To make things more interesting, The Other Guys are Involved and at some point, Things Get Complicated. It all happens in and around the Place

Thanks for your contribution. I'll post the results for all to share in this thread.

https://forms.gle/ZhaZQDkHPvsSgZtc6

 

[ELF]

If memory serves, in the summer of 2018 I worked on a RolePlaying Tips crowdsourcing effort for a "Mad Lib" Adventure Seed Generator. I helped to fill a Google Sheet for this purpose, but I'm not sure what happened to that initiative.

With @JohnnFour's permission, I could share the URL to that Google Sheet, as I think it would be useful for this project. It produced results like the following:

A retired

union of

masons

is sabotaging a building site

by any means necessary

in the city center

to show the inferiority of their successors

because they are dissatisfied with current trends

but they are foiled by their own pride.

(No doubt additional editing of the data would be required.)

PS: For developing the generator, I would recommend moving from Google Docs to Google Sheet, as you would have more tools at your disposal for organizing the data and generating randomized results.

 

[Gerald.Lock]

Thanks @ELF I recall seeing that MadLib gerator somewhere in the last couple of years... can't recall where though.
The Google form I've linked in my call-out post logs responses in a Google sheet, so I'll have a proper data table to work with, once the form starts getting more responses.
Only one so far (@JochenL I suspect - responses are anonymous)

The Google doc linked above is purely to illustrate the origins of this particular project, and the syntax it uses, namely:

Genre

What's the Job?

Why Us?

Who's the Job For?

Who Else is Involved?

Complications

Setting

The aim is to have a much more verbose content in each phrase, so that the output reads like a reasonably well-detailed mission briefing.
The linked Google doc is originally a Star Wars-focussed generator - but could be any sci-fi - and the phrases are types (with examples given) rather than specific detail scenarios, which makes it very versatile.

Example (from the perchance generator):

WHAT'S THE JOB?​

• Insertion: An Insertion job is the flip side of the Retrieval job, where the Client wants the players to take an item or person and put them somewhere. They might need to plant forged documents into a hardcopy archive. They might be called upon to install surveillance equipment in a location, or transport an agent to a planet to facilitate his cover story.

WHY US?​

• Profit margin: The potential return on the job is substantial and the Client would like to minimize the number of fingers in the pie by staying outside the system.

WHO IS THE JOB FOR?​

• A businessman: The Client is a corporate type, maybe a Viceprex from the Corporate Sector Authority or a businessman from a smaller, planetary scale operation.

WHO ELSE IS INVOLVED?​

• A rival crime lord: Criminal organizations have eyes and ears everywhere, especially when there's a profit to be turned or vice to be had.

COMPLICATIONS​

• Sometimes things plain just go wrong: Random happenstance fouls the deal. A bounty hunter mistakes the contact for a target and terminates him. The local constabulary, in a prostitution vice raid accidently hit the rendezvous point. Armed escaped convicts break into the hanger and steal the ship (along with the cargo), leaving the players holding the bag with a local crime lord.

SETTING​

• Rural Setting: These settings could range from a moisture farm, a small town, a rural commune or collective or other small gathering of people on the outskirts of civilization.

 

[Gerald.Lock]

Update on the "Quick and Dirty Job Generator" project:

For some time now I've wanted to return to this project, with a view to expanding the very loose descriptive results into more detailed results.
This generator produces a set of ideation prompts to seed an adventure of whatever length you're up for crafting.
Due to the original text's origins, some results have details relating to the Star Wars universe, but with a little thought those specifics can be adapted to suit any sci-fi setting.
Indeed, the core syntax itself (see my previous post) lends itself to all manner of other settings and genres, some of which I plan to build smilar generators for, such as fantasy, Cthulhu, and cyberpunk.

Unfortunately, the development of Nexus3.games has hoovered up 90% of my available spare time and head-space for such industrious creative pursuits!
As luck would have it however, we now have at our fingertips the impressive digital research assistant (as I mentally conceive of it's value and reliability) named ChatGPT.

As a result I've embarked on a short project some 5 hours or so in length, to add the hoped-for detail.
Suffice to say I'm satisfied with the results.
I've added to each d10 resultant a ‘roll d6 for some more detail’ section. These are elaborated on the original text using ChatGPT with a simple prompt “give 6 possible variants based on the following. limit to 100 words each”
In some instances I have added to the original text to craft a more ‘provocative’ prompt, such as in 2.07 WHY US? (Unexplained) and coloured the changed text dark blue.
The 100 word limit was intended to produce details that are still sufficiently broad to allow for significant further development by the GM to produce adventure scenarios with a satisfying level of craft. I hope you enjoy the imagination prompts - please share a link to your finished work if you’d like to.

The updated and expanded generator text is saved here, with a view to eventually transferring it to the perchance generator for ease of use.

 

[ExileInParadise]

Update on the "Quick and Dirty Job Generator" project:
The updated and expanded generator text is saved here, with a view to eventually transferring it to the perchance generator for ease of use.

This reminds me a lot of some of the jobs/missions from Star Wars Galaxies (of which, I have extracted ... all of them.)

Have you considered adapting Quick and Dirty Job Generator to the Generator UI format to also use within Campaign Logger?

 

[Gerald.Lock]

I don't use Campaign Logger at present. I don't even run games! All my spare time goes into working on (and promoting) Nexus3

 

[ExileInParadise]

I don't use Campaign Logger at present. I don't even run games! All my spare time goes into working on (and promoting) Nexus3

It's not just you ... I am using CL - for experiments on how to use it to support the RPG I am writing "from scratch" (if there is such a thing ... I did start from a blank sheet of paper tho).

A word of caution from someone who knows ... don't forget to have the fun too... even if its just to throw down a short solo game.