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Post by DMC on Jul 21, 2015 17:02:17 GMT
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Post by friartook on Jul 21, 2015 18:30:07 GMT
I've been feeling some major burnout lately. Now, its summer. Things are busy, group attendance has dropped off to the point where we are lucky if we can make it happen twice in one month. I'm not worried about that, the group is still together, everyone is still excited for the game. Its just that its summer and we are all really busy now. Ironically, meeting less has not relieved the burnout for me. I still have a hard time getting my @$$ in gear to take care of the prep I need. This week, I came in with about 20 minutes of actual game time prepped.
I feel like burnout for me is closely related to boredom. I get bored easily, and I create very large scale campaigns, where it can take months of sessions to get through one piece of it. Where it takes four sessions of setup and ground work before I can even reveal what the next phase is. This is the only way I know how to tell a story (you've likely noticed the average length of my posts...), with all the foreshadowing and dirty details laid out in advance and leading up to big things. Heck, my players don't even remember the hints and foreshadows I drop; I have to recap and remind them all the time. I just can't (won't?) do things any other way.
So, how do I deal with burnout? In a really stupid way: I write a new campaign.
When I get burned out on my current campaign, I start researching and brainstorming a whole new one. This leaves me with a nice store of ideas which can be used in future campaign and often in my current campaign. What it doesn't do, is get my prep done for my current game. Hence the lack of preparedness.
A couple quotes from the article that stuck home with me:
"Burnout happens when the stress and effort of running a game no longer balances out the fun of running the game. No matter what anyone says, running a game is an effort."
So true. Even for a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants DM like me, there's a lot that goes into a session, let alone a full campaign. I used to think that pre-written adventures may help that, but no, I just feel like I'm studying. The only reason we put up with the hassle is love of the actual game.
"Well, I’ll tell you what: I can’t step down. I can’t step away. There won’t be a game. There’s no one in my group really willing and able to take over the task of being the DM for long periods of time."
This is all me and my group. I've got one guy who wants to DM, but hey, guess what? He can't find the time to prep. If I were to step down as DM, I wouldn't get to play nor (more importantly) meet weekly with my friends. I know we could meet and play cards or something (they all do), but part of how I justify leaving the house every Monday at 9:30 PM is the fact that without me, the game won't happen!
"See, burnout is usually not caused by the game itself. It’s usually caused by being stressed and tired in other areas of your life."
The key. I live a crazy busy life: two jobs, three kids, a partner to make a relationship happen with. When DMing becomes just another thing I have to do on the list, its hard to stay excited about it.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jul 21, 2015 19:51:16 GMT
I've never suffered from burn out with the game itself. It's always been a matter of burning out on the players when it happens to me. I think he's spot on about stress management being the key to avoiding and recovering from burn out, though. I'd have a higher tolerance for dip$%@# players if I weren't carrying around other baggage.
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Lekai
Commoner
Posts: 20 
Favorite D&D Class: Rogue
Favorite D&D Race: Human
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Post by Lekai on Jul 21, 2015 23:07:23 GMT
My solution was to create a baseplate 'world' with a few 'hooks' for players to follow through with. This system allows me to write in small 'hooks' for adventures that are overlaid on the top of medium and large 'hooks' that can be ongoing. That way if I get bored I can simply make some new adventure hooks and start threading adventures together without the need for a grand epic storyline that takes forever to fulfill.
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Post by DMC on Jul 22, 2015 13:54:27 GMT
I create very large scale campaigns, where it can take months of sessions to get through one piece of it. Where it takes four sessions of setup and ground work before I can even reveal what the next phase is. This is the only way I know how to tell a story (you've likely noticed the average length of my posts...), with all the foreshadowing and dirty details laid out in advance and leading up to big things. Heck, my players don't even remember the hints and foreshadows I drop; I have to recap and remind them all the time. I just can't (won't?) do things any other way. Sounds like we're on nearly the same page in our approaches. Fast, loose, and on the fly much of the time. I very much believe that being a good DM is absolutely a perishable skill. At least for me personally. My burnout comes in the form of improv decay. What I mean by that is, for example, I ran a game for over 5+ years with the same group. Took them from 1st level in AD&D, converted to 3E in 2000, and we ended up in 3.5 at around 27th level. Our games were weekly, and at any given moment, I was really good about the improv side of things. Like you, my game(s) are usually grandiose in scale and scope. But, when that game finally ended, we kinda drifted apart, and we all took a break for a few years. FFWD to last year when 5E came out, I was (and still am) suuuuuuuuuuper hyped again and the fires of creativity were re-kindled. I've never had a problem with coming up with story elements or content...but where I found I suffered greatly was on-the-fly improvisations. Something I used to excel at when things were week to week. A PC did something unexpected? Whammo, I went with it immediately. However, when we re-started...I felt like I had the deer-in-headlights look on a dozen occasions at least. To the point I was embarrassed and uncomfortable. I excused myself in the guise of a "restroom break" many times to gather my thoughts and come up with something. Not sure if the guys knew or not, but I felt very awkward. I guess the moral of my story here, is that for me, I have to keep doing it, or I seem to lose that ability. I have to get back into that groove. Now, my players are all long-time friends, and I had the talk with them, explaining I was rusty, that I'd need them to buy into some things they might not usually, etc. and they completely understood. Great bunch of guys, so that helped a ton. Actually with 5E, it was less of an issue because most of the time they were focused on the new rules and classes, to worry about what I was doing, so it all worked out well for everyone. Keep on DMing is the point of this post I guess! |
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Post by friartook on Jul 22, 2015 15:02:11 GMT
But, when that game finally ended, we kinda drifted apart, and we all took a break for a few years. FFWD to last year when 5E came out, I was (and still am) suuuuuuuuuuper hyped again and the fires of creativity were re-kindled. I've never had a problem with coming up with story elements or content...but where I found I suffered greatly was on-the-fly improvisations. Something I used to excel at when things were week to week. A PC did something unexpected? Whammo, I went with it immediately. However, when we re-started...I felt like I had the deer-in-headlights look on a dozen occasions at least. To the point I was embarrassed and uncomfortable. I excused myself in the guise of a "restroom break" many times to gather my thoughts and come up with something. Not sure if the guys knew or not, but I felt very awkward. Keep on DMing is the point of this post I guess! So, I went from DMing one or two reluctant friends at the age of about 9-13, then a 20+ year gap, then on to DMing a group of 6 friends who had never played a tabletop RPG before. We now have one member who played some Warhammer, but he wasn't there when I started. I thought I'd start them off with character creation, them move into a pre-written Eberron campaign (this was 3.5, 5e wasn't out at the time, but the playtest was on and I was reading about it). This version of our group crashed and burned. The roster was different every week; people came and went willy-nilly. I didn't have the time for all the "studying" I needed to do in order to keep up with the pre-written adventure. Eventually, the group became bored. Fewer people showed up each week, and they seemed reluctant to play the adventure we were in, even as we were reaching what was supposed to be the climax; a big dungeon crawl through an abandoned Cannith lab. Their characters where all messed up; they tried to do the 3.5 min-max without even knowing what that meant, nor understanding the intricacies of the rules involved. I felt myself losing the group. This was bigger than DM burnout; this was group burnout. I knew the whole thing was going to fall apart if I didn't do something. So I called it. We ended that campaign. Two weeks later, I called the group back together. I brought my 5e PHB, a few quick notes I had made, and 10 characters generated by me, with full backgrounds and back stories that tied into my new, loose homebrew world. I nearly crashed and burned again. Those first few weeks were an America's Funniest Videos montage of RPG absurdity. The guys still hadn't grabbed on to RP, and I hadn't grabbed on to Improvisation. I had everything railroad track planned. The first few times they really through me for a loop, I couldn't do anything but laugh and allow the dominoes to fall. Finally, I got my s*** together and started coming back at them. Oh, you want to use the explosive charge I put in as a plot device on the party of 20+ Lizardfolk I wrote in specifically to take you prisoner? Fine, there's more of them, and they take you prisoner anyway. Oh, you want to mouth off to the Demonic Lizard Queen when she has you in her clutches and you have 1 HP? Fine, she stabs you, make a death save. Oh, the rogue wants to end negotiations by sneakily shooting the big bad in the head while his party tries to talk their way out as I intended? Fine, near TPK. The point is, this was not me "getting back into my improv stride", this was me learning how to improvise, and even learning that I needed to improvise at all. I've been feeling a bit burned out lately, but we just got through two big setup sessions, and they are just about to be very surprised by a (hopefully) very challenging encounter. Then its on to all the lovely plot spins I've laid the groundwork for. We've got a betrayal, an unexpected battle with Demons, a heist, likely a chase as fallout of the heist ('cause you know some innocents are gonna die). And...of course...what the players really want: shopping. Sigh  |
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Post by rorrik on Jul 22, 2015 17:00:16 GMT
The biggest source of burnout for me is the effort it takes to keep getting the group together. I suspect the only thing I can do about this is find a group that really wants to play. The problem is, I want to run all these groups to stay in contact with friends and this make the social effort necessary to do that more palatable. If all I wanted to do is run D&D without stress, I'd deconstruct the groups and take the most interested members to build one group of people who are willing to put forth effort to make sure we all get together. We'll see.
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Samuel Wise
Demigod
Ready to Help...
Posts: 989
Favorite D&D Class: Warlock
Favorite D&D Race: Mousefolk
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Post by Samuel Wise on Jul 22, 2015 17:23:56 GMT
The biggest source of burnout for me is the effort it takes to keep getting the group together. I suspect the only thing I can do about this is find a group that really wants to play. The problem is, I want to run all these groups to stay in contact with friends and this make the social effort necessary to do that more palatable. This, I completely understand. As a new player to the game (and, indeed, a new person to the area in which I live) It is difficult finding people who want to play. Because of this, I mostly (as Rorrik mentioned) play the game with friends who are not a hundred percent interested in playing. Playing with friends is better... if they are fully on board with playing this game. |
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Post by rorrik on Jul 22, 2015 17:28:07 GMT
I'm also in a new area. Eventually I'll get around to dredging up the closet D&D players in my town and then I'll have a solid, local group for pure enjoyment, but in the mean time I'm mostly running games for people I have to work to get together and I just don't get to run as much as I want for the effort I put in.
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Post by Tesla Ranger on Jul 23, 2015 16:10:55 GMT
It's only been an issue in our group a couple of times but so far DM burnout's been our primary reason to switch campaigns. It's a bit melancholy to say goodbye to characters we've been playing (or DMing) for awhile but it generally works out for the best. So far, each campaign's been better than the one before it.
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Post by joatmoniac on Jul 24, 2015 0:14:18 GMT
I burnt out on the pregen adventure I was running because there wasn't much support for it from the company in terms of additional products that would easily elevate the came and make my job as DM easier. I cut it at the half way point and had someone else DM for a one off that they wrote. Someone who had never DM'd before and did an awesome job. Then instead of going back to that module we moved into the current campaign and things are going pretty well. I think that being the event planner (which makes perfect sense because without the DM there is no game) is the hardest part for me as well. I will likely plan for another person to run a one off again at some point to give me a break and plan out more of the adventure.
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Post by dmmadmaxi on Jul 27, 2015 1:40:04 GMT
The biggest source of burnout for me is the effort it takes to keep getting the group together. I suspect the only thing I can do about this is find a group that really wants to play. The problem is, I want to run all these groups to stay in contact with friends and this make the social effort necessary to do that more palatable. If all I wanted to do is run D&D without stress, I'd deconstruct the groups and take the most interested members to build one group of people who are willing to put forth effort to make sure we all get together. We'll see. I remember when I use to think that the online version was much easier. Lately with two players making a few no shows or just being busy and not fitting into the schedule I am really second guessing things! S'all good though. I think once I get back into working up the next session I will be excited again. Plus things are looking up as we may have a consistent gaming schedule and a full group who can make the sessions now. hashtag 'firstworldproblems' and 'LifeofaDM' lol..... |
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Samuel Wise
Demigod
Ready to Help...
Posts: 989
Favorite D&D Class: Warlock
Favorite D&D Race: Mousefolk
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Post by Samuel Wise on Jul 27, 2015 6:23:36 GMT
The biggest source of burnout for me is the effort it takes to keep getting the group together. I suspect the only thing I can do about this is find a group that really wants to play. The problem is, I want to run all these groups to stay in contact with friends and this make the social effort necessary to do that more palatable. If all I wanted to do is run D&D without stress, I'd deconstruct the groups and take the most interested members to build one group of people who are willing to put forth effort to make sure we all get together. We'll see. I remember when I use to think that the online version was much easier. Lately with two players making a few no shows or just being busy and not fitting into the schedule I am really second guessing things! I went through, I think, the same thing. The reason online games might tend to fall out might be due to the difficulty in communication. I think there has to be constant communication (between players through emails or even forums like this) to make a consistently good online game. I prefer the feel of dice and the more pen & paper feel as well (just me) so, at most, I prefer Skyping over roll20. |
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Post by dmmadmaxi on Jul 27, 2015 16:41:56 GMT
yeah I would love to get a pen and paper group going again. Even if it means using skype for video+voice...that would be cool to have again!
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Post by rorrik on Jul 27, 2015 18:39:34 GMT
I almost want to put flyers up around my neighborhood and find the hiding table toppers in the area. I'm sure they're here. There are so many people who want to play but don't have a table.
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