Rethinking Randomness

[simon_hibbs]

And I think there is a difference between writing a novel and roleplaying, as the writer has complete control over his actors and what they think and do, whereas a GM has to give some freedom to the players for that.

Randomness doesn't give controll to the players, it just takes controll away from everybody.


Simon Hibbs

[Domhnall]

Here, as in many topics, there is the rub of one gaming style V. another.  Some of what I have read in here (with various approaches) is so varied  that it's incompatible with other styles.  

So, while randomness is appropriate for those who want a "fair game", for those who approach their game as purely a "novel" (where the story would be better if X happened here, and Y didn't happen there), then randomness is undesired.

[TonyLB]

I would think that randomness is not such a bad thing for narrative play as you imply.  It has a very useful benefit in keeping the mindset away from one of Ubercontrol.

Unless the GM cheats, they cannot have total control in a randomized game.  They have to let go of the reins a little.  Indeed, I know many GMs (and have shamefully been one of them in my youth) who are very proud of the fact that they cheat, that the die rolls are just a way of disempowering the players, and shouldn't apply to the GM.

I think that if you're honest about letting the dice shake things up, it opens the door to letting the players shake things up as well.

[lumpley]

Before the "dice good!" "dice bad!" goes any farther, everybody oughta read up on the subject, so we don't recover old ground.  

Here's a thread: Rationale for random numbers in rpgs.  
Here's another: Fortune and narrative suspence.  

There's some good stuff in there.

-Vincent

[simon_hibbs]

Before the "dice good!" "dice bad!" goes any farther, everybody oughta read up on the subject, so we don't recover old ground....

Thanks for the references, both are very interesting threads. One point made in the second thread, narative suspence and game suspense are not the same thing, and the re-watchability of films compared to football games makes a good point.

It may seem that I'm arguing against dice, or randomness, in my posts here. Actualy I'm not, I do like to play diced RPGs but not for the reasons pro-dice commentators often present. Diced systems are nice and comfortable to sue because they make games easier to play. They lower the creative bar required to participate, and usualy that's a very good thing.

In ADRPG if you want to win in a contest you're udner a lot of pressure. Even if your abilities are superior, you might have situational disadvantages, and anyway you almost certainly won't know you're likely to win, there's plenty of uncertainty. tehre's also the risk that your opponent might be able to shift the form of the contest into one you're less competent at. This means you're under a lot of pressure to be creative, figuring how yto use your abilities to best advantage, anticipating your opponent's moves and figuring out their weaknesses, always narrating your moves because that's the only way to affect the outcome. This can be intense, and caeven exhausting.  However, that's not always a good thing. Sometimes you just want to relax a little and roll some dice with your mates, improvising bits of story as you go. Diced games allow you to gloss over a lot of the gritty move-by-move naration that a drama system demands (although there are ways to mitigate that demand, let's not get bogged down just yet).


Simon Hibbs