Esoteric Ebb Is D&D Meets Disco Elysium

Hosts Kirk Hamilton, Maddie Myers, and Jason Schreier discuss Esoteric Ebb, a new RPG directed by Christopher Beaudegarde and released March 3. They describe it as Disco Elysium meets Dungeons & Dragons, infused with Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams-style dry humor. Players control Ragan (or "the cleric"), a bumbling protagonist waking up amnesiac in the city-region of Tolstad (part of Norvik), tasked with solving a tea shop explosion amid the area's first election. The hosts, each 12-25 hours in, praise its comedy, inner voices, and political exploration while noting limits in reactivity.

Core Mechanics and Role-Playing

Esoteric Ebb uses D&D mechanics under Wizards of the Coast's Creative Commons license: six attributes—Dexterity (yellow hand), Wisdom (heart), Strength (impaled body), Intelligence (skull-brain), Charisma (cynical face-hand), Constitution (vomiting stomach)—manifest as chattering inner voices. Players allocate points at start, influencing dialogue, passive checks, and active d20 rolls against DCs (e.g., 20 hard, 30 near-impossible sans nat 20). Spells follow D&D tiers.