I'm thrilled to announce that we just delivered our files to the printer to kick off the open beta period, and we're bringing back our popular livestream series once again!
We'll be hosting an open beta pre-release livestream on February 1, where we'll be taking your questions about the deck and giving a rare behind-the-scenes look at the development process. I'll be cracking open my personal journals to show you how we grew from the first inklings of this project (an impromptu notebook brainstorm in the middle of a board gaming session) into a 3,750-backer project on the frontpage of BackerKit.
Let us know what questions you want answered in the livestream in the comments below!
The open beta will be delivered via BackerKit digital download to every backer or preorder customer who pledged for a PDF or physical copy of the main deck.
Backers can still update or upgrade their pledges to gain access to the open beta of the main deck. Just check your final pledge contents to see if they include the PDF of Lore Master's Deck.
Or if you didn't back the campaign, now's your chance to place a preorder via our preorder store!
Visit our preorder store for Lore Master's Deck and more!
We'll also be clicking "Distribute" to send out the beta live on February 8, followed by some live lore-weaving powered by your choices in chat.
One minor change I didn't talk about during our previous BTS update: we renamed the Trait cards.
This wasn't an easy decision. It turns out that it's a bit of a funny one, though.
We got some helpful beta feedback from a few people that it was confusing to have some secondary cues labeled as traits while also having a dedicated card type called Traits. A good point! So I did some brainstorming on alternative names.
Trait cards featured one-word descriptors that provide an initial detail for a primary cue of another card type. For example, the Object cue "sword" might suddenly become a "PARASITIC sword." In some cases, the card was providing a trait, but in other cases, it felt more like it was putting a spin on a card.
We spent almost five days going back and forth on the question of whether the new name should be Modifier, Descriptor, or Wildcard. I could tell I was in that deep-in-the-weeds stage of overthinking, but I'm glad we put as much care into the decision as we did.
In the end, we went with Modifier. The new name avoids confusing references to other cues labeled as traits, and also highlights how these cards modify or put a new spin on other cards. Even now, Modifier continues to feel like the right decision, and the new name has helped me think about the utility of this card type in new ways.
But get this: a week after we decided on the name Modifier, I rediscovered my old development journals for Lore Master's Deck (from before it was even called Lore Master's Deck).
I found my earliest card-type brainstorming notes.
It turns out that I wrote down "Modifier" right at the beginning of this project and forgot.
One of my Lore Master's Deck brainstorming notebooks.
An early concepting brainstorm that included Modifier. I cross my notes out when I transcribe them so I don't accidentally double-transcribe them later. Strongholds later turned into Locations. Resources turned into Materials. Species turned into Creatures. Artifacts turned into Objects. Modifiers turned into Traits, which turned back into Modifiers.
I also found a different notebook with the first brainstorm that turned into the prototype for the Creatures deck that turned into the seed for the entire Lore Master's project, but that's a story I'll save for the Feb 1 livestream!
It's funny how things come full circle.
Thanks so much, and hope to see you on the livestream!
