I think I know the correct answer to this but I'm not certain which is why I'm asking this here.

To my understanding and interpretation, everything is procedural and that a procedural generation system may consist of various algorithmic processes based on an initial random seed, and that random generation may be one of the types of inputs within the system. At this point, you can have simple generation and more sophisticated generation, but ultimately all procedural since it's not hand-made by humans, but through a process of various types of inputs/algorithms of various sophistication to produce an output.

To demonstrate an example of a loot-driven RPG game:

Type A: Bosses can drop items, the type of item is determined by the biology of the boss (human, demon, etc), and its skill set (ranged, melee, etc) and it may have a special effect if the majority of the damage came from a particular effect from the player, such as fire. Thus, say if it was a Human, with a melee skill set, and majority of the damage was done by fire-based attack from the player, then the boss has the chance for a sword to be dropped with say a chance to deal fire damage on attack, along with dropping of gold.

A demon wouldn't drop gold, so the player wouldn't take into account that sort of randomisation and ask "why would a demon drop gold?", since we can determine an appropriate output. The item could prove useful if it has a fire attack too since if it was killed by the majority of a fire effect, it can determine the player's style and aid them advantageously into shaping the player's experience to being beneficial as it could help with players being able to craft their build experience for their character. Part of this generation of the item is ultimately controlled by a chance for that to happen, the boss may not drop anything at all, but if it's rolled right, the rest of those deterministic processes can be executed.

Type B: A boss may have a randomised loot table of maybe 1 legendary, 2 epics, 5 blues, and if the roll is right to drop a legendary, then random attributes are generated for that legendary like dex, str, etc which may be high in value, and stuff like its biology, how it was killed and so on wouldn't matter.

Both A and B seem to be procedural to me ultimately, but Type A has a more sophisticated system for crafting the player experience. I'm under the assumption that procedural generation is supposed to be "smart" generation as if it could've also been designed by a person, but not, since a person may not be able to come up with all the thousands of variations and it wouldn't need to be handmade. Type B is the same, but the end output isn't as sophisticated as Type A, but it's ultimately still procedural since these items are being generated by a system, not by humans in hand-made fashion.

All of the above is just an example and may not fit appropriately in game design, but I think it helps get my point across. So am I right in thinking there's no definite difference, just various levels of sophistication that separates procedural generation in being more meaningful? I think part of the confusion is seeing games explicitly refer to "random generation" and some as "procedural generation" such as "randomly generated levels" and another "procedurally generated levels" as if there's a distinct difference. Is there a distinct, definite difference?

To my understanding, everything that isn't directly created by a human is called "procedural". Procedural generation systems have different complexities and may consist of various algorithmic processes, some of which may be "random".

Some games explicitly refer to their systems as "random", while others call them "procedural", as if indicating a distinct difference.

Is there such a distinct difference? Where do you draw the line?

For example, here are contrasting examples of RPG loot generation:

Type A: Loot generation is ultimately left to chance, but it's based on a large intial factor of deterministic, specifically encoded knowledge.

Boss characters drop loot, which type is determined by the boss' characteristics (e.g. species, character class, elemental affinity, …) and additionally influenced by the player's play-style, to create more enjoyable gameplay: For example, more likely drop a fire-damage sword to a player who prefers fire-based melee attacks, along with gold.

Type B: Loot generation is almost completely random, based on minimal explicit knowledge.

Bosses have a randomised loot table (e.g. 1 legendary, 2 epics, 5 blues). If the roll is right to drop a legendary, random attributes are generated for that legendary, which may be high in value. Stuff like character attributes, player behaviour and such don't matter.

Both designs qualify as procedural by the initial definition, since their output is automatic, but Type A is significantly more sophisticated in crafting player experience.

Must an algorithm seem as if a person had designed its output by hand, to qualify as "procedural" rather than "random"?

I think I know the correct answer to this but I'm not certain which is why I'm asking this here.

To my understanding and interpretation, everything is procedural and that a procedural generation system may consist of various algorithmic processes based on an initial random seed, and that random generation may be one of the types of inputs within the system. At this point, you can have simple generation and more sophisticated generation, but ultimately all procedural since it's not hand-made by humans, but through a process of various types of inputs/algorithms of various sophistication to produce an output.

To demonstrate an example of a loot-driven RPG game:

Type A: Bosses can drop items, the type of item is determined by the biology of the boss (human, demon, etc), and its skill set (ranged, melee, etc) and it may have a special effect if the majority of the damage came from a particular effect from the player, such as fire. Thus, say if it was a Human, with a melee skill set, and majority of the damage was done by fire-based attack from the player, then the boss has the chance for a sword to be dropped with say a chance to deal fire damage on attack, along with dropping of gold.

A demon wouldn't drop gold, so the player wouldn't take into account that sort of randomisation and ask "why would a demon drop gold?", since we can determine an appropriate output. The item could prove useful if it has a fire attack too since if it was killed by the majority of a fire effect, it can determine the player's style and aid them advantageously into shaping the player's experience to being beneficial as it could help with players being able to craft their build experience for their character. Part of this generation of the item is ultimately controlled by a chance for that to happen, the boss may not drop anything at all, but if it's rolled right, the rest of those deterministic processes can be executed.

Type B: A boss may have a randomised loot table of maybe 1 legendary, 2 epics, 5 blues, and if the roll is right to drop a legendary, then random attributes are generated for that legendary like dex, str, etc which may be high in value, and stuff like its biology, how it was killed and so on wouldn't matter.

Both A and B seem to be procedural to me ultimately, but Type A has a more sophisticated system for crafting the player experience. I'm under the assumption that procedural generation is supposed to be "smart" generation as if it could've also been designed by a person, but not, since a person may not be able to come up with all the thousands of variations and it wouldn't need to be handmade. Type B is the same, but the end output isn't as sophisticated as Type A, but it's ultimately still procedural since these items are being generated by a system, not by humans in hand-made fashion.

Another example of a space game:

Type A: There's a chance for a star of some spectral type to be randomly chosen of the known spectral types.

All of the above is just an example and may not fit appropriately in game design, but I think it helps get my point across. So am I right in thinking there's no definite difference, just various levels of sophistication that separates procedural generation in being more meaningful? I think part of the confusion is seeing games explicitly refer to "random generation" and some as "procedural generation" such as "randomly generated levels" and another "procedurally generated levels" as if there's a distinct difference. Is there a distinct, definite difference?

I think I know the correct answer to this but I'm not certain which is why I'm asking this here.

To my understanding and interpretation, everything is procedural and that a procedural generation system may consist of various algorithmic processes based on an initial random seed, and that random generation may be one of the types of inputs within the system. At this point, you can have simple generation and more sophisticated generation, but ultimately all procedural since it's not hand-made by humans, but through a process of various types of inputs/algorithms of various sophistication to produce an output.

To demonstrate an example of a loot-driven RPG game:

Type A: Bosses can drop items, the type of item is determined by the biology of the boss (human, demon, etc), and its skill set (ranged, melee, etc) and it may have a special effect if the majority of the damage came from a particular effect from the player, such as fire. Thus, say if it was a Human, with a melee skill set, and majority of the damage was done by fire-based attack from the player, then the boss has the chance for a sword to be dropped with say a chance to deal fire damage on attack, along with dropping of gold.

A demon wouldn't drop gold, so the player wouldn't take into account that sort of randomisation and ask "why would a demon drop gold?", since we can determine an appropriate output. The item could prove useful if it has a fire attack too since if it was killed by the majority of a fire effect, it can determine the player's style and aid them advantageously into shaping the player's experience to being beneficial as it could help with players being able to craft their build experience for their character. Part of this generation of the item is ultimately controlled by a chance for that to happen, the boss may not drop anything at all, but if it's rolled right, the rest of those deterministic processes can be executed.

Type B: A boss may have a randomised loot table of maybe 1 legendary, 2 epics, 5 blues, and if the roll is right to drop a legendary, then random attributes are generated for that legendary like dex, str, etc which may be high in value, and stuff like its biology, how it was killed and so on wouldn't matter.

Both A and B seem to be procedural to me ultimately, but Type A has a more sophisticated system for crafting the player experience. I'm under the assumption that procedural generation is supposed to be "smart" generation as if it could've also been designed by a person, but not, since a person may not be able to come up with all the thousands of variations and it wouldn't need to be handmade. Type B is the same, but the end output isn't as sophisticated as Type A, but it's ultimately still procedural since these items are being generated by a system, not by humans in hand-made fashion.

All of the above is just an example and may not fit appropriately in game design, but I think it helps get my point across. So am I right in thinking there's no definite difference, just various levels of sophistication that separates procedural generation in being more meaningful? I think part of the confusion is seeing games explicitly refer to "random generation" and some as "procedural generation" such as "randomly generated levels" and another "procedurally generated levels" as if there's a distinct difference. Is there a distinct, definite difference?