Random Drop/Sandbox

A gameplay mechanic used principally to give a sense of reward to the players by assigning enemies a list of items you might gain if you defeat them. These items are called "drops" because the foe drops them when they die, and there's a probability table assigned to each item the enemy can drop--"Okay, 30% of the time you get a Potion, 5% you get a Red Shield, and 3% you get Cod Liver Oil"--which is where the "random" comes in.

The actual probabilities of an enemy dropping something are very different depending on the game and the enemy. There are "random drops" that aren't random at all, because they have a 100% chance of appearing. On the other hand there are Rare Random Drops, which you won't see very often.

The rewards can vary from game to game, but their range is pretty wide. This makes the trope come with a large dose of Fridge Logic attached, usually in two varieties:


 * Enemies dropping things that ought not be random at all -- such as their organs. Every boar should drop a liver, as a boar cannot survive without one. But often, organs will only be randomly dropped. This at least can be Handwaved by the idea that it's difficult to get an intact liver.
 * The enemy carries something that shouldn’t be carrying, like weapons or pieces of equipment. When this happens it’s an Impossible Item Drop.

Supertrope of Rare Random Drop, Impossible Item Drop and Organ Drops. Relative of the Luck-Based Mission. See also Money Spider and Exclusive Enemy Equipment. When combined with Hundred-Percent Completion it’s Fake Longevity.

Action Adventure

 * The Castlevania series has a lot of examples:
 * In Castlevania: Curse of Darkness enemies drop items for your Item Crafting.
 * Castlevania: Circle of the Moon only let you acquire items with this mechanic.
 * Aria and Dawn of Sorrow have items as usual, but also the souls of the enemies as random drops.
 * Portrait of Ruin has items, spells for Charlotte and subweapons for Jonathan.
 * In Order of Ecclesia, enemies can drop money, materials used in side quests and Glyphs, OoE's equivalent of Souls. Enemies also cast glyphs, which means that you'll have to absorb them quickly while the enemy is preparing the attack. On the plus side, absorbing the glyph stops the attack, gives you five hearts, and briefly stuns the enemy.
 * Castlevania: Symphony of the Night has a bunch of really cool items and weapons that randomly drop from enemies, a Game Breaker among them. See Rare Random Drop to learn more about it.
 * This goes back all the way to the original Castlevania and most of the non-MetroidVanias in the series that followed. Enemies would randomly drop hearts, money, or even subweapons, if the game was feeling generous. Which wasn't too often. Maddeningly, sometimes a subweapon you didn't want would be unavoidably dropped, especially when dealing with aerial monsters. Thankfully, most games since Rondo of Blood have allowed you to pick up your old weapon, as long as it didn't fall down a pit.
 * Castlevania: Harmony of Despair takes this trope and runs away with it. Soma's souls make a return appearance, as do Shanoa's glyphs (though they're easier to get here). However, Shanoa only gets new weapons from chests dropped by bosses, meaning that, unless you want to go through the whole game with her default rapier, you'll be doing some grinding to pick something up. Jonathan also only gets subweapons randomly, which is problematic considering that he doesn't get stronger without using subweapons. Charlotte also suffers, as she only gets spells by using a shield to absorb them from enemies, meaning that you might sit in front of an enemy absorbing fireballs for the full thirty minutes. And then she has to absorb the same spell to get stronger.

Fighting Game

 * The Tekken 6 Scenarion Campaign has this with clothing items, and you'll pretty much always get at least one item per stage. Still, the effects they give off and how powerful those effects are is also random, so getting something useful was even less likely to happen than in most games with Random Drops.

First Person Shooter

 * Borderlands is the FPS equivalent of this (its initial pitch: "Halo meets Diablo").
 * S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
 * Team Fortress 2 has this weapons and hats. Read more in Rare Random Drop.
 * Left 4 Dead 2 has random drops for Hazmat and Riot zombies. The Hazmat infected will drop Boomer Bile and the Riot infected will drop Tonfas. The odds of them carrying the said items are low but since they always respawn down the road, you are bound to score the items at least once per map.

Hack And Slash

 * The Diablo games make use of this mechanic. However the items are randomly generated whenever they're dropped, so it can be a cause of frustration when you want the best one. Read more about it in Rare Random Drop.
 * Ninety-Nine Nights.

MMORPGs

 * It's one of the constants of almost every MMORPG.


 * Final Fantasy XI, as it's common in the series, features tons and tons of random drops from the enemies.
 * Maple Story has many items you can get from the enemies.
 * World of Warcraft has this as one of its defining features. Combining it with Rare Random Drop and Loot Drama you'll find yourself in PVP more often than you can imagine.
 * Phantasy Star Online'
 * Anarchy Online
 * Kingdom of Loathing uses this extensively. Also, certain quests require you to get items from standard enemies, which will never drop those items until you get the quest. The dread of this class of random drop is mitigated by the ability to buy some of them. But by no means all. This has been justified by the creator as "you did not know it was important so you didn't pick it up" which, considering the item is a is believable.
 * Ever Quest had some mean ones. One otherwise uninteresting newbie zone had a high-level halfling that spawned every few days in a random location, disappeared after two minutes whether anyone killed her or not, and had a one in eight chance of dropping a very expensive item.
 * In Everquest 2 don't drop items. They drop chests with items inside them.
 * A staple of Ragnarok Online.
 * In Warhammer: Age of Reckoning many items will drop as broken versions that can be repaired into an item your class can use.
 * zOMG! loves random drops. Your basic things like gold, loot, Power Ups, and the occasional recipe drop. However, there are several more unorthodox examples. Charge Orbs (the games version of experience points) are a random drop as well (though quests always drop them). Rings (which represent skills) are also random drops. Thus, your progress through the game is reliant on random drops. You can, in theory, buy high leveled rings from the marketplace to max your charge level. However your drop rate is affected by your charge level. The higher your charge level in relation to the monster your fighting (represented by a color system), the lower your drop rate.
 * City of Heroes cheerfully chucks all this out the window--pretty much any enemy that gives you experience points also has a chance of dropping pretty much any loot (within certain confines--mostly level ranges and loot types, neither of which prevents them dropping the 'good stuff'), although more difficult enemies have a slightly higher chance of dropping higher-quality whatevers.
 * Ace Online has tables for drops from normal enemies, from bosses and other from the rare Gold Mobs.
 * Even kid-friendly MMORPGS like Toontown Online have this. Many "Toontasks" (quests) have you go fight certain kinds or levels of Cogs (the main antagonists) to get certain items.
 * Runescape
 * "Dynasty Warriors: online"

Real Time Strategy

 * Dawn of War 2.

Roguelike

 * In Nethack, enemies will randomly drop their own body. Bodies are food. If you're hungry and the wild boar you just clubbed does not drop a dead wild boar, you may starve. Only large monsters like rothes and Leocrotta are guaranteed to leave a corpse. They will drop items too.
 * Ancient Domains of Mystery. Nearly everything can be randomly dropped or pickpocketed, even artifacts.

Role Playing Game

 * It's one of the pilars on which the Final Fantasy series is based.
 * Alter AILA Genesis
 * Rune Factory you'll obtain items for Item Crafting.
 * Persona 3.
 * Earthbound.
 * The Breath of Fire series.
 * Pokémon is a strange variation, as the Random Drops are the pokemon themselves. Some are Goddamned Bats (Zubats and Golbats are a literal case) while others go into Rare Random Drop territory. As the series progressed many more things got randomized and pokemon started to hold items in the wild. Read more about it in Rare Random Drop.
 * Wizardry 8.
 * Golden Sun series makes use of the trope.
 * Averted in Shadow Hearts, where enemies simply don't have rare or valuable items to drop. Enemies are therefore only Money Spiders.
 * The World Ends With You. 96 enemies and each one with a drop for each of the four levels of difficulty. You'll get weapons and Vendor Trash from them, the best items appearing at higher levels of difficulty and most times being a Rare Random Drop.
 * While not technically drops, Yume Nikki has random events throughout the game with varying percentages of encountering.
 * In Mega Man Battle Network enemies leave leftover data. How well you perform in the battle determines if the data is money or a chip.
 * Starforce works more or less the same way.
 * Refreshingly averted in Gothic. If the player kills a wolf, and he has the 'skin wolf' skill, he will skin that wolf. Of course, this doesn't stop people wondering exactly how much skill it would take to pull the wings off a giant mosquito, or why wolves only seem to have four claws, total.
 * In addition to randomly dropped items, Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria has randomly dropped party members; when you recruit an einherjar, unless it is plot-critical, the game will pick one at random from a list, usually 2-3 possible characters to a recruiting item. Highly annoying if you want to get specific spells.
 * Dragon Warrior 7 for the Playstation uses this one frequently.
 * Monster Hunter: this is one of the main extra difficulties in the game, for almost ALL kind of loot and carves.
 * In the Metal Gear series you can search the bodies of the enemies to get ammo, food and more items.
 * Kingdom Hearts Play Station 2 series offer Potions and common items, synthesis items and in rare cases weapons. In the portable games you will get most magic this way (it works in a Powers as Programs way).
 * The Elder Scrolls games use this mechanic, but every item you'll need will be fixated for that quest so it's not random.
 * Lost Odyssey has Ring Assembly components randomly drop, but thankfully nothing important.
 * Summon Night Swordcraft Story 2
 * Live a Live
 * Raidou Kuzunoha VS King Abaddon
 * Suikoden series.
 * Monsters in Shining in the Darkness, although using the confusion spell "Muddle" can also make them give you their items.
 * In the Etrian Odyssey series, monsters don't drop money -- you get Vendor Trash.
 * The third game, The Drowned City, has an NPC who frequents the local bar called Scavenger Toma. His whole purpose is to tell players how to meet most of these conditions, all for the low-low price of a drink or two.
 * Opoona.
 * In Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door enemies will drop badges.

Simulation Game

 * In Animal Crossing, virtually all shop items change from day to day based on luck. Fossil identifications and offers of foreign fruit in both versions are also based on luck.
 * Although not an RPG, Sim City 4 has this as "randomly develops" and "randomly awards" with city development.

Turn Based Strategy

 * Final Fantasy Tactics A2 as its normal in the series.
 * Eternal Eyes has many different items available as drops.