Star wars galaxies was a game with some rather complex economic models that truly did effect your outcome in battle. For example only certain players in the galaxy (it was an MMO) had the skills to craft the very best items. They could do that because they knew where to mine or buy the very best materials (randomly generated in those areas).

So I as a budding star ship pilot had to seek out the best vendors in order to buy the right equipment to competitive.

There was a lot more to it but it was the complexity of the emergent gameplay that gave the psuedo randomness of some aspects a real role, and drove your personal story.

"I managed to find a vendor who has access to large amounts of high grade titanium, and he crafted me this engine with 10kj/s faster recharge time, which allowed me to escape that bounty hunter.." was a story that emerged and happened to me in the game, for example.

In some ways the randomness was abstracted away enough to not be obvious, and I think that helped sell the feeling.