I wonder how much of this outcry has to do with players not realizing that die rolls are a fundamental aspect of RPGs -- especially the RPGs Obsidian creates. Alpha Protocol is a RPG, not a shooter -- if you don't like that, maybe you shouldn't play RPGs. 

I think the shooting abilities of characters in games like Halo and Modern Warfare are supposedly explained by the fact that the characters you're playing as are highly trained soldiers, and in the case of the Halo series, supersoldiers that are *supposed* to be able to do stuff like snipe an opponent in the head from 300 yards while jumping 20 feet in the air.

On the shooter front, I've been playing nothing but Mass Effect 2 and Borderlands for roughly the last six months, and I really like the accuracy models those games provide.  Each gun you fire has an intrinsic accuracy rating based on its type, and in addition to that, most guns' accuracy changes depending on how you fire it, bursts vs. pulses, etc.

I can understand dice rolls controlling the outcome of attacks in a more traditional RPG environment (like in KotOR), but as I find accurately shooting a moving target over a period of time hard enough in the first place, I would feel kind of gypped if I did manage to line up a good shot and then watched as the bullet completely missed due solely to a dice roll, completely unrelated to anything I had done.

@Brian That die roll takes into account more than you accurately lining a shot up. The bullet could deflect off body armor or other protection, the target could inch enough out of the way, or you may line up only to achieve a glancing blow. 

Isn't it true that Fallout 3 has this "roll the dice" hit damage? I guess if it is implemented will I don't mind it. But... in TF2 they have something called crits, where a random shot or grenade blast does triple the damage! This is sometimes a bad thing, rarely a good thing.

@Lance I doubt a game like Alpha Protocol will dice roll to give you three times more damage on a shot. :) it is kinda realistic ... :) 

First-person shooters have always randomized things a bit -- even Doom has die rolls under the hood for damage.

In fact, I can think of few shooters that don't at least randomize line of fire in some way or another. I've been playing through Fear lately (thanks Steam sale!), and the slight randomization is readily apparent. Maybe this problem arises from all these more "modern" console-FPS games that also include auto-aim (to make up for the fact that an analog stick will never be as accurate as a mouse).

Unless a game intends to be arcadey, I think die rolls are perfectly reasonable for all the reasons that Jason describes.