Is It Possible To Weigh Random Numbers?

I'm making an RPG so I need to use a lot of random numbers. Right now I'm thinking about stat increases after level-ups. I want to write a method that does something like "return a random number from 0 to 4 inclusive, but make it most likely to be 1 or 2." Does anybody know how I could go about implementing something like that?

I cannot understand what you need. Pleas kindly explain it.

I thought I did. I want something that will return a random number in a certain range that can be any number in that range but will usually be in a smaller range. For example, using the numbers above (0-5 inclusive but most likely 1 or 2), ten numbers returned might be:2, 1, 1, 3, 2, 0, 1, 5, 2, 1Seven of those are 1 or 2, and the other three are other numbers in the 0-5 range.

Well one choice would be to generate a random number from say, 1 to 100. Then if you want a 75% chance of it being 1 or 2 then say that if the first number is less than 75, generate a random number from 1 to 2, otherwise, generate one from 3 to 4. Its probably not the most efficient way of doing it, but it should work.

It's not that hard to make that! I'll explain it to you using a simple code:

var numarray = new Array(1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 4);/* This is the array of possible values. The more times you use a number, the more times it will return. */var rand = Math.round(Math.random()*(numarray.length-1));/* This code creates a random number between 0 and (numarray.length-1). */var num = numarray[rand];/* This piece will take a value out of the array, based on the random number of the second line of code. */

And this will always return one of the values you want! Of course, you speak of a function that returns a value, so it will be more like this:

function randomNumber(){var numarray = new Array(1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 4);var rand = Math.round(Math.random()*(numarray.length-1));var num = numarray[rand];return num;}

Edited July 12, 2006 by peroim (see edit history)

Yeah that occurred to me a while after I made this topic, but it's just not as cool as it could be.

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Edited August 21, 2007 by augyd (see edit history)