Would classic RPGs be viable without the random factor?

[VanDerVaals]

Is the random factor in classic RPGs necessary? I am referring to classic RPGs, in which the mechanics are based only on character statistics and the random factor. It is hard to find any classic RPG that doesn't involve a dice roll or equivalent. It has existed since the very beginning of RPGs and it is an inseparable part of the history of RPG. The introduction of dice was aimed at implementing the risk element / the necessity of assessing one's chances / evoking players' uncertainty. As some of us might have experienced, the random factor can be merciless in some cases and a bad luck can turn a powerful character into a useless one, no matter how little the chance for such thing to happen would be. For some time now I have been wondering if a system based solely on character statistics would be possible and functional. A system in which success is a result of appropriate character development, strategy and tactics, where the result of any action is always clear. What do you think about such a system? Would it be functional or even better than the one involving the random factor? Or do you prefer a little bit of uncertainty in your game?

 

[Infinitron]

We recently had a thread about this: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...bers-essential-in-rpgs-or-not-discuss.119345/

 

[Dorateen]

It is hard to find any classic RPG that doesn't involve a dice roll or equivalent. It has existed since the very beginning of RPGs and it is an inseparable part of the history of RPG.

Answered your own question there.

 

[VanDerVaals]

It is hard to find any classic RPG that doesn't involve a dice roll or equivalent. It has existed since the very beginning of RPGs and it is an inseparable part of the history of RPG.

Answered your own question there.

I haven't said that's impossible. After D&D release RPGs would just copy and modify it's mechanics and nothing that broke this pattern comes to my mind. I'm just curious whether one can change the convention and make a good RPG that has no randomness whatsoever.

 

[Stavrophore]

Without randomness, criticals you will always have the best possible path-strategy against certain mobs. Like build orders in RTS like starcraft. It's just plain math. With randomness made in a tasteful matter[not +/-50%, thats just aggravating] you don't know the exact income, you can only anticipate certain result with probability, and this add some thrill, especially when no quick/load save system, or in multiplayer game.

 

[Dorateen]

It is hard to find any classic RPG that doesn't involve a dice roll or equivalent. It has existed since the very beginning of RPGs and it is an inseparable part of the history of RPG.

Answered your own question there.

I haven't said that's impossible. After D&D release RPGs would just copy and modify it's mechanics and nothing that broke this pattern comes to my mind. I'm just curious whether one can change the convention and make a good RPG that has no randomness whatsoever.

The issue here is not whether you can make a "good RPG" without dice rolls, but rather as stated in the thread title and your question, if it is a viable option to make a classic role-playing game.

Since dice have been an integral, emblematic part of the hobby, as you correctly point out in the part I quoted, then the only conclusion that can be drawn is a resounding NO. You can certainly make something else without using dice rolls or randomness, and call it whatever you want, but it is not a classic RPG.

 

[Sigourn]

I like randomness. Videogames just aren't fit to represent a lot of random variables that affect the outcome of an action. So I don't think classic RPGs are viable without that randomness, and that randomness makes them fun.

By "classic" I do mean "non 3D 1st-person/3rd-person RPGs". Randomness in a game like New Vegas feels like shit when done improperly. Randomness in a game like Fallout feels right at home. I feel randomness makes RPGs feel more unpredictable and thus each experience feels more unique, and dare I say more "realistic".

Because you are asking about "classic" RPGs, then my answer is NO.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

Speaking as someone who is currently trying to get into Ultima 6 and Realms of Arkania, I would say that the biggest limitations for classic CRPGs from the late 80s to early 90s is the clunky interface. The best part of what really makes them is their dungeon design and random variables, especially if they could make an interface that you could quickly familiarize yourself with a bit of practice, such as the Gold Box games or many rogue-likes from the error.

When you start taking the random variables away, you also take away a sense of danger that is important for a CRPG. When you take away too many random variables, you begin to leave the territory of CRPGs and instead start entering into the action genre for real-time games, or visual novels for turn-based. The random variables are essential to what a CRPG is, especially when you consider that CRPGs are supposed to be emulating the tabletop RPG experience. I'm not trying to derail this thread into a "what is an RPG" flamewar, but this is why I think that Borderlands and Skyrim begin to blur the lines between action shooters and action games with RPG elements, while games such as Long Live the Queen are more like visual novels with RPG elements, rather than the CRPGs they advertise themselves as.

 

[ProphetSword]

It is hard to find any classic RPG that doesn't involve a dice roll or equivalent. It has existed since the very beginning of RPGs and it is an inseparable part of the history of RPG.

Answered your own question there.

I haven't said that's impossible. After D&D release RPGs would just copy and modify it's mechanics and nothing that broke this pattern comes to my mind. I'm just curious whether one can change the convention and make a good RPG that has no randomness whatsoever.

Explain how it would work. Tell us what’s better than randomness. How do you create a CRPG without any die rolls or random numbers without turning it into something else, like an adventure game?

If you can’t, then obviously the answer is no.

 

[Sigourn]

I think it's important to take into account what do "random dice rolls" bring into the table. In a game like Skyrim there's no randomness. You shoot and arrow, and either aim properly or fail at aiming. A good player will always hit. A bad player will miss most of the times. I feel a lot is lost when you try to roleplay a character that is a bad swordsman and your only way to make that roleplay become the truth is by actively sucking at your dodging and blocking. I'd rather have the game diceroll my weaknesses instead of me playing like a moron.

Without dicerolls of any kind, the only difference between being "good" or "bad" is the player behind the computer, and not the character. In The Witcher, as you pump up your stats your accuracy will increase and your evasion will increase. It works similarly to Morrowind, except The Witcher is Morrowind combat done right: no ridiculous point-blank misses when it is harder to miss than it is to strke. Enemies in The Witcher, particularly FAST enemies (as opposed to any random 6-foot schmuck) would dodge your attacks with more ease. That's why the Fast style makes sense: it is not so much about dealing one good strike, but dealing dozens of fast strikes in the hope one will connect.

Fuck, I love The Witcher's combat.

TL;DR dicerolls are good because they separate the player from the character, and thus make it possible to play more characters without playing like a retard yourself.

 

[Trashos]

I assume randomness here means "as in backgammon" and not "as in chess, when played by a strong computer" (where there can also be some randomness but of a different nature, e.g. choice of opening). And so I voted "yes".

Randomness in needed now because it's still too damn hard to make good, interesting, flexible, deterministic combat. So RNG is a good enough solution for the time being, and has its own charm too. But I could certainly see turn-based RPGs in the future where combat is chess-like.

 

[VanDerVaals]

Fuck, I love The Witcher's combat.

Finally someone who can aprreciate the beauty of simplicity and effectiveness of the first Witcher combat system <3 Watching Geralt performing these ridiculous attacks is just plain pleasure that recompensates the lack of tactics and challenge. Morrowind here being a complete mess.
Bethesda gave up the dice rolls to benefit from player's manual input. And I don't blame them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNXYrAkUntU&t=61s
The Skyrim's combat system is unchallenging, I agree, but it's at least satysfying. RNG in FPP is just wrong I guess.

But how would you feel if the rolls were completely removed from the games like Baldur's Gate, Pillars Of Eternity or Divinity Original Sin, and the rest of the mechanics was untouched (no RNG, no manual input, just plain character statistics and player's strategy and tactics)?

 

[FeelTheRads]

When you take away too many random variables, you begin to leave the territory of CRPGs

And that's what revisionist newfags fail to understand.

Butt durr this gaem wuld be so much better if it was something else1111 hurrr

No, fuck you.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

*shakes 8ball*

Outlook not so good.

 

[Sykar]

Fallout NV has shown that it is possible to get a good RPG together without much randomness. I do prefer the threshold skill checks though they should be hidden and not obvious. One of the first mods I use is to remove all those tags during dialogue and on containers so I do not know where and how high they pop up. Fallout 1+2 did so too, not sure if F3 did that because I could not stand that game after 30 minutes even with 50+ mods. Am I glad I got it for 5 bucks on a flea market.

 

[Sigourn]

But how would you feel if the rolls were completely removed from the games like Baldur's Gate, Pillars Of Eternity or Divinity Original Sin, and the rest of the mechanics was untouched (no RNG, no manual input, just plain character statistics and player's strategy and tactics)?

To be honest rolls are sometimes good, sometimes very annoying. Removing them altogether isn't IMO a good solution, as the randomness adds to the combat in these games (and without that randomness, battles would either be brutally difficult or a complete walk in the park, when they need not be).

 

[ProphetSword]

I'm not even sure why anyone would want an RPG without some sort of random factor. It would be completely boring in combat if you auto-hit everything every time you swung a weapon and did a set amount of damage instead of a range of damage, you never had an option to have a critical hit or anything interesting. Imagine an RPG like that:

DM: You come across some goblins.
Player: I kill them.
DM: They all die due to you having high enough stats. Good job. But, there's a troll behind them you can't defeat with your stats, so he kills you. Ready to roll up a new character?

 

[Bohrain]

Without randomness, criticals you will always have the best possible path-strategy against certain mobs. Like build orders in RTS like starcraft. It's just plain math. With randomness made in a tasteful matter[not +/-50%, thats just aggravating] you don't know the exact income, you can only anticipate certain result with probability, and this add some thrill, especially when no quick/load save system, or in multiplayer game.

Probabilities don't change the fact that individual situations have optimal strategies, they don't just always work. What the degree of randomness adds is either uncertainty of what individual scenario you face or plain length if you have to retry the optimal strategy. Good game design utilizes the former aspect of randomness well if it manages to make the game less dull, but not uncertain to a point where player feels like he has no agency.

 

[FeelTheRads]

I'm not even sure why anyone would want an RPG without some sort of random factor. It would be completely boring in combat if you auto-hit everything every time you swung a weapon and did a set amount of damage instead of a range of damage, you never had an option to have a critical hit or anything interesting. Imagine an RPG like that:

DM: You come across some goblins.
Player: I kill them.
DM: They all die due to you having high enough stats. Good job. But, there's a troll behind them you can't defeat with your stats, so he kills you. Ready to roll up a new character?

Also, you'd never get the thrill of killing a boss (or strong enemy) with a weak party that would have had no chance otherwise with the help of a lucky roll. But autists would not even consider the possibility of fighting anything that doesn't follow a strictly linear difficulty curve. They would call that "degenerate" and would prefer to have the system play you instead of you playing the system.

 

[Bohrain]

I'm not even sure why anyone would want an RPG without some sort of random factor. It would be completely boring in combat if you auto-hit everything every time you swung a weapon and did a set amount of damage instead of a range of damage, you never had an option to have a critical hit or anything interesting. Imagine an RPG like that:

DM: You come across some goblins.
Player: I kill them.
DM: They all die due to you having high enough stats. Good job. But, there's a troll behind them you can't defeat with your stats, so he kills you. Ready to roll up a new character?

I agree with the fact that you need degree of randomness to make this kind of thing entertaining. But the choices in combat could still be completely deterministic (things hit certainly, no damage ranges etc.), but the encounter could be interesting if you randomized things such as enemy spawn locations, number of enemies, reinforcements, equipment and so forth. And of course the player shouldn't have tools available that are optimal in every possible scenario so that the randomization actually matters.

 

[FeelTheRads]

But the choices in combat could still be completely deterministic (things hit certainly, no damage ranges etc.),

But why? What purpose does that serve? Yeah, OK, you can randomize encounters*, but what does it help if you know a certain enemy will die from a certain number of hits from a certain weapon? It just cuts out so much out the excitement just to.. what... ?

*Which generally means that you either just get the same encounters that were designed for this purpose over and over again so that's not really a great idea. Nobody would sit and design multiple encounters to be used just as random choices in one area.

And sure, just as you mentioned in your previous post randomness shouldn't take the player agency out of the equation. Not more than determinism does at least lul.
Only Sawyerist autists think randomness is an evil and fixed value.

Also, RPG combat will never be chess, because:

- Who the hell wants what? Nobody wants to play a chess game every time a combat starts in an RPG
- You can't turn an RPG system into chess. Too many variables. The only way to do it is to reduce it to the amount of variables that chess has. Hurray, only 6 types of creatures because IT'Z CHESS!

So... lose complexity for the sake of feeling more monocled because your game is compared to chess?

 

[Hobo Elf]

I'm not even sure why anyone would want an RPG without some sort of random factor. It would be completely boring in combat if you auto-hit everything every time you swung a weapon and did a set amount of damage instead of a range of damage, you never had an option to have a critical hit or anything interesting. Imagine an RPG like that:

DM: You come across some goblins.
Player: I kill them.
DM: They all die due to you having high enough stats. Good job. But, there's a troll behind them you can't defeat with your stats, so he kills you. Ready to roll up a new character?

That's pretty much how Gothic works, and it works just fine. Obviously it wouldn't be fun in a PnP game, but as a CRPG it works well. So, yes, I think CRPGs can work fine with limited RNG, as long as you aren't trying to base the game on a well established PnP system.

 

[Elex]

I'm not even sure why anyone would want an RPG without some sort of random factor. It would be completely boring in combat if you auto-hit everything every time you swung a weapon and did a set amount of damage instead of a range of damage, you never had an option to have a critical hit or anything interesting. Imagine an RPG like that:

DM: You come across some goblins.
Player: I kill them.
DM: They all die due to you having high enough stats. Good job. But, there's a troll behind them you can't defeat with your stats, so he kills you. Ready to roll up a new character?

Also, you'd never get the thrill of killing a boss (or strong enemy) with a weak party that would have had no chance otherwise with the help of a lucky roll. But autists would not even consider the possibility of fighting anything that doesn't follow a strictly linear difficulty curve. They would call that "degenerate" and would prefer to have the system play you instead of you playing the system.

If your low level party can kill the final boss or a strong enemy is not a weak party: it's a broken party that abuse some broken game mechanics, and you probally need to scumsave until the perfect roll allow you to kill the strong enemy.
If you don't even need to scumsave is even worse: the game is simply shit level of balance.

If your party is at the adeguate level and need a lucky roll, or you are terrible at the game or the game have terrible balance that need a lucky roll for kill a boss/strong enemy zero tactics and planning.


There is a big difference between find a weakness of an enemy and use that weakness for kill him easily : like for example i use that scroll of greater dispell with my level 1 mage and my barbarian can kill that lvl 20 mage enemy, the spell have a 50% success so it's risky and my party only have the money for 1 scroll.
The 50% matter? not at all in a videogame, because the point is finding the right trick and tactics, it's not about the 50%, if the scroll fail, the party will be dead and you have to load the game and try again.

where is the fun element in reload a game?
The fun is in finding a secret place with the powerfull scroll, or find a merchant that sell the scroll, or kill another monster that have that scroll, realize that the scroll can be usefull later, meet that mage and with an evil smille on your face "maybe... maybe that scroll will work..." that is the fun part, nobody care about that 50% chance of success.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

Like build orders in RTS like starcraft. It's just plain math.

Except for execution. Which is pretty much non-existent in tb games.
Randomness in tb number games is good.

 

[FeelTheRads]

50% chance of success.

Thanks you for your reply. However, you understood exactly nothing.