History Main / RandomEvent

** ''Rift'' runs on this trope. It is extremely unlikely (almost impossible) that you'll be able to play for one continuous hour without running into a dimensional invasion, rift, or minor region event. With the first update, the major ''world'' event means even more chaos.

* The RTS ''Star Wars: Empire at War'' had random events in the Galactic Conquest mode. The expansion pack removed them.

* In ''OregonTrail'' random events were used to simulate what could happen on the trail to Oregon back in the 19th century. These events included bandits, finding empty wagons, fire, snakebites, or disease, including, of course, dysentery.

* ''Left4Dead'' is made of this for the Tank and Witch. These two powerful special infected CAN show up at any time, but where and when is left up to the AI Director, assuming if it's not in a sadistic mood.

* The game worlds of ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' are procedurally generated, and in play the kind of creatures that appear are semi-random, whether raids or seiges strike are random, dwarven moods and the products created from them are random. There are very few set events -- ie same type of merchants arrive in the same season around the same date -- and even those are being replaced with random distribution based on generated civilization and the fortress' own trading history.

* In [[BloodCrusher2 BLOODCRUSHER II]], every event is randomized. From the weapons, to level layouts, and even your enemy.

* ''VideoGame/KingsQuestVII'': While in the kingdom of Ooga Booga, the dreaded Boogieman will show up out of nowhere and if the player doesn't escape, will kill the player.

* ''VideoGame/PAYDAYTheHeist'' has randomn events that may or may not happen when you play a map. Some are minor, such as certain doors being open or closed, which can alter how you get around the map. Other random events are much more in your face, such as having a [[MightyGalcier Bulldozer]] suddenly burst through a door while you're trying to escape to the safe zone. The random events become more apparent on higher difficulty levels and you usually get the short end of the stick.

* ''{{Monopoly}}'' has the Chance and Community Chest Cards.

* Every now and then, a random event will happen in ''[[Deadlock]]: Planetary Conquest''. These can be good, such as your colonists raising a bunch of money for you, or finding rich resource deposits, or bad, such as an earthquake destroying your buildings or ion storms interfering with your satellites.

* Every now and then, a random event will happen in ''DeadlockPlanetaryConquest''. These can be good, such as your colonists raising a bunch of money for you, or finding rich resource deposits, or bad, such as an earthquake destroying your buildings or ion storms interfering with your satellites.

->"Something has happened!"

* ''{{Runescape}}'' was known for this trope to not only give players an occasional reward such as a party hat or a small exclusive item they can find anywhere but also to punish bots. The most common examples of bot punishers were when a high-level monster would appear and attack the player who was "Farming" items from a gathering skill. The level was variable, and would often be scaled to be a large threat to the attacked player. They only happened on some skills, because others like cooking would require complete player involvement, as opposed to Fishing and Mining that either happened until an item was obtained or the player's inventory was full. (River trolls were perhaps the most common)
* ''KingsQuestVII'': While in the kingdom of Ooga Booga, the dreaded Boogieman will show up out of nowhere and if the player doesn't escape, will kill the player.

** In ''TheSims'' and its progeny, burglars, aliens, at-work events, etc. all fall under this category.

* ''[[SidMeiersAlphaCentauri Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri]]'' had these, although you could turn them off. They are stuff like heat waves (extra energy at the base) or an industrial collapse (fewer minerals at the base).

* ''VideoGame/{{Master of Magic}}'': non-linearity being one of best features of the game, it's no surprise random events may have a great impact. Global conditions that affect power income or population, offers to get mercenaries, heroes or magic items. And wandering monsters, of course.

* The game worlds of ''DwarfFortress'' are procedurally generated, and in play the kind of creatures that appear are semi-random, whether raids or seiges strike are random, dwarven moods and the products created from them are random. There are very few set events -- ie same type of merchants arrive in the same season around the same date -- and even those are being replaced with random distribution based on generated civilization and the fortress' own trading history.

----

* ''{{Colonization}}'' is a borderline example. The circles that mark special events seem to have their nature determined randomly at the start of every game, so Save Scumming can protect you from events like "You were never heard from again." That said, what was "You discover a friendly village" in one playthrough seems to become "You discover the fountain of youth" in the next. This is because the ''sequence'' is fixed, so whether you try ruins A then B or vice versa, you get e.g. "friendly tribe" in first attempt and "fountain of youth" in second.

* ''{{Master of Magic}}'': non-linearity being one of best features of the game, it's no surprise random events may have a great impact. Global conditions that affect power income or population, offers to get mercenaries, heroes or magic items. And wandering monsters, of course.

In order to keep players from being complacent, matches from becoming repetitive, and to better simulate the vagaries of fortune, some video games include Random Events. The chaotic relative of the ScriptedEvent, Random Events are things that ''can'' happen, but where, when, or ''if'' they will happen are determined purely by chance. In video game parlance they're called "procs" (short for "special procedures", originally referring to the chunks of code that ran in {{MUD}}s when these events occurred), especially when they're attributes of an item that activate randomly when the item is used, but Random Events can also pop up in board games in the form of "chance" decks and the like.

Players' reactions to these usually depend on whether the events in question are beneficial or not.

* ''{{Civilization}} IV: Beyond the Sword'' has things like wildfires that clear a forest square, slave revolts that leave cities in turmoil, the domestication of prairie dogs as novelty pets, or arranged marriages between nations' royal families and the responses of either side. Occasionally you'll also be offered a "quest," usually along the lines of "build x number of y and choose a reward."

* Natural Disasters in ''SimCity''. Assuming you didn't give in to VideogameCrueltyPotential and just mash the button to send them, of course.

** And by the way, just because you ''never'' see a Tank and Witch together, doesn't mean they ''[[OhCrap can't show up together]]''.

<<|VideoGameTropes|>>

* ''{{Civilization}} IV'' has things like wildfires that clear a forest square, slave revolts that leave cities in turmoil, the domestication of prairie dogs as novelty pets, or arranged marriages between nations' royal families and the responses of either side. Occasionally you'll also be offered a "quest," usually along the lines of "build x number of y and choose a reward."
** Are we playing the same Civ IV?

* ''{{Master of Orion}} II'': oh, yes. Aside of random proposals from heroes, there are: research advance or wipe-out, findings with tech or resources, [[InterspeciesRomance diplomatic marriage]], assassination, monetary offering, total hyperspace block, ecological calamity, surprise mineral deposit, reproductive boom, [[DeathFromAbove incoming comet]], plague, [[StuffBlowingUp nova]], SpacePirates, monsters, ''Antarians''... All? This can be turned off, though.

* ''DragonQuest'' was famous for its metal slimes and other such "Metal monsters" that would dish out a load of exp if they are defeated but were not only a random event but also really really hard to kill due to them being so fast.

** The afore-mentioned evil sydicate Mega Event isn't bad because of the planets they take (which can usually be taken back fairly quickly), its the fact that they automatically gain all of the technologies and race bonuses of the races whose planets they stole.

** Technically, encountering any Pokemon is this, considering it's not guaranteed whether you will or won't run into a Pokemon when you take a step (or even change which direction you're facing)

* Averted in the Hearts of Iron series, every event that occurs is a historical event that actually transpired, but the player can spurn actual history and chose not to do them (i.e. being a Germany player and choosing to invite Nationalist China into the Axis will pretty much screw up any historical timeline events with Japan.)
** Still played straight in the game with random unscripted events, such as political opposition making your policy changes difficult to implement, or a scientist defecting to your side with blueprints for some new technology, or ''your'' scientists achieving a breakthrough in something you're working on.

* A lot of simulation games will have this happen, for that matter. A famous lemonade game would have lemons rot or sugar melt, losing money, etc for example.

* In skill oriented [=RPG=]s, a player may randomly find a rare item such as a gem from ore or actually create a new recipe. This differs from creating a "bad" creation such as a spoiled potion due to a dice being rolled that determines the success/fail rate.

* ''YumeNikki'': [[NightmareFuel UBOAAAAAAAAA!]]

* IIRC rail games like ''Australian Rails'' have event cards which may be good or bad and can effect all players.

* ''{{Jumanji}}''.

* An almost NightmareFuel example happened in ''King's Quest VII''. While in the kingdom of Ooga Booga, the dreaded Ooga Booga man will show up out of nowhere and if the player doesn't escape, will kill the player. But that's not the only part... One part of the game requires Rosella to walk into the BigBad's house. Whether or not she was in there was ''completely random'', and sometimes there may have been no way to check without her killing Rosella. King Graham actually had to do something similar to get a note from a witch's house in the first King's Quest game, but there was an easy way to tell. (Eat house. If the witch speaks... walk out.) For being such a family friendly game, something as startling as the Ooga Booga man is indeed NightmareFuel.
* Another potentially NightmareFuel example is on the ''JumpStartAdventures4thGradeHauntedIsland'' game. When wandering around the haunted island, a ghost may block the player's path and force the player to answer a random question... and if they get it wrong, they lose health points. This is a completely random event, and it even happens in the Labyrinth.