I love randomness in games. I'm even a fan of the Very Old School Pure Randomness that is all but forgotten in modern gaming.
Most DMs get stuck in ruts very quickly: there are things they like or dislike and this has a huge effect on the game. The DM likes jokes, hydras or flaming swords and...amazingly....they will pop up in the game play often. The DM does not like humor, owlbears or crossbows and such things simply don't exist in the game play. And it gets more profound when it's a question like 'what happens if a magic item explodes?' or 'there is a wild magic surge' or 'what does a dragon want?'
And this only gets more worse with 'improv play' where the DM is just making stuff up as the players move along. Most DMs here get stuck in the rut of what they can remember 'on the spot'. What is in the room...um...um..um...orcs!...um, again!
This is where the Pure Randomness comes in. Need something for a game roll. At the most basic you could have a 1-100 table listing of results. More advanced is that you would have many tables to roll for results.
Back in the Time Before Time, each DM would make their own custom tables. Then make copies of those tables using one of the new fancy electronic copy machines. Like in the back of my local Ben Franklin Five and Dime was a small office for public use(I have no idea why?) that had a copy machine, and we'd go there to copy RPG papers. Then trade with other DMs.
For example, take just a Treasure Chest. What is inside and a simple 1-6 roll. A typical one might be
1-Nothing
2-Junk
3-Common Items
4-A Trap!
5-Standard Treasure
6-Amaging Treasure
And for each one, you'd roll on a couple tables to find what was in the chest. Like you'd roll a five and then roll a 1d12 to get seven items of 'standard treasure'. For the first item roll on the 'material table' and get 'wood', then roll for type of wood, size, shape and on and on. Sure you might roll up a simple oak wood hammer, but you'd often get a pine wood bladed dagger or something more exotic.
Of course, in a True Old School game, a good player might use anything they find in a chest. Like even a 'junk' chest full of broken wooden handles can be burned in a fire.
And the 'amazing' roll could really be fun if the DM had good 'amazing' tables. You could find items of money value sure....but also rare items...exotic items....nearly anything. Even like "a 25th ray gun that distengerates anything".
Of course modern gaming put the stop to this sort of randomness. TO just use the treasure chest above a modern DM/player would be quite upset if they fought a monster and got nothing, junk or a trap. By the modern gaming viewpoint "each encounter MUST have a reward of a set amount."
And one of the big things about Pure Randomness is letting the rolls stand. You roll for each thing like the treasure chests. Characters might find say 10 such chests.....and it's possible they get 5-10 'amazing' chests and get like a million gold coins or a pet dragon or such. And in an Old School Game, the DM would let the roll stand.......though ALSO if the roll was 'trap' and it killed all the PCs the DM would let THAT stand too.
By the modern viewpoint is 'you find treasure appropriate to the level/encounter/rules', so randomness was dropped.
And no DM ever HAD to do a random roll.....but if was often fun for a DM to choose to do a random roll and get something crazy like a 'teak wood golem tyrannosaurs rex' .
Most DMs get stuck in ruts very quickly: there are things they like or dislike and this has a huge effect on the game. The DM likes jokes, hydras or flaming swords and...amazingly....they will pop up in the game play often. The DM does not like humor, owlbears or crossbows and such things simply don't exist in the game play. And it gets more profound when it's a question like 'what happens if a magic item explodes?' or 'there is a wild magic surge' or 'what does a dragon want?'
And this only gets more worse with 'improv play' where the DM is just making stuff up as the players move along. Most DMs here get stuck in the rut of what they can remember 'on the spot'. What is in the room...um...um..um...orcs!...um, again!
This is where the Pure Randomness comes in. Need something for a game roll. At the most basic you could have a 1-100 table listing of results. More advanced is that you would have many tables to roll for results.
Back in the Time Before Time, each DM would make their own custom tables. Then make copies of those tables using one of the new fancy electronic copy machines. Like in the back of my local Ben Franklin Five and Dime was a small office for public use(I have no idea why?) that had a copy machine, and we'd go there to copy RPG papers. Then trade with other DMs.
For example, take just a Treasure Chest. What is inside and a simple 1-6 roll. A typical one might be
1-Nothing
2-Junk
3-Common Items
4-A Trap!
5-Standard Treasure
6-Amaging Treasure
And for each one, you'd roll on a couple tables to find what was in the chest. Like you'd roll a five and then roll a 1d12 to get seven items of 'standard treasure'. For the first item roll on the 'material table' and get 'wood', then roll for type of wood, size, shape and on and on. Sure you might roll up a simple oak wood hammer, but you'd often get a pine wood bladed dagger or something more exotic.
Of course, in a True Old School game, a good player might use anything they find in a chest. Like even a 'junk' chest full of broken wooden handles can be burned in a fire.
And the 'amazing' roll could really be fun if the DM had good 'amazing' tables. You could find items of money value sure....but also rare items...exotic items....nearly anything. Even like "a 25th ray gun that distengerates anything".
Of course modern gaming put the stop to this sort of randomness. TO just use the treasure chest above a modern DM/player would be quite upset if they fought a monster and got nothing, junk or a trap. By the modern gaming viewpoint "each encounter MUST have a reward of a set amount."
And one of the big things about Pure Randomness is letting the rolls stand. You roll for each thing like the treasure chests. Characters might find say 10 such chests.....and it's possible they get 5-10 'amazing' chests and get like a million gold coins or a pet dragon or such. And in an Old School Game, the DM would let the roll stand.......though ALSO if the roll was 'trap' and it killed all the PCs the DM would let THAT stand too.
By the modern viewpoint is 'you find treasure appropriate to the level/encounter/rules', so randomness was dropped.
And no DM ever HAD to do a random roll.....but if was often fun for a DM to choose to do a random roll and get something crazy like a 'teak wood golem tyrannosaurs rex' .
