Christoffer Bodegård, the solo developer behind the recently released RPG Esoteric Ebb, has drawn heavily from his passion for Dungeons & Dragons to craft a game that emphasizes interactive storytelling and meaningful player choices. Bodegård, who has been playing D&D consistently for eight years, views his development process through the lens of a Dungeon Master, aiming to create a digital experience that mirrors the organic and unpredictable nature of a tabletop campaign.
Bodegård's goal for Esoteric Ebb was to answer the question of "how do you write good choices?" A central tenet for any DM, this challenge is met in the game by ensuring that player decisions feel organic and impactful. The game does not shy away from failure, a concept Bodegård directly links to his D&D experience. "As a DM, you can kill a player character, but you have to do it in a way that every single player at the table... enjoys it," he explained. This philosophy extends to Esoteric Ebb, where failure is designed not as a dead end, but as a meaningful continuation of the narrative. Players are given agency, even to enter deadly areas early on, but with the understanding that consequences will follow, much like a DM calibrating lethality during "session zero."
The intricate world of Esoteric Ebb, known as Jor or the Esoteric Coast, also originates from Bodegård's personal D&D campaigns, including those he titled "The Evil Campaign" and the "Pest Control Guild Campaign." Characters and elements from these tabletop adventures have been integrated into the game, with Bodegård collaborating with friends to ensure authentic representation of their characters. The world's design principle, "anything can exist in it," stems from the lore-consistent integration of portals from other worlds, allowing for a wide range of fantasy tropes.
Bodegård's approach to worldbuilding prioritizes mechanics, with lore developed to support them. An example is the travel system in Jor, where sparsely populated areas "contract" and become unstable, causing time and space to behave erratically. This mechanic mirrors how DMs often handle travel in D&D, either by fast-forwarding narration or by rolling for random encounters to simulate time dilation. This integration of mechanics and lore creates a dynamic and believable world.
Despite the game's limited map and fixed ending, Esoteric Ebb avoids railroading due to Bodegård's DM experience. He embraces a "no prep" approach, a philosophy advocated by Mike Shea of The Lazy Dungeon Master, which encourages building the world on the fly based on player actions. This contrasts with meticulously planned settings that can sometimes lead to restrictive gameplay.
Bodegård's inspiration for Esoteric Ebb initially began as an attempt to create a spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment, a game heavily influenced by the D&D setting of Planescape. His favorite D&D adventure module is 2e's Dead Gods by Monte Cook. Bodegård continues to play D&D, even developing his own homebrewed version of 5E he calls "esoteric 5E." He also plans to adapt the world of Jor into a full D&D campaign setting, offering a deep and fascinating world for players to explore both in video games and at the tabletop.