A Short Treatise on "Randomness"

[Jemelby]

Remember the days when you cranked up the Victrola, gently place the 78 RPM plater on the turn table, released the spring, and carefully lowered the resonator needle onto the first groove? Fantastic and melodic sounds would usher forth from horn, and you just knew that technology was here to stay...

 

Trouble was, once you listened to the record a few times, you knew exactly what was coming next. There was no discovery - no surprise. It was the same old record, over and over and over. But not from the radio. Oh no! You never knew what that crazy announcer on the talkie-box would say next, or what music he would play. The outcome was seeming "random", and that fact was reason enough to listen hour after hour - day after day.

 

So let's apply this analogy to video games. On one side, you have the scripted "theatrical game". The storyline can branch a couple different ways, but not infinitely so, and the "jewel encrust club of awesome whacking" is always going to be in the box outside the farmhouse near the "Pincard to Elba" road. You get one play through with discovery - that's it. Of course, you can play it through again (and plenty of folks do), but the only variation is going to be what you the player provides. Oh sure... There's going to be a quest/monster/item that you missed the first time trough, but in terms of discovery, it's pretty thin soup the second time around.

 

Conversely, you have game where nothing is guaranteed. The box might have a club, or it might have a broken husk. You just don't know because the contents are random. The pitfall here, of course, is the irresistible necessity to save-open box-reload-repeat until the box gives you what you want.

 

The sweet spot is somewhere in the middle. It is best exemplified by what is perhaps my favorite game of all time - the MUD Medievia. IRL legal drama aside, the game provided the perfect mix of predictability, discovery, and chance. Just about every item that the game created had a random tweak applied within a certain range. The coral necklace, for example would have a certain amount of HP & Mana applied. An average one would have 30/30. An extraordinary one would have 50+/50+. But since both tweaks are applied separately, you could just as easily end up with a 10/55 necklace. Not so hot, BUT, all the more reason to keep playing and trying for a better one. The point is that there was an Infinite supply of DISCOVERY! When you battle your way through the zone to get to the booger with the widget you want, he MIGHT have one, and it MIGHT be fantastic! Or you might just have to run the zone again.

 

This philosophy can also be found in games like Age of Empires II (with the conquerors expansion, of course) and random map generation. Every game is new and exciting and ready to be eXplored (& eXpanded & eXploited & eXterminated)

 

Random = replayability

[Slawbug]

Interesting post -- props for starting the topic.

 

That said, I would assert that

 

Random = grindability

 

Or at least the "sweet spot" of randomness described above. I don't think it's very interesting to fight the same battle over and over just to see what you roll for the same magic item's bonus in the loot each time.

 

"he MIGHT have one, and it MIGHT be fantastic! Or you might just have to run the zone again." This is definitely where a lot of CRPG development has headed over the last 10-15 years, influenced by the demand for huge quantities of short or segmented content produced both by MMO's and by mobile gaming consoles, including phones. It puts the focus on a very different part of the game. For this to be fun, "running the zone" has to be inherently fun -- outside of plot developments, character progression, and variety of new encounters.

 

I'm all on board with this in theory but I don't find most CRPGs to be fun in this way. I find them to be lots of fun in general, but there aren't many where the battle mechanics are actually that interesting _when on endless repeat_. Action-RPGs are much better off in this regard since repeating a short test of skill fifty times is a lot more interesting than repeating a command sequence you have just entered fifty times.

 

This kind of "randomness" in a CRPG is, IMO, just laziness: the developers trying to get many hours worth of "content" for significantly less work on the content development end.

 

#thesmallsetofthingsjeffvogelandterrorsmartyragreeabout

[Level 1 Hermit]

I would love less predictability in item drops. Not many people would just replay the same battle/event over and over again just to get a better item. It would defeat the purpose of surprise and variability that I find so interesting about the concept in the first place.

 

And why not apply the same idea to other parts of the game. Instead of having a definite "reputation", why not change it so it can vary within a small range, say 1 or 2 points(depending on how important the event is). And different towns NPCs react differently depending on your reputation.

 

Say, if you're over a threshold value(which you don't know), you could be ambushed by a certain number of people or be welcomed as a friend. And who says that particular NPC HAS to be rebel or shaper? Maybe there's a shaper who works in the loyalist camp but has rebel views, not necessarily a spy. The RNG will provide for much unpredictability in future playthroughs. You'll never know who will be friend or foe! For example, Mehken from G5 could be helping Rawal faithfully or secretly under the allegiance with the Trakovites!

 

I figure it must be hard to code all these possibilities/random variables/strings.

[Randomizer]

Basilisk Games in its first game Eschalon: Book 1 had containers with fixed items that were needed or helpful to get through the game and ones that always had random content. This led to hours of saving, open the container, and reload if it doesn't seem good enough in order to get good items and money instead of getting through the game. The second game allowed the option of fixing the random seed so in return for more experience you played with the items not changing. This allowed the player to concentrate on the game.

 

I've played in MUDs where the map and items could have a random element so you couldn't predict and plan for what happened next. There isn't much story so you spend time grinding until you are ready for the next difficulty jump. You do have a goal, but most are just fight and loot with the only thought being what's the best way to take out the monsters. To keep going you get addicted to getting the better version of items and leveling up.

 

Finding something with enough randomness to make each time through the game be different enough to be a new adventure is hard because most game designers won't create enough content. Something like Geneforge where you have several paths through the game that have different events depending upon your previous actions. Most are so linear that the only difference is what weapons you use in the fight.

[keira]

For me, the game that hits the sweet spot of randomness is Dwarf Fortress. Every world you create has a unique landscape, history, and story. You can choose to read all of this, scanning through pages and pages about the fall and rise of kings, wizards, and even mystical beasts. Your dwarves, with their sometimes-hilarious randomized names, obsess over these historical tidbits as, far above them on the surface of the world, a lone caravan is ambushed by goblins. A picture is slowly painted by your dwarves, using the power of engravings, books, and statues.

 

Or you can take control of one dwarf, human, or elf in particular and travel this world yourself, asking people about the history of their town/family/nation/whatever, and sometimes you yourself will be added to that history. The level of detail is astonishing, even combat is immaculately randomized and detailed.

 

but of course nobody can be bothered to know about this because they can't take five minutes to learn how to keyboard.

[Khoth]

I would love less predictability in item drops. Not many people would just replay the same battle/event over and over again just to get a better item. It would defeat the purpose of surprise and variability that I find so interesting about the concept in the first place.

So you haven't played the Diablo games then?

[Level 1 Hermit]

So you haven't played the Diablo games then?

 

Nope :3

[Jemelby]

 

So you haven't played the Diablo games then?

 

I have played Diablo A LOT - mostly for the loot system. The availability of loot with randomly generated stats that follow general guidelines keeps me coming back again and again. Every loot drop is like Christmas! The story line is there as well, but gets a bit dry (and repetitive).

 

LOOT - LOOT - LOOT - LOOT - LOOT - LOOT - LOOT - LOOT - LOOT - LOOT - LOOT - LOOT

[Alorael at Large]

The point of Diablo is, not to put too fine a point on it, grinding. I don't begrudge it that; I enjoy Diablo thoroughly. But that's what it is. It's fine to get trash drops because you're going to keep repeating random fights to get more random loot, and it will randomly be better next time or the time after that. This is the model of a lot of Rogue-likes, and a big difference is whether you can grind patiently forever (Angband) or whether you've only got so much room to grind (NetHack, and a little farther out from the traditional FTL and XCOM).

 

That's not how Spiderweb games are. Or most recent non-action RPGs. You don't repeat battles. You play through once, or maybe a few times for different plot paths. But you get the loot largely on schedule and there's little randomness. In exchange, the game that is there has a lot of tactical depth in set pieces, at least ideally.

 

There's a tradeoff between carefully tuning and designing a game and having a lot of fun randomness, and for the most part they live in separate worlds. Both are fun, but both are very different. I don't want random Spiderweb any more than I want nonrandom Angband or Diablo.

 

—Alorael, who notes that the games that can really go random or fixed are tabletop games. And while he has enjoyed a good roll on the random encounter table followed by a roll on the loot table, he also very much loves a strong authorial hand. And that hand need not be just the GM's; players can and should have a lot of story input. But it takes a human mind to really run with the full range of possible outcomes. CRPGs are necessarily restricted.

[Lilith]

tbh i kind of like grinding when i'm in the right mood for it. it requires just enough attention and thought to take my mind off other stuff but little enough that i don't need to be able to concentrate intensely to do it competently, so it's great for calming me down when i'm anxious or stressed. which is pretty often

[Sudanna]

This kind of replayability does not interest me in the slightest. I don't really care all the much what order I find what items in - certainly not enough to replay a game. And I actively loathe grinding. Borderlands, Diablo, any MMO, any JRPG, whatever, the random items and grinding are absolutely the least interesting parts to me, and any game that doesn't let me ignore that aspect is a game I just cannot ever enjoy. Random loot generation + grinding is a Skinner box and it grosses me out.

 

More total randomness can be fun, though. I like a ton of classic and modern roguelikes that use this as their driving feature, and I get a lot out of that. Dwarf Fortress, like Sylae mentioned, had extensive simulationist random generation that would have been a great feature if the rest of the game weren't so clumsy. I love the places that a CK2 game can end up (Irish Caliphate! Israel in Iceland!). Even a rogueish game like Risk of Rain, which has almost static level sequences with randomish generation of a wide array of really interesting and game-changing items is a good game for me, because it actively discourages grinding and it's not about minor stat variation - items have far more interesting and varied effects.

 

But I'll replay nonrandom or insignificantly random games too. I'm in the middle of replaying Transistor. I've replayed Dragon Age: Origins five or six times(and that is not a short game). I've gone through the entire Mass Effect trilogy at least three times. I've replayed Half-Life 2 a lot. Replayed KotOR 2 a lot. Fallout: New Vegas. Skyrim. And for many different reasons, too - Mass Effect and my terrible love/hate relationship with it, Half-Life 2 because I just love the gameplay that much, Skyrim because its endless failures are mesmerizing, and the others because I really just love them enough to want to play more game than is there.

 

What's really interesting to me is games with highly variable or randomized stories. Something like The Yawhg will fascinate me forever. The mere concept of Unrest has me incredibly excited. Fallout: New Vegas is in the previous paragraph for largely this reason.

[Slawbug]

Yeah, roguelikes are a different question entirely.

 

although now that alorael mentions it, nonrandom angband scenarios could actually be kind of great...

[Aran]

I second that; grinding is the worst.

 

For multiplayer games, replayability isn't driven by randomness but by player interaction. To that end, randomness should be predictable and not eclipse skill, and character progress (if any) should be dwarfed by player progress. That includes RTS and turn-based strategy games, but also some shooters. I have a small reference pool as a casual gamer, so my best examples are TF2, Wesnoth and some of the older AoE and Settlers installations. Strategy, of course, has no character progress at all, but even TF2's item drops only create variety rather than making characters significantly more powerful.

 

For single-player or co-op games, the best kind of randomness is procedurally generated content - Minecraft, obviously, but I also enjoy rogue-likes like ADOM.

 

And many games (basically Myst-like) don't need randomness or replayability at all to be enjoyable. Single-player RPGs (eg. Spiderweb games) aren't very replayable either, beyond some special challenges and player classes, and that's perfectly okay. Some games are like very long films that you enjoy once (for about 10-30 hours in total, maybe more) and then put away. You don't need to keep playing it indefinitely.

[Mistah Q]

To me the most fun games have minimal randomness but instead tactical (not grinding but tactical) challenges you have to master in order to progress. Gunsmoke, Ikaruga, even platformers like Mario and Sonic come to mind (though, Mega Man is a step too far... having to make successions of ridiculous jumps just not to get a game over, it's more brutal than fun...).

 

That's what I like about Spiderweb games too. You have to learn to master different combat situations, you can play through the game maybe four or five times and see a couple endings and then you've exhausted the replayability... but that's okay because you sure had a heck of a good time doing it.

 

To me MMO grinding is boring and I couldn't give a rat about armor progression for its own sake. Plus time becomes an issue... WoW for example; I had fun with the game for a while sure, but I played through all the solo quests a few times now and I don't want to look at it anymore, and you know I'm married and have studying and work to worry about, so I really can almost never commit a solid four hour block to sit and grind a dungeon, just on the 5% chance of getting some slightly better hammer, so I can go start the process again on some slightly harder dungeon that doesn't realllly progress the story... especially when within two years an expansion will raise the level cap and yield "common" items that will exceed the hammer I just spent two weeks of my life trying to get.

The happiest medium for me when it comes to replayability is probably going to be a game where you have to master tactics yes, but then a set number of things could happen, and their happenstance will be more or less random. Like Rise of Nations, or Europa Universalis, or (begrudgingly) Civilization. Where you've got to balance diplomacy, economy, military, etc, of your own nation, but other nations aren't going to necessarily be the same every game... tangled webs of tactics where, yes, it's a little bit random.

 

Of course, Mario Party or a sports game can be fun, if you've got other live people in the room with you, and very replayable. But Those games are the pits to play by yourself, and I think that was kind of the point, that a CRP or such can't really be on the level of a human storyteller or GM.

 

Just wait until we reach the Singularity. "Oh computer, Avernum 7 please. This time I want to play as the Vahnatai, and invade Lost Batishava, maximum two levels of basement for any one dungeon, and hide an easter egg of Rick Astley somewhere."

 

"Yes Mistah Q. Generating... generating..."

 

[nikki.]

... even platformers like Mario and Sonic come to mind (though, Mega Man is a step too far... having to make successions of ridiculous jumps just not to get a game over, it's more brutal than fun...).

 

Finishing Mega Man 2 is probably the proudest gaming-related achievement I can boast about. I found it just barely on the right side of fun, but damn. 'Brutal' is pretty much exactly the right word for it.

[Edgwyn]

I am a fan of the Civilization series (and its off shoots) which have a degree of randomness to them. I have not played any random CRPGs in a long time. I seem to remember one on the Mac in 1987 that had tile based graphics with random drops of loot. The potions were identified by color and what a particular color did one game was not necessarily what it did the next game. Unfortunately I cannot remember what the name of the game was, but I did find it enjoyable. The rest of the CRPGs that I played had distinct plots and while they had some random encounters and items, they were pretty fixed.

[Lilith]

I have not played any random CRPGs in a long time. I seem to remember one on the Mac in 1987 that had tile based graphics with random drops of loot. The potions were identified by color and what a particular color did one game was not necessarily what it did the next game. Unfortunately I cannot remember what the name of the game was, but I did find it enjoyable.

 

Dungeon of Doom / The Dungeon Revealed?

[Edgwyn]

That was it Lilith, thank you, I have been struggling to remember what it was for a while now.

[Lilith]

i'm good at remembering weird computer things. it's a highly useful and marketable skill