MetaCreator

[thebitterguy]

Anyone tried Alter Ego's Metacreator Character Generation software?

It does Unisystem, but not Cinematic Unisystem. It also does Savage Worlds (a plus, as there's a game for it percolating in my head) and SRD 3.5.

Comments

[angusabranson.livejournal.com]

I've got a bundle of them but have to admit the only one I've really used has been the Call of Cthulhu one. It's good and does it's job :)

[thebitterguy]

How does it compare to Byakee(sp?)? I remember using that and finding it a bit uncooperative, but that may have just been me.

[angusabranson.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately I've never used Byakee so can't compare the two. Sorry.

[tfbretz.livejournal.com]

I've been using it since it was in beta for Fuzion Creator. I used it heavily when they were supporting Hero System 4th, and picked up quite a few other add-ons, though I used them less often. I've got the current version with Savage Worlds (very good), Unisystem (I wish it supported Cinematic), and SRD 3.5 (solid, but frustrating - see below.)

All in all, it's a very solid program, with plenty of years to work out the bugs. Bruce Kvam (the programmer) is very supportive on service issues.

The downside is that while the program is very powerful and customizable, it's not easy to customize. Granted, it's a lot easier than it was eight or nine years ago, but there's still a goodly bit of programming talk that one has to do in order to modify data sets and my brain tends to lock up under such circumstances.

Still, if you're working with a core ruleset without too many changes, it's really well done. If you're thinking of using it for Savage Worlds, it's an excellent accessory, as their support for SW products and rulesets is outstanding (the core SW package includes a number of SW settings, including the supers rules from "Necessary Evil," should that float your boat.)

[thebitterguy]

I was actually thinking about using it for a Savage Star Wars game. Is it possible to enter large amounts of new information, like races and equipment and edges, or just a huge pain in the tuchus?

Savage Worlds is pretty easy going.

[tfbretz.livejournal.com]

It's not a huge pain, honestly. In fact, as I discovered this past weekend, it's much improved over how it used to be. The program now utilizes data sheets, which can be modified without too much trouble, though it helps to have an idea of what you're doing or you can get some weird results (f'rinstance, my first two attempts to put together some houserules for d20 resulted in a double listing of all of the base classes, races, and alignments for some reason.)

The other thing about Metacreator for SW is that it's the only generator out there, so there's a fairly decent knowledge base of folks who are utilizing it who can give you pointers. With the plethora of d20-related programs, it's a lot harder to find someone who knows what you're working with and can tell you how to get the program to do what you want it to do.

[thebitterguy]

Jesus, my brain was broken when I wrote that last reply.

So if I want to use it for a mostly customized setting like Savage Star Wars, it wouldn't work very well.

Cool. I do think about playing Necessary Evil on occasion, so that would be useful if that ever comes together. Thanks!

[tfbretz.livejournal.com]

Savage Worlds has fewer fiddly bits, so I think adjusting the existing races, equipment, etc. in the data sheets wouldn't be as bad as in d20, for instance.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

The downside is that while the program is very powerful... it's not easy to customize...

For me the huge downside is that it works only on Windows. Big, big kudos to Hero for doing their Hero Creator software in Java so that it's platform independent. Downside: it's in Java so it's not so zippy as it might be. Upside: buy one copy, use on just about any OS you care to mention.

I'd still be using Alter Ego's software if they made a version that worked on OSX. 8(