>been a factory wagie for almost 6 years now
>look at old dungeons I drew where each room i had a whole cool idea for
>I would make a 100 room dungeon in like 3 hours and have interesting treasure and stuff
>world building i would have cool ideas for too
>had world building docs with pictures for campaigns I only ran one session of
>now I struggle to keep up with running a campaign, took me 6 months to put together a campaign that I would have had done in a week when I was a NEET
>not even that I don't have time I just have no creative energy
>don't sleep enough because of dogshit shifts
>go to the same place every day
I turned 31 and I'm curious if this degradation of your soul and imagination is just part of life. I've considered going NEET because I can't have a family anyway. But I don't know if it will do anything to heal me.

>>95780509 (OP)
Jesus Christ anon get a new job. Gaming isn't worth being a drain on society for, and frankly you wouldn't deserve it if it was. Go and improve yourself, get a job that doesn't kill your soul, and you'll get your creativity back.

Also, do you maybe think your lack of creative drive is to do with A) you saying all you have to say on the topic of fantasy gaming and B) you not being in your early twenties any more?

>don't sleep enough
'nuff said.

>>95780509 (OP)
I swear I've seen this thread before. why do you do this?

>>95780576
This. Solve sleep deprivation and then re-evaluate.

>>95780509 (OP)
I'm not sure how to help you here, but I feel like I have to try.

Go with the "Fallout route" I mean this in the sense that your best bet is to just take from a lot of sources what you think is cool.
I remember this video lamenting why Fallout isn't Fallout, but at 3:09 in the video the narrator describes the sources of inspiration the Fallout team took to create Fallout.
https://youtu.be/amtsN-NRqwM?t=188

Basically be a "media sponge" and take what you think is cool and mix everything up as if taking different ingredients to make a nice cocktail.
I hope it helps you somehow, OP.

>>95780602
I try to be a media sponge but unfortunately I don't have a lot of time to consoom media. I can listen to earbuds at work though. Any suggestions for what would inspire me? Listened to most of Lovecraft as audiobooks, including some I'd actually read before.

>>95780582
>>95780576
Is there any hope to reverse the damage after 6 years of it?

>>95780635
>Any suggestions for what would inspire me?
>Listened to most of Lovecraft as audiobooks
I'm not sure about suggesting anything specific, but basically if you like a genre or a theme or a specific thing that can be listened to as an audiobook then I'd go for it. Especially when the narrator has a good voice.
>I don't have a lot of time to consoom mediav
I know that feel bro.

>>95780550
>Also, do you maybe think your lack of creative drive is to do with A) you saying all you have to say on the topic of fantasy gaming and B) you not being in your early twenties any more?
It's probably the latter. All I have left is a handful of creative projects that I'm trying to exploit for shekels. Whereas my most successful project, that I could have exploited for shekels when I was much poorer and part-time, I never bothered to. Now I've made as much money in 2 years as I would in 2 hours at my regular job. What is the point? I lost the motivation to create for the joy of it. At least that's meant that I work on projects I never would have without a profit motive, which is good for trying something new, but it also means my mindset has so fundamentally shifted that I'm probably permanently broken.

Can't really relate on the creativity part even if I do relate on the job part. While I'm at work or in the gym I keep thinking about gaming ideas, write down blurbs for character archetypes or worldbuilding, scenes and the like, I read books during lunch, watch videos of movies and games to get some visual inspiration. . I can hit 60 hours per week with no free day and I'm turning 40, you can do it too anon.
Don't give up, get a nice, long vacation and try to sleep more. The real trouble will be putting people in your same situation around a fucking table. Or you give up and start playing with younger folks.

You, specifically (You), will NEVER get your imagination back.
It's divine punishment for spamming the board.

>>95780635
>I try to be a media sponge
That's part of the problem. Consooming is a very unbalanced spiritual diet. Go outside. I'm not saying "touch grass" (which may or may not help), but look at things. Look at people. Try to see details. Understand things. Ask about things. Try something you normally don't do. Do something very differently to what you normally do.

>>95780509 (OP)
Not for retards that are unable or unwilling to change anything, no. And as this is about the hundredth time you've made this thread, and received the same advice, that includes you.
Fuck off already.

>>95780509 (OP)
Actually focus on improving yourself instead of whining that you aren't a kid anymore and you'll find life a lot more satisfying.

>>95780698
>OP talks to himself
lol

>>95780635
>reversing the damage
Yeah, sleep deprivation is like malnutrition; when you solve the cause the symptoms abate. It cant make you retroactively have run a campaign, but a month with proper sleep will cure most what ails ya. Start working shifts that let you sleep properly, whether night or day, as long as you get enough hours to not feel fatigued. If you can't work those shifts in your current job, look for another. If you can't find another job, consider the cost-benefit of unemployment, if you can't bear that cost weep and curse the gods.

If issues with creativity persist, consult a doctor. Lack of creativity, poor sleep, feelings of dread or gloom; these are pretty standard symptoms of mild depression.

>>95780680
>creative projects that I'm trying to exploit for shekels
Ah, here's the problem. You're wondering why sex feels bad nowadays while you're working as a prostitute.

I’m not sure if it is allowed to be said on this board, as I don’t know if it is legal in USA or not.. but you could try LSD. Sometimes (always) our brain finds the most effective pathways of thought it learns to love. Over time those pathways become jaded, and stepping out of their boundaries becomes impossible. You become blind to your own subjectivity, and think you objectively have no other choice. Psychedelic drugs toss you out of those pathways, and force you to witness all the choices you actually have. It forces you to face your own subjective and limited mindset.
You could change the direction of your life in one day.

>>95780509 (OP)
Imagination only works if you exercise it.

>>95781162
This, but also a bit of what other anons were saying: you need to exercise your creativity, but you also need to FEED your creativity. You never imagine anything from nothing, you need something that inspires you. Multiple things that inspire you, really, otherwise you are just basically copying one single source of inspiration.
If you want to be creative, you need to consume a healthy diet of sources of the things that you want to inspire you to create. For some people, thats as basic as just watching fantasy media to get inspired to do your own fantasy stories. For others, that means reading up on history or alchemy or the like to inspire you with nonfictional sources.
But everyone who wants to create something has to make their creations OUT of something, and you only get the materials for that bu consuming new ideas and concepts. If you stop ingesting new ideas or new information, your creativity can only stagnate and starve.

>>95780913
Elegantly put. Big This.

>>95780795
>be spammer
>shit up the board
>even your own inner voice starts shitposting at you

>>95780635
Unironically take a hike

>OP tries to inflict the same kind of malaise depression shitposts on /tg/ that other loser spammers keep flooding the other boards with
The fuck is wrong with these losers.

>>95781333
Misery love company, and depression loves an audience. Like someone who sits in the corner of the room performatively sighing waiting for someone to ask them whats wrong/how their day has been so that they have an excuse to vent, but they will never bring it up themselves until they have baited someone into prompting them for it.

>>95781353
It was rhetorical.

>>95781432
That's okay, so am I.

>>95780762
I go hiking all the time. Did a long bike ride this weekend. Doesn't help. My mind is all jsut one steady hum.

>>95780913
>>95781233
I only started doing that because I lost interest in all my other creative projects.

>>95780509 (OP)
I'm in the same position. 19, work full time and doing 18 credit hours in college 3 semesters a year. I feel like I was a completely different person back then, I had boundless ideas and could make whole characters and environments off the cuff. Now I just feel exhausted constantly, can't sleep for more than 4 hours, and don't know what to do when I'm running the game. I want to hope that it'll get better for the both of us eventually.

>>95780509 (OP)
Fuck off wojakshitter.
Drink bleach and just die

>>95781599
And how much of that time do you spend obsessing over the idea that you’re trapped and you hate your life?

>>95780509 (OP)
I'm 33 and my imagination about going on adventures and fighting dragons and saving the kingdom is the same as it was when I was a child playing Dragon Warrior on the NES.

Maybe you really should just end it since you clearly incapable of doing anything to improve your situation aside from spamming this thread over and over.

>>95781854
Good luck man I hope it does.

>>95781860
Drinking bleach won't kill me.

>>95781889
I try not to. I try to think of cool adventure ideas. Even just taking inspiration from the forest around me. I get some things but my mind just feels empty.

>>95781919
What is your job / life like? Are you married? Any children? What hobbies do you have outside of /tg/?

>>95780509 (OP)
Skill issue.

>>95782602
Not him, but
>job
Working 55-hour weeks for the entirety of June because it’s one of our three busy seasons. I cook most nights and do a lot of the cleaning around the house. Right now, I have a lot of other overhead because we’re in the process of buying a new house.
>married
For ten years as of this past Saturday. We went to the ballet, which was doing Don Quixote.
>children
No, though the new house might have enough space that we revisit the conversation. For now, it’s just one geriatric dog.
>hobbies outside of /tg/
That depends on what your cutoff for “hobbies” is. I read a lot and watch Taiwanese puppetry, maybe go to the opera every once in a while. I used to play a lot of video games, but sort of fell off of that over the years. It’s just not as rewarding as /tg/ activities.

>>95783179
Maybe I need to read more.
I do cook for myself, no goyslop.
55 hours is a lot. If you are still able to run a tabletop RPG game and have a torrent of "original" content for it that isn't just directly ripping off elden ring, then maybe >>95783104 is right and I just need to find new ways to cope.

>>95784244
Yes, I run 8-hour sessions for a campaign that’s been running for three and a half years.
>elden ring
Never played it. I’m vaguely aware of it, but I’m too busy running a game to invest the time to learn enough about it to rip it off.

>>95780762
>>95781599
I do find my best ideas for stories and worlds come from my long runs. It started as a way to zone out from the pain of the run but now I have some of my most profound thoughts when clocking in miles. I think its just the lack of attention grabbing stimuli combined with a ever changing scenery, gets you into a creative headspace

>>95784264
What system and genre? Just curious.

>>95784614
Yeah runners high is probably an altered mental state that fuels creativity.
I think I'm just too burnt out to get anything out of it.

>>95780509 (OP)
Read and go outside. Take time to read fiction. Preferably actual literature rather than genre fodder, but genre fodder is better than nothing. And take some time off to go for a hike, or kayaking, or take a trip on a train. Those two things will bring a desire for adventure back. Oh and fall in love with someone.

>>95781353
So you're saying we've got our own version of the edgy hooded rogue on the board

Unironically do a little weed, it makes you more stupid but also more easily entertained

>>95780509 (OP)
That's called severe exhaustion
I know because I have it
>t. 26, surprise burnout at 19 yo, still recovering but life doesn't want me to, been in the same boat since

It gets better, but you have to start surgically cut off the bad influences on your life

>>95788240
What if I do those things and I still feel numb and dead inside? All I got from falling in love was a vague desire to write le epic liminal spaces 90s nostalgia tomboy manic pixie girl novel.

>>95793013
Get the fuck off 4chan. You're clearly wallowing instead of improving yourself, and the influence that this place has on you is clear to see from your vocabulary and choice of images. This place is one of the most unhealthy habits you can have, especially if you don't have outside social influences to ground you.

>>95780509 (OP)
It never left, but I'm a manchild/psychodelic user and a looser geek to 99.9% of women save my wife and daughter.

>>95793431
How did you meet her?

Its called depression and you have it. Depression has pretty well measurable effects on cognitive and memory performance. "Creativity" is basically just your memory being clear enough and your higher cognitive functions being quick enough to mold something new out of it while "holding" the picture.
With depression and brain fog that wont work.

>>95780509 (OP)
Nothing will help except ending your life.

>>95780635
Listen to Titus Groan

>>95780509 (OP)
GET A NEW JOB! Get some sleep, touch grass, and lift heavy things till the sad feeling goes away. Then once you're refreshed, wander a park a bit, and finished lifting shit so you don't feel so bad. Try again, and keep doing it till you feel better. Simple

>>95780509 (OP)
Your depressed.
Seek help or stop being a pussy.
Eat some vegetables.
Stop gorging on sugar.
Clean your room.
Take a shower.
Stop your habitual masturbating.

>>95793331
This anon is correct.

>>95780680
Learn to create for yourself, not for anyone else, an audience or for the promise of money. Someday you will learn to create out of joy rather than fear. I believe in you

>>95780635
Do the opposite. Take the earbuds out.I work a similar job, where I drive tractors in a straight line all day. I find the best way to get my brain going is boredom. You don't need to add anything to your head, your head has great ideas already. Just let yourself have some time to process all the thoughts.

>>95801064
Yeah I used to do that. Wagecucking realigned my brain. That's the problem. Everything has to be a side hustle or a potential side hustle. At least now I'm trying new things.

Imagination should never just go away, at least for something so simple as RPGs.

>>95781854
>9, work full time and doing 18 credit hours in college 3 semesters a year
>Now I just feel exhausted constantly, can't sleep for more than 4 hours
Gee anon, maybe you'd get more sleep if you weren't taking 18 course hours while working a full time job? 12 course hours is considered full time. Cut your schooling back to that and you'll at least be able to sleep.

>>95807875
to add on to this, you're 19, you have time to slow roll college. If you were 28 I could see panicking a little.

>>95807892
The rule I have seen is that your fine to just kinda dick around in life till around 25. AT that point your expected to locked into a path whether that be college or work, mainly because all of the frontrunners in getting everything done are moving on with their lives and won't tolerate you couch surfing nor have the time to hang unless they are the most burned of burnouts or NEETs.
So you don't have to be there, but you got to have some form of respectability after that point.

>>95804692
>Wagecucking realigned my brain. That's the problem. Everything has to be a side hustle or a potential side hustle
No, that's just you. Fix your life, stop being stressed about money and then you can do things just for fun.

>>95804872
What do you mean? RPGs aren't that simple. What's so much harder than them that requires imagination, besides actual technological advancement or hardcore artistic masterpieces?

>>95804692
>Everything has to be a side hustle or a potential side hustle.
It really doesn’t. Out of college, I got a job with a temp agency, nothing to do with what I’d spent the last four years doing and no longterm prospects at any given placement. I’m now making $40 an hour in a comfortable office job that has me as a crucial part of the company. It’s not a lot, but it’s more than enough to live on, and I still devote over a dozen unpaid hours to preparing each session I run. I don’t need to be paid for things I care about.

>>95809657
Well no I don't ever expect to be paid for my DnD session prep. But everything else i feel that subtle pressure to make money from it somehow.

>>95780509 (OP)
>warehouse wagie
>spend all day daydreaming about my setting
>>95780635
>I can listen to earbuds at work though.
Stop that.
That's what is killing your imagination.
You can listen to podcasts/ music while you work, OR you can let your mind wander. You can't really do both.

>>95809705
Well, that’s retarded of you.

>>95809738
>You can listen to podcasts/ music while you work, OR you can let your mind wander. You can't really do both.
Podcasts, sure, no argument there. But music? I’ve had some of my best ideas while listening to music—if anything, it sets my mind wandering.

>>95810093
How do I stop being retarded? I don't even make any money from my hobbies. The most I've made is like 100 dollars. But I still feel the need to be prodooocing something for other people to consooom outside of work.

>>95810115
>ooo
Well, stop this shit, to start with. The more you try to reduce everything to memetic talking points, the more you’re going to be trapped by reductionist viewpoints.

>>95809533

This is what /tg/ actually thinks about creativity

>>95810371
So you're not going to answer the question? Jsut make a grandstanding meme response you can post on /4chan/ for some upvotes?

I have a method to find inspiration, I call it the diarrhea method
The idea is to intentionally write just about any shitty idea that comes through your mind, exploit every single thought you have, including the weirdest, dumbest concepts a human mind could ever come up with. Quantity over quality.
Eventually in this flow of bad ideas you will "get" the right approach again and start imagining engaging stuff
Also remember the different types of conflict that actually helps a bit

>>95810098
Personally music is almost hellish for me because I can't mentally dissociate while I'm working; If I'm listening to something I know I'm always perfectly keyed in to exactly how much time has passed. Whereas if I'm just listening to the sound of machinery an hour can feel like five minutes.

>>95810564
>If I'm listening to something I know I'm always perfectly keyed in to exactly how much time has passed.
That’s so utterly bizarre to me. I can start listening to Das Rheingold and later belatedly realize that I somehow got to Götterdämmerung without noticing.

>>95810464

There is nothing to answer. If you think that RPGs are "difficult", you simply don't know creative endeavours or can't do them (and that's something you experience, not that you're briefed about).

Not everyone can, but don't make judgement on shit that you can't get into.

>>95780509 (OP)
I've seen you make this thread, what, five times now? Spaced out by months. Jesus, you're making me depressed. I'm begging you to quit your shitty wagie job and do something else with life, or at least get more sleep. The level of human misery is actually sad, it's genuinely bumming me out to see you in the same rut every fucking year. PLEASE change your one life, anon. Fuck.

>>95810749
>you simply don't know creative endeavours or can't do them (and that's something you experience, not that you're briefed about).
What is a creative endeavour in your mind and why is your definition so special?

Reading books is a way to jumpstart it back up a little. I bet you stopped doing that long ago.

>>95812588
Yeah I feel the urge to cram my free time with productive things. I've not been bored in a long time. When I am I don't have the mental energy for a book, to really enjoy it. I do still read books a bit. But alsos audiobooks at work. Some.books I'm avoiding because I don't want to "ruin" my first experience with them by listening to them. But it was good for Lovecraft at least since his writing is a bit dense. Listening helped keep me from skipping over words.

>>95780509 (OP)
It does, yes.
Go outside and take a breath.

>>95780509 (OP)
Wageslavery consumes everything yes.

>>95812607
>I feel the urge to cram my free time with productive things
Stop doing that, and start getting more sleep. You’re burning yourself out, but that actually has relatively little to do with your job—the real issue is that you aren’t letting yourself unwind.

>>95780509 (OP)
Stop trying to force it. Maybe you gave all you had to give which is fine. Focus on irl instead for a while. Maybe some day you will be fired up again for the hobby, or maybe not. Just let it go and fix RL. Let somebody else DM, or try a different system, or dont play at all. Become something else.

Also accept, you will never be a permanent NEET. You dont have an inheritance of millions and you dont live in a place where you can be happy off of welfare. Homelessness or a dead-end job are the final form of NEETdom. Instead of being a NEET, look around and see what other jobs are available that will allow you to have a more natural rhythm to life. Take a class or get a certification if necessary. Become something else.

Stop consuming fantasy media. Stop watching movies that tie into the TTRPG space. Stop playing video games. Listen to public radio instead.. or watch some TED talks... go fishing. Become something else.

>>95818428
The problem is that if I take a break from TTRPGs I'll lose those groups. And I'm past the age where it's easy to find new ones.

Sorry anon no, that's it, it will never return, changing jobs or quitting won't make a difference, that's it, it's like playing with toys when you where a kid, you grow out of things, it will get worse

>>95780635
>>95780680
>>95781182

Submit to Christ. That spiritual healing and connection will improve the artistic side of your head.

>>95822693
Fuck.
How do so many boomers still love TTRPGs then?
My deepest fear is that you're right.

>>95822717
I read the entire bible and I've tried to pray but it doesn't work for me. How do I do this?

>>95825916
Those are retards
>>95822717
t spiritual jew

>>95825916
>How do I do this?

See
>>95808317
>>95812669
>>95813074

The more you obsess over materialism, status, and productivity, the harder it is to accept Christ.

>>95821593
Wasn’t your original plan to live out of your car and run games for random, anyway?

>>95826052
I was thinking it was this guy again, I was waiting for the living in a car shit to come up.

>>95780509 (OP)
Stop watching short form videos
Read
Go camping
Go hiking
Get in a fight
Go sailing
Get off the internet

how is this thread still going?
this was /thread: >>95781860
you are all so sad

>>95810564
autism

>>95827004
The vain fucking hope that we might be able to help this man be less of a shitter

>>95800986
I eat vegetables every day. Did nöfäp for 2 months. I shower almost every day. Probably should eat a bit less sugar but I don't eat that much. Something is still missing, some spark that used to be there.

>>95811538
>I'm begging you to quit your shitty wagie job and do something else with life
I just don't know what to do. I'm 30+ and live with mommy. My shitty job is all I have. Lrn2code got btfo. Self teaching math or law seems like an absolute pipe dream.

My creativity is better than ever but I refuse to use it because I'm lazy.

>>95780509 (OP)
try 5-htp, it is legal supplement.
I started to have dreams again after that

>>95827767
Get some sleep you retard. Stop staying up so late just to spite your employer—it’s hurting you more than him.

>>95831351
I waste as much time in the bathroom as possible.
I'm still getting promoted next week.

>>95831272
How much does it cost per month roughly?

>>95831590
You’re missing the point. Sleep more. You’ve admitted previously that you push yourself to stay awake longer because you’re mad that you have to spend as much time working as you do. That behavior is what’s fucking you over.

>>95780509 (OP)
>Waaaaaah I don't have creativity anymore. Also I obviously am deeply depressed!
You should probably do something about your deep depression.
>Nooooooo I've tried nothing and it isn't working!

These threads are dumb.

>>95780509 (OP)
Creativity is a muscle that you need to keep training.

>>95780509 (OP)
>I can't have a family anyway
Familyman here. Two kids and a wife. Relish your freedom.

>>95788240
Bad advice. Literature is the most alienating thing on this shitty earth. Reading books made me feel more than I've ever felt interacting with anybody in real life and left me feeling more desire to connect than ever, except all the people I connected with are hundred-years-dead authors

>>95836846
Yeah just got laid off actually so I will have a lot more thinking to do.
The urge to stay NEET, run games, try to expand my DriveThru business, is tempting. Even if it's a complete joke.

>>95796781
I raped her.

>>95822717
Fuck off christcuck

>>95780509 (OP)
Use AI, anyway creativity is dead.

>>95780580
He's been posting this for nearly a year and will ignore any advice posted here

>>95780580
He probably want to read people that feels like him or wost because schadenfreude.

>>95844702
I've been using ChatGPT to come up with stuff for my campaign and it makes me want to kill myself. At least I'll be unemployed soon. How long as a NEET with proper sleep will it take tor recover my soul?

>>95780509 (OP)
Despite 18 years of working as an official in Russian government my imagination is still good, in fact better than in my childhood and youth. Not sure about the soul. It's more difficult to force myself to prepare for a game than ever. For the last several years I usually start preparing for the next session just several hours before its start. I come up with general ideas, write a couple of stat blocks and just improvise everything else - fortunately I tried running some PbtA games and it was good for my improvisation skills.. Everyone likes it but I know I could do much, much better.

>>95850960
Well, yeah, you're constantly having to come up with spin and justifications. That's a creative endeavor.

>>95850960
>fortunately I tried running some PbtA games and it was good for my improvisation skills..
I like Apocalypse World just for the aesthetic and evocative flavortext but I don't know if I could run it now.

>>95844741
I just want to hear if someone has ever recovered their GMing spark after wagecucking destroyed it.