Help. I've lost confidence as a GM.

[kagayaku]

Hey jayoungr,

I'm sorry to hear about your mother's passing, truly. I can't imagaine how hard that must be.

As for the gm confidence, I'm only just starting out as a gm and trying to find my confidence; one thing that has helped me massively is reminding myself that while I do have a lot of responsibility at the table, so do the players.

I may be wrong but it sounds like you're putting a huge amount of pressure on yourself to be a GM god but maybe forgetting your players are just people who can help you. I talked to my players one session because I was struggling to control cross talk and now everyone is helping out and things run much smoother. They also help with little things that add up, one player keeps track of initiative for me and another finds the PHB page when we need to look up spells. It really helps and everyone benefits.

Everyone's there to have fun remember, including you, and it's on everyone to make that happen.
I hope you manage to get your footing back soon and I'm sure you will!
Good luck,
kagayaku

 

[DragonMan]

And then there's the fact that my mother passed away unexpectedly at the beginning of June, which isn't helping anything.

I'd been throwing myself into planning to restart the online group's game as a project to distract me, but now I just don't know if it's worth it.

Dude...you're Mom just died. You need to grieve.

Also people working on anything need vacation time. Give yourself a few weeks vacation from the DM role.

 

[Sadras]

WARNING: Long, self-pitying wall of text below. TL;DR, how do I get my mojo back?

I feel like I've been in a downward spiral as a GM over the last year or so. My GMing experiences have become fewer and worse.

At one point, I was highly active with two different gaming groups (one oneline, one in person). I ran all of Tyranny of Dragons for the online group, plus a couple of follow-up adventures.

I am sorry to hear about your real-life hardships (condolences on the passing of your mom) and your unfulfilling period at the rpg table.

My advice would be to try not to put any undue pressure or timeframes on yourself. Grieve, go out, read, play/watch sport, spend time with friends socially and give yourself some time away from the hobby. Dial it back.
Just keep a pad next to your bed and jot down ideas when the urge grabs you.

Then when you are ready, relaxed, select your players (2-3 small groups are fun) you have the most fun with and run something easy and short: a quick open-ended dungeon, spider infested cellar, rescuing a tree-spirit from some lumberjacks...etc
Don't overplan, have a rough idea worked out in your head, rather do some prep work on NPCs and motives, the rest will come to you at the table and you adjust the monsters on the spot. 1-2 easy successes under your belt should do the trick!

And just so you know, your 2 threads on the ToD storyline have been a great source for inspiration and have really helped flesh out my sessions (we are near the end of the first book). So although you might not have had any direct success, you have been indirectly.

Good luck!

 

[GMMichael]

I also agree with playing on the other side of the screen for a while. It has certainly recharged my GMing batteries.

I'd recommend the monitor screen for this. Take a brief vacation in Skyrim. I've heard the empire is allowing some people back into Cyrodiil now!

 

[S'mon]

What's a GM who's lost faith in his/her abilities to do?

When I'm struggling, I find the best thing is to run the easiest thing, namely 1st level D&D with a starter town and nearby newbie dungeon (or two). This is incredibly easy, fun, and a great way to take a breather or start a new campaign. I've done this twice recently & it has worked great both times.
After you've been running low level D&D for awhile and are back in the groove, *then* you can think about doing harder stuff like high level D&D and other systems.

I strongly recommend GMing whenever you can get 3+ players (online 2+) together, don't expect to get every player to every session. Use a single party XP tally if you don't want to feel you're disadvantaging people - but most editions of D&D can accommodate a range of levels, 5e is particularly good.

 

[Soul Stigma]

Firstly, serious condolences for your mother's passing. I dread those steps in my own life.

Secondly, glad to hear the treatments are going well for your ill player. Send them a Healing Surge from me.

Now the GM stuff:

Take a break. Grieving takes a long time and is happening even if you don't actively feel that it is. Your mind is not entirely your own right now and won't be for a while. That said, GMing is also a nice way to keep yourself busy, but we already know that you're struggling. I would recommend Dungeon World as a possibility for your group to try. GMing is easy, the principles are set and the players do much of the world shaping themselves. I read the Dungeon World book even when not running it, just for inspiration. Alot of good stuff in there. Further, it isn't critical that every player be present, since the game in many ways is self-balancing.

Also, pace yourself. Even without the real life issue of your mother, it sounds to me like you're just burning yourself out. Creative energy isn't a limitless wellspring. Take breaks, absorb some good inspiration from books, movies, music, whatever. Get back on the horse when you have a concrete campaign concept in mind, know the best system to present it and a burning desire to bring it to fruition.

Lastly, make sure to communicate, to any players a break might affect, the reason for taking a break. Maybe someone will step up and take over the GMing duties for awhile, even if they're not as experienced as you.

 

[Soul Stigma]

When I'm struggling, I find the best thing is to run the easiest thing, namely 1st level D&D with a starter town and nearby newbie dungeon (or two). This is incredibly easy, fun, and a great way to take a breather or start a new campaign. I've done this twice recently & it has worked great both times.
After you've been running low level D&D for awhile and are back in the groove, *then* you can think about doing harder stuff like high level D&D and other systems.

I strongly recommend GMing whenever you can get 3+ players (online 2+) together, don't expect to get every player to every session. Use a single party XP tally if you don't want to feel you're disadvantaging people - but most editions of D&D can accommodate a range of levels, 5e is particularly good.

Also, milestone advancement is a good option when life is busy and people can't always make it. We're all in it to advance the story and have fun, so I try not to focus too much on individual XP gains anymore. Some players care more about that than others, so tables will vary, but my group likes the milestones and so do I, since I can level them up as it fits with the ongoing story.

 

[jayoungr]

Thanks again, everyone. Here's what I'm thinking I'll do.

At the con, I'll just teach my familiar go-to indie game. It's GM-less, so I don't really have to run it, just teach the rules and nudge the players where needed. I've taught this particular game many, many times, so I should be able to handle that.

The in-person group continues to meet sporadically. Fortunately for me, the other regular GM (the one who has the health issues) is bursting with ideas right now, so he's happy to run games whenever he feels up to it. When he doesn't, I'm not going to sweat trying to prepare anything. Either one of the other occasional GMs will step up, or we'll play board games or something that week.

The online group is also having a difficult summer due to life issues on their end, and they don't seem in any special hurry to start up again. So I'm going to use my downtime to craft an adventure for us to play through whenever they do get ready to start, with no time pressure.

I do miss gaming, though.

 

[Yaztromo]

The answer is very simple: this is a game, so if running games doesn't entertain you anymore, but it feels like a burden, just take a long break from GMing and go back to it only when you will feel it's really the right time.
This happens to everybody, there's nothing wrong about it. There are seasons in life too.

 

[Yaztromo]

I strongly recommend GMing whenever you can get 3+ players (online 2+) together, don't expect to get every player to every session. Use a single party XP tally if you don't want to feel you're disadvantaging people - but most editions of D&D can accommodate a range of levels, 5e is particularly good.

I also recommend running sequences of one-off adventures, so missing one player one night won't make a difference: who will turn up will play, the others won't and perhaps will be back next time with no complication.