I am unable to follow any advice or tutorial because a lot of the references are different now and the program shows FAR less options than referenced on the site here.

I have been able to make a simple choices start to a story, but seem unable to add simple dice rolls for luck and/or random events

Which version do you have? Because literally yesterday I had to reset my PC and redownload quest - version 5.8.0 - and everything's there for me.

Maybe screenshot what you're seeing so we have an idea of what's missing?

two likely possibilities:

1. you created a game in 'simple mode', which is a bare bones sandbox for people to get the most basic feel for quest, having most of the features removed/blocked

2. over the versions of quest, the Tabs have increased, cluttering up the GUI/Editor, so they've been hidden, and have a toggle option/control for revealing/hiding them. So, you got to go into the Tab (the 'game' Object's 'features' Tab I think), and check the option in, to toggle the various desired Tabs to be revealed/shown in the GUI/Editor

This simulates a dice.
Dice roll:

roll = "1d6"
msg ("You roll  a " + roll + "on your dice.")

This uses randomly generated integers.
Random numbers

roll2 = GetRandomInt(1, 20) 
msg ("You did " + roll2 + "damage!")

This has a 50% chance of happening, and a 50% chance of not happening. This is used with if, so it works the same way if functions work. (i.e. If you put:

if (RandomChance(50)) {
  SpawnSentret (this)
}
else if (RandomChance(50)) {
  SpawnHoothoot (this)
}
else if (RandomChance(50)) {
  SpawnSpinarak (this)
}

SpawnSentret (this) has a 50% chance of working, SpawnHoothoot (this) has a 25% chance of working, and SpawnSpinarak (this) has a 12.5% chance of working. Not only that, but all three functions can be called at once, and thus all three Pokemon (Pocket Monsters) are created at once. This means Random number generation is my preferred method of random chance simulation.)
Random chance

if (RandomChance(50)) {
  msg ("Okay. You win!")
}

Anything else you need?