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DM Prep Work Leading To Burnout: Help?
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<blockquote data-quote="Flynn" data-source="post: 3616425" data-attributes="member: 1836"><p>My biggest adversary in all of this is ultimately Time. I just don't have enough time in the day to do the prep work the way I feel it should. Once I finish with work, family, church, etc., I find that I have little motivation to spend much time on prepping for the game (and even when I do, it's not enough). Then I get stressed about it, and that leads to this general malaise that has swept over me of late.</p><p></p><p>So, essentially, I've been winging it for months, and I'm somewhat decent at it, but I fear that the general quality of my game has suffered for my lack of preparation. Now, it's just not as rewarding as it once was. I have a lot of pride in my accomplishments as a DM/GM, but the Burnout is taking that away.</p><p></p><p>Basically, here are the things that stand out to me in the advice that's been given thus far:</p><p></p><p>1. Take a break! I didn't realize that I'd been running so non-stop for the last nearly seven years until I did the numbers in my last post yesterday. Yeah, taking a break is sounding more and more like a good idea.</p><p></p><p>2. There's an excellent article on building a GM's Notebook by Nightshade here on ENWorld, that has a lot of great advice for prepping in a way that makes the GM's life easier in the long run. When I feel ready to run again, I'll definitely build on that.</p><p></p><p>3. Fake it when needed. There's some great NPC matrices that people have created that allow this kind of thing, and I seem to recall there's one for monsters, too. Inspired no doubt by Spycraft's NPC system, it definitely gives me something to work with when I just don't have time.</p><p></p><p>4. Don't do too much prep. Use general outlines and cut-and-paste where possible. Steal stat blocks, etc., liberally from other sources.</p><p></p><p>5. Use published modules. Change the names and details to protect the innocent, if necessary, but let it save me work rather than create more work.</p><p></p><p>6. Consider trying an Adventure Path or a huge module of some sort as a change of pace, where the great majority of the work is already done for me.</p><p></p><p>7. When I do play D&D again, use the core books only, and only introduce other elements as needed, so long as they do not add extra work for me.</p><p></p><p>Please feel free to keep contributing. I'm sure there's more that can help me, and hopefully help others along the way.</p><p></p><p>Thanks To All,</p><p>Flynn</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Flynn, post: 3616425, member: 1836"] My biggest adversary in all of this is ultimately Time. I just don't have enough time in the day to do the prep work the way I feel it should. Once I finish with work, family, church, etc., I find that I have little motivation to spend much time on prepping for the game (and even when I do, it's not enough). Then I get stressed about it, and that leads to this general malaise that has swept over me of late. So, essentially, I've been winging it for months, and I'm somewhat decent at it, but I fear that the general quality of my game has suffered for my lack of preparation. Now, it's just not as rewarding as it once was. I have a lot of pride in my accomplishments as a DM/GM, but the Burnout is taking that away. Basically, here are the things that stand out to me in the advice that's been given thus far: 1. Take a break! I didn't realize that I'd been running so non-stop for the last nearly seven years until I did the numbers in my last post yesterday. Yeah, taking a break is sounding more and more like a good idea. 2. There's an excellent article on building a GM's Notebook by Nightshade here on ENWorld, that has a lot of great advice for prepping in a way that makes the GM's life easier in the long run. When I feel ready to run again, I'll definitely build on that. 3. Fake it when needed. There's some great NPC matrices that people have created that allow this kind of thing, and I seem to recall there's one for monsters, too. Inspired no doubt by Spycraft's NPC system, it definitely gives me something to work with when I just don't have time. 4. Don't do too much prep. Use general outlines and cut-and-paste where possible. Steal stat blocks, etc., liberally from other sources. 5. Use published modules. Change the names and details to protect the innocent, if necessary, but let it save me work rather than create more work. 6. Consider trying an Adventure Path or a huge module of some sort as a change of pace, where the great majority of the work is already done for me. 7. When I do play D&D again, use the core books only, and only introduce other elements as needed, so long as they do not add extra work for me. Please feel free to keep contributing. I'm sure there's more that can help me, and hopefully help others along the way. Thanks To All, Flynn [/QUOTE]
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