Random chance has played a major part in games since games have existed. And I’m not just talking about videogames, I’m talking about games in general – practically every single game ever invented in the history of mankind has incorporated chance within its rules to some degree. While in some, like sports, chance is often a negligible part of the entire experience, in others, like gambling, understanding the probability of different events on the roulette table can mean the difference between a win and a loss. So naturally, when videogames first started to emerge in the 70s, chance and randomness were added to them in order to keep the experience fresh and interesting. Nobody wants to play a game that plays exactly the same every time, after all, and a certain degree of randomness in enemy behavior or even level generation often draws the players back in. But aside maybe from puzzle games, no other genre has embraced randomness the way that roleplaying games have. Hell, when played offline, roleplaying games like “Dungeons & Dragons” almost always require several different dice, and that’s no coincidence! So many things in RPGs rely on random number generators, but probably the most noticeable one are the so-called random encounters – a variable which determines when the player will encounter an enemy. Ever since their introduction, random encounters have become a staple of the genre, so I thought I’d pay them tribute by listing some of my favorite examples of their use throughout gaming:
Final Fantasy: While it’s generally accepted that “Dragon Quest” was the originator of the concept of random encounters, I’d have to say that “Final Fantasy” perfected it – for its time, at least. The first game actually had a complex algorithm to ensure that the number of squares a player would go through before triggering a random encounter wouldn’t be too small or too great, and that at the same time there would be enough distance between the random encounters and the fights that the designers intended. It’s pretty complex stuff for an 8-bit game, but then again, the first “Final Fantasy” was revolutionary in many ways!
Tales of Symphonia: The first 3D “Tales” game brought an innovation to the random encounters formula that many subsequent games, like the fan-favorite “Persona” series, would later copy – they made random encounters visible on the map. The monsters were walking around just as you were, and while sometimes they blocked your path or ran into you, often times you could avoid them with careful maneuvering or by stunning them. A fight only occurred if the monsters touched you, so as long as you stayed away from them, you could go through the entire dungeon without a single fight. Later “Tales” games would expand upon that mechanic by adding bonuses for attacking enemies from behind or stunning them before battle.
Bravely Default: In 2012, it didn’t seem like there was any more room for random encounters to evolve… And then we got “Bravely Default”, which completely flipped the RPG genre on its head by, uh, giving us the chance to turn them off. Indeed, within the options of the game was a slider which dictated how frequent random encounters were, from “very frequent” to “non-existent”, and honestly, that’s got to be one of the most brilliant ideas I’ve ever heard in my life. I don’t always play an RPG for the same reason. Sometimes I want to just do something with my hands for a couple of hours while in the middle of a Netflix marathon, and in that case a high random encounter rate is great, as it keeps me occupied and also helps me grind items, gold and experience. On the other hand, sometimes I want to focus on the story, in which case a low random encounter rate is the way to go.
Undertale: Toby Fox’s 2015 RPG is fondly regarded as one of the best games of all time, and with good reason. Among its many achievements was placing the player in a living, breathing world populated by many unique characters that you could befriend or kill for money and experience. While generally grinding (as in, the act of roaming around a dungeon and mindlessly slaughtering monsters to gain as much experience as possible) is considered a staple of the RPG genre, in “Undertale” this act puts you on the Genocide run, where you gradually decimate the population of the game’s world until there’s literally no one left. I mean, what did you expect would happen if you ran around in circles and just killed everyone? Brilliant!