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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JonWake" data-source="post: 5823276" data-attributes="member: 95255">The Death of RandomnessIf there's anything that can be said for sure about 4e, it's that random events are constrained to the combat board, and even then, the range of random events is highly reduced.  A creature has an expected lifespan, an expected damage output, and an expected treasure parcel. Encounters are built to minimize the likelihood of a disaster or overwhelming victory, characters are built to withstand the vagaries of the dice, and character creation is more like engineering than hoping for a high STR roll. The general consensus with the New School D&D crowd is that this is a Good Thing. For a certain play style of DnD, this is a good thing. Knowing what's in the box lets DM's build encounters and whole campaigns with a reasonable certainty and a minimum of chaos. But for other styles of DnD, randomness is absolutely essential. Not just in combat, but in the whole of the world.  Randomness frees the Dungeon Master to be an impartial referee. Take wandering monsters, for example. If you decide that in a dungeon there's a 20% chance of encountering a monster every 10 minutes (or hour, or day), you have set a danger level without coming off as a bad guy.  Of course, it requires skill to set these danger levels at something the players feel is logical. Walking through a town shouldn't have an 80% chance of being attacked, and walking through sparsely populated woods shouldn't have the checks made every five minutes.  When the DM uses random methods to propel the 'story', it frees the DM to describe the situation and watch what happens, and it frees the players from having to second-guess the DM's intentions.  The Function of Randomness in RPGsRandom events undermine metagaming. Metagaming requires treating the game world as a statistical analysis, or treating the DM's adventure as a predictable narrative.  Humans can only make statistical predictions within very tight constraints, however. With multiple variables, predictions outside of the system become impossible.  Instead of wondering why the DM isn't letting my amazing tracker shine, I know that within this town there's a chance that I simply won't encounter any badguys worth tracking. It stops becoming about an antagonism between the DM and the players and now the players have to deal with a new situation.Unpredictability spurs creativity. If the DM doesn't know what is going to happen from moment to moment, plot creation involves finding links between events, strengthening some, pruning others and letting the players move through the world freely. It frees the DM to keep low investment in any one outcome, because a trick of the dice might undo all her hard work.</blockquote>

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