Is random good?

[jedavis]

In general, I find that randomness is a good way to simulate a living world, with the structure and contents of the random table serving as a description of how the world works. Traveller's random critter table is a description of underlying xenological principles, for example. So... yes. Randomness good.

It is important that players never know if something they attempt will be a guaranted success or guaranteed failure, so adding some randomness to the action is a very good thing.

Everything else should not be depend on randomnes.

I would argue that sometimes, the PCs should know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they will fail and/or die, and the question is whether they do it valiantly or not.

 

[OnlineDM]

I like random treasure.

I like random targets for certain enemies.

I like rolling dice for their usual purposes.

Beyond that, I haven't used a lot of randomness in my DMing so far, though I'm open to it. I don't think I like "random encounters" but that's because I play 4e where quickie combats aren't so quick.

 

[Invisible Stalker]

I like random. Given my golf game, Lord knows I'm used to it.

 

[Wiseblood]

Randomness is the impartial force in the game world. It doesn't care how slick you are. It doesn't care about your background. It does not care about your stats. It does not care what the odds are. It decides the outcome. It is Justice and that is awesome.

 

[Jhaelen]

This can mean anything from Randomly generated characters to random terrain.

Do you feel randomness adds flavor and makes things less personal?

Take a member of my group for example, he plans his entire character out (min/max-er to the 10th degree) while another lets the character make himself (roleplayer to the 10th degree)

Both play very differently, that is obvious.
But what is your view on things? Does random treasure change a character's aim? Can a random monster change the campaign's theme? What about random stats?

the random dungeon rules will be left out of this thread for the sake of saving time.

As a DM during prep I always use rolls on a plethora of tables to give me ideas. I rarely make random rolls during play, though.

I also have a lot of fun creating those tables.

As a player I prefer non-randomness when creating a character, but I prefer making character development decisions as I go along rather than planning out the character's entire career in advance. Current needs always trump long-term plans for my pcs.

 

[Rogue Agent]

Take a member of my group for example, he plans his entire character out (min/max-er to the 10th degree) while another lets the character make himself (roleplayer to the 10th degree)

I don't really see the connection you do between "I want to make choices on who may character is" and "not a roleplayer".

More generally, trying to lump together every aspect of randomness in RPGs into a single pot doesn't really do much for me. Even the difference between using a random encounter table to trigger story events and using a random encounter table to model the effects of an active dungeon complex can be significant. The difference between randomly generating dungeon layouts and randomly rolling ability scores is even bigger.

But if we want to look at "randomness" as broadly as possible, I think there are a couple general principles:

(1) Randomness can be useful for modeling a "big picture". That can be anything from "does a guard patrol happen to pass nearby in the next ten minutes?" to "how did my character do during his 4 year term of service in the Navy?".

(2) Randomness can be useful as an "improv seed" for spurring creativity when your well is running dry.

(3) When properly implemented, randomness can be a surefire way for the GM to be as surprised by the outcome of an action or game session as the players are.

(4) When improperly implemented, randomness can render character decisions irrelevant and make the game world seem capricious, pointless, and/or nonsensical.

 

[The Shaman]

Is random good?

Hell yeah.

Does random treasure change a character's aim?

Hell yeah.

 

[Loonook]

Randomness is usually great. It made a starting-out warmage become a master of illusions (we just kept getting some great items, and the possibilities were endless)...

And randomness can also be heartbreaking. A favorite PC dying, a whole campaign twisting on the roll of 10d6... You can definitely see some cool little things that come out of that. I had a player die to randomness + stupidity so many times it wasn't funny. But then the player began to realize that randomness can be played as its own virtue, and played against. He made smarter decisions, developed himself from a Big Dumb Fighter rushing in to one of the better warrior-types in a group that was heavy on them... And somewhere in a corner of the Horselands of Mavakim is a man who built his entire career on being ahead of the pack, and playing the odds. A gambling warrior, he pretty much became Mat Cauthon before any of us had read anything about wheels and time.

Pretty awesome fun, and all because of a few die.

Slainte,

-Loonook.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

I like randomness. A great example is LBB Traveller's chargen. It produced some great characters that I would never have thought of playing on my own and that were a lot of fun. It was kind of the reverse of my usual chargen thought process. Get the skills & stats first, then think "what kind of guy would have these stats and skills" to get the personality. I found it incredibly evocative, kind of like those Japanese paintings that imply a whole landscape with just a few lines.

 

[kitsune9]

I like having a lot of random elements in my game, particularly for encounters. I have planned encounters and I have random encounters. When the PC's get done slaughtering the baddies, I'll include a table for some random treasure on top of the planned stuff.

It allows me to use my d30's and d12's more often.