I thought I’d start a thread to talk about Hex Flower Game Engines.
I made a guide (Hex Flower Cookbook) about these that can be found here:
Basically, if you have not seen these Hex Flowers before, they are like a random table, but with a ‘memory’.
That is, the last result has an affect on the next result.
I’ve made quite a few of these, and other have too. To get a flavor please see my blog:
I’m very interested in hearing your ideas, thoughts and feedback!!
:O)
I understand the probability curve, but am too lazy to plot it myself, do you have a visual representation of the probabilities of 2d6 mapped onto the hex flower? Obviously, I can do it myself, but anyway, it seems like something which would be useful for users 
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Also, can you talk more about what you mean about the “memory”? I get that, because of how the probability distribution pulls you down and left, while also having the wildcard/chaotic leap, means that from any given position, I could sort of guess (or “remember”) how I got there, but it’s still very probabilistic. Is that all you mean by “memory”, or is there something I’m missing?
I’ve always liked the idea of these but never actually had the need to use one. I think exploring an uncharted ocean is a good spot for it as the eventual destination will eventually he reached due to probability and you don’t ever get the se result twice in a row. You can also have similar things next to each other.
I think weather is another good example.
I made pretty much made that exact thing for last year’s One Page Dungeon Contest:
:O)
Probability on these things is dependent on the rules set up for the ‘Navigation Hex’. Also, the long term ‘steady state’ can be misleading due to strong effect of the start point and number iterations per mini-game. I covered this here:
:O)
‘Memory’ mainly relates to how the next hex depends on the last hex. So, in my terrain hex flower (below) you can not go from ‘mountains’ to ‘plains’ because all round the ‘mountain’ hex there are ‘hills’. So, to that effect the last result reaches through to the next result.
In a more traditional random table getting plains after mountains (or heat wave after blizzard) is possible because the results are independent.
The fact that mountains are at the top of the HF and plains are at the bottom of the HF is a way to favor plains over mountains, because the navigation hex has 12 at the top and 6,7 are at the bottom. So the global trend is downward!
The ‘edge rules’ are to introduce a chaotic element, so things do not become too ‘samey’. That’s because sometimes things do not always have a smooth transition.
Yes it’s still probabilistic, but from any given hex you can only get to any neighboring hex / available edges, and from any of those preceding steps, there are a limited ways you could have gotten there. Ok, ya I guess that’s basically what I was saying, but from your phrasing I understand what you mean now.
Yes, true. There is a legacy!
The next hex is directly dependent on the last hex, and so to that extent the one after the next will be influenced by the present hex. The ‘legacy’ effect weakens the more interactions you move out from the present hex …
Ah I missed before this graph, but ya, I wasn’t thinking about the rules for the navigation hex, nor how the starting point affects the distribution (although that’s basically just some kind of “slide rule” then, right?), nor had I considered the iterations (although I think that would be the same slide rule logic).
