Random numbers - essential in RPGs or not? Discuss!

[lukaszek]

just my regular drop every few pages: deterministic system > RNG

EDIT: to clarify whats in this thread: it was moved from DOS2

 

[Roguey]

Probabilities aren't "extreme randomization", they are always the same in the same circumstances. If the system is done well you can game them to your advantage.

Sawyerposting

All-or-nothing results tend to produce large spikes in conflict resolution. On the extreme end, you have traditional AD&D spells like Disintegrate that either annihilate the target completely or... do nothing. More typically (cont)
you have the standard to-hit roll that either results in normal damage or absolutely nothing. Because the gulf between success and failure results is so large, random chance has a very large impact how the conflict works out. This system normalizes
the results. Our goal is to make your choice of tactic ultimately more important than the results of the die roll (though the die rolls still matter).
If we're only implementing mechanics that are proven to be fun in RPGs, I'm not sure why we're talking about D&D's THAC0/BAB system. Players generally dislike the all-or-nothing results of those mechanics, which is why you saw a move away from it in 4E.

Take something like the classic spell Disintegrate from A/D&D. In older editions, this was a total win/loss spell. If the target failed the save, it died, flat out. People effectively used this as an effective degenerate tactic against many difficult enemies in Infinity Engine games. The first spell cast would be Disintegrate. If the target made its save, the player would just reload and try again.

With Disintegrate reworked as a spell that does a large amount of damage on a failed save and a decent amount of damage on a successful save, it's no longer an all-or-nothing spell that encourages save scumming. The effects are still variable, the results of the save still matter, but it's one check that's normalized with many others during combat. The more the randomized checks of combat are normalized, the more the player's specific character strategies and tactics matter.

As an aside, I've been playing the 1992 RPG Darklands for most of my trip. I still love the game, and while aspects of the combat are random, they are much LESS random than the extreme examples of old editions of AD&D. The worst aspects of the game are the ones where there are severe consequences (often through random encounters) that come down to purely random checks. It's a double whammy of (randomly) getting a horrible encounter, attempting to escape, and (randomly) failing due to one check.

 

[Darth Roxor]

just my regular drop every few pages: deterministic system > RNG

that might just be true if you're a homosexual gay faggot

 

[Trashos]

Sawyerposting
...

Maybe it is good for cheesy tactics to exist, so that weak players won't be stuck, and the hardcore players can still enjoy a complex combat system. The alternative is to dumb down everything, isn't it?

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Fairfax]

What is to say people playing D:OS2 won't do that? Keep at it until they do it? Isn't that what players in the past did? Why is the first instinct to remove any challenge, rather than see if the players are going to surmount it?

Eliminating randomness doesn't necessarily remove challenge. It gives a lot a players a challenge that is more palatable to them. For them "I lost because of bad figurative dice rolls (and I don't have the acuity to overcome those bad rolls)" is bad, "I lost because I wasn't performing the actions I should have been doing" is fine.

The "acuity to overcome these bad rolls" is a challenge. Assuming a somewhat decent combat system, anyone who blames rolls rather than their own decisions is not skilled enough to overcome any significant challenge in an RPG like that. Sure, that applies to most players, and it's only natural that devs want to please them, but it doesn't mean the whole combat system has to be streamlined. That's what different difficulty settings are for.

 

[Elex]

just my regular drop every few pages: deterministic system > RNG

i hate RNG, but the armor sistem of dos 2 is the worst idea ever.

they can create a good system with 100% cc success rate and counter to the CC.

you can put all the combo you want, and also give more importance to tank/cleric/paladin characters vs I’M GOING FULL BURST and “the team only need one type of damage”

also limit a lot the opness of lone wolf because they will need to split more skill for avoid being cc to death.

 

[Roguey]

The "acuity to overcome these bad rolls" is a challenge. Assuming a somewhat decent combat system, anyone who blames rolls rather than their own decisions is not skilled enough to overcome any significant challenge in an RPG like that. Sure, that applies to most players, and it's only natural that devs want to please them, but it doesn't mean the whole combat system has to be streamlined. That's what different difficulty settings are for.

I forgot I saved this image.

 

[Fairfax]

The "acuity to overcome these bad rolls" is a challenge. Assuming a somewhat decent combat system, anyone who blames rolls rather than their own decisions is not skilled enough to overcome any significant challenge in an RPG like that. Sure, that applies to most players, and it's only natural that devs want to please them, but it doesn't mean the whole combat system has to be streamlined. That's what different difficulty settings are for.

I forgot I saved this image.

It's the ultimate entitlement. "I tried, therefore I must get something out of it".

 

[Azarkon]

just my regular drop every few pages: deterministic system > RNG

How do you model dodging an attack in a deterministic system? Or even just a miss?

 

[Roguey]

How do you model dodging an attack in a deterministic system? Or even just a miss?

With a hp system one can argue that every attack misses except the one that actually kills you.

 

[Murk]

How do you model dodging an attack in a deterministic system? Or even just a miss?

With a hp system one can argue that every attack misses except the one that actually kills you.

May want to use a different acronym than hit points for that.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Elex]

How do you model dodging an attack in a deterministic system? Or even just a miss?

With a hp system one can argue that every attack misses except the one that actually kills you.

May want to use a different acronym than hit points for that.

miss point?

 

[Azarkon]

just my regular drop every few pages: deterministic system > RNG

How do you model dodging an attack in a deterministic system? Or even just a miss?

personally i liked what Hard West did.

also what Roguey said

also in poe(the first and only worth mentioning) while there is RNG they implemented entropy -> tldr with each succesful evade your chance lowers and vice versa. As such its reliable and predictable.

I consider RNG to be path of laziness and hand waving obfuscation of meh mechanic.

Regarding the core of your question: what is the difference between dodging and miss?

Dodging implies the guy took action; missing is a more general concept and could just as well be due to the opponent making a mistake.

But that's not important. The reason I asked the question is because RNG is a natural way of modeling phenomenon, not just in CRPGs, but in life. The physical world may or may not be deterministic, when it comes down to it, but from the perspective of an agent trying to make decisions, much of it is left to chance. When you throw a dice, for example, modeling the detailed physics of the throw to find out which side it'll land on is more or less impossible. So instead, we say that the dice is random. Not because it's actually random, but because we can't predict its result the moment we throw it.

CRPG rule sets are basically abstract models of life, designed in such a way so as to be fun. The reason they rely on RNG is because pretty much all abstract models of life rely on RNG. Unless you simulate the physics of the interaction - in which case it is no longer an abstract model - those factors of a process that are not directly represented have to be written off as chance. Thus, since CRPG rule sets don't represent the physical process that led to a miss, we have to model it as a probability ie 70% hit, 30% miss. This is why I asked you how we're going to model a miss in a deterministic system, because this is an abstract phenomenon of combat that we want to capture in game mechanics - yet there would be no way to do so, without RNG.

 

[Azarkon]

How do you model dodging an attack in a deterministic system? Or even just a miss?

With a hp system one can argue that every attack misses except the one that actually kills you.

Which would, obviously, leave out any account for chance, and so fail to capture our perception of it, in life.

To give an example: say that a guy told you that he shot at a target 90 times and hit the target 30 times. Which of the following would better capture his experience, as you imagine it in your head?

1. The guy hit his target 33% of the times, in any sequence.
2. The guy hit his target every third shot, without fail.

RNG exists because it matches how we think about life.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Azarkon]

But that's not important. The reason I asked the question is because RNG is a natural way of modeling phenomenon, not just in CRPGs, but in life.

RNG as life model is excuse made by scientists whenever their model of given scenario isnt working. Most abusive is economy. Sometimes its accompanied with 'individuals acting irrationally'.

When you throw a dice, for example, modeling the detailed physics of the throw to find out which side it'll land on is more or less impossible.

It is if you can measure everything. As I said earlier, randomness is easier.
If stuff like that were impossible then cassinos wont be banning people with telephones and apps predicting 'random' events.

CRPG rule sets are basically abstract models of life, designed in such a way so as to be fun. The reason they rely on RNG is because pretty much all abstract models of life rely on RNG. Unless you simulate the physics of the interaction - in which case it is no longer an abstract model - those factors of a process that are not directly represented have to be written off as chance. Thus, since CRPG rule sets don't represent the physical process that led to a miss, we have to model it as a probability ie 70% hit, 30% miss. This is why I asked you how we're going to model a miss in a deterministic system, because this is an abstract phenomenon of combat that we want to capture in game mechanics - yet there would be no way to do so, without RNG.

you didnt address examples of deterministic system(s) I gave. They are fun. They work. You jumped into conclusion that this is the only way due to life being based on gods dice rolls

RNG, as used in scientific models, is an abstraction for hidden factors that behave in a probabilistic manner. It's not an "excuse" - it's a KNOWN hidden variable that the model builders decide not to represent explicitly because it would be too expensive to do so. Full-blown physics simulations with all the variables are not possible to do computationally in an efficient way. It's not about "easy" and "hard" - it's about "possible" and "impossible."

None of the deterministic systems you mentioned can deal with the simple fact that attacks can miss and not in the same order every time. Why? Because even to humans, chance makes more sense than no chance. The average person understands a dice throw as random. The average person does not understand a dice throw as coming up 1, the first time you do it, 2, the second time you do it, etc.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Roguey]

Which would, obviously, leave out any account for chance, and so fail to capture our perception of it, in life.

To give an example: say that a guy told you that he shot at a target 90 times and hit the target 30 times. Which of the following would better capture his experience, as you imagine it in your head?

1. The guy hit his target 33% of the times, in any sequence.
2. The guy hit his target every third shot, without fail.

RNG exists because it matches how we think about life.

These are games, not life simulations.

 

[Lacrymas]

These are games, not life simulations.

Human logic and thinking don't stop to exist once you are in the context of a game. You need to be able to realistically rationalize what is happening, having moon "logic" in games because "it's a game" is a fundamental misunderstanding of humans in general, let alone anything else.

 

[Azarkon]

Why? Because even to humans, chance makes more sense than no chance. The average person understands a dice throw as random. The average person does not understand a dice throw as coming up 1, the first time you do it, 2, the second time you do it, etc.

actually humans dont understand randomness.
The way human understand randomness is: if chance of success is 10% and I already failed 9 times in a row, next one is sure win!

...I will agree that people who believe the above might indeed prefer a deterministic system.

Yet they do deal fine with following: you attack 5 times with 20% hit chance. 1 attack connects while 4 misses.
And they do that without creating complicated physics model

Yes, with a 20% chance to hit, you'd expect to hit one in five. But not every fifth hit.

Any concept that we'd naturally model with a random variable - miss, critical hits, saves, etc. - is difficult to represent in a deterministic system, and attempts to do so inevitably come off as artificial or opposed to intuition. It's not that you can't do it, it's that it isn't how we want to think about it, as humans. Yes, you can create a system where you model accuracy as a hit counter, critical hits as another hit counter, and saves as yet another hit counter. But why? You're just trying to get away from representing chance through the computational equivalent of chance: the RNG. Unless you simply refuse to accept chance as a general idea in life, there's no reason to do it.

 

[Azarkon]

Which would, obviously, leave out any account for chance, and so fail to capture our perception of it, in life.

To give an example: say that a guy told you that he shot at a target 90 times and hit the target 30 times. Which of the following would better capture his experience, as you imagine it in your head?

1. The guy hit his target 33% of the times, in any sequence.
2. The guy hit his target every third shot, without fail.

RNG exists because it matches how we think about life.

These are games, not life simulations.

Do you agree that being intuitive is a positive for a system?

 

[Roguey]

Do you agree that being intuitive is a positive for a system?

I know that most people don't understand probability, hate missing, and enjoy playing games where dice rolls don't make them miss.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG