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Gameplay Randomization
- 37 statements
- 1 feature instances
- 26 referencing feature instances
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Gameplay Randomization | |
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GameplayRandomization | |
| Gameplay Randomization | comment |
One of the key components of fun gameplay is its unpredictability — i.e. that the ultimate outcome of a game is not known until it is played. There are four generic ways to implement unpredictability in game designnote as identified by Greg Costikyan in his book Uncertainty in Games and referenced, for example, near the beginning of this GDC talk: hidden informationnote such as other players' hands in a card game, skill/performance-based challengesnote also known as "twitch gameplay" in video games, opponent uncertaintynote especially in games where each player has many viable strategies, resulting in a combinatorial explosion of future game states, and randomizers — rules and mechanics that utilize some sort of a Random Number Generator (like dice or cards) to inject randomness directly into gameplay loops. Gameplay randomization comes in several distinct patterns (adapted from The Forge's fortune mechanics classification), depending on when exactly the randomness affects or informs the player's decisions: "Fortune at the Beginning": Generate randomness, invoke mechanic, adjudicate outcome. In this variation, randomness enters play before the player decides on their move in the current gameplay loop, which is then resolved deterministically. Great examples of this in board games are Settlers of Catan and Monopoly, where each player must roll dice at the start of their turn, before reacting and adapting to their new resources and/or position. Settlers also contains a second type of such input randomness, in its randomly determined initial board state. "Fortune in the Middlenote with Teeth": Invoke mechanic, generate randomness, mitigate randomness, adjudicate outcome. This variation, popular in fiction-first indie RPGs, adds an additional player decision into the loop, where they can no longer abort an action once the dice are rolled, but may spend a limited resource to offset particularly unlucky rolls before the results are finalized. This effectively allows players to steer the narrative in their preferred direction while leaving its ultimate outcome uncertain. "Fortune at the End" (FatE): Invoke mechanic, mitigate, then generate randomness, adjudicate outcome. This is, perhaps, the most popular way to use randomizers: you decide on your action, tally up your bonuses, roll the dice and hope for the best, because the results are now completely up to the Random Number God. As Keith Burgun points out, however, these are not necessarily distinct categories but rather a continuum between input and output randomness, determined by the position of the randomizer relative to the player decision in a game loop. It is also true that for faster-paced gameplay, the distinction becomes very blurry, as the output randomness of one action immediately becomes the input randomness of the next. This is a gameplay-specific subtrope of Unpredictable Results. Because the vast majority of games include some kind of a randomizer, this page is a Exampleless Supertrope. |
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Dropped link to AIRoulette: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to RandomLootExchanger: Not an Item - UNKNOWN | |
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Random Loot Exchanger | |
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DBTropes | |
| Gameplay Randomization / int_c4eb086f | type |
Gameplay Randomization | |
| Gameplay Randomization / int_c4eb086f | comment |
Critical Hit: Although some games allow for automatic crits under certain conditions, most of the time, they happen randomly when using the attack mechanics. | |
| Gameplay Randomization / int_c4eb086f | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Gameplay Randomization / int_c4eb086f | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Critical Hit | hasFeature |
Gameplay Randomization / int_c4eb086f |
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