Hmm, IMO tail risks are the most interesting type of risk - just handling a certain amount of normal variance is uninteresting, it's the tails that are memorable and create stories.
Right, but the game needs to actually build with it in mind.
In a CRPG, death is basically an illegal operation — your only option is to save scum or reset the campaign (eg on TPK. On single death, you can probably resurrect), so the tail risk of instant-death is untenable.
In ADnD and roguelikes, death is a matter of course, so tail risk is a natural function of the game — and they offer various mitigation strategies (e.g. campaigns don’t require anything to actually be dealt with — ADnD just says you need to get gold, by any means necessary. Rogue says the same, but for the necklace. So tail risk is truly an opt-in). Boss fights are optional and rewarding, but not required, and often many exist, so trivializing one by a 1-625 crit sequence isn’t nearly as damaging as in, say, baldur’s gate.
In grand strategies, there’s enough rolls, and its not sufficiently damaging, that it’s just part of your day-to-day. The same is true of tail risk running a distributed cluster.
In risk, tail risk means a group of 5 can knock down your group of 30 — which voids any strategy whatsoever. There’s not mitigation path, and there’s not much alternative except to say “such is as the gods have deigned”, as they penetrate a key area with basically nothing. You could describe it like wesnoth “good strategy, bad luck”, or you could describe it as a bad mechanic (not to comment on wesnoth’s usage).
Ultimately, it depends on whether you actually have the tools to do something about it, or a design to convince the user accept it outright. But without either, you just have bullshit.
