Would classic RPGs be viable without the random factor?

[Valky]

Variety is the spice of life and in RPGs, dice rolls are an integral part that allow for interesting gameplay mechanics that can often surprise you and not get old as quickly as without. I wouldn't want to play one that isn't random where you just make the exact same character with the exact same stats and follow the exact same steps to beat the game every time. That would be mind numbingly boring after one play.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

I wonder how a non-ergodic RNG would be perceived. As already mentioned somewhere in the thread, the chance of rolling, say, 1 on a D20 is 1/20, and doing so repeatedly is a clear possibility - the chances won't change based on the history of rolls. A non-ergodic system could take the history of recent rolls into account, for example by drawing (without replacement) from a finite pool of dice rolls. The effect would resemble a kind of karma - you can fumble only so many times before your bad luck is "depleted", and you are also sure to hit some 20's from your pool soon. Your average of rolls would converge faster towards the expected average while still correctly following probability and being unpredictable (well mostly).

I think the main problem of the RNG being perceived as unfair is that it correctly reflects reality - that events of low probability do still happen (being hit by lightning, winning the lottery, rolling all 1's) . Just detect and cull / compensate these events by the game system, and maybe the players are more satisfied? In a sense that a world in which good and bad events cancel each other out is a fair one for us, while a world following probability might not be.

There's also a common misconception that random only involves the dice rolls when it comes to feeling like something is 'fixed' unfairly.

Take these examples from my recent session of Baldur's Gate 2:

1. I was taking on two spellcasters of fairly high competence. I didn't particularly have too much trouble with them other than the usual IE problem of atrocious pathfinding. At the end of the battle the two were dead and I had barely a scratch on any of my team. However... two of my party members were still Confused at the end. It's relatively random who gets confused. I'm fine with that. But what happened next... nothing to do with dice rolls... One was a fighter archer and the other was a cleric/mage. The archer decides to shoot two arrows into the confused mage, then stops. The mage then decides to go for a walk about. The mage walks in a direct line to the only trap in the area, triggers it and takes just enough damage from it to kill her.

Now think about all the 'random' required to create that scenario, and how little it had to do with dice. Now, does that kind of 'random' sound at all 'fishy' to you?

2. I was taking on a demon and some of it's summons. I'd reloaed a few times to get a gist of what this thing was all about. I hadn't nailed it this time, this was the one before I nailed it. I sent two hasted archers and a hasted regular fighter in to deal with the demon quickly. It managed to get one paralyse/hold person whatever in before it went down, on one of the archers (my error was having this archer slightly ahead in positioning to the archer with better stats). This was dice random, this was fine. What happened next though... nothing to do with dice. One of the summons suddenly made a be-line for this archer. I put my entire outfit, including the ones hanging back for this fight, to attack this one summons. The archer standing next to the stumped archer suddenly stopped moving, no ailments, no fear, no reason. Everyone else was pummelling good and proper. My archer still had half their HP left by the time the summons was being clattered with hits. But it wouldn't go down. I sceamed at the screen "Oh fucking come on!". My archer died and literally 0.1 seconds later the summons died. And then the archer standing next to them started moving properly again.

Now think about all the 'random' required to create that scenario, and how little it had to do with dice. Now, does that kind of 'random' sound at all 'fishy' to you?

I don't mind in the long-term, it's all water under the bridge once you've seen this kind of shit in tons of different games. But I've no doubt the more unobservant people are likely blaming the innate purely robotic function of mathematical random when, in reality, the really obtuse things are much more to do with much more devious shit that could well have been sneaked into the program which have nothing to do with the systems of RNG but instead to do with the personality of the programmers and what they want gamers to experience.

 

[Sigourn]

Armor class is an abstraction that doesn't make sense.

It makes perfect sense. It shows how difficult is for abstract "attack" to succeed in order to "damage" your "hitpoints".

No, sorry. Putting on armor shouldn't make you more difficult to hit. If you actually believe this, you may be mentally challenged, or your life revolves around RPGs, or you have never put clothes on during winter. Putting on armor makes you clumsy. Having no armor at all makes you more agile, thus = more difficult to hit.

How it would make sense:

- No armor makes you harder to hit, but extremely fragile.
- Having armor makes you easier to hit, but makes you more resistant to attacks.
- Magical armor could possibly make you harder to hit.
- Your evasion is determined by the armor you are wearing.
- Your accuracy is determined by the armor you are wearing (or none) and the weapon you are using, and your skill with that weapon.

A skilled swordsman will easily be able to hit a dude fully clothed in heavy armor. An awful swordsman fully clothed in heavy armor will have a hard time hitting a nimble dude wearing light armor.

When you cut out the part of your brain infected with FPSitis, I suggest to use what little is left to ponder over whether a 10th level fighter is 10 times healthier than a 1st level fighter (wow, impressive!), or is he maybe 10 times as capable of DODGING, BLOCKING, FENCING, and just plain SURVIVING FOR 10 TIMES AS LONG IN AVERAGE FIGHT BY WHATEVER MEANS NECESSARY?

The mental gymnastics you have to go through to justify Armor Class being stupid and Hit-Points being something out of a FPS. Considering dodging/blocking/fencing is already represented by AC (poorly, should I add): sorry man, it appears HP is definitely a representation of how much damage your character can take.

Else there would be no dicerolls, every hit would connect, and thus I could see it that HP is a representation of your ability to survive.

 

[Bohrain]

Since this is slowly becoming a topic of "unpopular opinions", may as well get this off my chest:

Armor Class in the Infinity Engine games is FUCKING RETARDED. The idea that armor not only makes you harder to hit (why? because fuck logic), but also doesn't decrease the damage you receive, is nonsensical.

AC is maybe poorly named but I can get behind the logic of armor making it harder to land a hit on you. It all boils down to what the abstractions behind hits and misses are supposed to be.
Imagine a situation in fencing where you have no gauntlets. It forces you to be more vary of the enemy range since his pointy stick is potentially dangerous to your hands or wrists even if it hits without any notable force behind it.
Now assume you come into possession of gloves or gauntlets durable enough not to take notable damage if you lightly press them against the blade or tip of the enemy weapon. The opponent is still perfectly capable of hurting you, but now the amount of potentially dangerous ranges of motion have decreased because you can are able to parry or shrug off weak hits at the end of opponent's range. The way the abstraction works is that the gloves make those previously dangerous light hits now count as misses.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

AC is maybe poorly named but I can get behind the logic of armor making it harder to land a hit on you. It all boils down to what the abstractions behind hits and misses are supposed to be.
Imagine a situation in fencing where you have no gauntlets. It forces you to be more vary of the enemy range since his pointy stick is potentially dangerous to your hands or wrists even if it hits without any notable force behind it.
Now assume you come into possession of gloves or gauntlets durable enough not to take notable damage if you lightly press them against the blade or tip of the enemy weapon. The opponent is still perfectly capable of hurting you, but now the amount of potentially dangerous ranges of motion have decreased because you can are able to parry or shrug off weak hits at the end of opponent's range. The way the abstraction works is that the gloves make those previously dangerous light hits now count as misses.

Seems fairly simple to me. Armor "protects your vitals from being hit", i.e. an attack will "miss" in that it doesn't physically hurt you. It dings the armor, grazes, doesn't cause blunt or physical trauma, therefore it has missed the mark of physically damaging you.

Simple.

The mistake is thinking that "missing" in this abstraction means physically missing the mark. Like my plate mail is making me evade your blows like Keanu from the matrix evading gun shots. Wrong interpretation. And there aren't animations to visualize the abstractions, much like Morrowind's combat where missing attacks was meant to simulate very poor weapon wielding ability or the enemy evading your terrible and scripted attacks.

Not sure why people keep saying AC is unrealistic. It's very realistic. Better armor (lower AC) better protects you from taking damage. Just like in real life. A "hit" is only a hit if it physically hurts you and your armor hasn't protected you from it. Therefore any attack that doesn't do that is a miss.

 

[anvi]

There doesn't need to be random anything. It would actually make the games easier to design because it would be simpler to plan than when a weapon can hit for anything between 0 damage and 100 or whatever. If every hit was 50, it would be easy to design everything. Lots of games already work like this, like FPSs.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

There doesn't need to be random anything.

What a random reply.

 

[Elemental_wanamingo]

Variety is the spice of life and in RPGs, dice rolls are an integral part that allow for interesting gameplay mechanics that can often surprise you and not get old as quickly as without. I wouldn't want to play one that isn't random where you just make the exact same character with the exact same stats and follow the exact same steps to beat the game every time. That would be mind numbingly boring after one play.

Doping the exact same playthrough more than once is always going to be mind numbingly boring regardless whether the game is pure rng or whatever.

No, sorry. Putting on armor shouldn't make you more difficult to hit. If you actually believe this, you may be mentally challenged, or your life revolves around RPGs, or you have never put clothes on during winter. Putting on armor makes you clumsy.

Armor class is a game mechanic which is not supposed to be realistic. Armo class exists to create a gameplay option where you can play as character that is hard to hit. Just like lots of hitpoints = can be hit multiple times. That's not realistic either. It is a game mechanic.

 

[anvi]

There doesn't need to be random anything.

What a random reply.

I edited it, damn ninja.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

There doesn't need to be random anything. It would actually make the games easier to design because it would be simpler to plan than when a weapon can hit for anything between 0 damage and 100 or whatever. If every hit was 50, it would be easy to design everything. Lots of games already work like this, like FPSs.

So you want RPGs to be like extremely boring FPSes? Mage ducks behind a piller, pokes head out, get s a sword in the face, headshot, death?

 

[Valky]

Variety is the spice of life and in RPGs, dice rolls are an integral part that allow for interesting gameplay mechanics that can often surprise you and not get old as quickly as without. I wouldn't want to play one that isn't random where you just make the exact same character with the exact same stats and follow the exact same steps to beat the game every time. That would be mind numbingly boring after one play.

Doping the exact same playthrough more than once is always going to be mind numbingly boring regardless whether the game is pure rng or whatever.

No, sorry. Putting on armor shouldn't make you more difficult to hit. If you actually believe this, you may be mentally challenged, or your life revolves around RPGs, or you have never put clothes on during winter. Putting on armor makes you clumsy.

Armor class is a game mechanic which is not supposed to be realistic. Armo class exists to create a gameplay option where you can play as character that is hard to hit. Just like lots of hitpoints = can be hit multiple times. That's not realistic either. It is a game mechanic.

The point is that with RNG, you aren't making the same playthrough more than once.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I think maybe they don't actually understand how computers or the combats systems work? I don't know. I don't get it. Combat in a game with no randomness is simply a puzzle with one solution. Its zork-- its an adventure game.

Zork actually had two RPG-esque combats (troll and thief) where randomness affected the results. Though I agree with you that determinism would turn combat into a puzzle-like system where the only uncertainty lies in which choices will be made by your opponent.

 

[Sigourn]

There doesn't need to be random anything. It would actually make the games easier to design because it would be simpler to plan than when a weapon can hit for anything between 0 damage and 100 or whatever. If every hit was 50, it would be easy to design everything. Lots of games already work like this, like FPSs.

So you want RPGs to be like extremely boring FPSes? Mage ducks behind a piller, pokes head out, get s a sword in the face, headshot, death?

I want extremely boring RPGs to be like extremely fun Gothic and Dark Souls.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

There doesn't need to be random anything. It would actually make the games easier to design because it would be simpler to plan than when a weapon can hit for anything between 0 damage and 100 or whatever. If every hit was 50, it would be easy to design everything. Lots of games already work like this, like FPSs.

So you want RPGs to be like extremely boring FPSes? Mage ducks behind a piller, pokes head out, get s a sword in the face, headshot, death?

I want extremely boring RPGs to be like extremely fun Gothic and Dark Souls.

What are the RPGs you find boring?

 

[Sigourn]

There doesn't need to be random anything. It would actually make the games easier to design because it would be simpler to plan than when a weapon can hit for anything between 0 damage and 100 or whatever. If every hit was 50, it would be easy to design everything. Lots of games already work like this, like FPSs.

So you want RPGs to be like extremely boring FPSes? Mage ducks behind a piller, pokes head out, get s a sword in the face, headshot, death?

I want extremely boring RPGs to be like extremely fun Gothic and Dark Souls.

What are the RPGs you find boring?

Any RPG that relies heavily on dice rolls to decide the outcome of a difficult battle. I don't mind dicerolling at all during the early stage of Fallout. I actually like it. But when things get so difficult that you need tons of dicerolls in your favor, it stops being fun and becomes outright annoying. So far, that has been my experience with Icewind Dale. Wasn't like that in any of the other isometric cRPGs I've played (FO1 & FO2, Arcanum, Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment).

Then again, maybe the issue is not dicerolling but Icewind Dale's allegedy "good" encounter designs (which consist of nothing less than "throw dozens upon dozens of enemies at the party", the pinnacle of encounter design).

 

[ProphetSword]

If you’re going to complain about dice rolls, you shouldn’t include games based upon AD&D or D&D as an example, as these are always going to be translations of a game that use dice. That is exactly what D&D players like me want. Anything else in a D&D game would be complete bullshit and would rightly be savaged by fans of the game.

If you play D&D games, expect D&D.

 

[undecaf]

I want extremely boring RPGs to be like extremely fun Gothic and Dark Souls.

You have the entirety of the mainstream RPG market on your pocket already. You should be out there arguing about making those better.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

I want extremely boring RPGs to be like extremely fun Gothic and Dark Souls.

You have the entirety of the mainstream RPG market on your pocket already. You should be out there arguing about making those better.

Exactly. For fuck's sake, leave us the few dice roll RPGs that are there. Christ.

We who like that shit are already in the minority and no one is making games like that now. I actually wish we had dice-roll CRPGs coming that were like Baldur's Gate or IceWind Dale. We don't. It's mostly niche stuff like Elminage Gothic/Original and the like.

And I'm playing BG heavily modded now, and lucky dice rolls matter, but it's not some huge problem. Haven't played IWD with mods on Hard yet but I imagine it's no different there. Rolls can go either way and create unpredictability, but it's not like they are necessary to win any encounter thus far. And in real tough encounters you can even decide to roll with the loss of a character or two and keep it moving, although the game is punishing in that regard, especially early on, to where most would just re-load (cost of resurrection is high early on. More development in this area for future CRPGs would be welcomed.) I have rolled 100% with scroll scribe failure, too. As long as the game gives you ample "stuff" to use effectively already, then those consequences can be dealt with. Just like permadeath. If there are plenty of characters to use otherwise, losing a character or three over the course of the game can be fine, and even cool from a roleplaying point of view (emergent story created by the player.) It also gives you a gameplay reason to play with other characters you might not have otherwise.

And just because an RPG uses dice rolls does not mean combat will require a bunch of lucky rolls to win. Either lower the difficulty or learn the systems better. I think this all comes down to the basic premise I gave earlier: Gamers do not want to lose and want to always be in control and win, regardless of what they tell you.

 

[Sykar]

Armor class is an abstraction that doesn't make sense.

It makes perfect sense. It shows how difficult is for abstract "attack" to succeed in order to "damage" your "hitpoints".

No, sorry. Putting on armor shouldn't make you more difficult to hit. If you actually believe this, you may be mentally challenged, or your life revolves around RPGs, or you have never put clothes on during winter. Putting on armor makes you clumsy. Having no armor at all makes you more agile, thus = more difficult to hit.

How it would make sense:

- No armor makes you harder to hit, but extremely fragile.
- Having armor makes you easier to hit, but makes you more resistant to attacks.
- Magical armor could possibly make you harder to hit.
- Your evasion is determined by the armor you are wearing.
- Your accuracy is determined by the armor you are wearing (or none) and the weapon you are using, and your skill with that weapon.

A skilled swordsman will easily be able to hit a dude fully clothed in heavy armor. An awful swordsman fully clothed in heavy armor will have a hard time hitting a nimble dude wearing light armor.

When you cut out the part of your brain infected with FPSitis, I suggest to use what little is left to ponder over whether a 10th level fighter is 10 times healthier than a 1st level fighter (wow, impressive!), or is he maybe 10 times as capable of DODGING, BLOCKING, FENCING, and just plain SURVIVING FOR 10 TIMES AS LONG IN AVERAGE FIGHT BY WHATEVER MEANS NECESSARY?

The mental gymnastics you have to go through to justify Armor Class being stupid and Hit-Points being something out of a FPS. Considering dodging/blocking/fencing is already represented by AC (poorly, should I add): sorry man, it appears HP is definitely a representation of how much damage your character can take.

Else there would be no dicerolls, every hit would connect, and thus I could see it that HP is a representation of your ability to survive.

The idea behind armor class was not just difficulty to hit but difficulty to injure. Not rolling high enough against armor class can be roleplayed in two ways: Nimble, lightly armored character dodges or the attacker was unable to penetrate the armor/weapon got deflected.

To give you an example, just last Saturday my group was fighting a Vrock demon and he clawed at my abjurer who on his reaction used the Shield spell. Without the magical shield I would have been hit with a roll of 11, with it I was not. The GM then portrayed the scene as the Vrook almost hitting me but my shield intercepting the blow in the nick of time and how the Vrock despite its struggles was not able to penetrate it.

Now if the Vrock would have rolled a 16 our DM could have described the exchange of blows in this way:his blow was so powerful that he sliced through the magical shield and injure me regardless.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Quoth the Gygax:

Armor Class - A number representing the relative protection from harm the character will enjoy. This includes type of armor, dexterity bonuses or penalties, magical protections, etc.

Hit Points - The number of points of damage a creature can sustain before death (or optionally, coma), reflecting the creature’s physical endurance, fighting experience, skill, or luck.

Armor, along with the use of a shield, is the basis for determination of how easily a character can be struck by an opponent's weapon. Other factors modify this, of course. Dexterity and magical effects are the two principal modifiers.
Do not confuse armor which is worn with the armor class (AC) rating of a monster. Although a creature might be given a very high armor class because of its exceptionally thick hide, armor plating, chitinous exoskeleton, or the like, other factors are considered in such ratings. For example, the size of the creature, its speed, its agility, and perhaps its supernatural (extra-dimensional or multi-planed existence) aspects are considered in the armor class of all non-human type monsters. Therefore, a monster with an armor class of 2 will not be carrying a shield.

The type of armor worn, the inclusion of a shield, magical factors, and dexterity are inclusions in overall armor class. The size ratio is also important at times, i.e. a dwarf adds 4 factors to his armor class if his opponent is a giant. For example, splint mail is armor class 4, and if a shield is added the armor class becomes 3, but suppose it is a magical + 1 shield; then armor class becomes 2. Now assume that the character has a displacer cloak, so the armor class becomes 0, and furthermore, because the character has a 16 dexterity, a final bonus of +2 is given, and the
armor class of this character is -2. If the character is a dwarf, a giant attempting to hit him or her would have to hit AC -6, because of the size differential penalty.

Damage scored to characters or certain monsters is actually not substantially physical - a mere nick or scratch until the lost handful of hit points are considered - it is a matter of wearing away the endurance, the luck, the magical protections. With respect to most monsters such damage is, in fact, more physically substantial although as with adjustments in armor class rating for speed and agility, there are also similar additions in hit points.


All quotes from the AD&D core rulebooks. That being said, I'll never understand what Gary was thinking when he made each combat round last a minute.

 

[Elex]

The point is that with RNG, you aren't making the same playthrough more than once.

umm, i was thinkingh that for a different playthrough i need to actually take different decision in dialogue or with different world interaction and make different choise.

but no apparently if i roll 5 instead of 13 i have a different playthrough.

 

[Neanderthal]

I like rng.
I like mitigating rng through good build.
I like getting lucky and steamrolling hard foes through good rolls and builds, satisfying.
I like that characters can still fuck up, whatever the build.
I like fuck ups an failures, there need to be more on em as power fantasy levels in crpgs are getting outta control.
These are a few of my favourite things.

 

[Tao]

I blame MOBAs

 

[Valky]

The point is that with RNG, you aren't making the same playthrough more than once.

umm, i was thinkingh that for a different playthrough i need to actually take different decision in dialogue or with different world interaction and make different choise.

but no apparently if i roll 5 instead of 13 i have a different playthrough.

That's taking the simplest possible definition of RNG. You can have more game elements randomized than a single dice roll. Rouguelikes for example.

 

[Elex]

The point is that with RNG, you aren't making the same playthrough more than once.

umm, i was thinkingh that for a different playthrough i need to actually take different decision in dialogue or with different world interaction and make different choise.

but no apparently if i roll 5 instead of 13 i have a different playthrough.

That's taking the simplest possible definition of RNG. You can have more game elements randomized than a single dice roll. Rouguelikes for example.

yes and not only rouge like.

For now only dwarf fortress adventure mode, have the correct use of RNG in a RPG: the RPG should be random not the combat, and that create the huge task of make the RNG story/world good.