From this thread on the angband.oook.cz forums where Darren Grey gets into a post episode 59 discussion about Sil with the developers and fans:
Actually the variance can function a little like multiple lives systems: you can think of it not as stochastically letting you die when you deserve life, but stochastically letting you live when you deserve death. And by being memoryless, it doesn't induce the temptation to restart if you lose a life early. (It's also a little less clear about providing feedback to the player when they made a mistake, but at least ending up on low life is a clue.)I've been reading a lot of writing about how randomness has no place in games, and while the people taking this position seem to be perfectly nice and otherwise sensible, to me it feels like getting to know someone and then finding out their favourite book is Atlas Shrugged. I have an essay about it in me somewhere, but today is not that day. Scatha's sentiment is something I can agree with.
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Randomness, or dice, adds tension. Anything can happen. It lets you press your luck and be thrilled when it works.
I just feel I have to note that this line so clearly articulated that uneasy feeling I get when I read the anti-randomness writing that I laughed OL, literally:
"I've been reading a lot of writing about how randomness has no place in games, and while the people taking this position seem to be perfectly nice and otherwise sensible, to me it feels like getting to know someone and then finding out their favourite book is Atlas Shrugged."
It's one of those 'I'm going to take an absolute position on something which is clearly a shades of grey issue' which is terribly popular with adolescents and engineers.
What's wrong with atlas shrugged?
It brought us Bioshock.
"It's one of those 'I'm going to take an absolute position on something which is clearly a shades of grey issue' which is terribly popular with adolescents and engineers."
Does this mean your favourite book is '50 Shades Of Grey', Andrew?
In defence of my fellow engineers; I don't think it's a black-and-white thing (an engineer who cannot cope with balancing several competing value criteria is a shit engineer) so much as it is that Atlas Shrugged is basically a whole book about how great engineers are and how everybody should worship us as the superior beings we clearly are. That's pretty much the only nice thing anybody has ever said about us in the entire field of western literature, so I can see how that might seduce some people into overlooking Rand's occasionally iffy logic.
Back on topic: I think the 'random vs deterministic combat' question is an interesting one and I can see valid arguments for both sides. For my 7DRL entry this year I'm planning on experimenting with that sort of thing a bit by having a combat system that has aspects of both.
Whats wrong with Atlas shrugged?
There are some very good points in that book. Some things I think are silly, and I haven't read the book fully. Now if someone says that it is their favorite movie...
On the randomness question, that is really dependent on how good the system is balanced. Too much or poorly done randomness ruins a game. Deterministic combat isn't fun without good mechanics.
Paul Jeffries: Try Heinlein.
purplearcanist: Start with http://www.alternet.org/story/150740/why_ayn_rand_and_her_legion_of_followers_are_hopelessly_wrong
Heh. The trouble with Heinlein is that I'm never entirely sure when he's being serious and when he isn't...
I have to say 'euch' to your choice of that AlterNet article, though - it's interesting, and may well be factually accurate, I just don't think an interview with one single economist in a publication with a pretty overtly opposite political bias is a good place to start. Besides which, criticising Atlas Shrugged on the basis of its presentation of the railway industry is a little like criticising Plato's Cave for its misrepresentation of the prison system of the 4th Century BC; it's sort of missing the point.
If I might suggest an alternative, this is a pretty thorough shake-down of some of the iffy logic I mentioned earlier: http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/rand5.htm. For me, the main strike against objectivism is that it's based mainly around the 'no true scotsman' argument that the only way for humans to live is through reason and that humans who are alive despite not using reason aren't living *properly*.
Just to note, I've never said randomness has no place in games. But like all design elements it must be used wisely. Too often it is not. I'm also against the opposite stance that randomness is fun by default. It can be fun - people do enjoy snakes and ladders after all - but it can be harmful to a well-designed system. In Sil I think the extent of randomness used in combat damage is not enjoyable - not for me anyway. Others obviously enjoy it more than I, but that doesn't stop me hating on it :)
Darren: I'm aware you don't fall into that camp. You don't seem perfectly nice and otherwise sensible for a start :)
I like randomness, especially with item generation. It forces me to be more clever, more precise, and at times where you have to try something desperate it adds a special tension that isn't easy to find elsewhere.
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