How to Generate Creature Nodes for OpenRPG

You need a couple of Orcs, plus an evil human cleric who controls the Orcs.  Lets create them using the Monster Database and the NPC Generator.
I wrote two VisualBasic scripts to convert monster or NPC output into OpenRPG XML files.  The scripts required Windows 2000 or Windows XP to function properly.

First, open up the Monster Database & find the Orc entry.  You can use the Find by Name button to find monsters.
Next, go to the StatBlock tab.  Click all the checkboxes.  Then click the Rebuild Block Button.


Highlight all of the text, then hit Ctrl-C.  Open a new document in Crimson Editor, and hit Ctrl-V in the new document.  Save this new document as Monster.txt, in the same directory as the mdb_xml.vbs script.



Save the file as monster.txt, and copy the mdb_xml.vbs file to the same directory.  Run the file from a command prompt.  To get a command prompt, try this sequence:  Click the Start Button, choose the RUN option, then type CMD into the run box.  Click OK, and a command prompt will open.



In the random_adventure folder, I now have a file called Orc.XML, which can be imported into your game tree in OpenRPG, and used as a character.  Makes it easy to keep track of the different Orcs in the game.

Now we need an evil Cleric.  Open up the NPC Generator, and set it to create a full statblock with NO calculation breakdowns.  Click the Configure Output button to get the NPC Generator to create a full statblock.



Feel free to generate up to 30 NPCs at a time.  You must type in a random seed into the box.  I just tap a bunch at one time till there are 6-7 numbers in the box.
After you generate your NPC(s), highlight the entire statblock, and right-click on the text.  Choose the Copy option.  Then, hit Ctrl-V in Crimson Editor to paste the stat block into a file you can save as NPC.TXT, in the same directory as the npc_xml.vbs script.




Run the npc_xml.vbs script to convert the npc.txt file into an OpenRPG creature node, called {npc name}.XML.



And last, but certainly not least, you will need to be able to create encounter nodes.  These OpenRPG Nodes are for you to keep notes on each encounter on the map.  Here are some OpenRPG templates you can use in OpenRPG to create different encounter nodes.  Here is a screenshot showing a 'node'.


To use a template, you need to extract them to a directory on your computer.  Then, just right-click on the game tree, choose insert file, and navigate to the node that you want to use.  Once you insert the node, you can double-click the node to open it up and start filling in the blanks.