Bro, Do You Even Battle?

Speaking as someone who studied probability and statistics back in college, random number generator mechanics are not a great fit for video games.  In theory, it sounds good.  In reality though, it's unrealistic.  Perhaps the best way to illustrate my point is with a little game called Battle Brothers.

If you've played Darkest Dungeon or XCOM, then you're intimately familiar with RNG...except not really.  Those two games use pseudo-random number generation in that failures are artificially boosted on subsequent attempts.  The more you fail the more likely you are to succeed later on.  True RNG means you can legitimately fail a 99 percent success rate ten times in a row or have an enemy score a 5 percent chance-to-hit a dozen consecutive times.  The previous results have no bearing on the next one.  Only when the results are examined on a massive scale (say thousands, or tens-of-thousands of iterations, do averages start to consistently pan out).  Within the context of a single battle though, that doesn't necessarily manifest itself.  In fact, this is why a lot of table-top war games use a pair of six-sided dice for everything (the bell shaped curve of die results make things more predictable and consistent). What true RNG really means is even in a fight where the odds are totally even, it's not uncommon for one side to completely slaughter the other purely based on the luck of the draw/roll.  It's not very true to life.  People adapt quickly when lives are at risk, and if they are met with failure they will often change their approach on the fly with each subsequent attempt until they hit on a more successful method.  Ironically, Battle Brothers has this factor baked into the game design (but requires the player to go out of their way to access it).  I guess you could consider it an anti-frustration feature, but the game has a number of other game design choices that start to grate over time.  

Random events are one such example.  Run into a friendly stray dog?  It bites the finger of your best warrior.  Participating in a tournament?  Now your bannerman has permeant brain damage.  Why are contracts so wildly inconsistent in terms of payout and challenge despite having a rating system?  As for the enemy themselves, I've never fought a cripple despite having many under my command...unless you count constantly respawning undead to be a disability.  The lack of transparency is another hindrance to enjoyment in that players never get to peak behind the curtain.  How much fatigue has that enemy knight built up?  What was the injury that enemy just received?  Why do merchants only give me a tiny fraction of the value any given loot is worth, but then immediately turn around and mark up the price by ten-fold the moment it is sold to them?  I guess the correct answer here is gameplay balance...but honestly if that's the solution then maybe the developers need to go back to the drawing board and re-envision certain fundamental mechanics.  It's a shame that Battle Brothers suffers from these issues.  The basic loop of accepting a contract, completing the mission, and collecting a reward is solid.  The AI is smart and employs a variety of thematically appropriate tactics.  It's just that the process is tailor-made to prioritize frustrating parts over fun stuff.  Really, the entire experience is summed up rather well in its visual style.  I know why the characters are represented as busts, but it doesn't look great.  Why not go with something more visually pleasing like the pixel art of Stoneshard?  Actually, never mind...that's another game that seems to think difficult means tedious rather than challenging.