Chance & risk
A randomiser (dice, decks, tables, generators) or a deliberate wager against known odds is the identity of the mechanic.
15 entries. Tie-break question: Is the randomiser or wager the whole point?
Advantage / Disadvantage
A modifier applied by rolling two dice instead of one and keeping the higher result under favourable circumstances or the lower under unfavourable ones, in place of a numeric bonus or penalty.
Betting
Players commit stakes to a common pot in a structured round of raising, matching, or withdrawing before an uncertain outcome is resolved, so the size of what is won or lost is set by the players rather than by the rules.
Dice Placement
Players roll their dice and then place them one at a time on action spaces that require or reward particular values, so the roll constrains which actions are reachable and placed dice block or outbid later placements.
Dice Pool
A randomiser in which the number of dice rolled scales with a rating, and the result is read by counting dice that meet a target or by taking the best die rather than summing a single roll.
Doubling Cube
Before rolling, a player may offer to double the stake of the current game; the opponent must either concede at the present stake or accept the doubled stake and take sole possession of the right to double again.
Lifepath Character Generation
A character is created by stepping through successive periods of a prior life, choosing a career or event at each step and rolling for its outcome, so skills, assets, age, and sometimes death accumulate from a generated biography.
Loot Boxes and Gacha
Players spend currency, often real money, on a sealed container whose contents are drawn from a weighted random pool, so the purchase buys a chance at an item rather than the item itself.
Loot Tables
Rewards from a defeated enemy, opened container, or completed task are drawn from a weighted random distribution, so what the player receives is decided by chance after the action is taken.
Procedural Generation
Maps, dungeons, encounters, or other content are assembled algorithmically from random inputs at play time rather than authored in advance, so each session presents a different arrangement.
Procs
An effect attached to an item, ability, or character fires automatically with a stated probability whenever a trigger event occurs, such as landing a hit, casting a spell, or being struck, separately from that action's own roll.
Pseudo-Random Distribution
Successive trials of a chance event are made dependent on earlier results, usually by raising the chance after each failure until a success resets it, so the stated rate holds over time while long droughts and streaks become rarer.
Push Your Luck
A player who has banked a provisional gain repeatedly chooses whether to stop and keep it or to continue for more at the risk of a bust that forfeits everything accumulated this turn.
Random Tables
A die roll indexes a prepared list of outcomes to generate an encounter, event, or detail at play time, so the content of a scene is selected from an authored distribution rather than chosen.
Rerolls
After seeing a roll or a draw, the player may throw some or all of the dice again, or redraw, within a fixed allowance or at a cost, and the new result replaces the old one.
Roll and Move
A die roll or spin determines how far a piece moves along a track, and the space it lands on determines what happens, so the randomiser rather than the player sets the piece's position each turn.