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== First Person Shooter ==
 
* ''[[Borderlands (Video Game)|Borderlands]]'' is the [[FPS]] equivalent of this (its initial pitch: "[[X Meets Y|Halo meets Diablo]]"). It, too, has a list of super-rare ([[DLC]]-exclusive) weapons known as "Pearlescents". These [[Infinity+1 Sword|super-strong]] firearms drop at a rate of 1 for every 60 orange (the previous highest-level category) items. Of course, they're a ''little'' more prevalent than you might think, thanks to a [[Good Bad Bug|multiplayer glitch]] that allows for easy item duplication.
* The folks at Valve have decided to throw the unlockable weapons of ''[[Team Fortress 2 (Video Game)|Team Fortress 2]]'' into this category with rates based on time played, and made the achievements "useless." The first day had absolutely horrendous drop rates, and most of the time it was weapons you already had, so [[Sarcasm Mode|you can imagine how fun that was]].
** Also realize that two of the nine classes had just been provided with unlockable weapons, meaning players had six new toys to earn (three each) and zero ways in which to earn them. The system was so hopelessly broken that Valve has since brought back the achievements. Currently both the broken drop rate and achievement systems are active. Currently, the drop rate is about one an hour, so not so bad.
** You also can get purely cosmetic hats for the classes. There are 9 classes. Your odds of getting a hat (any hat) is .5%, or 1/200. Your odds of getting a particular hat of 1/1800. To have a 50% chance of getting a particular hat, statistically you need to log 1250 hours. That's 52 ''days'' of play. That's more play time than all but ten of the official ''maps'' have.
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== [[MMORP Gs]] ==
 
* ''[[Final Fantasy XI (Video Game)|Final Fantasy XI]]'' is such an offender that we won't bother to list any of these drops, there are just too many.
* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' is another major offender. No need to add examples, the list would be nearly infinite.
* Played seriously straight in [[MMORPG]] ''[[Maple Story]]''. Monsters have a very good chance (roughly 50~75%) of dropping some money (Mesos) and an "ETC" drop unique to the monster (or monster type). They have about a 1-in-10 chance of dropping potions or material ores, a ''very'' rare chance of dropping equippable items, and an ''extremely rare'' chance of dropping scrolls (which are used to upgrade equipment) or throwing stars. A coupon in the game's cash shop doubles the drop rate of monsters killed by the user. It doesn't help that sometimes only one particular enemy drops a particular item. Or that there's no indication that a miscellaneous drop is needed for a quest you don't have. Or quests that ask you to get an item, but don't say what enemy drops it. Then there's the major bosses Zakum and Horntail, who are guaranteed to drop at least one Zakum Helmet or Horntail Pendant each time they're killed, it's ''how many'' that drop that's random. All of their other drops are subject to Random Drops.
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== Role Playing Game ==
 
* ''[[Final Fantasy IV (Video Game)|Final Fantasy IV]]''. Two words: Pink Tails. They are held by one enemy, found in one room, with approximately a 1-in-64 chance of encountering it ''and'' a 1-in-64 chance of dropping the proper loot once defeated -- and that's the only way to get the best armor in the game. For those of you who didn't study math, that's a whopping 1-in-4096 chance per encounter. Alarm clocks trigger an encounter with them 100% of the time though, but you can only carry 99 of them.
** Additional...fun in relation to pink tails. The only way to find the monsters that drop it in the DS remake is to use an Alarm item. Otherwise the room is completely clear of random encounters. So, at least now you have a 100% chance of encountering the enemy, right? Well, you now have a 1/64 chance of the Princess Flan dropping any item AT ALL, and a 1/64 chance of it being a Pink Tail. So the odds are the same (1/4096). And since you can only carry 99 of them you’ll have to travel a lot to the shop in order to replenish.
** In the DS version Rainbow Puddings are quite difficult to get too.
* ''FFIV'''s sequel, ''The After Years'' averts this thanks to an item that changes the rare drop to the next item on the rarity list. Due to how the [[Random Drop]] system works you’ll probably get more rare items than normal ones.
** Played straight in the PSP collection, where the random drops are actually random again, but averted slightly in that it's more likely you get rare items from the [[Bonus Dungeon|Challenge Dungeon]] boss chests that are randomized. The worst item you can get is an X-Potion: however, you can't get any extra copies of any of the items, including Adamantines that're used to trade them for parts of [[Armor of Invincibility]] at the end of the game.
* ''[[Final Fantasy V (Video Game)|Final Fantasy V]]'', like the other Final Fantasy games, has several rare drops. The Tinklebell is the most annoying, and belongs to [[That One Boss|Twintania]]. It's technically a 1/16 drop ratio, but Twintania's drops change based on whether it's in Normal form, or if it's in its Gigaflare form. The Normal form is the harder to kill of the two, and is the form that drops the Tinklebell.
* ''[[Final Fantasy VI (Video Game)|Final Fantasy VI]]'' gave you a consolation prize in the form of common drops being guaranteed if you didn’t get the rare one.
* ''[[Final Fantasy XII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy XII]]'' took things to somewhat ridiculous length: not only does every monster have common, uncommon, rare and ultra-rare random drops (and a fifth class of drop that requires you to purchase a 'monograph' describing that class of monster), but also (different!) lists of random [[Video Game Stealing|steals]] and 'poaches'. Crafting Tournesol, the game's [[Infinity+1 Sword]], requires multiples of the rarest loots from the rarest monsters.
** Let us not forget that the vast majority of ''treasure boxes'' in ''Final Fantasy XII'' were random drops; sometimes, the chest wouldn't be there, and most of the time, all the treasure you'd get from most boxes was a paltry sum of Gil. Worse, there were 4 chests that were fixed to cause the Infinity Plus One Spear to become ONLY a random drop, with a chance of 1-in-1000, instead of a sure get from a chest in a [[Bonus Dungeon]].
*** However, a method has been found to trick the game's "pseudo"-RNG into getting a guaranteed Zodiac Spear from the chest in the Henne Mines, so if you know it you can easily get more.
* ''[[Final Fantasy XIII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy XIII]]'' adds the notoriously uncommon Trapezohedron to this growing list of epic loot. The Traps are extremely rare items that only drop once in a blue moon from an Adamantoise, which is basically a [[Bonus Boss]] for all intents and purposes - and one that requires extensive planning, preparation, and [[Level Grinding]] to defeat. (Or Death spamming, if you're willing to put up with the antics of the [[Random Number God]].) Many players have killed several dozen of these absurdly tough enemies without getting a single Trap, which is needed to upgrade your [[Infinity-1 Sword]] to an [[Infinity+1 Sword]].
* In the ''[[Rune Factory]]'' game series [[Item Crafting]] is a major part of the game. To create the vast majority of powerful equipment and potions requires many battles with the various monsters, to get the [[Randomly Drops]] components you need.
* ''[[Persona 3]]'' has Elizabeth's requests, in which she usually asks you to kill a specific enemy and bring back a number of parts from it. The trick is that if you don't kill the enemies with the protagonist, the item drop rate is extremely low.
** ''[[Updated Rerelease|FES]]'' corrected this: if you kill at least one monster of the required type in a battle, you'll always get at least one item of the required type, guaranteed, though at the expense of other possible drops.
* ''[[Earthbound (Video Game)|Earthbound]]''. Its 1-in-128 items have become the focal point of several [[Self-Imposed Challenge|fan quests]]
** ''[[Mother 3 (Video Game)|Mother 3]]'' is a bit nicer, with a 3% to 5% chance of getting good weapons from certain enemies.
* The ''[[Breath of Fire]]'' series. Numerous examples of this.
* ''[[Pokémon]]'' has the unique problem in that the frustration-causing random drop is more often than not the Pokémon themselves. Some appear very rarely in the wild, with 1-in-20 odds or worse. The frustration is compounded by the fact that you have to weaken these monsters without defeating them, as well as hoping they've got the right gender, nature, etc. Chansey (and the Lucky Egg it may carry), Feebas (which only appears in 6 or 4 fishing tiles depending on the game, out of 212 or 50) and Munchlax (0,93% chance of appearing in 4 specific Honey Trees) are the most famous ones .
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** The enigmatic Mirage Island of Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald! Every day a number between 0 and 65535 is generated. In order to access the island, you have to have a Pokémon in your party with a personality value that matches the number of the day. Did we mention that the Personality Value of a Pokémon can be anywhere from 0 to 4,294,967,295? The only thing worthwhile about Mirage Island is a particularly rare berry tree.
** Pickup is an ability that gives you an object 10% of the time after a battle. It’s charts can give you tons of different useful objects depending on your level, but their chances range from 50% of the common ones to 1% of the rare ones, which include Rare Candies and [[T Ms]].
* In ''[[Wizardry (Video Game)|Wizardry]] 8'' enemy drops and chest contents are determined when loading an area. So after a 15-minute fight, if the monster doesn't drop [[Infinity+1 Sword|Excalibur]], you can't just reload and fight again. You have to reload from before you entered the area, then make it all the way back to the monster, ''then'' fight it again.
* ''[[Golden Sun (Video Game)|Golden Sun]]'' series can either work this way or the opposite, thanks to how easily you can manipulate the RNG.
* ''[[The World Ends With You (Video Game)|The World Ends With You]]'' seems to be initially guilty of this, but one of the things you actually learn about in the game is to manipulate the drop rates (which are shown in the bestiary) to the point that even the rarest ones (there’s one that is only dropped '''0,03%''' of the time) become guaranteed drops. The drawback is that you’ll have to drop down your level and chain multiple battles, sometimes with bosses included, in order to do that. And the only way to get rid of the drawback is… you guessed it: get a lot of those rare drops, so it can be useless after you get [[Hundred-Percent Completion]].
* ''[[Mega Man Battle Network (Video Game)|Mega Man Battle Network]]'' series brings this with the Mega chips (you’ll have to fight bosses a lot) and the [[Guide Dang It|Program Advances]].
** It’s successor, ''[[Mega Man Star Force (Video Game)|Mega Man Star Force]]'', does it too.
* ''[[Monster Hunter (Video Game)|Monster Hunter]]'' has tons and tons of drops, but the most rare ones will inevitably be those that the most difficult bosses have. Lao-Shan Ruby and the Big Elder Dragon Jewels are famous ones.
** Carried over for the [[Crossover]] in ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]: Peace Walker''. Rathalos drops plans for the Taneshigama, one of the most useful weapons in the game, and Tigrex and Gear Rex drop parts of the most powerful Co-op weapon in the game. With a 1% chance. Enjoy your grind.
* In ''[[Kingdom Heartscoded (Video Game)|Kingdom Heartscoded]]'' this can happen, but you can unlock a special cheat that allows you to multiply the drop rate of the various command chips dropped by enemies in exchange for lowering your maximum HP, up to 16 times its normal rate. The difficulty level of the game also affects enemy drops. A few of the game's strongest enemies will drop stat-boosting chips on Critical mode, the highest difficulty.
* ''[[Suikoden II]]'' has this with the upgraded forms of Fire (Rage) and Lightning (Thunder) Runes. If you wanted more than one you could freely attach (and you did, as they were useful in many ways), you had to hope for a drop from specific enemies near the endgame.
** ''Suidoken'' did it before, but much worse, as the best armor and accessories are [[Rare Random Drops]] too.
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* This happens in ''[[Live a Live]]'', with the [[Game Breaker|Cola Bottle]], a powerful accessory and attack item. It is a rare drop from a [[Guide Dang It]] [[Bonus Boss]], which means that it is quite possible for the player to not realize that the aforementioned boss can even DROP a different item to its normal drop.
* ''[[Raidou Kuzunoha VS King Abaddon]]'' features Ukemochi liver, a useless item that's necessary for exactly one sidequest, which in turn is necessary for [[One Hundred Percent Completion]]. The only way you can get it is by donating money to a shrine, at 300 yen a pop, for a roughly 1/256 chance of getting it. Cue an hour and a half of standing there throwing money at the shrine hoping to get it.
* In the ''[[Etrian Odyssey (Video Game)|Etrian Odyssey]]'' series, you get raw materials from the enemy corpses, which you can then [[Vendor Trash|sell back to the local shops]] both for cash and to help create even better weapons, armor and other supplies. However, monsters don't always leave things behind, and many monsters also have Conditional Drops, which require you to [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|meet certain conditions to trigger]], like defeating it in a single turn or finishing it off with a certain element/status effect. Even if you meet the conditions, they ''still'' don't always drop, unless it's a boss... and many times, getting a boss to drop their special item also blocks the ''regular'' drop.
** The third game, ''The Drowned City'', has an [[NPC]] who frequents the local bar called Scavenger Toma. His whole purpose is to [[Guide Dang It|tell players how to meet most of these conditions]], all for the low-low price of a drink or two.
* ''[[Mega Man X Command Mission (Video Game)|Mega Man X Command Mission]]'' wasn't too bad about random drops, but one standout instance was if you were going for X's X Buster Mk-III or Zero's Z-Rapier+, both of which only had a 1% drop rate from one enemy in the final dungeon. You could boost those odds with Good Luck Force Metal, which increased item drops by 3% for each one equipped, but getting more than one of those required finding a specific enemy and beating it for the items to make it.
* Although not an item, recruiting a Metal Slime or its family members in ''[[Dragon Quest V (Video Game)|Dragon Quest V]]'' is ''hard''. For the first one you recruit, you have a 1/256 chance of recruiting it and a 1/1054 chance of recruiting a second and third. Considering how tough they are once they reach their cap, that's fair. However, keep in mind that they are hard to find. The ordinary Metal Slime isn't too hard to find (they appear commonly in Whealbrook Cavern), but the Liquid Metal Slimes are very rare and typically appear with a bunch of Metal Slimes or other recruitable monsters, meaning if you get a crit on another recruitable monster after you killed the Liquid Metal Slime, you ''won't'' be able to recruit a Liquid Metal Slime for that battle. Fortunately, they aren't required, but they are very helpful against the bonus boss.
 
== Turn Based Strategy ==
 
* ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics a 2 (Video Game)|Final Fantasy Tactics a 2]]'' murders you thanks to this trope. What you can buy is determined by what pieces of loot you bring to the Bazaar, which is determined solely by how much of a lucky bastard you are. This means that it's almost impossible to tune your team to your liking until much, much further into the game, since most classes require that you have enough abilities in others to unlock them... and abilities are granted by these same items you depend on luck for finding. So you end up having to get by with whatever you have available.
** Or by looking at the ''guaranteed'' loot given for completing a mission.
* ''[[Eternal Eyes]]'' has many different items available as drops, but one of the most valuable is Magical Puppets; they're the raw material for your [[Mons]], and each one you get equals a new unit. All monsters can drop them, but the chance is ''very'' low, and if you don't waste a turn opening the treasure chest it's in (no way to tell until you open it, of course), it stands a good chance of being destroyed by one of its former allies. A few chapter ends will simply give you a new puppet, so you ''will'' gain new units if you progress through the story normally, but if you want to expand your army further? Get to grindin'!
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