Randomness: Agents of Chaos

This is a random post. Sorta. It’s more a post about randomness. I will go into more depth about individual random techniques later, but I wanted to throw this up as a master post. For me, a random element is a vital aspect of ‘play’ in RPGs. In a group, that random element can be partly other players at the table, but I am having a hard time imagining a game without a random element that still feels like a game. (Choose-your-own-adventure can be fun, but they’re different things.)

Dice. Dicess, precioussss
Very much associated with TTRPGs. DnD uses a 7-dice polyset (d4, d6, d8, d10, d%, d12, d20) and any number of extras, especially as you level up (even magic missile uses 3d4) so if you’re playing DnD, you will have at least one set of dice and a grab bag of extras.
Many solo games use D6 instead, and I’ve gotten a few sets of 3xd6 with spots on, which I find easier to read.
Mechanics vary greatly, so there’s a lot game designers can do.
If you have hoarding tendencies, be warned: shiny mathrocks are addictive.

Playing Cards
A surprising number of solo games call for a standard deck of playing cards, with or without jokers. Sometimes you remove other cards. Especially for journaling games, this gives you a mechanic of four groups of prompts. In Ice Station Zero, this was Interior/Exterior/Crew/The Other; it’s a useful pattern.

Tarot Cards
This is playing cards on steroids. You get the four suits and their meanings, but you also get pretty pictures to spark your imagination and the Major Arcana to provide additional archetypes. There are many MANY tarot decks available, as readers of my journal will know, and the right steampunk or fairy tale or wizardry deck can get you into the mood. If the illustrations are detailed enough, you may get inspiration from a background element. Maybe it’s not the ‘2 of Swords’ that matters, but the fact the character is holding two sporks. (Trash Panda Tarot).

Jenga Tower
This is a surprisingly popular mechanism in solo games. I’ll definitely make a proper post about this because I have very mixed feelings about physical towers.

Speciality Cards and Dice
I haven’t yet encountered any games that specifially rely on a custom resource, but you can get decks with pieces of dungeons, cards that determine how an NPC will react to your character, so I felt they deserved an honourable mention.

Scrabble Tiles
I haven’t seen this in a solo game yet, but The Far Roofs (currently on Bundle of Holding) uses Scrabble tiles.
Have not even read, yet alone played, and might be screwed: our choice is between Welsh Scrabble and German.

???
It’s entirely possible that there are further random mechanics that I haven’t discovered yet. If so, I will edit this post further.