Has it ever happened that you rolled the same number three times in a row?
I’m sure it has happened to most of you. Probably at the exact moment when you needed anything but that number, haha.
That is the thing about dice. Every side may have an equal chance of landing, but the dice does not care what you rolled before. It can give you three 1s in a row, then another 1 for good measure.
Technically, that is fair. It certainly does not feel fair, though…
This is one of my favorite things about game design. No matter how many games you play, review, or create, there is always another little concept waiting to send you down a rabbit hole.
Mine began with an old comment about pseudo-random number generation, or PRNG for short.
Now, what on earth does that mean?
A computer cannot roll a physical dice, so it uses a mathematical algorithm to generate numbers that appear random. That process is called pseudo-random number generation.
The results may look completely unpredictable to us, but they are still being produced by a system. Give that system the same starting point, known as a seed, and it can recreate the exact same sequence of numbers again.
So, yes, the results look random. But they are not truly random.
Is your head spinning yet?
Here is where it gets even twistier. A standard PRNG does not always balance your outcomes. It can still give you the same number several times in a row, just like a physical dice. So what many games use instead is something closer to controlled randomness.
The system may reduce the chances of repeated failures, guarantee certain outcomes within a set number of attempts, or pull results from a limited pool before resetting it.
It may not be completely random anymore. But it can feel much fairer to the player.
Board games and PnPs can create similar effects without relying on computer algorithms. A deck of cards can ensure every result eventually appears. A bag of tokens can shrink the available pool after every draw. Rerolls, modifiers, and resources can also give players some control when luck refuses to cooperate.
That way, the dice remain random, but the game simply decides how much chaos it is willing to tolerate.
I found an online PRNG that lets you experiment with different seeds and recreate the exact same number sequence. Give it a try here!
Want to try controlled randomness for yourself? Enter 1 to 6 into this list randomizer and watch every result appear once in a shuffled order.
So, what would you prefer? Completely untouched dice randomness, or a game that quietly balances the odds as you play?
Also, is controlled randomness… random at all?
- Tas.
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