Using story templates for random NPC generation?

[Magnimost]

One of the limitations I've run into is creating multiple of the same NPC, say a German soldier. If I create several, they have identical stats and skills. Not a huge deal, but when everyone has the same initiative it makes combat encounters problematic. I currently manually change the initiative and HP for a bit of variety.

Could this be automated using story templates in 3.2? For example, I'd like to specify that Initiative is 40+2d10 and HP is 6+2d6, and pull some random skills, equipment and military rank from a table.

To take this further, I'd like to create a story entry to generate encounters, for a squad or platoon with a certain predetermined but somewhat variable setup.

[damned]

What game system are you playing? Have you checked in the GM Options if that is where Init is being set/defined for your campaign? Same with HP.

[Magnimost]

Call of Cthulhu. I don't use any ready campaigns.

[Trenloe]

Yeah, sounds like one of the campaign options is set to group the same NPCs together on the combat tracker.

For random encounters I'd recommend setting up a few default NPCs and then use the new Random Encounter functionality to randomly generate the numbers of each NPC in an encounter.

[Magnimost]

I can create a random number of various NPCs with the Random Encounter feature, but how do I randomize each of their skills and abilities?

I think it may be possible with the Story Templates (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/wiki/index.php/Story_Templates), but the wiki is rather rudimentary.

I created the table below for the composition of a German Heer squad.
16707

Now I'd like to randomize the skills of each infantry, support and machine gunner, but the instructions aren't clear on how to do that.

[Moon Wizard]

Ok, just to avoid any confusion, I'm going to start with a basic description of each feature mentioned:

* Story templates = A way to build a text entry using randomly generated text segments and links. A template will generate a story entry.
* Tables = A rollable table interface. It can be used to output the results to either the chat window, a story entry or a parcel (group of items).

Those are the only randomization tools currently included in the CoreRPG interface, and they are very rudimentary. Anything more advanced to do full NPC generation will most likely be game system specific. I can see maybe the addition of an encounter output for tables for more complex random encounter generation.

If you just want to output a list of skills for each entry, you might be able to link tables to create some output that generated a skill list with each one as well. I haven't attempted anything like that with the story output, so I'm not sure if the current system would support that. I personally rarely run the randomization tools, except to test specific cases; so perhaps someone who has worked them more has some suggestions.

Regards,
JPG