When is Random too Random?
A lot of the gaming hobby is invested in the idea of randomness. It can add multiple facets to the game, from enhancing the story telling to adding an element of luck to a predominantly strategic game or fight. As such, a basic understanding of the mechanics of randomness, how it can be used and when random is good and when it’s too much can be crucial in the enjoyment of the hobby.
Randomness is there to add an element of unknown to the future proceedings. Typically this is achieved through the use of dice, and it’s something nearly everyone has had some exposure to over the years. Whether it was in the Monopoly set they played with family on camping holidays, perhaps a game of Yhatzee or Clue (Cluedo for those of us in the UK) or maybe Craps at a casino, the basic die is engrained into our everyday culture and zeitgeist. A 6 sided die is the most standard, typically referred to as a D6, and is likely what you thought of when I said dice.
But why add randomness in the first place? Why not play all games in a state known as “perfect information”? From my experience, randomness benefits fall into 3 main categories:
Story Telling - Some games are driven from a narrative standpoint, attempting to help craft a story, experience or collaborative play where the story unfolds in-front of you. Randomness in this setting helps to ensure that both the players and the characters in the story (which may or may not be the same thing) experience the situation for the first time together. Role Playing games typically rely heavily on this, with players indicating what they are attempting to achieve and the dice / randomness determining the level of success, failure, and even the consequences of either...
Strategic Diversity - Deterministic gameplay is the concept that the same inputs within the environment will always equal the same outputs. In system design, it inherently implies that you don’t even need to save the outputs, as long as you know the inputs and “moves” made, you can always calculate the current game state. Every time that set of 6 troops charges that set of 4, they will win and lose 3 troops doing so. Every time I swing my axe, it will deal 12 damage to the foe in-front of me. Now in some games that’s useful and creates a puzzle that needs solving, there is a perfect strategy and a perfect way to play the game. However, other systems introduce the randomness to try and replicate the unlikely. What if this time, there is a chance the 4 troops get lucky and manage to defend through bravery and sheer determination. What if this time my axe connects with a particularly vulnerable part of the the creature, and I deal an amazing 24 damage. This can lead to amazing stories of last stands, of David vs Goliath moments where the underdogs came through with luck on this day. It can also lead to a strategic re-evaluation of the battle field, where those 6 troops that should have won didn’t and now you need to re-assess the battlefield and make the best of what’s in front of you. The introduction of randomness ensures that each game plan or strategy is only a starting point and will likely need to adapt on the fly.
Replayability - Some games can only be played and experienced once, but most games are designed to be played multiple times. As such they need a way to be different each time, both to stop there being a single right way to play but also to ensure that those playing have a new and fun experience every time. It can also help level out the playing field in some regards, with luck allowing for strategies that should not have worked to come good, or throwing a spanner in the works for even the most seasoned of generals and strategists.
Whilst dice are the most common of ‘randomness engines’, i.e. the process of adding in some randomness to a predictable process, there are many others used around the gaming hobby. For example, some games use a shuffled deck of cards, where you both flip a card and the highest wins. Others use physical embodiments of the chaos, as simple as tiles in the bag in scrabble to stretching to a flickering candle in-front of players (with a trigger being when it goes out even if that is just someone’s errant sneeze), but dice are by far the most common, with the majority used across all games separated into what are known as the ‘RPG Dice Set’:
- D4 - A small pyramid that can be tricky to roll, a D4 is used to generate numbers in a small range.
- D6 - The most common of the dice found in a lot of board games and dating back through history in games that have been discovered by archaeologists. Likely when someone says roll a dice, you think of this small cube with 1 through 6 numbered on each side, opposite sides always adding up to 7 (if you don’t believe me check!)
- D8 - A diamond with numbers ranging from 1 through to 8. Adds a little more swing than a standard D6 (see swing later on) without expanding the range too drastically in most circumstances.
- D10 - Typically numbers 0-9, with the 0 representing either a 0 or a 10 as needed. Depending on the system you are using or game you a playing, the joy or despair of the 0 can be huge.
- D12 - Quite often known as the D20’s little brother, largely because of the shape seeming to just be a smaller version of a D20
- D20 - The ‘RPG” dice, most synonymous with things like modern day Dungeons and Dragons, Frostgrave, Pathfinder etc. Probably the second most famous and popular dice out there behind the ubiquitous D6 and the one most likely to have been seen other than a D6. It is starting to become a symbol of embracing your inner geek in some circles with multiple bits of art and tattoos “sneaking” the iconography in to subtly show it off.
- D100 - (also know as a Percentile Dice) Normally combined with a D10, this die has 10 sides showing 00/10/20/30 etc. The player would roll both together, adding the single digit to the 10’s digit to get a result. For example, if the D100 rolls a “60” and the D10 rolls a “3” the final result would be 63. Depending on the system, the D10’s 0 can be interpreted as a 10 or as a 0. If deemed as a 10, the total range would be 1 - 100 (By rolling a 00 and a 1, through to rolling a 90 and a 0). If its seen as a 0, the final range would 0 - 99 (By rolling a 00 and a 0, through to rolling a 90 and a 0)
With dice being the most common of the randomness engines, the community has settled on a few common processes for modifying the randomness in some way towards a more positive or negative result. These modifiers allow for the likelihood of scenario’s to be increased, the seasoned warrior should be more likely to hit with the sword than the peasant who just picked it up, but still allow for those moments of incredible story telling and luck to play through, like the peasant who somehow managed to land the lucky head shot and knock the beast unconscious!
Basic +/- Modifiers allow for a player to add or subtract a number to dice roll, increasing or decreasing the odds of achieving the result they are after. Taking our example above, let’s say in order to hit our terrible foe with the sword we need to achieve a value of 5. Our seasoned warrior, because of the experience with his sword, gets a +2 to any value he rolls, whereas our peasant who has never held a sword in their life has a modifier of -1. Our warrior rolls terribly, a measly 1 plus the modifier of +2 bringing him to a total of 3 which is not enough to hit. Our peasant on the other hand manages to roll a 6, which even with their -1 modifier is still a 5 and they connect with the snarling creature, knocking it to the ground.
Pick From 2 as a mechanic, sometimes called Advantage / Disadvantage thanks to a very popular RPG, is the process of generating two numbers and selecting either the highest, lowest or one you prefer. Continuing our example, the warrior has the ability to roll 2 and select the highest, whilst the peasant has to roll 2 and select the lowest. The warrior rolls a 1 and a 4, so picks the 4, adds the +2 modifier for a total of 6 and can hit the monster. The peasant on the other hand rolls a 6 and a 2, and has to select the 2, which with the modifier of -1 gets dropped to a total of 1 and misses with a wild swing. Pick 2 as a mechanic is one of the most powerful ways to try and tip the scales, either up or down, meaning for a stroke of luck (good or bad) to strike it has to hit twice in most instances.
Up / Down the Dice Scale keeps the element of randomness whilst allowing for “swingier” results. As per the scale earlier in this article, it is possible to rank the dice in ascending numerical order and then giving characters the ability to go up and down this scale to represent the abilities and challenges they face. For example, if we were to say in the example above, inclusive of modifiers, that the peasant can only roll a D6, but for the same challenge the warrior can roll a D10. The peasant can only succeed on a 6, a relatively small chance (1 in 6 to be precise), whereas the warrior can now succeed on a 3-12 and only fails on a 1 or a 2! That’s an 83% chance of success for the warrior compared to the poor 16% chance for the peasant - which seems a bit more in-line with expectations whilst still allowing for the odd miraculous event or catastrophic failure to keep things interesting!
These are the most common modifiers to dice rolls, but there are additional ways to utilize or modify the randomness throughout the gaming process. Using multiple smaller dice tends towards a more common value, so rolling 2 D6 at once and adding the values together tends to produce a lot more results between 5-9 than rolling a singe D12, but both have the possibility to roll a 12 although that is more common on a D12 (and you cannot roll a 1 on 2 x D6). I am trying to keep the math’s out of this post despite being an accountant in an old life, but if you want a math’s heavy post let me know in the comments below. You can also use the randomness not just as a binary metric, a pass or fail state, but more to choose from an array of possibilities. Perhaps you have 4 doorways in-front of you - rolling a D4 indicates which one is unlocked and open. A travelling merchant has come to town, the DM can roll 4 D20’s and consult the chart to see what items he has in stock. Randomness can allow for a greater sense of verisimilitude (a fancy word for making the world seem real) rather than every shop stocking the same 10 items at the same prices.
This is becoming a long post, and there is a lot more that could be said on the topic, but perhaps it’s worth wrapping up with a thought about seeking randomness. There are as many types of player out there as there are grains of sand, with each having a differing hunger for randomness, story telling, strategic concepts, puzzle solving and themes. As such, some systems cater for differing aptitudes towards randomness with choices players can make within the game. For example within Dungeons and Dragons (the RPG mentioned above in relation to Advantage / Disadvantage), players can pick the sorcerer class which rolls on a list of 100 possible spell effects whenever they cast a spell, some being mostly harmless (you turn blue for 24 hours) through to downright disastrous for those around you (by exploding into a massive fireball). Within Warhammer, the Skaven are seekers of chaos and randomness, sometimes punching well above their perceived weight with huge critical strikes and charges all the way across the battle field, where as other times their own machines blow up in their face as their plans for world domination go up in literal green warp-stone fueled smoke... How much randomness is good for the game you’re playing? Let’s roll a dice and let it decide!
