What's with the Randomness in Old-School RPGs?

[lacktheknack]

I appreciate this response. I've always thought that traditional turned based RPGs were about strategy, but how can strategy be involved when we're dealing with dice, or the "luck of the draw" as it were?
I'm not sure I want to spend the time developing a character only to have him/her/it die b/c of luck. Yet, I understand the appeal somehow.

It's called "Risk Management".

If you have a 70% chance to hit no matter what, then you're right, there's no strategy. However, it's not the case. There's a lot of strategic positioning to be used when you include cover, distance, flanking, weaknesses, resistances, soldier spread, and multiple attack styles, among other things.

The strategy comes from putting your chance of hitting as high as possible while keeping the enemy's chance of hitting as low as possible on any given turn. Sure, you can (VERY VERY VERY) occasionally get wiped from bad luck, but most often, a good strategy will get you through.

 

[hermes]

As others have said, most early PC RPGs are simulations of pen and paper RPG games, to the point mechanics are translated directly into them. The common denominator of most of those games is the dice roll, which in computer games is translated as randomness...

 

[2fish]

It's called "Risk Management".

If you have a 70% chance to hit no matter what, then you're right, there's no strategy. However, it's not the case. There's a lot of strategic positioning to be used when you include cover, distance, flanking, weaknesses, resistances, soldier spread, and multiple attack styles, among other things.

The strategy comes from putting your chance of hitting as high as possible while keeping the enemy's chance of hitting as low as possible on any given turn. Sure, you can (VERY VERY VERY) occasionally get wiped from bad luck, but most often, a good strategy will get you through.

I agree as long as the game is good about being real risk management rather than just some risk management but really RNG. I still get pissed though when I epic fail such as dropping a knock-out grenade at my feet in Xenonauts. Whole team Ko'd in one turn.

 

[loc978]

You can thank or blame Gary Gygax. A big portion of western game designers in the 80s and 90s pretty much grew up playing D&D or some other form of die-rolling pen-and-paper RPG. I grew up the same way, so I took to the Infinity Engine RPGs like a duck to water... they just use slightly modified AD&D rules.
So I guess that covers question one.

Two: it's easier to design encounters, level progression, stat progression, et cetera when you remove the RNG mechanic. It's as simple as that.

Three: yes and no. Action RPGs (such as Mass Effect and the Elder Scrolls games), anything with real twitch-skill based gameplay certainly benefits from not having a to-hit roll involved with every attack (though stat-based weapon spread is nice). They also benefit from calculating damage based on where a hit lands, rather than the roll of a die.
More traditional RPGs where combat skill is based entirely on preparation, tactical positioning and luck... I say removing the dice has done a lot more harm than good. It's made games extremely forgiving of bad tactics, removing the need to really learn the game's systems to get through it. Honestly, I think that should be what easy mode does.

 

[2xDouble]

1. Because of Rogue. Look it up. "Variety is the spice of life."

2. Because "gamers" don't like dealing with the unexpected and because scripted events/scenarios are very easy to "balance".

3. No, but thankfully it'll never truly be separated from randomness. The a player is itself a random element, and removal of all randomness results in a non-interactive product, such as a movie or Dear Esther.

 

[Lucane]

Has no one really said it started out as limitations of control and input of the times? those games were not made last week when building interactive 3-d worlds is mainly the status quo and not some rarely attempted blocky platformer ala Spyro, Crash,Twisted Metal or Tomb Raider.

Sure for a time beyond the originals they stuck with the RNGs but that's was likely more of an issue that that's just how people expected an RPG to be made. Copying/Recreating the Randomness of a Dice roll would be the simplest way to transition pen and paper games to combat instead of attempting to create an active combat simulation without it become a twitch QTE or some hit the target by stopping the dot at the right time to get the best odds because most games either used still images 90% of the time like Final Fantasy 1-6 that only move to start attack "animations" (I use the term loosely) or changing it a bit to illustrate weakness or death.

Edit: Oh Legend of Dragoon was one of the early RPGs to break from the trend to point that its combat system is usually talked about first by people who played to those who haven't. Though it still has a few RNGs in damage range and counter chances among other things.

 

[SecondPrize]

I rage quit Morrowind after being killed my the first mudcrab I came across because I couldn't hit the broadside of a barn.
I played through all of Oblivion because I enjoyed being able to actually hit the enemies I was attacking.

That was likely more a function of fatigue than RNG.

 

[madwarper]

That was likely more a function of fatigue than RNG.

Doubtful.

I had a Spear equipped, which is one of my main skills, I had full stamina and the load I was carrying was far from encumbering.
And, I had checked to always use the strongest attack.

 

[zumbledum]

1. Why did so many old school RPGs incorporate randomness into most of it's mechanics such as combat, stat increases, dialog success chance, crit chance, ext?

because they were computerised versions of pencil and paper RPG's that used dice , its just how it was done.

2. Why do you feel most modern RPGs such as Mass Effect, TES V: Skyrim, and Dragon Age remove any real randomness (outside of loot drops)?

well those two specifically because they are 3rd person action games with rpg progression not rpg's as such so it makes sense for the "to hit roll" to be decided by player accuracy, but in general people are whiny little bitches about rng that just emphasis that one time it screwed them and put the fluke good rolls down to their own skill so its seen as only being a negative.

3. Do you feel that gaming today (in RPGs) has benefited from the removal of randomness in it's mechanics.

irrelevant really, its a design choice so is neither good or bad on its own it depends on how the game as a whole is designed. xcom wouldnt be xcom without rng for example.

 

[Weaver]

Many of the old games actually simulated D&D rulesets under the hood, which involves a lot of dice rolling.

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

1. Why did so many old school RPGs incorporate randomness into most of it's mechanics such as combat, stat increases, dialog success chance, crit chance, ext?

Because that's pretty much one of the core mechanics of how these things work. No training = complete randomness, with low chances of success. With a high skill level, chances of success can reach 100% (or at least 99.99%). Stat increase tends to be mathemagical, not quite random, and if points can be invested/used by player, it removes randomness in favour of a more or less refined plan by the player. Want more strength to smash through foes and things? Do that. Want more powerful magic or better handling of small arms or improved hacking or cake baking skills? Invest your points accordingly. Play it your way, see if the game cares or breaks.

2. Why do you feel most modern RPGs such as Mass Effect, TES V: Skyrim, and Dragon Age remove any real randomness (outside of loot drops)?

There's quite a bit of 'randomness' or low probability under the hood of the likes of Skyrim. I personally despise Dragon Age and loathe Mass Effect, in part because they are no RPGs proper, just some sort of fancy instant entertainment that are not at all to my liking (with Dragon Age: Origins being a bit of an exception).

3. Do you feel that gaming today (in RPGs) has benefited from the removal of randomness in it's mechanics.

Absolutely not. Abandoning the core mechanic of a specific game type cannot possibly be a good thing. The new Final Fantasy looks like a brawler in full make up. There can be well hidden RPG stats/basics hidden under the hood, but the strategic bit just cannot be replaced by full speed gung ho action and just a fistful of stat improvement. This sort of tweaking, as seen in Dead Island, Borderlands, Call of Juarez Gunslinger, freakin' LOL for Fred's sake does not make a game a proper, full-fledged RPG, it just tweaks the stats to better customize the individual playing experience of any given player. Methinks the fun bit of a proper RPG is the individual carving a fun and efficient character/toon from the lump of pixels you're handed, and modern games hiding these rather elaborate basic facts away does not make things better; it risks breaking things and ruining the experience. If the numbers are neglected, if the math is off, things are bound to break. Add to that the oh so modern randomness encountered in writing and directing, and you got yourself plenty of gaffes/errors/plot holes so big you could fit a universe or two into, or you get games that end up being glorified N7 Leisure Suited Up Larry with ever-growing elevator rides to hide away the loading times for the sandboxed away digital playgrounds. To me, Mass Effect has much more replaced our plastic Barbies and Kens than our RPGs proper, such as Bane of the Cosmic Forge, Eye of the Beholder, Curse of the Azure Bonds or even just the Final Fantasies of old.

 

[Terminal Blue]

2. Why do you feel most modern RPGs such as Mass Effect, TES V: Skyrim, and Dragon Age remove any real randomness (outside of loot drops)?

One of these things is not like the others (in that it relies heavily on RNG effects).

Niggling point aside, it goes back to the fact that cRPGs grew out of pen and paper RPGs which, being exercises of the imagination rather than actual user experiences, use dice to model the limitations of character's abilities. Since modern video games can model environments quite convincingly, it's no longer necessary to simulate these kinds of effects with abstract probability. I don't need to roll to determine whether my archer hits the goblin with his arrow when I can actually see whether my arrow lands or target or not.

What is lost, I suppose, is some of the actual role playing. How well Commander Shepard shoots is not determined by his or her own abilities (which in an old school RPG would be abstracted into stats) but by those of the player. In this regard, Commander Shepard is less an independent character and more an avatar or extension of the player in the same way as Marcus Fenix or any other video game character who theoretically has a "character" of their own but really just exists to serve as a medium between player and game.

Is this bad? Not necessarily.. I think there's an unhealthy element of nostalgia-blinded grognardism in the relentless demand for old school RPGs, and I think people often forget too quickly quite how tedious a lot of those games actually were to play. But clearly there's a market here somewhere which is not being adequately satisfied. Planescape Torment may be rightly remembered as one of the best RPG storylines of all time, but seriously.. go back and actually play it, because I think you'll find that the actual gameplay is often punishingly dull.

The other thing is that, thanks to World of Warcraft, MMOs have really taken up that stat-focused RNG-based gameplay model, and a lot of them do it very well. Furthermore, the kinds of persistent worlds used in MMOS are simply a better environment for that model, because in a single player game any idiot can save scum their way through to the best result. I remember spending hours in Fallout as a kid making endless pickpocket attempts despite having invested nothing into pickpocket and simply reloading like a ***** whenever I failed, which isn't the intended effect or any meaningful form of roleplaying. An RNG is intended to test your ability to manage risk (which I now absolutely love in games, and feel is too often neglected in favor of a relentless and constant system of churning out empty reward) and to force you to behave in line with your characters actual abilities for fear of fucking things up, but in truth outside of a persistent world it's only really a test of of your ability to mash quickload.

 

[Bostur]

Has no one really said it started out as limitations of control and input of the times? those games were not made last week when building interactive 3-d worlds is mainly the status quo and not some rarely attempted blocky platformer ala Spyro, Crash,Twisted Metal or Tomb Raider.

People sometimes bring up that point, but I very much doubt it. Those times were full of games with direct action, shooters and brawlers for instance. Gauntlet and Dungeon Master are examples of games with an RPG feel but with more direct combat. The slow paced turn-based RPGs were very niche at first. I think it was deliberate design to try to get an experience close to pen and paper games.

 

[Rotten_Karma]

In the earliest CRPGs, randomness also saved diskspace in addition to calling back to its pen and paper roots. Its much easier to store a single loot table than it is to store the location of each and every object. Compare Skyrim's 8 digit hex refid (a potential 4x10^9 instances of objects with unique locations and/or an entry on a loot table) to say the measly 128 items of the original Bard's Tale (which came on 3 5.25" floppy disks on the Apple II) of which only a handful had specific locations.

As to the OP's questions, removing randomness is a great blessing. Randomness just means one has to spend a long time grinding to ensure that the fights will be Curb Stomp Battles, and even then that is not enough. Save scumming is REQUIRED in any game that is based in large part on randomness, especially games that are long and capable of screwing you with a single roll: Dwarf Fortress's steel forgotten beasts, XCOM's aliens camping your troop transport's ramp ect. Especially irritating is randomness in MMO's like Guild Wars 2's Precursors, where save scumming and exploiting are not permitted or possible. Removing randomness allows the player to improve, not just the characters. After all for every +1 your characters get in a TTRPG or a CRPG the monsters get +2.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Dwarf Fortress's steel forgotten beasts, XCOM's aliens camping your troop transport's ramp ect.

I presume you mean old X-Com rather than XCOM: Enemy Unknown? I mean sure, trying to iron man UFO Defence or Terror from the Deep would be an exercise in sweet bitter tears, but that's more because the game is punishingly difficult than because it's random. Any difficult game with a save function is going to end up with you mashing quickload now and again regardless of whether it's particularly random or not.

And Dwarf Fortress, far from being a game you need to save scum, actually disallows you from save scumming unless you manipulate the data files, and if that's what you're doing you're really missing out in my opinion. Dwarf Fortress is not meant to be Minecraft, it's not a game about building your dream house (although there are certain exploity ways to render threats so meaningless as to allow for free megastructure building), it's a game about survival against the odds. The steel/stone/magical super-material forgotten beast is not impossible to deal with, heck.. if you can't figure out how to kill him (there's one relatively easy to set up trap system which will kill anything in the game) wall him off from your fortress and release him into the overworld to chomp on invading armies while your dwarfs cower underground slowly devolving into Morlocks, you can last like that for a good long time.

But yeah, if you're sweating because a forgotten beast rampaged through your fortress and killed half your population and now the other half are walled up in a dank tomb going slowly insane from the horror they have witnessed while being forced to drink scummy underground river water and hunt rats for food, welcome to dwarf fortress! Try and hold out as long as you can, because ultimately it's all you ever can do.

 

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

I honestly miss the randomness. Also, the randomness gets more and more in your favour as your skills become higher and therefore the modifiers begin to go in your favour more. At the end of the day, combat and speech checks rely on you, the character and your stats.
They're also, as has been said, supposed to feel like pen and paper RPGs, where its all about dice rolls and modifiers.