RNG or Action

 Let's roll to see if you hit

I'm in an absolutely terrible dark place in my personal psyche right now, so I thought I'd do something about it and start an X-com playthrough because apparently I'm an idiot. Yeah, that means I'm currently questioning who up there in the great Casino in the sky has decided I'm the fellow he wants to give just the worst luck to, because nothing short of divine damnation could inflict the chaos I've been subject to. (I missed a 96% Shot... 96%!?!) And whenever I'm done crying to the gods about why I'm such a pathetic morsel worthy of their ire, I find myself bringing this back around into a contemplation on Game design because as the law of the narcissist goes, if I'm not good at something it must be because that thing is broken in some way. So that's how I got around to this extremely arbitrary and not at all constructive or well considered blog about which type of gameplay it's better to rely on, action systems or RNG systems.

Of course, that alone is a little strange as a lead-in, such to the point where even I kind of have no idea what I mean by it, so let me try and sanitize things down to a question about whether it's better for a game to rely on systems of action and response or systems of action and rolling the die. Of course, that doesn't mean the RNG systems must strictly have no full action elements, I'm just talking about the ultimate call at the end of the day who ends all debate, is it the demand of the key press or the will of the computer algorithm. So does that explain the premise a little more? No? Well too bad because it's about as clear as I'm possible of getting, so without further ado let's ramble.

So RNG sucks. Putting all your time and effort to lining something up only for some stupid computer system to tell you it didn't work; very lame. (Like that 96% shot which, by-the-by, was literally at point blank range; that clinically blind asshat must have pulled a lot of strings to become part of the world's 'premier extra-terrestrial defence force') But action and reaction is super boring, where the player is asked to line up their wits against an AI who's obviously going to trip over his shoe laces because; come on, we're talking about machines against humans here! Maybe if there a bit more of an element of random chance to the situation which takes the control out of your hands then it might heighten the thrill factor a bit. Of course I'm being facetious, RNG systems and action/response systems are not as black and white as all that and they have layers of nuance that simply cannot be covered with anything short of a 100 paragraph blog. (And people tend not to like it when I do those, so I'll keep this slim.)

RNG is actually a big part of games and has been for a very long time now, pretty much as long as the RPG genre has been a thing. Because you see, as much as RNG covers games like XCom, Wastelanders 2 and Baldur's Gate, where your every action is given up to the great calculator in the machine, it also has a significant place alongside system calculations in a great many classic RPGs. Take Crit damage for example, an RPG system wherein players have a chance to deal a special attack for an increased amount of damage; oftentimes this serves as a system for the dedicated number crunchers to really shoot for, especially in hardcore RPG titles like MMO's. What self respecting DPS build doesn't min-max crit percentage boosts in order to guarantee a huge jump to damage output? The same can be said for Proc effects or just the act of hitting at all for some RPGs. Although effort is put in the player, and they usually do all they can to tip the odds in their favour, at the end of the day the ultimate deliberation isn't with us, and doesn't that just make things all the more exciting?

The comparison might seem strange, but I'm about to compare this to horror games and how they achieve their goal of forcibly ejecting the audience's bowls. Most great horror relies on taking the watching into the unknown and playing upon that to leave them helpless, because every known quantity automatically becomes more in one's control, even if just by a cursory degree. You can make plans, prepare your reaction, brace for shocks, all because you have some idea what's around that corner. Take that from the viewer, however, and they're left in a state of heightened adrenaline as they have no idea what might happen. Yeah, the comparison is a little tenuous, I knew that going in, but I'll bet you're starting to see what I mean when I talk about the allure of losing control. That being said, there is an opposite end of the spectrum.

Put people in a state where they feel like nothing that they do is effective and the will of the machine decides everything, then it can end up making the act of playing feel useless and get a little frustrating. Primary subject A for displaying this exact phenomena is none other than 'The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind', and if you've played the game you already know what I'm about to say. Somehow the combat system in Morrowind borrowed a few too many cues from D&D, to the point where everytime the player swings their weapon and makes contact with the enemy, a small calculation is done which takes into account factors like weapon skill level, Stamina and the conjunction of the stars in order to determine whether or not the hit actually landed. That being the hit which already had to land in order for those calculations to go off anyway. Thus meaning that at low level you'll literally be spending your time stabbing people without any damage until your failure levels you up enough to play this like literally any other game ever. This is RNG done catastrophically wrong, if you even needed me to point that out for you.

Now whilst on the surface that may sound familiar to the sort of system which Xcom touts, let me tell you why that's completely wrong and you should ashamed for ever having that opinion. Morrowind is a real-time action RPG wherein the pace of combat is set by the player's ability to press the swing button, whereas Xcom is a tactical game wherein the pace is as slow as it needs to be for the player to decide their next action. Number crunching isn't a supplement to Xcom's action but rather the substitute for full on gunplay, allowing the thrill of the unknown to creep in even when you've spent the last 5 minutes deciding exactly where to stand in order to make one particular shot. Morrowind's system, however, was an unholy clashing of full action and RNG that tripped up on it's own pacing and almost ruins an otherwise classic of a game.

So at the end of the day what have we learned about the nature of RNG or action games? Well absolutely nothing, I just wanted an excuse to try and justify the existence or random number generators in games. Once the dust has settled it's still all terribly frustrating and I would argue that sometimes it doesn't even make you feel like you've done a done a good job, just that you've gotten lucky; but when the stars align and things start going your way it's just human nature to conveniently forget the hand of fate and take all the credit for yourself. When I fail it's because RNG screwed me, but when I succeed it's just a testament to my undeniable tactical genius. (And if you think that sounds exceeding contentious, remember that I did miss a 96% shot at point blank range, give me this one.)