I have this function: -- | Choose an element at random from a list and return the element and its index -- Ex: runState (randomListSelection ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e']) (mkStdGen 1) randomListSelection :: (RandomGen s) => [a] -> State s (Int, a) randomListSelection xs = do i <- State $ randomR (0,length xs - 1) return (i, xs !! i) I want to repeatedly select random elements from a list. I know the code below is totally wrong, but it's the closest I've gotten so far. When I run it in ghci, I get the SAME random element each time, until I reload the module. I guess that's because g is always the same. I'm still struggling with monads, and would appreciate any advice on how to fix this. chooseCreatur = do g <- getStdGen return (evalState (randomListSelection ["cat", "dog", "lion", "mouse"]) g) FWIW, I'll be calling it from a loop within the IO monad. The real list will be growing and shrinking in size.