Inspiration Pad Pro is an extremely handy program with particular benefits for GM's who have to create a small adventure on the fly. The program comes with pre-installed generators for PC encounters, NPC names & treasure; and whilst these have limited usefulness, the programs true brilliance is in its ability to be highly customisable by a GM to uniquely suit whatever campaign setting that they are currently running. Inspiration Pad comes with a "How-to" help section so that the GM can create whatever generator he/she needs. The existing encounter generator for an Orc Raiding Party is a good example of this - the generator creates a party leader (bigger & stronger than the rest of the party) and then breaks the raiding party down into 6 hunting parties, each with their own captain & 10 privates/underlings. Along with the 67 strong raiding party, each Orc has a name, weapon, HP and armour! Once you have a handle on creating your own tables & generators (notepad or any other text file will do) you can create your own fully equipped monster encounters, whether that be 1 monster, a group of monsters/hostile NPC's or a whole army! What more could a GM need to cause Havoc & Mayhem!
Inspiration Pad Pro would also be of untold worth as an overall encounter generator to someone who wanted to create their own GM free system, or merely modify an existing GM free system!
My only criticism (and I really have to stretch to find it) is that the pre-existing generators that come with Inspiration Pad Pro are a bit limited - but heck, this great little program is free and you can create whatever you want with it once you customise it! The generators that you do get are Encounter - Adventure Hooks (only 50), NPC on Street, Orc Formal Introduction, Orc Hunting Party, Orc Raiding Party, & Skrat Minions; Names (and it is the name generator that is the most useful as the program stands without any customisation, with 14 different NPC name generators in Hungarian, Czech, English, Icelandic ... ect); & Treasure - Orc Hoard, Random Books, Random Treasure, & Spell Book.
A great product that I will now use in my campaigns exclusively for encounter generation (once I finish customising my version) and one that is definitely worth getting - I would happily pay $10-$15 for Inspiration Pad Pro 2.0.
|