LOW - Update on RC1 & Creative Burnout Musings

[@optomix3988]

I am glad that you are back. Family first. There will be time. Burn out is real.

[@bluebotic2327]

Thanks! Yeah, there's always some new fire to put out. But that's life. And I always have the creative work to come back to.

[@KellyBC]

Glad to see you back! Divine Right has a facebook group that plays fairly often online. Plus the map for Divine Right is just great!

[@ironartur]

Wow those "land tiles" look incredible. I love land hex crawls

[@bluebotic2327]

Hey thanks. I’ve probably been obsessed with making an overland adventure game longer than I’ve been obsessed with making a dungeon crawl. But for some reason it seems harder. So I committed to the dungeon crawl first. But I’d love to come back to the overland adventure game at some point.

[@AndrewSFTSN]

Getting Rothko-pilled! Burnout has been real for me in the last 6 months, disconnecting from certain things and recognising certain voices on the internet for what they are - just some disconnected voices on the internet - has been helping a little, but I still haven't cracked the code on using my creative output as a way to play/relax instead of just my job. All opinions on the internet should be viewed as mostly noise, including this one. Good gift with Divine Right - just steer clear of what's/who's going on with the rights for it these days, what a fuckin' mess. Great game in the original form though.

[@bluebotic2327]

Yeah, I took the giant square pill! Yes, many, many disconnected voices and noise on the internet! Myself included. I posed a hypothetical experiment to my wife the other day: should I take a year off of the internet (after LOW ships)? Keep e-mail and text, but stop web browsing and social media (I'm already down to just youtube and strava). She said: no, don't do it. But that is the internal conversation I've been having lately...a desire to eliminate noise. What would I do. How would I spend my creative free time. What would I make? She thinks I underestimate how important my virtual remote friendships and community are. I think she's probably right. I tried to research what you were referring to with Divine Right and found a blurb about it on Wikipedia. I was unaware that the game was currently being redeveloped. Or maybe you'd told me when I first talked about it a while back and I'd forgotten. It doesn't surprise me that someone has swooped in right about now to procure that title/IP for ideological purposes.

[@AndrewSFTSN]

It's a toughie. I put my art portfolio instagram on hiatus a few weeks back and while I haven't been noticeably more 'productive' (almost certainly an unhelpful way to think about it anyway) the extra level of internal quiet and better sleep has been welcome. I'll try and drop you an email before the year' s out! @@bluebotic2327

[@nightbirdgames]

Welcome back, and sorry to hear about you father in-law, hope all is well. Yeah burnout is killer for sure. Feeling burnout makes me feel lazy tbh, like I'm just not working hard enough, its tricky that way. The realm crawl you sketched up looks interesting, would love to see more when and if you decide to move with it. I recommend watching RPG Overviews (channel name) if you wanted to see how other games layout and format their rules. www.youtube.com/@RPGOverviews

[@bluebotic2327]

Thanks for the link! I've seen that channel a couple times, but will dig in more. Yeah, burnout is fascinating. I'm always trying to decode it. Do I need to broaden the scope of my day-to-day, or spend less time on the thing that is burning me out, or more time, or do a total reset, or just take a breather, spend more time outdoors, etc.

[@allluckyseven]

Thanks for showing more of your sketchbook! I love seeing all the ideas that you've put down. Those tiles on them look super cool, and I have to say... I think they would look great with ink linework + watercolors. And I really really admire your creativity and design sensibilities. Those Keep/Tower/Temple/etc. icons look so good (and super clean and clear). On the 12:00 mark... Bottom right corner has something that I've been thinking about lately: "d10" - It could be interesting to use a wider range of results for a game similar to LOW (or, hey, maybe for an expansion with more powerful heroes & monsters? not sure.) "MR 2d6 HIGH" I don't know what MR means (Monster Rolls?), but another type of roll that would be cool to see would be that of rolling 2 dice and taking the highest, rolling 2 and taking the low-est, and maybe rolling just one die too, depending if something in the game puts you in a position of advantage, disadvantage, or even ground. Sort of what D&D does with its Advantage/Disadvantage system, but I think I've seen that elsewhere too.

[@bluebotic2327]

MR stands for Magic Realm. I like how MR uses '2d6 and take the highest result' for almost every roll in the game. Its different than the advantage/disadvantage of D&D. It allows for several different outcome sizes/ranges on a single roll. A single roll can determine a result that is as likely as 30% to happen or as unlikely as like 2% to happen. and several buckets in between. Very simple yet powerful. I could see building an entire combat or skill test system around it. And it could even be 2D10 High, etc. Like, the most likely outcome of your Great Sword would require rolling a 6 (30% chance of that happening, not 1/6). And the least likely most crazy outcome would require a result of 1 (only a 2% chance of this thing occurring). There's a nice non-linear outcome graph that can be programmed to fit any narrative.

[@bluebotic2327]

I should add that I also really like the D&D advantage/disadvantage system too. It’s probably the one really cool 5th edition improvement.

[@allluckyseven]

@@bluebotic2327Oh, Magic Realm, of course! I never played it so I don't know the rules, but I should've guessed it was that game.

[@bluebotic2327]

@@allluckyseven ha. Yeah. It was just a reminder to myself not to forget about such dice systems. Not sure I’d go that way if I ever make a second game, but I don’t want to forget that I think it’s kinda cool. Polyhedral dice could be the most ‘fun’. Like, if I just embraced the whole set.

[@allluckyseven]

@@bluebotic2327 The whole set? Whoa, that could get real complicated, depending on your approach. It's cool to mix and match dice, like, having one die for your ability, and another for your weapon or a tool or something. But if you want to take the LOW approach of using a single die, you could have each Skill be rated as one die type. (Savage Worlds sort of does this kind of thing as well, but IIRC you would roll 3 dice: one for your attribute, one for your skill and another one... for... something else.)

[@johnmiddleton4291]

The father in law situation sucks. I helped my parents with a similar move for my mom's mother several years ago and it was a chaotic mess. The cost of retirement homes is absolutely insane on top of it all. Hope that all gets better. I'm a bit lost now on what is in an what isn't for testing. I haven't really had any issues doing a couple of games with the split combat phase and the newer monster cards. I have heavy doubts about the campaign system still though. It really feels a bit lacking. I tried a sandbox mode and only got a few delves in before it petered out. It just wasn't focused towards any goals to concentrate on. You should find a copy of Dragon Pass from Avalon Hill or even the old Chaosium version. You'd like it. BTW, Emperors of Eternal Evil are doing a reprint of Cave Evil and collecting preorders now. That game is amazing and very different.

[@bluebotic2327]

Do you own a Cave Evil? I saw that they were reprinting it. I should buy it just to support them. I need them to exist and keep making games. Dragon Pass. I’ll check it out. Feel free to email me your thoughts on why the campaign system is broken. I’ll see if there’s anything I can do to address your concerns. It may be that your hopes for campaign play and leveling are just beyond the scope of this core game. If so, hopefully future expansions can build on what I’ve got so far. If it’s just mega broke in every way, then there’s probably nothing I can do fix it. The testing is mostly as it’s been. No specific protocol. I can resend you the Google doc with general notes on where it’s at.

[@bluebotic2327]

Also, it’s probably a good time to take a break from testing. I can send you new assets in a week or so and maybe even a new rulebook.

[@johnmiddleton4291]

@@bluebotic2327 Yes, I have second print of Cave Evil and have for years. And all three Cave Packs and Warlords. It's a great game. Those guys are most definitely worth supporting. They have done art books in the past also, and I have several of them.

[@johnmiddleton4291]

@@bluebotic2327 Sounds good. The campaign issues for sandbox and mostly the same issues I have with it in the normal game. I think the xp system doesn't quite work as is. We've talked some about that already. In sandbox, it's the lack of objectives that are missing. Did you ever get those tables made up for sandbox?

[@mtdav78071]

Have you ever seen the Vermis book? They just dropped a second one. That book is idea fuel as well.

[@bluebotic2327]

I just tried to order #2 the other day but it was sold out! But then noticed that the 2nd printing of #1 was in stock so I ordered that instead. They look absolutely amazing. I love the premise and format.

[@huckleberrycarignan9745]

I'm sorry for to hear about your Father in Law

[@bluebotic2327]

Thanks. Yeah, he's just hitting that inevitable moment in life that we all seem to be heading toward sooner or later.