Alex
Arcane
Randomness has been in RPGs since day one. In the old D&D games, we have randomness because, at the heart, these games were about coming up with plans. For instance? how do you deal with the piranha infested river? Do you jump across? Try to find a bridge? Do you poison the water? Do you use a scape goat, throwing something for them to eat? Do you use a cold spell to freeze the water and walk (skate?) across? etc. Now the thing is, these plans frequently had more than one step. If I knew beforehand if I would succeed or not at each step, I would never need to worry about complications, about a plan failing. Either it would always work, or it would always fail. Of course, the GM might keep that information to himself, but that would make the game worse off. Knowing your chances beforehand, and understanding them help make the gameworld seem more "real", and it helps the players get better at planning and preparing.
Some games have shifted this idea somewhat. Amber doesn't use any kind of randomness, while some indie "story games" use randomness as a kind of an extra "storyteller", that is, something to keep the narrative from following exactly where the players would expect.
You could, if you wanted, make a game without randomness work. Though I have no idea why you would want to do that. The only good reason I can think of is that randomness doesn't work so well with saving and loading, and in certain circumstances people may save scum in order to obtain a nearly impossible result. However, I think adding an ironman option to the game much more sensible.
Some games have shifted this idea somewhat. Amber doesn't use any kind of randomness, while some indie "story games" use randomness as a kind of an extra "storyteller", that is, something to keep the narrative from following exactly where the players would expect.
You could, if you wanted, make a game without randomness work. Though I have no idea why you would want to do that. The only good reason I can think of is that randomness doesn't work so well with saving and loading, and in certain circumstances people may save scum in order to obtain a nearly impossible result. However, I think adding an ironman option to the game much more sensible.