Our next RPG tools interview is with Cory Koseck who created the 7Tools website. If you’re an RPG developer and would like an interview, email me at kp(At)paulbellow(dot)com. Now, on to the interview!
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
My name’s Cory, I’m a game developer primarily who loves D&D and TTRPG’s in general
What is 7tools exactly?
It’s a collection of misc tools that I make to aid in ideas and generation of all sorts of things for TTRPGs. My overall goal is that things generated are generally pretty unique, with little chance to have repeat generations. That’s not always maintained in some of the generators, but it’s the general goal I aim for. The best parts of this can be seen in like the NPC generator.
What made you decide to create 7tools ?
I was wanting to learn web development, and I love D&D stuff so I decided to start messing around with it. I had made a name generator forever ago that I used in private, so I converted it to work in the new web application. Then I had an idea to create unique monsters by clashing a bunch of parts together. Thats pretty much how all of it came to be, just me having an idea for a new thing and adding to it over time.
When did you launch, and how has it gone so far?
I launched a few months ago? It’s gone pretty well, I don’t have any sort of huge audience, but a small and consistent one. It’s something I use for myself pretty often, which is good enough for me in any case.
Any changes or updates you plan in the near or distant future?
I have quite a few plans for it in the future, all outlined in a Planned Features tab on the site itself. A few highlights include a town generator, improving stuff like my encounter generator, etc.
Any other RPG tools you use frequently?
As I’m a DM, I use LegendKeeper quite heavily
How long have you been into tabletop RPGs?
Not super long actually, about 2 or 3 years now? I was introduced to play at a previous job and fell in love
Can you tell us a little bit about the back-end tech that makes the site shine?
The aspects that help the site really work is the way I’ve split up everything into their own specific modules. It’s actually probably not the best, like I said I got into this trying to learn web development in the first place. But so I have a ton of small pieces of data that can generate, I slowly combine all of that into the complex results that emerge. Looking at a complex example is the building generator. It uses almost every other generator module on the entire site, it generates appearances, it generates NPCs, and NPCs have fears, secrets, goals, etc.
What is your favorite tabletop RPG system at the moment?
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D&D for me, I haven’t had a ton of opportunities yet to try other TTRPGs, but it’s something I’d like to do eventually.
Of the many polyhedral dice, which is your favorite and why?
I’m tempted to say the isosahedron being the dice most heavily used in D&D at least, but I think there’s something very satisfying about the dodecahedron.
I’m tempted to say the isosahedron being the dice most heavily used in D&D at least, but I think there’s something very satisfying about the dodecahedron. #DND #Dice #TTRPG @The7ark
Anything else you would like to add?
I have a cat named Loaf.
