All I have to say re:table top is GURPS w/every realism rule. Bookkeeping for days, but surprisingly realistic.
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^ Make sure you go back and read my “Edit” ^
Okay, okay, FairyGodfeather, since you take part is so many of my posts, we both think the same way and I don’t want anyone to assume poorly of my writing I will give you a little sneak peak. I hate doing this though because there is no guarantee that I will ever release the game:
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*selectable_if (Power > 500) #Unleash an onslaught of energy bombs on the weakened god. (-Great Power)
You channel power into your appendages and form them into massive spheres of raw energy. One by one your hurl the armaments at the fallen god and they explode, tearing the creature apart bit by bit. ${god1} cries in agony as the explosions rip away the being’s shape and energy discharges into the void. You show no relent and continue to reign death upon the fallen being until its cries are no more and nothing but wispy essence remains where the being once rested.
*rand loss 400 500
*set Power -(loss)
(Power -${loss})
As your rage dies you realize the extent of your overkill.
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Those of you who read it feel free to leave constructive feedback. I have only played a few CoG so let me know what others have done and whether or not it was executed successfully.
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I’d suggest playing a few more Choice of Games. Have a look how they handle combat. Play some of the good Hosted Games. Have a look how they do it too.
And then think “Is this how I want to do combat?” If it is, then that’s great. If your vision is random rolls and hit points then that’s good. You should write what interests you. There’s plenty of people who love that stuff, the random elements, the hit points and damage rolls.
For me, I’m story first, and choices are important. I feel that randomness removes the impact of choices and I want the choices to be the most important thing. So I don’t use rand for important things. I want the player to have control, to not have their story hang on the whims of some dice. That good or bad luck and a fickle random number generator won’t make or break their story.
That their ability to defeat the weakened god with energy bombs is a culmination of all they’ve done previously, the choices they’ve made, the training, all of that, instead of just the result of a random dice roll. Make sense?
BUT! I do love the idea of rage as a stat. 
And I know the likes of Heroes Rise is rather rpg-y with its stats.
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The thing with random damage in a CoG that would disappoint me is that, if I play all the way through it, I like the feeling that I could read the same story if I were to make the same choices. It would still be there, in a sense.
You can still emulate the feeling of randomness for first time players, since they won’t know the future, by varying up the consequences of different damage events.
Why does this sound familiar? 
The optional rules do some nice stuff with differentiating damage to different body parts, making it so that wounds which shouldn’t be fatal will hurt but not kill, representing bleeding, etc. 
Which does bring up that rather than just representing damage in points, you could have flags for specific injuries, bleeding out, that kind of thing.
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Hey, I’m not sure if this will work or not, but it could be worth a shot to try.
If you run your variable randomization immediately after selecting a choice with no text, try then adding *page_break immediately after that. To save time, you can just try this on one choice at the very beginning and see if it works. If it doesn’t, no need to take it any further.
The issue with that is it would leave the player with a blank screen to press “Next” on which is just a little immersion breaking.
Then leave stuff like a name or other general things on there, and hide the rest.
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Would it be possible to set the damages before you give the choice? That way the player doesn’t actually know what they are until it’s too late to reset them. It would look like (using your earlier example):
*rand dmg1 3 9
*rand dmg2 1 4
*fake_choice
#Fireball.
*set enemyhp -dmg1
Fireball flavour text.
#Kick.
*set enemyhp -dmg2
Kick flavour text.
Not if it works. If there’s no writing present, no ‘next’ button is created. You can write two *page_break in a row, and only have one ‘next’ button appear, with stat changes in between.
Of course, if it doesn’t work, I cannot think of a way to do what you are attempting without creating a set of arrays to *gosub_scene into with each choice, though the same *page_break logic applies. Only way around it is to set all the *rand variables at the beginning. It’s possible you’re seeking something that just isn’t possible.
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Wow that actually works! Thanks
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Never mind, I’m pretty sure it was, but suddenly it stopped and it seems to just be ignoring the *page_break line now… Not sure what happened.
Any other creative solutions? 