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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gorgon Zee" data-source="post: 9604862" data-attributes="member: 75787">A random number generator is a deterministic generator that, given an initial "seed" number, will generate the exact same sequence of numbers. So if you know the algorithm and the seed number, you can predict the full sequence perfectly. This is why they are often called "pseudo-random". So if you were rolling d20's and you started with the same seed, then your first roll will always be the same, as will your second, and so on. That's why they put in a different seed each session.The important feature of this sequence, though, is that if you do NOT know the seed, and you aren't using a computer to work it out and solve the sequence, the sequence it produces is impossible to predict. So although it is based on a completely deterministic algorithm, the observable number are more random than you could ever find in nature. For the Mersenne Twister algorithm, it will be more random than any dice you will ever see, as measured by a ton of factors, like serial correlation, simple frequencies ... anything really.It is a core algorithm used by modern software libs, and you really have to be a bad programmer to screw up the usage of them, especially for so trivial an application as rolling dice. And since people are designed by evolution to see patterns even were they aren't there (because that error is not as bad as doing the opposite in keeping you alive), if you are seeing non-randomness in a long-running commercial program used by millions for which creating random numbers is a core requirement .. it's almost certainly your perception that is off.</blockquote>

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