In an earlier post brandishing the face of our favorite shovel-wielding segregationist, "What are some NCT tropes/cliches you despise?", members of the Subreddit were tasked to say what was their least favorite of the famous TCT cliches. The result was resounding:

Yes, we all hate RNG, and specifically have scorn for the RNG Debate. But on this, y'all are mistaken. It is not the RNG Debate as a concept that is broken, but the way they are implemented in near-every mod. Buckle up folks, this is perhaps the most controversial topic I shall ever tackle in my column: this is my defense of the RNG Debate.

Dan Bryan's RNG Debate

To fully understand this issue, like most topics we must first endeavor to understand its history. Like so many things we take for granted in this game, the RNG Debate was first invented by our game's founding father, Dan Bryan, and first implemented in the 1968 scenario. That scenario is infamous for its RNG, specifically for the fact the entire election hinges on the last question.

See, RNG questions are a unique beast. In practice, they represent in a campaign what you, the candidate have no feasible control over. And in gameplay they serve to spice up your result by potentially crashing a good playthrough or ballooning a mid playthrough. This isn't so bad because unlike most mods Bryan correctly utilizes issue scores, so there are still varied ways to win. But too much RNG and making your RNG too powerful makes for bad gameplay, and this is something Dan Bryan figured out quickly after 1968. RNG became the exclusive domain of the debate, with more tempered and aged campaigns of simpler times like 1844 and 1860 featuring no RNG at all.

But despite that, almost every scenario that features the RNG Debate, with the exceptions of 2016 and 2020 make the answers extremely powerful. The RNG debate becomes not merely a push, but a shove toward a good result or a poor one. But I scarcely hear folks complain that Dan Bryan's use of the historical debate is flawed, but why? Well, in short, Dan Bryan understood what we obviously did not: The impact of a US presidential debate is not based on policy, but optics, something candidates cannot control outside of the moment.

That Was Really Uncalled For, Senator.

To iterate this point, I will briefly describe what pretty much everyone understands as what caused serious electoral impact of all of our presidential debates, and who won each election up to 2012. (Excluding 1996 because the debates were unremarkable that year)

1960 — Due to a previous knee injury and lack of proper skincare prior to the debate, Nixon appeared sweaty and awkward to viewers on the new medium of television. Nixon would go on to lose the election.

1976 — Ford makes an unfortunate gaffe about the Soviet Union in Europe. Ford would go on to lose the election in a squeaker.

1980 — Reagan's "there you go again" shut down Carter's counterpoints in a humorous manner. Carter would go on to lose the election.

1984 — In the second debate, Reagan jokes about his opponent's "youth and inexperience." Mondale would later remark that was the moment he knew he had lost the election.

1988 — Dukakis is asked a really ,nasty question about his wife by the moderator, and comes off as cold in his response. Dukakis would go on to lose the election.

1992 — Bush was seen checking his watch during the second debate, ticking off plenty of average Americans. Bush would go on to lose the election.

2000 — In the first debate, Gore frequently sighed and rolled his eyes like a drama queen. Gore would go on to lose the election.

2004 — In the first debate, Bush was speculated to be wearing a wire. Kerry's performance was good during all three debates, but it wasn't enough to close the gap. Kerry would go on to lose the election.

2008 — John McCain and Sarah Palin both came off as awkward and non-committal during all the debates. McCain would go on to lose the election.

2012 — Romney makes unfortunate "Binders Full of Women" slip of the tongue when meaning to say "Binders Full of Womens' Names". This solidified the feeling at the time that Romney was out of touch and an elitist. Romney would go on to lose the election.

Notice a pattern? We're all political wonks so for us modders it's difficult to grip that the issues and platforms we spend hours researching wouldn't be the main driver of the debates, but they're not. The American people do not care about policy or strategy, nearly every debate has proven this. What they do care about is optics and silly, menial things that candidates have no control over.

RNG Mania and the Backlash

In early mods, RNG was very prevalent, mostly because RNG was simply easier to code than actual answers. Things presidents would have actual control over like a military operation, attaining an endorsement or the effectiveness of a campaign strategy suddenly became RNG territory.

That is, until recently. Now, there is a great backlash against RNG, including even against the RNG debate. Countless mods like 1996, 2025NL and 1984b choose to eliminate the RNG debate completely. But why the backlash now? Simply put, with the number of mods there are, we as players are bloated with choice, and we don't want what will likely be our only playthrough of a difficult mod within the next week at least to be decided by an RNG question out of our control. But the problem here is not the RNG Question itself, it's how it was implemented by modders. Here's an example of bad RNG Debate feedback:

In fact, that's how most mods phrase the RNG Debate. If the other candidate wins the debate, it's spoken about as if he has just obliterated you on policy, but that represents the fundamental misunderstanding of the RNG Debate as exemplified by my list of real debates earlier. Americans don't care about policy, they don't care about plans and they don't care about who's better for the country. They care about the silly, menial things.

I think, in the future, phrasing is how we fix the issue, not to eliminate the RNG debate completely. Because those mods that have, whether co-opting it with a decision over debate strategy or prep, answering a specific question during the debate or just having one choice with a pre-set outcome based on real history fundamentally misunderstand that truth expounded earlier to an even greater degree.

And spice is fine and fun, but if it's for a candidate who's going to have a hard time winning anyway, I would strongly recommend toning down the effects. Nobody wants to reload their game because they got the bad RNG outcome.

RNG should indeed be minimized in mods and made to represent only what is definitively out of the control of the candidate in question, but there is nothing at all wrong with a well-written RNG debate stuffed with just enough silly, menial nonsense to have a real impact on an election, and it is a mistake for modmen to throw away the feature completely and opting for a more unrealistic result instead of taking the time to write it right.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading tonight's edition in my award-winning column, Writing Right! I look forward to writing more columns in the future even if I am admittedly busy. Until then, TCT.

~ Tom1923

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