Quote from: Saurondor;889010Could we not define a railroad as an adventure in which this randomness is reduced considerably? Sure there will be slight differences if it is run again and again, but overall the outcome will be the same regardless of the path taken.

I'm following you up until to this part.

If I'm running a PC through an adventure towards a particular goal, along the way I'll have successes and failures. But the decision I make following or in response to a success may be different from the decision I make following or in response to a failure.

If I'm heading west and cross a river without incident, I continue heading west. If, however, I get swept south some distance while crossing the river, I will head northwest once I'm on the other side.

Purposeful action is directed towards a goal. It opposes chaos or "the butterfly effect" where even a small variation leads to major changes. Purposeful action irons out the wrinkles.

I would say a GM railroad tends to reduce counteract randomness in the direction of the GM's goal. A GM who is impartial, however, rendering decisions according to how the game world works, will create an environment in which players are free to plan for their own goals. This also tends to reduce randomness, instead in the direction of the players goals.

The circumstances under which randomness increases are those in which any directed purpose is thwarted. An example might be a game system where no "world" is created prior, rather everything is made up as you go according to how some dice rolls turn out. Like if nobody knows whether the macguffin object is in the safe or not, but we just say "Yes it is" on a successful roll, "No it isn't" on a failed roll. This is chaotic because it's left to the roll of the dice and cannot be influenced by prior planning on the part of participants.

Quote from: Lunamancer;889089I would say a GM railroad tends to reduce counteract randomness in the direction of the GM's goal. A GM who is impartial, however, rendering decisions according to how the game world works, will create an environment in which players are free to plan for their own goals. This also tends to reduce randomness, instead in the direction of the players goals.

Right, that's what I tend to call the anti-railroad. A situation of so much freedom that anything is achievable at the player's whim and thus not uncertain anymore.

I like explaining this with the distribution curve of a loaded coin.



This graph shows the odds of the coin and the "uncertainty" of the outcome. When the coin is fair and has a 50-50 chance of landing heads or tails you're at the center and the uncertainty is 1, its maximum value. If you make one outcome more probable than the other (imagine magic or a magnetic field) then the odds of heads or tails decreases to one end or the other. At the extreme case the field is so strong it always lands heads (left 0) or always lands tails (right 1). If it always lands heads there is 0% chance of a tails outcome. There is no uncertainty in the outcome and the graph goes to 0. We can imagine this to be similar to an extreme railroading. On the other hand if it always lands tails (players get what they want always) there is no uncertainty either. This is clearly an oversimplified example as players will choose among a huge set of things, the point being though that there is no uncertainty.

A good game thus is one that moves around the central values. The GM, being diligent on the world's behalf tries to pull it towards the left and the players towards the right. There should be moments in which the game leans towards the left (GM side) to create tension and risk and then gratification and a sense of achievement as it shifts to the right (players side). This followed in turn by a move to the left again and the cycle repeats. If you stay too long in the left it leads to frustration if you stay too long on the right it leads to boredom.

It is this process which is very hard to simulate through mechanics, at least simple mechanics that can be solved on a tabletop. Gauging the situation and "feeling" the players is something that requires a human and can't be anticipated by the designer.

Quote from: Lunamancer;889089The circumstances under which randomness increases are those in which any directed purpose is thwarted. An example might be a game system where no "world" is created prior, rather everything is made up as you go according to how some dice rolls turn out. Like if nobody knows whether the macguffin object is in the safe or not, but we just say "Yes it is" on a successful roll, "No it isn't" on a failed roll. This is chaotic because it's left to the roll of the dice and cannot be influenced by prior planning on the part of participants.

Not necessarily. The important thing to see here is information as a whole and not only die rolls. It is also not immediately chaotic and it also depends on the outcome of the dice. Once again if the macguffin object is safe on a roll of a 1 on a d20 then I can be pretty confident that it's unsafe. Turning this into the coin example the odds of tails (safe) is 5% (1 out of 20), the odds of heads (unsafe) is 95% (19 out of 20). Looking at the graph above we notice we are very much on the GM side (remember heads was 0 on the graph and tails 1). If we follow the graph we see it crosses (5% odds) at 0.25. On the other hand if the odds of the macguffin object being safe 50% of the time then we're at the center and the graph goes up to 1.0, four times more uncertainty on the outcome.

Now there is yet another uncertainty. Will I use the macguffin object or not? This is an uncertainty too, at least as seen by the GM and other players. It is thus a random event too. Not random in the sense that I'll roll dice, but rather random in the sense that my decision is not known prior to me expressing it. If my decision is known prior to me expressing it and it is known every time then there is no uncertainty and thus no randomness and I also would happen to lack any free will. Clearly this is not the case and thus players are also a source of randomness in the game. Now I will argue that not only are players a random element, but also an even more random element than dice.

You mentioned that "rather everything is made up as you go according to how some dice rolls turn out". Ok, but die rolls need to be converted to real objects, for example landscape items such as hills, mountains, forests, etc. If we're rolling on a landscape table, who made the table? If we're rolling with percentile dice, can the outcome of a roll be 134? No. The dice will produce a value between 1 and 100. This in turn gets converted to some "item" through the table. Yet the dice, as random as they may seem, can't produce a value that's not on the table. A table which in turn was made by a human. If there is no tundra on the table then the dice, random as they may be, will never create a landscape with tundra.

We're approaching then one of the great limitations to obtaining good narrative from rules of simulation. The simulation is bounded by the model on which it is built, the narrative is only bounded by the imagination of the storyteller (GM and players). The simulation is not self aware of the world it is simulating and thus can't expand itself (learn) to accommodate to new needs, unlike the GM who can.

The trick here is to see the GM and players as part of the simulation. They are key elements and the moment we stop thinking about narrative and simulationist concerns as two separate things and start thinking only in terms of information content and uncertainty it all comes together as a single thing. What makes a story great? Well uncertainty. If I know what's going to happen why am I reading the book or watching the movie? But too much uncertainty can be frustrating too. There has to be a sweet spot. Uncertainty isn't also only about die rolls and die rolls on end adding "detail" which conveys no weight. For example dedicating 30 minutes to resolve an encounter that covers 8 rounds of combat in which we roll attacks, write up damage and do all this math only to a) be as combat effective throughout the 8 rounds and b) heal ourselves and be just as fine as when we started. We spent all this time figuring out all this information (die rolls, modifiers, damage, etc.) and the overall change to the adventure (aside from treasure gained) is zero. We're 30 minutes older, 30 minutes hungrier and still in the same tunnel as if nothing had happened. What changed? This is a textbook balanced encounter. A scene meant to present a series of "random" events that culminate in a predictable and thus certain outcome: party is ready to move on. Overall the scene is not random nor uncertain. Sure, "under the microscope" there seems to be a lot going on in the encounter, but we could very well have created a "narrative wormhole" and jumped to the end.

On the other end of the spectrum lets have a group of players narrating what they do. Just because they're narrating it does not exclude it from being random. Remember, random here does not mean rolled by a die, it means uncertain and unforeseeable. Also, just because they're narrating does not mean it's not realistic. If the player is an expert in a particular field the narration may be more realistic than the outcome of a set of rules created by a less knowledgeable person.

Now one player says something (imagine a game without GM) and another player responds to said action. The first player doesn't know what the second player is going to respond. He might have an idea, but can't be 100% certain. Now the first player may like what the second player responded or may not like it. What stays in the story and why? Will the second player be able to change the story just because? Well here come the dice. Well, we roll dice and it turns out that the first player get her way. Oh but wait, maybe player two has a "point" that can be used to change the story to his favor. That point has weight in the story that goes beyond the "realism" portrayed in the scene. In the coin example it's equivalent to loading the coin for that roll and leaning the outcome towards a player's choice regardless of the actual "mechanical reasons" for the outcome. Obviously the game can't have too many of these points otherwise we'd be flipping loaded coins all the time. These are gained by "paying" something. Once again, based on the coin example, for every coin flip loaded towards heads we need to grant something in favor of a flip towards tails, and hope that what we pay isn't too costly in the long run.




What if player one and two are in cahoots together and the story goes into a narrative meltdown in which there is nothing really opposing their interests. The end is thus certain and there is really no uncertainty if the princess will be saved and the evil villain slain, even though you're rolling truckloads of dice. This is a textbook narrative adventure gone wild. In this case the "rules of simulation" can act as a means to contain this by creating uncertainty as to the outcome. A challenge outside the players control that put their eventual success in question.

There are some players who are not comfortable with this and want to be sure they save the princess and kill the villain. There are players within this group who would gladly "pay" for the added overhead of the simulationist rules that add "detail" without ever really questioning the outcome of the adventure and those who are not willing to go through all this and would rather just fill the "detail" themselves.

So, my way of seeing better narrative coming from rules of simulation is by making the die rolls less impacting and picking the "detail" that really matters and filtering out the rest that only adds complexity and delay without any long lasting effect.

For example:

Make rolls mean more than yes/no, success/failure

If you're putting all this effort figuring modifiers and rolls only to get yes or no answers you're not very efficient in getting information and thus variability from the roll. Why not add outcomes as: yes, no, somewhat, maybe, not so much, etc.

Rolling for the same thing again and again

Many games have a lot of detail in the ammo department. How much a certain weapon does. This is specially true with firearms in games. If a bullet misses you it does no damage, regardless of caliber. If it hits you in a critical spot it's way more damaging than an impact on the hand, regardless of caliber. Some may argue that that's what weapon damage is for to determine the quality of the shot. But wasn't that what the to hit roll was for? But since the to hit only answers yes or no we only know we hit, but not how well. So we need to roll for something we could have gotten beforehand. More so we can end up with contradicting rolls, a great to hit but little damage.

Buffer mechanics

Many games, including story games, have buffers to mitigate the effect of dice mechanics. The quintessential example of this is hit points. Combat is so volatile I don't want to risk my character on a single die roll. Yet this happens only because the only outcome is injury or not injury. If I make a system with few hit points the immediate response from most players is that it wont be fun and characters will die quickly. Well yes, if the only outcome of a die roll players are expecting is physical damage, yes. Yes if the only way to stop a character is by terminating the character's life. This is why even many storygames have not be able to do away with hit points as much as they rename the concept and limit their value.

But what about fear. What if other outcomes limit the character's actions and in doing so influence the story. Then some players might complain that the GM is manipulating the character, that their character would stand up in the face of danger and lead head on towards a dragon's breath or a blazing machine gun. But that's not real, no matter how detailed you get with the dice modifiers for range, speed, caliber, armor, etc. The game just keeps adding detail to explain the "non-death" of the character by a set of "realistic", but utterly absurd mechanics.

I have to disagree with a core premise of your post. The fact that you're focused on probability, Pr(x). What's actually relevant is not the probability of one thing happening vs another, but rather the effects of it. A one-in-1000 chance of a TPK seems pretty certain the party will live. Unless it doesn't. Then it's game over. See how this stacks up against my example of being swept down stream. You can correct that with later action. The TPK is an "absorbing state" so it's going to prove far more significant, even though the probability is tiny.

What you should be focused on is not Pr(x) but rather F(x). A game where a TPK is possible but just doesn't ever happen because players successfully avoid it, for example, would seem rather ideal to me. Even though on your probability graph, it's practically like knowing the ending of the story, on the F(x) graph it's a different story.

@ Saurondor

I feel you are using the word simulation and then talk on completely disregarding anything remotely simulation concerned.

A simulation is simulating something. Of course it is limited, that is part if the parcel. It is limited to whatever it is simulating by intent and probably limited by simulation resources and thus necessary abstractions.
But going outside of the bounds of the first is not a feature but a bug regarding simulation concern! Thus from the view of simulation concern there are no such needs.

You are also not understanding the role of the (random?) encounter.
It may be uninteresting from a story view, but depending on possible simulation foci it will tel interesting things about the combat itself, resource or risk management or as a point of contact of setting exploration with some aggressive inhabitants.

Regarding expert:
You are missing the socual component at the desk. There is not only the expert at the desk but severla others and it doesn´t help if he is the only one with expertise. So his expertice is either important enough to change the rules of the simulation or it gets accepted that the current rules are a not completely genuine abstraction. It is not soemthing that gets thrown in on an arbitrary case by case mode.  

>So, my way of seeing better narrative coming from rules of simulation is by making the die >rolls less impacting and picking the "detail" that really matters and filtering out the rest >that only adds complexity and delay without any long lasting effect.

No, what you hint above is kicking simulation out of the window and call that "improvement" of simulation.
You have either no idea what simulation is about or are ignoring it and run a false flag operation!

The last paragraph are things a simulation would be concerned with and will probably already strive for if it is in its focus.

Quote from: Lunamancer;889179What's actually relevant is not the probability of one thing happening vs another, but rather the effects of it.

That's why I'm focusing not only on the die roll (probability of one thing happening), but rather on the whole information content of the story (the effects of it) and how this varies depending on any one particular die roll.

Quote from: Maarzan;889187You are also not understanding the role of the (random?) encounter.
It may be uninteresting from a story view, but depending on possible simulation foci it will tel interesting things about the combat itself, resource or risk management or as a point of contact of setting exploration with some aggressive inhabitants.

Excuse me, is it random because I rolled dice on a random encounter table or because I had a random thought and it lead to the encounter? Does it matter either way from the players point of view? And if so, in what way.

Quote from: Saurondor;889195Excuse me, is it random because I rolled dice on a random encounter table or because I had a random thought and it lead to the encounter? Does it matter either way from the players point of view? And if so, in what way.

I added random (with the ?) because it sounded that at least part of the peef is with that often random part of encounters.

But apart from that:
From the players point of view it often can matter and it is primarily a question of focus and execution:

From a simulation point of view the encounter should happen because it is representing something in the game world. This can be by thought (if you know why there really should be an encounter of this kind) or by "random" (i.e. statistics, you could expect to probably meet some people fitting to some inner world logics and the dice decided what element got realized according to chances by that logic)

You can get a problem, when someone is assuming, that this encounter didn´t come from inner world logic and thus deviating from the simulation experience.
(Most probably not at the first time, but do it too often and you will forfeit the players trust to be honest)

Ok, you can also get a problem if there are different tastes at the table and someone doesn´t like the focus put on the encounter, but this is not a problem about simulation or not, but bitching about spotlight.
(As there are few enough true simulators, you often need some gamists to fill up your stable of guinea pigs and you have to keep them happy too and thus deviate from the pure doctrine)

Quote from: Maarzan;889201From a simulation point of view the encounter should happen because it is representing something in the game world.

Not unless we applied what you said previously:

QuoteIt may be uninteresting from a story view

It should never be uninteresting from the story view. Now don't get me wrong, I'm the simulationist type, and I see the value in the "interesting things about the combat itself", Yet if it is uninteresting, if it's inconsequential, then to some extent it never "really existed". Wouldn't my time be better spent in working out interesting things about combat that do carry a bigger impact in the bigger story?

Quote from: Saurondor;889203It should never be uninteresting from the story view. Now don't get me wrong, I'm the simulationist type, and I see the value in the "interesting things about the combat itself", Yet if it is uninteresting, if it's inconsequential, then to some extent it never "really existed". Wouldn't my time be better spent in working out interesting things about combat that do carry a bigger impact in the bigger story?

The crucial point is, that story wise uninteresting is not generally uninteresting.
And it is not inconsequential: you probably lose resources, you win experience, loot, information. You probably leave information for the enemy or destroy his resources.

Quote from: Maarzan;889209The crucial point is, that story wise uninteresting is not generally uninteresting.
And it is not inconsequential: you probably lose resources, you win experience, loot, information. You probably leave information for the enemy or destroy his resources.

The crucial point for me is that the interesting part of the random encounter is not determined by the dice themselves. As you mentioned previously:

Quoteshould happen because it is representing something in the game world

But it only goes so far. You only get the type of creature, amount of creatures, etc. The purpose, what they carry, the effect, etc., all that is determined by the GM. Sure, you encounter a group of marauding goblins. This is because in the area in question these creatures are quite common and the dice came out that way. So we go through the motions, roll dice, drop hit points, eliminate the goblins and gain 400 XP. All of this is mechanical and "part of the simulation", but what do the goblins carry? Who are they? Was someone watching? Maybe they had a few buttons from the uniform of some soldier from a kingdom's army that comes to show they've traveled far. Maybe one of the dead goblins has an assassin brother. Maybe two goblins broke off before the encounter and were not killed, but they had the opportunity to see the encounter and are now on the way to get reinforcements. The rules said encounter 2d8 goblins, the GM roll 9, 7 actually faced the party, the other 2 were gathering food when this happened. This is not in the rules and not in the mechanics, but it's quite possible to be part of the simulation as it would simulate reasonable behavior of a marauding goblin party. It is all this which is added "outside the rules" which makes it all more real, more interesting and better linked to the interests of the story in the long run. And yes, you still get all the nitty gritty details of the encounter itself.

Quote from: Saurondor;889211The crucial point for me is that the interesting part of the random encounter is not determined by the dice themselves. As you mentioned previously:

But it only goes so far. You only get the type of creature, amount of creatures, etc. The purpose, what they carry, the effect, etc., all that is determined by the GM. Sure, you encounter a group of marauding goblins. This is because in the area in question these creatures are quite common and the dice came out that way. So we go through the motions, roll dice, drop hit points, eliminate the goblins and gain 400 XP. All of this is mechanical and "part of the simulation", but what do the goblins carry? Who are they? Was someone watching? Maybe they had a few buttons from the uniform of some soldier from a kingdom's army that comes to show they've traveled far. Maybe one of the dead goblins has an assassin brother. Maybe two goblins broke off before the encounter and were not killed, but they had the opportunity to see the encounter and are now on the way to get reinforcements. The rules said encounter 2d8 goblins, the GM roll 9, 7 actually faced the party, the other 2 were gathering food when this happened. This is not in the rules and not in the mechanics, but it's quite possible to be part of the simulation as it would simulate reasonable behavior of a marauding goblin party. It is all this which is added "outside the rules" which makes it all more real, more interesting and better linked to the interests of the story in the long run. And yes, you still get all the nitty gritty details of the encounter itself.

This is surely with most of these items a way to enhance the simulation if is has a fitting focus (which it would have with me, so I would basically like your addons).
But I would also expect to keep the detail level constant during a game (or declare such a change beforehand a session) and not spring this change of detail level on the chars suddenly.
And if it is going to get regular consideration, I would expect it to get formulated into rules too.

Quote from: Saurondor;889193That's why I'm focusing not only on the die roll (probability of one thing happening), but rather on the whole information content of the story (the effects of it) and how this varies depending on any one particular die roll.

That's not what your chart is showing. You have a probability chart. Not an effect chart.

I think it's important to point out before treading too far down this road that there is a difference between "risk" and "uncertainty" (per Frank Knight) and a difference between "case" and "class" probability (per Richard von Mises). This references a body of knowledge that I'm not going to attempt to rehash. You can either take my word for it or go and read the works for yourself. Risk refers to unknown outcomes under class probability. Uncertainty refers to unknown outcomes under case probability.

The way we normally think about probability falls under "class" probability. This would be things like flipping a coin or rolling a die. You can get an objective probability out of this.

"Case" probability, on the other hand, refers to singular events. Donald Trump's Presidential campaign for example. He actually did announce his candidacy in a previous Presidential election as well, but he quickly dropped out. This time around is clearly a different sort of thing. You can't derive any relevant information from his last run. Expressions of probability for these sorts of events is always subjective in nature.

Now when you're compounding probabilities over a series of events to get a handle on what the final outcomes might look like, if the series is dependent even at one point upon even just one instance of case probability, the composite probability will be subjective.

So it's all well and good if you want to broadly apply the term "random" to both dice and human choice. But when you try to quantify the degree of randomness, you're engaging in pure subjective speculation.

Quote from: Lunamancer;889222That's not what your chart is showing. You have a probability chart. Not an effect chart.

...

So it's all well and good if you want to broadly apply the term "random" to both dice and human choice. But when you try to quantify the degree of randomness, you're engaging in pure subjective speculation.

To the first paragraph, yes, indeed, and that's why I clearly pointed out that it was an oversimplification meant to make a point.

To the last paragraph, yes, indeed as well. Question is, can you have a system without such subjective speculation and still have it be manageable?

Take a moment to review the paragraph I wrote to Maarzan. Here, I'll post it again for clarity.

QuoteSure, you encounter a group of marauding goblins. This is because in the area in question these creatures are quite common and the dice came out that way. So we go through the motions, roll dice, drop hit points, eliminate the goblins and gain 400 XP. All of this is mechanical and "part of the simulation", but what do the goblins carry? Who are they? Was someone watching? Maybe they had a few buttons from the uniform of some soldier from a kingdom's army that comes to show they've traveled far. Maybe one of the dead goblins has an assassin brother. Maybe two goblins broke off before the encounter and were not killed, but they had the opportunity to see the encounter and are now on the way to get reinforcements. The rules said encounter 2d8 goblins, the GM roll 9, 7 actually faced the party, the other 2 were gathering food when this happened.

How much information is derived from the rules? Well the type of creature: goblin, and their amount: 2d8. After that the hit points, XP and upcoming die rolls are practically a given. They're set in the monster manual and given the character stats the encounter will have a rather predictable amount of rounds. Either few for higher level characters or quite a few for less powerful characters. That aside, the rest is hugely variable. Maybe it's not buttons, but a watch, or a scroll, or coins, or a set of broken glasses. Maybe there weren't two goblins gathering. Maybe it was a family group and two kids ran away after they were asked to stay put while the adults check out the noise made by the approaching party.

I can go on and on creating alternatives to the encounter, filling the details with so many different and interesting things that actually lead the story in a direction in spite of following the "simulation" to the letter. More so, if they players resist the knee-jerk reaction to attack and kill off the goblins a whole new branch of options opens up, from dialogue to commerce, to retaining, to whatever. Players and GM alike can bury the die roll and random encounter table under a pile of such interesting and relevant options that the story unfolds due to that and not the actual monster encountered (as determined by the rules and dice).

Is it possible to create rules to determine all this that I'm coming up with? Yes. Is it possible to create a simulation that simulates this? Yes! Of course! But then you'd be simulating me, and I don't believe I'm a particularly gifted GM so you're pretty much simulating a GM through the rules. Why would you want to write out a long, heavy and boring to read book that simulates GM creativity if you already have a GM at the table? Because of "pure subjective speculation" or should I say the desire of its absence?

Quote from: Saurondor;889227To the last paragraph, yes, indeed as well. Question is, can you have a system without such subjective speculation and still have it be manageable?

Why is that the question?

The point is that under subjective probability, the less you know about a system, the more random it seems. In trying to measure a system's randomness, you're actually only measuring the insight of the observer.

But who is the observer? You? The GM? The players? Of those three options, the only observer that is irrelevant is you. It's the GM and players who are going to have fun or not have fun. So you have to not only look at the degree of randomness from their perspectives, but also formulate how much randomness is the right amount from those perspectives.

This may not always be the case, but it's pretty close, that high amounts of randomness only leads to frustration, and so randomness can be far from desirable. From the player perspective, and in accordance with the workings of subjective probability, players minimize randomness by better understanding what it is they're doing. Sometimes they do want more of a thrill or to be surprised. Or perhaps they have goals that are important enough to justify taking on higher levels of randomness than otherwise desired. Much in the way PCs in a sandbox style or a megadungeon can control the difficulty, they can likewise control the degree of randomness.

So long as you realize your opinion (that is, the perspective of the forum pundit, RPG theorist, or even game designer) is irrelevant, you realize that the "best" course is to sit back and allow the players, whose opinions DO matter, to set the degree of randomness for themselves.

For the game master, I would throw out the suggestion, though it is by no means definitive, that they reduce the frustration of randomness as they better come to know their players, but so long as the GM allows the players to remain in the drivers seat, the GM--whose knowledge of the players motives are always inferior to the players--the GM will always have the joy of some randomness. Which is important since the GM lacks the experience of randomness in other areas of play due to nigh omniscient knowledge of the game world.

This is but one such arrangement. But it "solves" the randomness problem elegantly and without the theorist having to assume a laundry list of things that aren't true and indeed even absurd, and then just hope it comes close to hitting the mark in practice.

QuoteHow much information is derived from the rules?

What counts as rules and what counts as setting? The rules of Dungeons & Dragons can be used in game worlds where there are no "monsters." In that sense, the entire monster manual is just a set of ingredients for world-building. The reason this question is important.....

QuotePlayers and GM alike can bury the die roll and random encounter table under a pile of such interesting and relevant options that the story unfolds due to that and not the actual monster encountered (as determined by the rules and dice).

Flipping through my module collection, I can find numerous examples of finer details like the ones you list as part of the wandering monster encounters for that specific locale. In fact, the DMG 1st Ed, in its sample dungeon, though simpler than what most modules show, note in the case of some encounters what they were doing, (ex. "patrolling from area 7-8").

In terms of simulation, the point is it is the GM's responsibility to accurately simulate the setting in the same way it is the player's responsibility to simulate their character's thought process and make decisions accordingly.

QuoteWhy would you want to write out a long, heavy and boring to read book that simulates GM creativity if you already have a GM at the table? Because of "pure subjective speculation" or should I say the desire of its absence?

Nay. Remember, correcting after being swept down the river. The details of how my PC gets from point A to point B may vary greatly every time you play the game. But a very high percentage of the time, my PC WILL get from point A to point B, because that is my goal and I am going to adjust my choices and actions with each bump in the road according to my goal.

Similarly, a GM making choices, whether it's opting to roll on a table provided in the rulebook or engaging in genuine creativity, so long as the GM's goal is faithful simulation of the game world (as opposed to some other goal like "game balance"), that's legitimate simulation. Similarly, ripping off content wholecloth from book or film, or even by following every chart and table of the rulebook to the latter, is NOT simulation if it is directed by another goal (like fucking the players over, for example).

Quote from: Lunamancer;889238So long as you realize your opinion (that is, the perspective of the forum pundit, RPG theorist, or even game designer) is irrelevant, you realize that the "best" course is to sit back and allow the players, whose opinions DO matter, to set the degree of randomness for themselves.

Well, and I do! That's exactly what I mentioned, and I'll quote it again in case you missed it. Please take note that when I say "I" in the paragraph I mean GM and not being a particularly gifted GM myself I'm quite sure any other GM could do better than me, specially those more gifted than me at GMing.

QuoteI can go on and on creating alternatives to the encounter, filling the details with so many different and interesting things that actually lead the story in a direction in spite of following the "simulation" to the letter. More so, if they players resist the knee-jerk reaction to attack and kill off the goblins a whole new branch of options opens up, from dialogue to commerce, to retaining, to whatever. Players and GM alike can bury the die roll and random encounter table under a pile of such interesting and relevant options that the story unfolds due to that and not the actual monster encountered (as determined by the rules and dice).

As you can see I leave it to the GM (in the paragraph's particular case it's me) and to the players to choose the degree of randomness. More so, and based on the D&D centered response, I'd like to add that leaving the option for players to opt out of combat and go for dialogue also removes a great deal of what is "dice centric randomness". As you well know D&D is not very simulationist in the dialogue department, at least not in comparison to the combat department.

The point is that a great deal of uncertainty comes from the players. They can decide on courses not anticipated by the GM and are thus uncertain and can be viewed as random. If you as a GM generate a random encounter it can be possible for the players to engage the goblins, but it could also happen that they evade the encounter altogether. There is a probability for one decision and a probability for another.

It could be the case that you, playing your character, find the act of being dragged downriver as a divine intervention and then decide to quit going to point B. Instead you return to your temple and question your beliefs, make a sacrifice and find some other way to achieve whatever it was you wanted to achieve at point B. Me, as a GM, would not be well advised to force you again and again to go to point B, that would be railroading.

Now this may seem like a very unlikely outcome, but your entitled to it. What's interesting is that it is probably so uncommon it would be less than 5% or 1% chance of occurring. To create a table with your probable outcomes would require odds so small it would be hard to roll with most common die rolls. You really can't address or index all the options you have available as a player.