As you wake up in the Lichhouse, there's only one thing on your mind. The Tea Shop that Blew Up. It's the first of many quests in EBB, and it sets you off on your weird journey. What you'll notice, however, is that EBB does not have a basic RPG quest journal. Instead, is has...
If only quests grew on trees.
THE QUESTING TREE. It's exactly what it looks like: a visual overview of your quests, sprawling out into various nodes that I call 'Quest Branches.' But there's another reason behind the strange name. It's also supposed to be a sort of skill tree. But then... every Quest Branch has multiple outcomes, which also has to be visually shown to the player somehow.
The Questing Tree is trying to fill many roles. Or three of them, at least. Let's walk through them.
QUEST JOURNAL
Funnily enough, there is an actual journal in the game, right next to the Questing Tree, Inventory, and Spellbook. Although that journal only contains a map, text from your latest dialog, and the popular Glossary (which deserves its own post in the future).
But no, in the traditional sense, an RPG Journal usually contains quest information: where you're at, where you're going, and what you've done to the poor inhabitants of the game world. That's the most basic function of the Questing Tree. And while the visual flair of the design (inspired by the Mindmap in Pathologic 2!) works to differentiate it a bit from the default quest journal, functionally it's the same. Detailing your steps as you complete various steps in a Quest Branch, as well as noting which choices you end up making on your way, or skip entirely.
Updated My Journal.
YOUR CHOICES
There are two types of Quest Branches. Major and minor. You can see the visual difference in the shapes- but functionally there are two differences.
Minor QBs have ONE outcome. There's no deep interesting choice involved, it's just a do-or-don't kind of task. Usually they're silly ones like, 'get your hands on some milk', or more direct instructions like, 'have a meeting with the Magistrate at some point'.
Major QBs on the other hand always have multiple outcomes. Even if some of them can be obscure due to your choices, there will always be different ways of completing each of these quests. Then comes the second difference: Major QBs always end with the player allowing the Branch to 'Take Root'. This open an internal dialog that essentially allows you to reflect on the quest, your choices, and finally be rewarded with a Feat. Once that's done, the Quest Branch is then marked with the color of that feat.
Yellow == Dexterity == Crown Coins.
FEATS
Since EBB is heavily based on the 5E system, I struggled for a long time to find a place for FEATS. Because first of all, what are they? In 5E they're a choice of further customization. To essentially allow a player to make a more unique character, lean into more niche builds, and generally expand outside the confines of your class. I really enjoy that, personally.
But I didn't want to go with the standard 5E mechanics, since that'd make Feats a mechanic that's barely interacted with in a low level campaign. It'd be a lot of work to put into a system that wouldn't make that much of a difference. So I sort of scrapped the idea for a long while. Instead I was inspired by the Thought Cabinet, and prototyped a few different versions of 'Customizing your Cleric' - with IDEAS that change his behavior, or IDEOLOGS that edit the Ability Score Chimes' voices. All fun concepts, but the execution (my execution) was flawed. It either didn't mesh with the 5E base. Or it was confusing. Or it was both.
But once I'd fleshed out the Questing Tree more thoroughly in preparation for the Second Draft Demo, it hit me that the more classic 5E Feats fit perfectly into the new system. Before, the Questing Tree had multiple dialogs you could interact with over the course of a single quest, which was unwieldy and annoying to handle, both for me and the players. But in this new system, once you've completed a quest, you get ONE dialog. One final chat about the quest, your choices, and finally... the ability to pick a Feat.
It fit perfectly. Both as a significant mechanical reward to completing a quest and as a fun way to mix the narrative with the mechanics. Because the feats you gain access to for completing a quest are never random- they're specifically designed to fit the quest. For example, if you worked for the Freestriders, it'd be a DEXTERITY feat. Probably leaning into the design space of Stealing, getting rich, or avoiding consequences. Or if you walk around Tolstad and tell everyone you're a powerful Wizard, you'll eventually unlock a nice buff to your spell slots. Narrative choice and mechanical rewards, together at last.
I'm also experimenting with even more game-changing feats for the larger quests. Like allowing you to use HP instead of spell slots (Feat: BLOOD MAGIC), or a feat that always makes you survive any hit with 1 HP, unless you're at 1 HP- but also makes you fail any Death Saving Throw automatically (Feat: FRAGILE IMMORTALITY). There's some fun stuff to try out here, and I'll see where it ends up.
Can't show too much here. Literally just spoilers.
Thanks for following the development of ESOTERIC EBB! If you want more updates, feel free to join the Discord, or follow me on social media!
I also highly recommend checking out my illustrator Oscar Westberg's work! He's been posting some characters from EBB lately, and it's really good stuff.
Have a good one!
-Christoffer Bodegård