Why DON'T you want to GM?

[Thomas Shey]

I find GMing is EASIER on ADHD. You don't get "time off".

Same. I find I tend to drift as a player, and I think its worse than when I was young. I never have that problem when GMing (I'm not completely lacking problems there, but they're very different).

 

[Meech17]

I find GMing is EASIER on ADHD. You don't get "time off".

I've not been officially diagnosed, but as I've learned more about ADHD as an adult I really think I may have it.

The actual act of GMing.. Like in the moment, running the game is great. It challenges me in ways that I really enjoy, and allows my brain to be busy the whole time.

The other side of GMing I still really struggle with though. I have all the time in the world to do my session prep because I only get to play once a month or every other month, but yet I can never force myself to actually do my prep until the day before, or even the morning before the actual session.

 

[eyeheartawk]

The other side of GMing I still really struggle with though. I have all the time in the world to do my session prep because I only get to play once a month or every other month, but yet I can never force myself to actually do my prep until the day before, or even the morning before the actual session.

Same. And yeah, that's a pretty classical sign of ADHD. Though, that doesn't necessarily mean you have ADHD. I've gotten alot better as I've gotten older and about now the only real symptoms I still have are procrastination for stuff like this (for actually important stuff that are time -sensitive, for work and the like, I force myself to do them immediately) and I tap my leg alot.

 

[Meech17]

Same. And yeah, that's a pretty classical sign of ADHD. Though, that doesn't necessarily mean you have ADHD. I've gotten alot better as I've gotten older and about now the only real symptoms I still have are procrastination for stuff like this (for actually important stuff that are time -sensitive, for work and the like, I force myself to do them immediately) and I tap my leg alot.

Once I learned about 'Executive Function' a lot of things started to click. I even struggle at work. My new job gives me a lot of freedom. There's a lot of stuff I have to get done but I don't have any forced structure or oversight into how I do it. It's up to me when and how I do these tasks, and so long as they're accomplished in a timely fashion no one bugs me.

I've found that making lists (usually using Notion, which I only discovered because of the D&D world, mainly thanks to @SlyFlourish) helps. I catch myself stuck in a rut of not making any progress, I can go to my list and try and check off the oldest item/s on it. This same method works for D&D prep, though not quite as well. I find myself sitting down to make my list (Find NPC stat blocks, find a map to use, make slides for encounters, etc.) and then losing steam before I've even started. I start with Notion, end up on Reddit, or here, or YouTube, and then the next thing I know I've spent all of the free time I had allocated for session prep just meandering around the internet not actually doing anything.

I feel like with work there's the extra drive provided by the ever looming threat of homelessness, and when it comes to hobbies like D&D that isn't there.

I think this is something that also kept me from running a game for such a long time. I used to think I had to do this mountain of prepwork, and it was so overwhelming I couldn't get myself to do it. So then I just never felt confident enough to run a game. Now that I've learned how to actually prep (Again, this is big thanks to Mike Shea. The Lazy DM 8 steps method really helped me narrow down the field to what is actually important, and give me a focused goal.) I still put it off until I get down to the wire but I can actually do.

 

[ART!]

I DON"T want to GM because I sweat the details and wind up being very stressed out the whole time. It's like a somewhat low-grade panic attack that just keeps going. I don't know how to break out of that. If I prep a lot then I wind up missing the forest for the trees. If I take a low- or no-prep approach, I panic during play.

I WANT to GM, conceptually, but I DON"T want to because it's traumatic.

I have ADHD, and I find GMing harder than playing.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I've not been officially diagnosed, but as I've learned more about ADHD as an adult I really think I may have it.

The actual act of GMing.. Like in the moment, running the game is great. It challenges me in ways that I really enjoy, and allows my brain to be busy the whole time.

The other side of GMing I still really struggle with though. I have all the time in the world to do my session prep because I only get to play once a month or every other month, but yet I can never force myself to actually do my prep until the day before, or even the morning before the actual session.

The key to the latter I've found is to do it when I find myself motivated, and if possible do well ahead under those circumstances. That way if I have a long run of lack of motivation, a lot of prep is done.

 

[not-so-newguy]

I don't want to GM right now because I'm burnt out. I'm sick of coordinating schedules, finding stuff that'll entertain others, making adjustments because people aren't happy with some (minor or major) decision I made. There's probably other stuff, but it's just a laundry list of complaints. More than likely, I will want to GM again because of those things I complain about; except scheduling.

I'd like to play in someone else's world for a while and let them make the major decisions on what we play. The problem is no one in our group wants to step up and take over.