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What's the point of randomness?

Servo

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It seems like every RPG uses dice or some other form of randomness to resolve actions. In D&D, for instance, there's a random factor in almost everything from combat to saves to reading (ffs). I'm not sure what the point of the d20 is other than to reinforce the idea that I'm playing a game, and possibly increase the addictiveness like in gambling.

I realize the rules are an abstraction of raelity and not a 1:1 correlation, but if I was making rules for a game with no prior notions I would say:

1. To hit an opponent: compare your hitting ability (and possibly speed, knowledge of tactics, etc.) to your opponent's dodging ability (and possibly parrying ability, knowledge of tactics, etc.)
2. To swim across a lake: compare your swimming ability (minus carrying weight or whatever) to the difficulty (water speed, depth, etc.)

There's no randomness involved in combat. Either you are a better fighter than your opponent or vice versa. If you both have the same ability then I would expect there to be a standoff and the conflict would need to be resolved some other way (or maybe special abilities would come into play (power attack once per day, uncanny dodge, etc.)). The only randomness might be a sudden gust of wind or something, but it still depends on ability because a good fighter can compensate for things like that.

There's no randomness in swimming either. Maybe the randomness represents the chance you get attacked by an alligator, but that's not really random. In that case it would just change the swim difficulty or have some other effect (you make it across but you are missing a leg, or you have to wrestle the alligator).

Would this be less fun than a game with dice? Are there any RPGs that don't have randomness?
 

Destroid

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No random is no fun, just as too much random is no fun.

EDIT: Uncertainty is a fine replacement for random.
 

Mastermind

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Randomness adds unpredictability which can make battles more interesting. I hate excessive randomness though.
 

Ranselknulf

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The point of randomness is you are roleplaying a character.. one which may happen to have better reflexes / skills / etc than you may possess.

Giving the roleplayed character the ability to successfully complete actions without reliance on the players skill allows people to complete roleplaying games they may not otherwise be able too.

Also:

There's no randomness involved in combat. Either you are a better fighter than your opponent or vice versa. If you both have the same ability then I would expect there to be a standoff and the conflict would need to be resolved some other way (or maybe special abilities would come into play (power attack once per day, uncanny dodge, etc.)). The only randomness might be a sudden gust of wind or something, but it still depends on ability because a good fighter can compensate for things like that.

Have you ever been in a fight? Have you even watched boxing / UFC / any form of martial contact sport at all?

You have no idea what you're talking about.
 

J1M

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Craig Stern also hates RNG. He wrote A LOT about this, and his Telepath Tactics game have no randomness.
I have read a number of his articles on randomness and rpg combat systems. In general, he is wrong. Usually either because he invokes an outdated straw man like THAC0 to argue against or because his unique tastes blind him from the bigger picture.

In addition to what others have mentioned, taming randomness is often one of the most interesting and rewarding aspects of character/deck building. It also allows for variation in AI behavior.
 
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Servo

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No random is no fun, just as too much random is no fun.

Chess can be fun if you enjoy strategy.

Randomness adds unpredictability which can make battles more interesting. I hate excessive randomness though.

This is a good point, but you can have unpredictability in a rule system without dice. Just give the characters abilities/items that are limited. For example, if I'm in combat and my hitting ability, speed and tactics are less than my opponent's (which I don't know, by the way), I can throw dust in his eyes and temporarily blind him, or I can take some kind of boost to get the edge, or cast a spell, or use my power attack ability. otoh he can use his uncanny dodge ability as well as many of the things I can do. That's all deliberate and not random, but it's still unpredictable because the GM doesn't know what I'm going to do and vice versa.

Have you ever been in a fight? Have you even watched boxing / UFC / any form of martial contact sport at all?

Of course not. Why would I waste my precious little time on that shit when I have much more important things to do like thinking about the purpose of randomness in board games, but thank you for your astute observation.

Another example I thought of is weapon damage, which has always kinda bugged me. If I successfully hit my opponent, why do I have to roll for damage? If I stab him in the heart it ought to do 12 damage and possibly kill him outright. If I slash his leg it ought to do 6 damage and possibly disable him. I understand the damage roll represents the chance of hitting those vital areas, but it's a matter of skill and not luck (mine vs. my opponent's).

Now maybe there is a certain degree of randomness when you swing your weapon if you are relatively unskilled. For instance, you don't have fine control over your muscles or the physics of swinging a large object, so it's subject to go in an unexpected direction. I still would say it's not entirely random (like The Brazilian Slaughter was saying it can all be calculated), but maybe random from the PC's point of view because they don't know what they're doing. A more skilled fighter however knows exactly where his swing will go and there is no randomness. This could possibly be interesting as a game mechanic, i.e. at lower levels a dice roll is required, but at higher levels you can hit much more consistently.
 
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My opinion is depending on the type of game you want to make.
Both random and no random game can be pretty fun as long you understand the inherent strength and weakness of both.
Play to the strength and shore up the weakness whichever you choose.
 

Telengard

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If there is no randomness at all, and everything is fixed, then combat becomes a puzzle. Or, if competing against an opponent rather than a given situation, it becomes chess. But since you're not competing, it will never be chess. Because once everything is fixed, you can predict every outcome of every choice you make, since the outcome is a given. The only thing not under your control are the choices of your opponent. And since a game has to be pitched so it is winnable, unrandom combat can't be anything but a puzzle.* You just have to figure out whatever answer the puzzle maker laid out for you.

Randomness is what allows you to weigh tactics. Do you A) do the risky thing that might win you the combat but has a really low chance of success or B) do the safe thing that won't give you victory, but will keep you going while you wait for a safe opportunity to materialize, if it ever does. Without randomness, there is no such decision, since there is always a best move with a guaranteed victory. Unless you have an opponent seeking to win, there is nothing to weigh, since there is just the puzzle scenario.

* Until you bring in player skill and action RPGs, but that's another story.
 

Raapys

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There's no randomness involved in combat. Either you are a better fighter than your opponent or vice versa. If you both have the same ability then I would expect there to be a standoff and the conflict would need to be resolved some other way (or maybe special abilities would come into play (power attack once per day, uncanny dodge, etc.)). The only randomness might be a sudden gust of wind or something, but it still depends on ability because a good fighter can compensate for things like that.
This isn't true though. Take an online shooter for instance. This is an entirely deterministic genre; there are uncontrollable factors like lag, but though they are uncontrollable you can still monitor them.

Now, if as you say the only things that matter in combat(i.e. a given situation) is your own skill and that of your opponent's, then, given stable ping/no lag, the best person should always be winning. Yet this is not the case. Why? We usually call it 'luck', but it's generally a product of unquantifiable factors('randomness') that add weight to a different outcome than what's expected. The same is true for any other 'real life' situation; the online shooter isn't real life, but it's deterministic so the only variable factors are the people controlling the characters, i.e. humans. I guess the point is, skill is to a certain degree 'random', not constant. Your skill in a specific area at this exact time could be marginally or significantly higher/lower than it will be 2 seconds from now.
 

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my two cents

in D&D, i felt that dice throwing was a good way to convey the idea that my character was getting better and more experienced. At first, i would hit, let's say, 60% of the time i would try to, because i was inexperienced and still learning. Later on, 80% of my hits would reach the target. Same goes for skill checks. As a novice rogue, i wasn't that good at climbing walls and stuff, sure, still better than anyone else in my party, but nor great. Later on, I would have developed a technique etc. So, randomness is a way to convey that your character isn't anymore just "trying" and seeing what happens, but actually learning from his mistakes and developing a method to overcome randomness.
 

Servo

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If there is no randomness at all, and everything is fixed, then combat becomes a puzzle. Or, if competing against an opponent rather than a given situation, it becomes chess. But since you're not competing, it will never be chess. Because once everything is fixed, you can predict every outcome of every choice you make, since the outcome is a given. The only thing not under your control are the choices of your opponent. And since a game has to be pitched so it is winnable, unrandom combat can't be anything but a puzzle.* You just have to figure out whatever answer the puzzle maker laid out for you.

Randomness is what allows you to weigh tactics. Do you A) do the risky thing that might win you the combat but has a really low chance of success or B) do the safe thing that won't give you victory, but will keep you going while you wait for a safe opportunity to materialize, if it ever does. Without randomness, there is no such decision, since there is always a best move with a guaranteed victory. Unless you have an opponent seeking to win, there is nothing to weigh, since there is just the puzzle scenario.

* Until you bring in player skill and action RPGs, but that's another story.

Tomorrow I will brofist you but for now

:brodex:

Also I realized the random factor is meant to account for the infinite number of things you aren't likely to if you have a 100% strategy based system. I could make rules for every conceivable thing that could happen in combat but it would probably take a year to resolve a single hit.
 

ProphetSword

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Well, D&D would certainly not work at all without randomness...

DM: You have been hired to infiltrate a monster's den. You come across a group of goblins guarding the main gate. Since your fighting skill beats theirs, you quickly kill them. But this alerts two trolls who have superior fighting to you, so the party is killed. Would you like to play again?
 
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It seems like every RPG uses dice or some other form of randomness to resolve actions. In D&D, for instance, there's a random factor in almost everything from combat to saves to reading (ffs). I'm not sure what the point of the d20 is other than to reinforce the idea that I'm playing a game, and possibly increase the addictiveness like in gambling.

I realize the rules are an abstraction of raelity and not a 1:1 correlation, but if I was making rules for a game with no prior notions I would say:

1. To hit an opponent: compare your hitting ability (and possibly speed, knowledge of tactics, etc.) to your opponent's dodging ability (and possibly parrying ability, knowledge of tactics, etc.)
2. To swim across a lake: compare your swimming ability (minus carrying weight or whatever) to the difficulty (water speed, depth, etc.)

There's no randomness involved in combat. Either you are a better fighter than your opponent or vice versa. If you both have the same ability then I would expect there to be a standoff and the conflict would need to be resolved some other way (or maybe special abilities would come into play (power attack once per day, uncanny dodge, etc.)). The only randomness might be a sudden gust of wind or something, but it still depends on ability because a good fighter can compensate for things like that.

There's no randomness in swimming either. Maybe the randomness represents the chance you get attacked by an alligator, but that's not really random. In that case it would just change the swim difficulty or have some other effect (you make it across but you are missing a leg, or you have to wrestle the alligator).

Would this be less fun than a game with dice? Are there any RPGs that don't have randomness?

with no randomness why bother to even fight, just have the computer tell you who won by comparing two numbers. Randomness simulates combat chaos, nothing else can do it and while it might not be perfect the effects are exactly the same as real life chaos.

For example the chance a tank shell penetrates armor at a given range is not random, it is a combination of when exactly the shell is fired, the angle and depth of the tanks armor the shell hits, any tiny variations the opposing tank drive makes while the shell is in the air etc-- but none of this can be strictly modeled without also modelling a detailed human-like AI into every single game actor. Such an AI is not even close to being developed and even if it were it would be a complete waste of time for modelling something like the above since a RNG can do it so well that I do not think the results are distinguishable from reality except if you know beforehand a particular event was RNG generated or reality simulated. Besides we don't even know reality is not somewhat based on randomness anyway.

People who complain about this I don't understand; mostly it seems to be people who were born after 1990 for some reason. I don't know if its because they don't really know what games are simulating or if they have an unrealistic idea of what can be simulated-- but I don't think it is that exactly because many of them seem technically sophisticated or even work with computers, so I don't really know what the issue is. Chess is not random, but what it simulates is nothing like actual combat. pretty sure the military uses RNG in complicated war simulations, I don't really know how it can be avoided or why anybody would even want to try.
 
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No random is no fun, just as too much random is no fun.

Chess can be fun if you enjoy strategy.

Randomness adds unpredictability which can make battles more interesting. I hate excessive randomness though.

This is a good point, but you can have unpredictability in a rule system without dice. Just give the characters abilities/items that are limited. For example, if I'm in combat and my hitting ability, speed and tactics are less than my opponent's (which I don't know, by the way), I can throw dust in his eyes and temporarily blind him, or I can take some kind of boost to get the edge, or cast a spell, or use my power attack ability. otoh he can use his uncanny dodge ability as well as many of the things I can do. That's all deliberate and not random, but it's still unpredictable because the GM doesn't know what I'm going to do and vice versa.

Have you ever been in a fight? Have you even watched boxing / UFC / any form of martial contact sport at all?

Of course not. Why would I waste my precious little time on that shit when I have much more important things to do like thinking about the purpose of randomness in board games, but thank you for your astute observation.

Another example I thought of is weapon damage, which has always kinda bugged me. If I successfully hit my opponent, why do I have to roll for damage? If I stab him in the heart it ought to do 12 damage and possibly kill him outright. If I slash his leg it ought to do 6 damage and possibly disable him. I understand the damage roll represents the chance of hitting those vital areas, but it's a matter of skill and not luck (mine vs. my opponent's).

Now maybe there is a certain degree of randomness when you swing your weapon if you are relatively unskilled. For instance, you don't have fine control over your muscles or the physics of swinging a large object, so it's subject to go in an unexpected direction. I still would say it's not entirely random (like The Brazilian Slaughter was saying it can all be calculated), but maybe random from the PC's point of view because they don't know what they're doing. A more skilled fighter however knows exactly where his swing will go and there is no randomness. This could possibly be interesting as a game mechanic, i.e. at lower levels a dice roll is required, but at higher levels you can hit much more consistently.

how do you model that you 'possibly hit his heart'? its NOT entirely skill, you aim for his heart, but his heart is not exactly where you thought because his clothes hide his figure. You both are moving violently and bumping into each other with your limbs and he is trying to block your blow, how do you model a glancing blow or partial block? If his block is rated better than your hit then he blocks every time? If his dodge is better? If not then what? You stab him in his heart every time? How is this even a game at this point? You are just stating one number 'hit' being larger than another 'dodge', which is the same as 'win' or 'lose', so what are you playing now?
 
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ProphetSword

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There's no randomness involved in combat. Either you are a better fighter than your opponent or vice versa. If you both have the same ability then I would expect there to be a standoff and the conflict would need to be resolved some other way (or maybe special abilities would come into play (power attack once per day, uncanny dodge, etc.)). The only randomness might be a sudden gust of wind or something, but it still depends on ability because a good fighter can compensate for things like that.

It's not that there is randomness in combat...it's that there are variables out of your control. You can rationalize all you want, but you have no idea when your opponent will attack, which direction it will come from and what other factors might come into play during his attack (a distracting noise, you slip on a rock, a movement in the corner of your eye, his friend comes to help him kick your ass, you lose your footing, he sidesteps an attack, you overextend yourself, etc). None of these things are random (in the sense that something just happens for no reason), but they are definitely variables that mix things up.

So, stop looking at dice as "random," and look at them as putting the variables into play because combat is chaotic and life is chaotic.

I mean, I have a pretty good chance of living through the day if I hang around in my living room watching TV (which means I have pretty good living ability, I guess), but all bets are off if an airliner crashes into my house or terrorists set off a bomb down the street. There are always going to be variables you cannot control. And one of the most important things to realize is no matter how good your supposed "fighting ability" or strength might be, somebody else might just introduce a variable you didn't expect and beat the living hell out of you (ask Goliath how his fight with David turned out).
 

Servo

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I mean, I have a pretty good chance of living through the day if I hang around in my living room watching TV (which means I have pretty good living ability, I guess), but all bets are off if an airliner crashes into my house or terrorists set off a bomb down the street.

Yeah your living stat is pretty good but obviously you suck at realizing when you're about to be hit by an airplane and/or dodging said airplane.

So, stop looking at dice as "random," and look at them as putting the variables into play because combat is chaotic and life is chaotic.

In all seriousness though you are right and I realized this about half way up the page. You can't have a stat for every possible thing - the dice represents everything you aren't adding up explicitly.
 

Twiglard

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Without random save throws there'd be no save scumming. Careful what you wish for.
 
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Because the systems these games use are typically so simple that without randomness players would be able to predict the outcomes of every encounter

A sufficiently complex deterministic system doesn't need it, but games still benefit from using randomness as a way to expand the scope of consequences within the game systems without a lot of time invested
 
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It seems like every RPG uses dice or some other form of randomness to resolve actions. In D&D, for instance, there's a random factor in almost everything from combat to saves to reading (ffs). I'm not sure what the point of the d20 is other than to reinforce the idea that I'm playing a game, and possibly increase the addictiveness like in gambling.

I realize the rules are an abstraction of raelity and not a 1:1 correlation, but if I was making rules for a game with no prior notions I would say:

1. To hit an opponent: compare your hitting ability (and possibly speed, knowledge of tactics, etc.) to your opponent's dodging ability (and possibly parrying ability, knowledge of tactics, etc.)
2. To swim across a lake: compare your swimming ability (minus carrying weight or whatever) to the difficulty (water speed, depth, etc.)

There's no randomness involved in combat. Either you are a better fighter than your opponent or vice versa. If you both have the same ability then I would expect there to be a standoff and the conflict would need to be resolved some other way (or maybe special abilities would come into play (power attack once per day, uncanny dodge, etc.)). The only randomness might be a sudden gust of wind or something, but it still depends on ability because a good fighter can compensate for things like that.

There's no randomness in swimming either. Maybe the randomness represents the chance you get attacked by an alligator, but that's not really random. In that case it would just change the swim difficulty or have some other effect (you make it across but you are missing a leg, or you have to wrestle the alligator).

Would this be less fun than a game with dice? Are there any RPGs that don't have randomness?

It's not quite true that there is no "randomness" in combat. Simulation wise is represents the conditions of an action necessary for its success that are outside the actor's control, like whether the archer's opponent dodges left, right, or forward when the two try to out instinct each other. Whether or not 'luck' exists in the metaphysical sense, a facsimile of it can definitely appear in the fog of war.

Mechanically its a cost effective way to create a challenge that hits a lot of game design notes. I.e, it can be cheaply adapted into almost any system, bad players can surmount it by re-rolling, and good (meta) players find it hard to prep their way out of it.
 

Khor1255

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So, say I shoot a gun 200 times. Every one of those shots is going to have a slight variation. The more difficult he shot the greater the possible variations. Ditto for any physical event. If I suddenly develop a severe cramp when swimming across a large body of water it could either seriously exhaust me by the time I get to the other side or drown me. Now - of course - that would be like a 2 consecutive 1 rolls on a d20 but even a single 1 could signify something which makes an otherwise uneventful swim a little more exhausting.

Remove he randomness and you turn your characters itno machines. this isn't realistic at all.
 

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When you simulate humans in a game, you have to simulate their errors.

Servo said:
There's no randomness involved in combat

lol
 
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