First, Greg Costikyan has a detailed article on randomness in games (video and otherwise), based on a presentation he made at Austin GDC 2009. Highly recommended; really informative and interesting:

http://playthisthing.com/randomness-blight-or-bane

Next, Coyote waxes poetic about his favorite game Ultima VII:

http://rampantgames.com/blog/2009/09/ultima-and-knee-trauma.html

I've started U7 a number of times but never gotten very far. I do still have a copy (part of some Ultima collection or other); I should dig it out, download Exult (http://exult.sourceforge.net/), and give it another go.