My favorite RPG GM advice about dice is from Nathan Russell’s Freeform Universal RPG rulebook (free download; used to be popular among solo RPGers, but not sure if many still play it):
“Every time you call for a die roll it should mean something interesting is
going to happen, No MATTER THE RESULT. Don’t have players make rolls if the result is not important to the story, or if failure will stop the momentum of the story.”
I think that would be a good approach to randomness in all game genres. It is fun when everything is not 100% predictable, but not fun if the game (i.e. story) ends abruptly because of a bad die roll. It’s OK that the thing I wanted to happen did not happen, but ideally the game should instead throw something even more fun at me that drives the story forward.
But I no longer trust randomness much in digital games. I know too much about how the sausage is made. I read articles about how to cheat with dice behind the scenes. Pretend that something has a 70% chance of success, but it’s actually 95% (to make players feel better). Pretend that it is dice, but secretly treat it like a deck of cards instead. I hate it. I want random to be random and that the information the game presents is the truth about what my chances are. Don’t lie to players.
Making bad things less likely is no fix. Design away the bad things from the game instead. I understand it is more work, but it is better than just fudging the die rolls. And don’t waste time on “luck mitigation”. That’s just extra fluff to make rolls even more likely to be successful, while pretending you are giving the player more agency.