The next monthly update about Epsilon — a solo adventure game about exploring a dark and corrupting forest. Transforming the EZ from a hexcrawl into a pointcrawl, because everything is pointcrawl.
As far as I can see (but I am no mathematician), you are right that working with six-sided dice, your “probability buckets” (chances of landing in any group of cells of a d66, d666, etc) will be multiples of powers of 1/6, but why does that mean that the number of distinct game outcomes has to be a multiple of 6? (Or of a factor of 6 greater than 1 — i.e. 2 or 3.)
You can arbitrarily assign your 36 cells of a d66 table to any number of game outcomes ≤ 36, but expect lumps or spikes when the division is against you. Or you can map your 6 die outcomes to fewer than 6 rows or columns and produce distributions reminiscent of the digital filter artifact graphs one used to see in hi-fi magazines.
For example, group the 3s and 4s together for this spiky d55 (25 “cells”):
I agree to some extent. It's important to note that "make everything a multiple of six" was a light-hearted rule of thumb. Not a hard and fast rule. ;)
I may have missed this, but I'd love to know how you're planning to approach the cost of traveling between nodes. Random tables? Static resource loss per move? A choice between losing resource A or resource B? No cost at all? Will there be a different cost to traveling within the same ring or into a new ring?
Inspired by Gloomhaven, I've been experimenting with random travel encounters that give players a quick scenario and ask players a simple question to resolve the encounter, then narrate. i.e. "You're ambushed by a gang of thieves who demand a tax. Do you pay them, fight back, or try to flee? Pay them: All players lose x gold, but gain a hint about the adventure site. Fight back: All players lose 1d6 hp, but gain 1d10 gold. Flee: All players lose 1d4 hp." I'm trying to strike a balance between travel not mattering and overloading my players with encounters that detract from the main adventure of the evening.
Good questions! And I didn't explicitly answer them in this post.
In general, I'm not planning on a resource spend for movement. At its core, EZB: Epsilon is still a solo TTRPG drawing/journaling game and not a simulation-style board game (c.f. Dunnigan's 1972 Outdoor Survival). So in that sense, movement is "free" because you don't directly pay or spend anything to do it.
That said, movement matters a lot. Time is the most important resource in Epsilon, and each move costs 1 hour of time. As the hours click by, the risk (Risk Value) increases. Each roll for mutation becomes more dangerous. It's not a fixed end-point either, because you might get lucky... or you might not. There's some more detail on that concept here: https://www.skeletoncodemachine.com/p/muffins-and-the-risk-of-being-eaten
Also, encounters not entirely unlike the ones you describe are part of the game. More on those in a future update. ;)
If I don't make it out of the EZ, someone please come find my field notes, at least! Just... beware whatever my hubris ignored.
The Bureau appreciates your sacrifice.
“Make everything a multiple of six.”
As far as I can see (but I am no mathematician), you are right that working with six-sided dice, your “probability buckets” (chances of landing in any group of cells of a d66, d666, etc) will be multiples of powers of 1/6, but why does that mean that the number of distinct game outcomes has to be a multiple of 6? (Or of a factor of 6 greater than 1 — i.e. 2 or 3.)
You can arbitrarily assign your 36 cells of a d66 table to any number of game outcomes ≤ 36, but expect lumps or spikes when the division is against you. Or you can map your 6 die outcomes to fewer than 6 rows or columns and produce distributions reminiscent of the digital filter artifact graphs one used to see in hi-fi magazines.
For example, group the 3s and 4s together for this spiky d55 (25 “cells”):
<https://anydice.com/program/41614>
output 1d{1,2,3,3,4,5}+1d{10,20,30,30,40,50} named "spiky d55"
Of course, I don’t mean to knock the idea of doing everything in twos, threes, and sixes. A choice made is future choices avoided! ;)
That's an interesting approach!
I agree to some extent. It's important to note that "make everything a multiple of six" was a light-hearted rule of thumb. Not a hard and fast rule. ;)
Everything consistant. Yes much simpler. At first the nonmap map threw me off, but then I reconsidered...makes sense to do it this way.
I may have missed this, but I'd love to know how you're planning to approach the cost of traveling between nodes. Random tables? Static resource loss per move? A choice between losing resource A or resource B? No cost at all? Will there be a different cost to traveling within the same ring or into a new ring?
Inspired by Gloomhaven, I've been experimenting with random travel encounters that give players a quick scenario and ask players a simple question to resolve the encounter, then narrate. i.e. "You're ambushed by a gang of thieves who demand a tax. Do you pay them, fight back, or try to flee? Pay them: All players lose x gold, but gain a hint about the adventure site. Fight back: All players lose 1d6 hp, but gain 1d10 gold. Flee: All players lose 1d4 hp." I'm trying to strike a balance between travel not mattering and overloading my players with encounters that detract from the main adventure of the evening.
Good questions! And I didn't explicitly answer them in this post.
In general, I'm not planning on a resource spend for movement. At its core, EZB: Epsilon is still a solo TTRPG drawing/journaling game and not a simulation-style board game (c.f. Dunnigan's 1972 Outdoor Survival). So in that sense, movement is "free" because you don't directly pay or spend anything to do it.
That said, movement matters a lot. Time is the most important resource in Epsilon, and each move costs 1 hour of time. As the hours click by, the risk (Risk Value) increases. Each roll for mutation becomes more dangerous. It's not a fixed end-point either, because you might get lucky... or you might not. There's some more detail on that concept here: https://www.skeletoncodemachine.com/p/muffins-and-the-risk-of-being-eaten
Also, encounters not entirely unlike the ones you describe are part of the game. More on those in a future update. ;)
Very cool, thanks!