D&D General How Do You Feel About Randomness?

[Reynard]

I did not say I could not imagine that.

I am saying that you are making a distinction which does not exist, and which makes out that certain playstyles avoid doing something that cannot even in principle be avoided. EVERY playstyle contains significant, grounding intentionality. It is not possible to have anything even remotely like a "game" without that--and D&D is significantly more than the minimum required for something to be a game.

The idea that it is somehow possible to play an RPG, with a huge set of rules (written and unwritten), procedures (public and hidden), and principles (explicit and implicit), without having intentionality running through nearly every part thereof is simply ridiculous. Whether you keep the intentionality hidden behind a curtain or not, it's still there. By being a DM, running a game, you are an active creator of the experience. You cannot possibly not be. Fiction is creationist, and game-fiction doubly so, since you are creating both within the world and without.

It isn't hidden behind a curtain. It is stated up front. "There is no intentionality in this campaign; do what thou wilt." Everything is rolled randomly, every response is improv.

How does that fit your thesis?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It isn't hidden behind a curtain. It is stated up front. "There is no intentionality in this campaign; do what thou wilt." Everything is rolled randomly, every response is improv.

How does that fit your thesis?

Where do the tables come from? Someone had to write them. How do you decide which tables to use? Someone must pick them. How do you decide when it is time to roll, and when it is time to let it ride? Who populated (or populates) the hexes? Who decides the behavior of a creature when it is in play?

Rolling on the tables doesn't mean you aren't actively creating the world. You're just using a different set of parameters. The creation is still occurring. You are still an inextricable part of the process.

If you (the DM) weren't, sandbox-campaign fans would've been using computers to do that job a long time ago. It'd save so much time and make a great deal of OSR gaming much, much more accessible to the average player. Much as "funnel" adventures did, genuinely brilliant design--doesn't matter that it isn't design for me, I am happy to recognize design brilliance when I see it.

 

[bloodtide]

Where do the tables come from? Someone had to write them. How do you decide which tables to use? Someone must pick them. How do you decide when it is time to roll, and when it is time to let it ride? Who populated (or populates) the hexes? Who decides the behavior of a creature when it is in play?

This is very true. I would just say this is bias, showing favor or self limitation. Or all three. And it is very common with Balaced DM and Storytelling or any DM that feels they must keep full control of the game at all times. For whatever reason.

Yes, many DM cheery pick when to roll on a table and then further cherry pick what table to roll on. If the DM does not like a table...then 'poof' it is gone. If the DM does like a table then it gets used often.

And when most DMs make a table, they will make the table that they want. This type of DM picks their 12 favorite monsters for a 1-12 encounter table. Amazingly, any monster the DM does not like, just does not make the table.

But...there are also us DMs that know the above and actively fix it. And it is not new, it has been around from the Time Before Time of RPGs. I'm not sure it has an offical name, but I call it True Tables.

If your aware, and have the will power, you can make true tables. It is simple enough for things like the 12 count encounter table, to pick at least six monsters you don't like. Or ask someone else to make the table for you. Or just roll randomly.

Back in The Time Before Time, True Table DMs would often trade tables. This was a great way to get really, really random stuff on tables as you would use ones made by other people. If you were lucky there was a Copy Facsimile Machine around you could use...but mostly you just made a copy by hand.

A great way to know a True Table DM is if the put weird stuff on tables. And the best weird stuff are things from other genre. So for D&D this would be things "from the future".

Both 0 and 1 D&D had a fair amount of future tech, as did old BECMI D&D. You could find say treasure tables with a "colt 45" or "A 25th century ray gun" . Or for a creature encounter have a robot or alien.

And I'm sure the vast majority of DMs running a game of D&D in 2024 would say they would never, NEVER put a robot or ray gun into their "pure" fantasy world.

And THAT right there is the difference between Pure True Table Randomness....and anything else.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

This is very true. I would just say this is bias, showing favor or self limitation. Or all three. And it is very common with Balaced DM and Storytelling or any DM that feels they must keep full control of the game at all times. For whatever reason.

Yes, many DM cheery pick when to roll on a table and then further cherry pick what table to roll on. If the DM does not like a table...then 'poof' it is gone. If the DM does like a table then it gets used often.

And when most DMs make a table, they will make the table that they want. This type of DM picks their 12 favorite monsters for a 1-12 encounter table. Amazingly, any monster the DM does not like, just does not make the table.

But...there are also us DMs that know the above and actively fix it. And it is not new, it has been around from the Time Before Time of RPGs. I'm not sure it has an offical name, but I call it True Tables.

If your aware, and have the will power, you can make true tables. It is simple enough for things like the 12 count encounter table, to pick at least six monsters you don't like. Or ask someone else to make the table for you. Or just roll randomly.

Back in The Time Before Time, True Table DMs would often trade tables. This was a great way to get really, really random stuff on tables as you would use ones made by other people. If you were lucky there was a Copy Facsimile Machine around you could use...but mostly you just made a copy by hand.

A great way to know a True Table DM is if the put weird stuff on tables. And the best weird stuff are things from other genre. So for D&D this would be things "from the future".

Both 0 and 1 D&D had a fair amount of future tech, as did old BECMI D&D. You could find say treasure tables with a "colt 45" or "A 25th century ray gun" . Or for a creature encounter have a robot or alien.

And I'm sure the vast majority of DMs running a game of D&D in 2024 would say they would never, NEVER put a robot or ray gun into their "pure" fantasy world.

And THAT right there is the difference between Pure True Table Randomness....and anything else.

Well, my point was that by making tables at all--by deciding what things get to be on the tables and what don't, even if you take a very open mind--you are expressing intent. You are deciding what is and isn't allowed into the world.

I don't consider this a bad thing. We engage with entertainment media to experience something. It is only natural that we should pick and choose which experiences we want to have or to share with others. As creators, intent matters. And we always intend something from the games we make and play.

As for your final comment there, your intent is to be very open minded, including a variety of things that you know others would not include. I can respect that. Someone else might have a more specific vision of what they want to see in such a game, and their choices will reflect that. I can respect that too, at least in some forms (I find there's a disappointingly petty element to some folks' reasoning on this front)--sometimes you want a high fantasy LotR experience, sometimes you want Dark Sun, sometimes you want Eberron, each flavor has its place and purpose.

What matters is that we think critically about why we pursue any particular aesthetic or experience, and how we can make that experience better. Answering those questions is incredibly important for getting good gaming. The answers don't have to be complicated (sometimes the answer is just "because I think it's cool" and "by doing more cool stuff and less boring stuff"). But often the answers are not such ultra-simple things, and there really are better and worse ways to seek them out.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Mod Note:

@Reynard @EzekielRaiden

You two are butting heads. I strongly suggest you take a breather before responding to each other, or use your ignore lists.

 

[Lanefan]

This strikes me as a misunderstanding of the role of the Holy Avenger.

If the weapon exists in the game, it needs to be the pinnacle of all holy weapons, the most powerful evil cleaver in the world. That's its role. If it isn't that it doesn't need to exist.

Except if one isn't up against evil all that often, e.g. most of your foes in the long run are neutral beasts or mindless constructs, that powerful evil cleaver suddenly isn't the bees knees any more.

 

[Lanefan]

I'm not sure what your talking about here?

I make a treasure table 1-20. 20 is a Sword of Sky Cleaving. If I roll on this table a couple times...sooner or later I will roll a 20. There is simply no way to roll on a table for many decades and never get every result.

Depends on how many entries there are in the table and-or what the odds are of hitting each one.

If your 1-20 table has exactly 20 different entries in it then sure, you'll hit each one fairly quickly and fairly often. But if you look at something like the 1e DMG and work out the odds of hitting a Holy Avenger, you'll find those odds to be a whole lot less than 1 in 20; low enough that never rolling one in your life is a valid possibility.

Keep in mind also that in most item tables the odds of hitting an individual minor piece e.g. a Potion of Climbing or a +1 Longsword are considerably higher than those of hitting something really big in the same table e.g. a Potion of Dragon Control or a Holy Avenger.

Right the Balance game will have a rule in the book telling the DM what and how to give out treasure. Often this is a very set in stone "value per level". Because in the Balanced game a 2nd level character can only ever find a set amount or value of treasure.

I was never a fan of wealth-by-level when 3e introduced it and I remain not a fan today.

 

[Lanefan]

Back in The Time Before Time, True Table DMs would often trade tables. This was a great way to get really, really random stuff on tables as you would use ones made by other people. If you were lucky there was a Copy Facsimile Machine around you could use...but mostly you just made a copy by hand.

What we ended up doing was jointly making a generic table, then each adding to it for our own settings.

A great way to know a True Table DM is if the put weird stuff on tables. And the best weird stuff are things from other genre. So for D&D this would be things "from the future".

Both 0 and 1 D&D had a fair amount of future tech, as did old BECMI D&D. You could find say treasure tables with a "colt 45" or "A 25th century ray gun" . Or for a creature encounter have a robot or alien.

Ayup. A PC in my game got killed by a robot last session (they're adventuring in an ancient place full of futuretech), and the rest of them had to bail out into a Rod of Security before the other two robots got to them.

And I'm sure the vast majority of DMs running a game of D&D in 2024 would say they would never, NEVER put a robot or ray gun into their "pure" fantasy world.

In an old campaign of mine a party found a laser cannon that was roughly the size of a bazooka. They (somehow!) got it working and got some great use of it...until its charge ran out; and as any means of recharging it had been destroyed eons ago, pretty much only a Wish could do it now.

 

[ezo]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this yet, but in case not:

Odds of rolling up a Holy Avenger are 1:1010 as a random magical item in the AD&D DMG. If you rolled up 1000 items over the course of being a DM, you would have about a 62.86% of rolling up at least 1 Holy Avenger.

When UA came out with the revised magic item tables, the odds improved a bit to 1:918, so for the same 1000 random items your chance increases to 66.36% for rolling 1 or more Holy Avengers.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I don't get the fascination with the holy avenger. It's just a magic sword with a cliché name and blah paladiny theme.
If you want cool magic artefact weapons, I think they should be tailored to the setting and have unique names.
(And probably not rely on random treasure tables to be found.)

As the person who first brought up rolling the Holy Avenger, I urge you all to stop arguing about it.

The point I was trying to make is that rolling randomly can also be a huge boon to PCs. It is very rare, but with all the tables in the world rolling on those tables, somebody gonna get one sooner or later.

The Holy Avenger is just an example I used because we all know the jist of it. You can sub it for whatever ultra item you want in your examples.