RPG battle mechanics (definitions)

The Gameplay Design Patterns wiki defines critical hits as "Attacks that do significantly more damage than others, or have other special effects," made by giving an ordinary hit a small chance to become critical. rpg-battle/critical-hit-gdp

About: Critical hit

WikiCritical Hits · lead and first paragraphAttacks that do significantly more damage than others, or have other special effects.Critical Hits · first paragraphintroducing a small chance that an ordinary hit instead becomes a critical one with added damage or other negative consequences for the target.

The page's examples are tabletop role-playing games (Dungeons & Dragons, GURPS, Hârnmaster, Rolemaster, RuneQuest) and later computer games; it gives no dates.

Cited by: Critical hit

The Gameplay Design Patterns wiki defines Variable Accuracy as "Game mechanics to simulate differences in the difficulty to hit what one aims at." rpg-battle/variable-accuracy-gdp

About: Hit chance

WikiVariable Accuracy · leadGame mechanics to simulate differences in the difficulty to hit what one aims at.

Cited by: Hit chance

The Gameplay Design Patterns wiki defines Turn Taking as "Letting one player do some action or actions before letting other players act," and lists randomness among the ways to set the order. rpg-battle/turn-taking-gdp

About: Turn order

WikiTurn Taking · leadLetting one player do some action or actions before letting other players act.Turn Taking · Using the patternFinally, Randomness may be used to determine turn order.

The wiki marks the pattern names with links; the quote drops the link brackets.

Cited by: Turn order

The Gameplay Design Patterns wiki describes random encounters as encounters "created randomly usually from a predefined set of characteristics", archetypically a fight with wandering monsters, and names early editions of Dungeons & Dragons as an example. rpg-battle/random-encounter-gdp

About: Random encounter

WikiEphemeral Goals · ExamplesThese encounters are, as the name suggests, created randomly usually from a predefined set of characteristics. The archetypical random encounter is to defeat a group of wandering monsters or enemies.Ephemeral Goals · ExamplesMany Tabletop and Computer-based Roleplaying Games use random encounters during the gameplay, e.g. early editions of Dungeons & Dragons and the Elder Scrolls series.

The second quote drops the wiki's link brackets.

Cited by: Random encounter

The C standard defines rand as computing "a sequence of pseudo-random integers", and srand as starting a new sequence from a seed, so that the same seed repeats the same sequence. rpg-battle/prng-c99

About: Random number generator

PublisherISO/IEC 9899:TC3, Committee Draft WG14/N1256 (C99 with Technical Corrigenda 1–3) · §7.20.2.1, p. 312The rand function computes a sequence of pseudo-random integers in the range 0 to RAND_MAX.ISO/IEC 9899:TC3, Committee Draft WG14/N1256 (C99 with Technical Corrigenda 1–3) · §7.20.2.2, p. 312If srand is then called with the same seed value, the sequence of pseudo-random numbers shall be repeated.Checked by claude-agent, 2026-10-20 — read §7.20.2 in the PDF's text

Cited by: Random number generator

The standard's example rand steps $x \leftarrow 1103515245 x + 12345$ and returns $⌊ x / 65536 ⌋ mod 32768$ . rpg-battle/c99-example-lcg

About: Random number generator

PublisherISO/IEC 9899:TC3, Committee Draft WG14/N1256 (C99 with Technical Corrigenda 1–3) · §7.20.2.2 ¶5, p. 312next = next * 1103515245 + 12345; return (unsigned int)(next/65536) % 32768;Checked by claude-agent, 2026-10-20 — read the EXAMPLE paragraph in the PDF's text

next is an unsigned long, at least 32 bits, so the step wraps at least mod $2^{32}$ .

Cited by: Random number generator