[rec.games.roguelike.angband; often abbreviated `RNG'] The
malign force which lurks behind the random number generator in
Angband (and by extension
elsewhere). A dark god that demands sacrifices and toys with its
victims. "I just found a really great item; I suppose the RNG is
about to punish me..." Apparently, Angband's random number
generator occasionally gets locked in a repetition, so you get
something with a 3% chance happening 8 times in a row.
Improbable, but far too common to be pure chance. Compare Shub-Internet.
Node:random numbers, Next:randomness, Previous:Random Number God,
Up:= R =
random numbers n.
When one wishes to specify a large but random number of
things, and the context is inappropriate for N, certain numbers are preferred by hacker tradition
(that is, easily recognized as placeholders). These include the
following:
17
Long described at MIT as `the least random number'; see
23.
23
Sacred number of Eris, Goddess of Discord (along with 17 and
5).
42
The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe,
and Everything. (Note that this answer is completely fortuitous.
:-))
69
From the sexual act. This one was favored in MIT's ITS
culture.
105