Comments on: Good Random and Bad Random in Miniature Games

By: SRSFACE

SRSFACE — Sat, 07 Sep 2013 18:48:00 +0000

It has to do with the degree to which they are random. I’ve been playing XCOM: Enemy Unknown again getting prepped for the release of the sequel/expansion. I accept the randomness of hit chances in that because 1) I’m told up front, and 2) there’s enough going on that you really do get the benefit of larger sample sizes.

Bad randomness is when that bad thing happens, the player’s obstacles become insurmountable immediately rather than simply putting them in dire straights.

This is why D20 games tend to be more forgiving than D6 wargames. If my paladin suffers a critical hit and loses half his HP in a single blow, it’s really painful and greatly influences my next action, but it doesn’t make my guy worthless. It means there’s a huge risk/reward of continuing to attack or dropping back to drink a healing potion. If you suffer a wound on a terminator, your critical failure saving throw of a 1 means it’s just dead. All of those points brought to the table, all of that time painting him, for nothing.

I’ve maintained for about a year that Warhammer in both forms is a glorified form of Yahtzee. I actually feel less tensions in that game than I do in many others because it’s only pure success and pure failure, rather than being an ebb and flow of luck and bad luck.

By: NagaBaboon

NagaBaboon — Wed, 04 Sep 2013 08:32:00 +0000

I suppose it’s when the ‘bad’ kind of random has drastic impacts that people get irritated. We all accept that our expensive psyker could get killed by your opponent in the first turn before he has a chance to do anything but if he is rendered worthless by the game because of bad rolls on the power table then you’re bound to be annoyed. The ‘bad’ sort of random can sometimes make it feel like your playing against the game as well as your opponent.

At the end of the day they are all just dice rolls though, the ‘good’ kind of random probably just boils down to what we accept because it’s the stuff that has always been present in all wargames, the ‘bad’ is often the mechanics added by a specific edition of a specific game because we’re not so used to it.

By: schnuersi

schnuersi — Tue, 03 Sep 2013 12:01:00 +0000

You pointed out the difference between “good” and “bad” randomness quite well.
The kind of gamers who complain about bad randomness don’t see what you describe as good randomness as somthing behond their controll. Usually they go to great length to take as much chance and ramdomness out of the game. Statistical optimised army lists. Carefull disected rules to find holes or inaccuracies wich allows reinterpretation etc etc.
The indiscriminating random events or roll that have to be made and can’t be manipulated in you favor in advance of course render some or all of the previous optimisation ineffective. Even worse highly optmised lists are like racehorses or top athletes: very effective in one certain situation but very susceptible to changes. So global random effects are like poison to them. They don’t become more diffcult do play but very often go from “auto win” to “auto loss”.

In my experience the gamers that think in “good” and “bad” random categories are usually the ones who are more intrested in winning that playing. Wich often coincides with taking a game to serious.

Since I am against taking gaming to serious and turning any game into a competition IMHO far more global or as you call it “bad” randomness should be implemented in the core rules of most games. More than 20 years ago when I started with TT-wargaming this was normal and not the exeption. Rulsewise there was lots of change but little improvement overall since then.

By: Zweischneid

Zweischneid — Tue, 03 Sep 2013 09:14:00 +0000

I agree.

I would even argue that this kind of “bad random” is quite essential to keep games fresh (“replay value”), different and interesting over a long time.

If I labeled it “bad random”, than I did so mainly because I think that is the sentiment among a lot of people.

By: Puck

Puck — Tue, 03 Sep 2013 01:02:00 +0000

I think ‘bad random’ is fine so long as both sides of the table are aware of it and happy to risk the outcomes. It’s part of that RPG tabletop tradition of rolling dice, where good dice can be as cinematic and story evoking as a series of bad rolls. I think it runs into trouble when players see themselves as playing against the rules themselves, having to endure the random ruleset just to get into the game, and at that point the ‘bad rolls’ turn a bad expectation into a bad experience. And hey, let’s not forget that for Warhammer at least, they have had an army that’s revolved around the, oh dear lord the dice rolls, in Goblins/Orcs for quite a few years, with a steady fan-base that rejoices in that randomness.

By: belverker

belverker — Mon, 02 Sep 2013 22:51:00 +0000

i personally love what you have labelled ‘bad’ random, i use the mysterious objectives and terrain in 40k i absolutely love the Daemons codex and Army book and believe 6th ed 40k and 8th ed fantasy are the best versions of both games, the ‘bad’ random makes the games feel much more fun and ‘fluffy’

By: Laz

Laz — Mon, 02 Sep 2013 15:25:00 +0000

I think there’s actually a two dimensional grid here, when distinguishing random chance and its psychological effect on players. You’ve basically got “control / no control” and “small effect / large effect”. The “effect” I’m thinking about is the “this terrain causes d6 un-savable wounds on a unit” vs “while in this terrain, all models gain a Feel No Pain 2+” (as examples taken from thin air about what I’m talking about) on the extreme end, and “hit / no hit” on the light end.

People appear to allow for less extreme results from randomness despite the trigger, but still get a little offended by un-controllable randomness – that is, nothing they do will affect the outcome. When you shoot with your unit, you’re in control of it, but when your unit is the subject of a vortex grenade? much less so.

By: Zweischneid

Zweischneid — Mon, 02 Sep 2013 14:52:00 +0000

Yes.

And there are a few more issues hidden in the DreadBall launch-issue. For example the observation that one “ideal” set-up for some teams now could be players facing away from the middle line to avoid a scatter + failed catch (but which would be somewhat idiotic… what sport would encourage players to set up looking backwards?).

It wasn’t my intent to give a thorough recap of the DreadBall rules-changes (as the discussion for this is probably better had on Quirkworthy). But it is a line of thought that I got out of it – especially from Jake’s comment about why some “types” of randomness seem ok and some not – (and, in turn, this discussion probably would be misplaced in the Quirkworthy comments).

By: Tim.

Tim. — Mon, 02 Sep 2013 14:36:00 +0000

I think one of the things about the DB case that got people agitated was that it came out of the blue. A lot of people were very keen to see the launch rule changed and this was managed by a portion of the new rule; however, the rule then went further to say that the ball would always scatter on launch.

I’m not sure how much of the issue for people is about the randomness itself, so much as the fact that the newly introduced randomness will have a large effect on a fundamental piece of the game – that is, the initial set up. As the randomness itself doesn’t seem to be really needed to fix the original problem, I can see why people are scratching their heads about it .