RNG (and lack of engaging choices in JRPGs) // MAGENTA MONTHLY SEPTEMBER 2021

Support me: / wondermagenta
Tip my streams: streamlabs.com...
Keep up with my shit: / wondermagenta
Read my written reviews: www.backloggd....

[@HotPocketHPE]

Hmmm, I get what you're saying, especially with regards to the simplicity of so many decisions presented by the archetypical turn-based JRPG, but something about this still isn't sitting right with me. With your Fire Emblem example, I agree that making a bet on a 70% chance to hit isn't interesting in and of itself, but I feel like that's sort of besides the point. The interesting part is the analysis needed to get to that point, to push you to make that bet as opposed to another. I think of this through the lens of Magic the Gathering, since I played a lot a few years ago. In that game, there is a lot of RNG through drawing cards. While drawing a card itself isn't interesting (though it is pretty satisfying), the decisions it makes are. The possibility space is so big (your whole deck + your opponent's drawn cards from their whole deck) that you are constantly reevaluating your situation, but many cards fill similar enough roles that you can still generalize to make smart decisions. It is precisely the RNG here that creates this rich possibility space: maybe you could construct something similar without RNG, but it would require a total redesign of everything. With regards to the correct choice not always being rewarded, I don't mind this as much as you. If you have enough data points, then over time you will reap the rewards of consistently good decision making. Of course, if you are frequently running into 50/50 "win this coin flip or I lose the game" scenarios then that's pretty lame, but that's not something intrinsic to the concept of RNG. I'll think about this some more and get back to you, interesting topic though. I was also disappointed in how people reacted to the demon negotiation article, there's a lot to talk about and it's a shame to see the usual knee jerk reactions.

[@ziggymcdougal]

Really interesting video on turn based systems and RPGs. I think a game that sidesteps a lot of these issues is Library of Ruina (though the game isn't totally turnbased and rather planning + execution based where both your and the enemy's actions play out together). It plays a bit like a tabletop RPG with a bit of deckbuilding thrown in. You have about 5 units that can perform single or multiple actions per turn, and you can choose which enemies they can clash with. You can also redirect forecasted attacks by the enemy during the planning phase. RNG in Ruina does permeate everything in combat, from which of your units will be the first to perform their actions in a phase, what damage and shield numbers roll, and down to the damage you deal. For example, if you roll an attack value of 5 and the enemy rolls an attack value of 3, your attack is the one that wins and is the one that deals damage based on the number rolled. (This is very much oversimplifying). The values that can potentially be rolled is decided by the card you choose (for example some cards have dice roll ranges of 1-6, some others have roll ranges of 3-5). However Ruina gives you so much control over what sort of RNG decisions you will run into in any given battle. Because of the deck-building system, you get to choose what options are available to you before any given battle, as well as what sort of risks you want to take during battle. You are given control over the range of decisions as well as whatever specific action you want to take when the action starts very much like a card game. Ruina also gives you the option to affect the RNG while battle plays out. You're given methods of increasing the roll ranges of attacks (for example an attack that has a roll range of 3-5 can be increased to 3-7 for more potential power or 5-5 for consistency). You're also given the option of directly increasing the actual value that is rolled by the game through status effects. Likewise, you can decrease the enemy's roll ranges as well as whatever value for attack or defense they roll. Resource management is another aspect Ruina dances with by borrowing from a lot of card games, as it's all completely based on your momentum. Early on in battles you can freely use high cost actions without worry of starving your short term resources, but there is a point when this plateaus. At some point you have to be conscious of your action resource (we'll just call it mana), as you can easily be left in situations where you don't have the mana to perform necessary high cost actions. You' re also capable of exhausting your hand and not having actions to perform in any given turn. So there's this delicate balance between incorporating enough card draw and mana restore with high value damage and defensive options in your builds. And this balance carries over to battles as you have to be smart of when to use said momentum restore options and when to use your strong combat ones. The last thing Ruina does is that it still rewards you for being on the losing end of RNG. The emotion system in Ruina has 2 states, awakened or breakdown states. If you lose a clash you get breakdown points whereas winning a clash gives you awakened emotion. No matter what kind of emotion points you get, the more you accumulate the stronger your units get during a fight and the greater bonuses you get at the end. Furthermore, some actions are only available to you if you accumulate enough breakdown emotion points. These actions are super powerful and usually independent of RNG altogether. The TLDR of this is that no matter if you win or lose a certain RNG scenario you will benefit, and in some strategies it is actually better to intentionally lose these RNG scenarios for options that circumvent randomness altogether. There's a lot more to Ruina's gameplay that I can't cover but it's one of my favorite cases of a jrpg (technically korean but whatever) borrowing elements from other genres to make a really intellectually challenging and satisfying gameplay loop that is unique to it and very few if any games can match. I guess some closing points would be that turn based games I think really do benefit from randomness provided they give you interesting decisions that dance with said randomness. But I think allowing you to directly affect the RNG or creating and encouraging possibilities where you lose in a scenario with randomness more interesting should be explored more.

[@ziadbruh]

very interesting, didn’t know anything about the game up to this point and will have to give it a look sometime!

[@JasonGodwin69]

It took playing games that removed the RNG before I understood what's so good about removing RNG from the equation. So when I hear people defend RNG I usually think "Have you ever played anything without RNG"? Like how Wargroove makes you earn your Critical Hits through smart battlefield unit positioning.

[@Erk1234567]

I'm a VERY casual SMT fan, but I always figured Demon Negotiation had dialogue choices with different probabilities of success based on Demon Class. Meaning that it's still random, but you can make an educated guess. I understand why that doesn't make it any more engaging, I just wanted to throw in my understanding of "Demon Personality"

[@Erk1234567]

I also want to throw out that in higher level Fire Emblem runs, many players plan their next move with the worst possible outcome already calculated, so RNG factors less into the question of "is this worth the risk?" And more "this outcome was better than expected, now I can divert these resources elsewhere". Holistically, decision making in Fire Emblem is less about RNG rewarding/punishing bad or good decisions and more about setting the board with an outcome in mind and the possibility of ending in a better situation.

[@ziadbruh]

i think what this example really shows, though, is that RNG in this context still does a poor job of creating dynamic/uncertain outcomes. which was more my point overall; at worst, it gives you the opposite of what you put in, at best it doesn't really matter and then the encounter just becomes about solving a linear puzzle again.

[@Erk1234567]

@@ziadbruh That's true, didn't consider that lol. As a side note, I was thinking about this video at work and I wanted to share some thoughts on how 90s Dragon Quest handles RNG and resources, but I don't want to spam you or make it seem like I'm trying to win an argument here.

[@ziadbruh]

lol it's cool my man, up for a chat on that whenever you feel like it