After cooling down a bit I wanted to say that even though I complained a good amount, I can see what you're going for with a pure discovery game. And due to that, suddenly jumping into that kind of game can be off putting if not in the right head space. Taking a couple attempts to really get it. Though, perhaps you could onboard with a simpler scenario to ease in gameplay elements.
> explanation of stats
Okay that makes sense I guess. Typically ranges are shown as '3-6', and mult would be '.25x-1.3x', though I can understand why not as it makes the stat display wider. However, if you can't make it more obvious that is the range, then I don't know if that's a worthy trade off(for one who learns purely from playing). Another way to make it more obvious is actually displaying what is rolled somewhere, like the end turn event screen or above the event card area.
Also regarding drama cards only affecting the card to the left, you could add a graphic that binds those two cards together so it's more clear, or use arrows. Here's my artistic rendition of that, ie bookish style on left, arrow on right.
