Originally Posted by
4b5urd
Those are fair points, but ultimately, our arguements boil down to opinion and preference. I would rather the randomness by reduced, you see it as something of a wildcard or balancing lever for the class. There is truth to both sides of the arguement. More than anything, this is just a pet peeve of mine, hence me giving it the lowest rating on importance.
I always thought the need to state "well that's just your opinion" in discussions like this to be sort of absurd. Like, literally any reply to this thread is of course going to be an opinion since we're not arguing about something factual but rather about how we think things should be. Why does it matter? The point is for me to convince you (and/or others) that my opinion is the superior one. :)
That being said, I think if you're trying to reduce or remove randomness from ADOM you're missing the entire point of the game, or Roguelikes in general. They're about navigating a world that is different every time you play it with a different set of equipment, and learning how to win using your intellect and understanding of the game's rules to use the equipment you have at the time and the environment you find yourself in to win. The (relatively) unpredictable nature of the game, combined with the fact that every game is unique, means that you face a fresh challenge every time.
It's a fundamentally different style of play. With games with (mostly) static worlds, like, say, the Dark Souls games, the point is to become better and better at understanding the game mechanics and handling set challenges that you eventually understand the game world well enough to beat it. With games like ADOM, where the game is different each play through, the point is to become better at innovating and thinking outside of the box, and using the tools you have in new and unexpected ways. It's not about having the exact same character trying the exact same challenges every time, its about overcoming new challenges with a new character every time. If you give wizards the default "kill everything" spell guaranteed, then you dramatically reduce the complexity of the early game for wizards.
That's not an argument for randomness for the sake of randomness, mind you, it's an argument for randomness judiciously applied to a certain situation in order to make the game more interesting and complex. ADOM is pretty good about mixing randomness with static content, IMO. This is one situation where the randomness is very much by design, and removing it would make the game worse.