RNG Meaning – What does RNG Stand for in Gaming?

RNG Meaning – What does RNG Stand for in Gaming: Any game where everything is predictable isn’t very fun. RNG, or Random Number Generator, is a great way to introduce a touch of randomness and causality that you need to spice it up.

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RNG Meaning – What does RNG Stand for in Gaming

How an Analogic Random Number Generator Works

The simplest form of a RNG is throwing dice or flipping coins.

Using a single dice or coin means that each value has exactly the same probability of occurring. Using multiple dice or coins instead will make the highest and lowest values less likely, and the middle values more likely.

The oldest tabletop game, the Royal Game of Ur, uses four 4-sided dice. Each dice can return a value of 0 or 1, meaning that the value obtained from throwing a dice can only range from 0 to 4.

There are a total of 16 possible outcomes, of which one gives a value of 0, 4 give a value of 1, 6 give a value of 2, 4 give a value of 3, and one gives a value of 4.

In this case there is a 1/16 or 6.25% chance of getting 0, 1/4 or 25% chance of getting 1, 3/8 or 37.5% chance of getting 2, 1/4 or 25% chance of getting 3 and 1/16 or 6.25% change of getting 4.

How Random Number Generators Work in Video Games

In video games, RNG tends to be much less noticeable and more complex, and players may not even know they exist. There are a number of ways you can generate perfectly random numbers, but how do you actually use them?

To break it down into very simple terms, using an RNG is no different than the example above of rolling dice to determine the effect on a table. You just don’t look at the dice that are rolled.

In any video game, you might be using RNG to determine what kind of loot a fallen enemy might drop, or what you might find in a chest, or what kind of random encounter awaits you. is doing, or even what type of weather it will be like.

For example, RNGs are used to bring open world games to life without requiring developers to code every single part of the forests and roads and deserts. Instead, the developers code in some possibilities and let them decide what might happen when the player reaches a certain point in the map.

Will you encounter a bear, a pack of wolves, or bandits? The game uses its own method of rolling dice to determine this.

How to Code a Random Number Generator

Many programming languages contain a strictly random function. This function returns a random number, and what kind of random number it is depends on its implementation.

For example, in JavaScript, Math.random() returns a random number between 0 (inclusive) and 1 (not inclusive). In Python, randint from the random module returns a whole number in a range (Python also has a function that does the same as JavaScript’s Math.random).

Let’s consider a very common video game situation: we have an enemy who often drops a perfectly normal item, but sometimes drops a somewhat rare item. This enemy can, for example, be a wolf that can drop a wolf pelt (common) or a wolf fang (rare).RNG Meaning – What does RNG Stand for in Gaming

How do you determine what is “rare”? That’s up to you – it could be that 1 in 10 drops is a very rare item, or 1 in 100 drops is a rare item. There could be a 1 in 25 chance for a medium-way rare item. And to make it a little more complicated, there could also be a 1 in 10 chance of no item.

In this case you’ll need a function that returns a value between 0 and 1.

A 1 in 25 chance is 4%, and a 1 in 10 chance is 10%. In decimal form this would be 0.04 and 0.1 respectively.

In this case you could say that a number in the range of 0 to 0.04 gives a rare item, and a number in the range of 0.9 to 1 gives no item.

To avoid getting stuck on any one language, let’s first look at how we can code it using pseudocode. This is not a real programming language – rather, it is a way of breaking down code logic. It is like taking notes, as it is personal and will have different syntax depending on the person writing it.

FUNCTION wolfDrop randomNumber = random(0,1) IF randomNumber < 0.04 THEN -> wolf fang ELSE IF randomNumber < 0.9 THEN -> wolf pelt ELSE -> empty END IFEND FUNCTION

Once the pseudocode is all ready, we can implement the code snippet in any language. For example, let’s see how to code it in a few different languages:

function wolfDrop () { const randomNumber = Math.random(); if (randomNumber < 0.04) { return “Wolf fang”; } else if (randomNumber < 0.9) { return “Wolf pelt”; } else { return; }}

JavaScript

import randomdef wolfDrop(): randomNumber = random.random() if randomNumber < 0.04: return “Wolf fang” elif randomNumber < 0.9: return “Wolf pelt” else return

Python

(defn wolf-drop [] (let [random-number (rand)] (cond (< random-number 0.04) “Wolf fang” (< random-number 0.9) “Wolf pelt”)))

Clojure

func wolfDrop() string { randomNumber := rand.Float64() switch { case randomNumber < 0.04: return “Wolf fang” case randomNumber < 0.9: return “Wolf pelt” default: return “” }}

Golang

fun wolfDrop(): String { val randomNumber = Random.nextFloat() when { randomNumber < 0.04 -> return “Wolf fang” randomNumber < 0.9 -> return “Wolf pelt” else -> return “” }}

Kotlin

def wolf_pelt() do random_number = :rand.uniform() cond do random_number < 0.04 -> “Wolf fang” random_number < 0.9 -> “Wolf pelt” true -> nil endend

Elixir

string WolfPelt() { var random = new Random(); double randomNumber = random.NextDouble(); if (randomNumber < 0.04) return "Wolf fang"; if (randomNumber < 0.9) return "Wolf pelt"; return null;}

extern crate rand; fn wolf_drop() -> &’static str { let random_number: f64 = rand::random(); if random_number < 0.04 { “Wolf fang” } else if random_number < 0.9 { “Wolf pelt” } else { “” }}

Rust

#include <stdlib.h>#include <string.h>#include <time.h> int wolf_drop(char *drop_item) { srand((unsigned) time(0)); double random_number = 1.0 * rand() / RAND_MAX; if (random_number < 0.04) { strncpy(drop_item, “wolf fang\0”, 10); } else if (random_number < 0.9) { strncpy(drop_item, “wolf pelt\0”, 10); } else { strncpy(drop_item, “\0”, 1); } return 0;}

function wolfdrop() randomnumber = rand() if randomnumber < 0.04 return “wolf fang” elseif randomnumber < 0.9 return “wolf pelt” else return “” endend

(Thanks to alpox for the code snippets in Clojure, Golang, Kotlin, Elixir and C#, and to Jeremy for the snippets in Rust, C, and Julia.)

Conclusion

Random number generators, or RNGs, are used in many games. In this article, you learned how and why they are used,

The next time you play a video game, will you be able to figure out where an RNG might be used? RNG Meaning – What does RNG Stand for in Gaming. RNG Meaning – What does RNG Stand for in Gaming