D&D General "I have Experienced What I'd Call 'DM Burnout'" (a poll)

[J.Quondam]

Definitely and irritatingly "true."
It's not so much burnout on a particular campaign or with a particular group, so much as the feeling I'm burning out once and for all. My creativity, focus, and drive have all declined significantly in the last few years.
I'm not actively GMing at the moment, only "tinkering," so hopefully I'll get my mojo back when I'm back in a place where I can re-engage more fully. Because this seemingly perpetual state of semi-burnout really sucks athach-- and for reasons that go way beyond how it impacts my favorite hobby.

 

[Irlo]

Oh, yes, very true. One major burnout after a 10+ year campaign starting with 2e and transitioning into 3e, when my new status as a parent coincided with the help of prepping high level adventures for 3e. I stopped DMing for over a decade but eventually started a 5e campaign. That one ran for about 3 years before the second instance of burnout set in due to my own actual real life political- and public health- related burnouts and, worse, player disengagement (or at least what I perceived as disengagement — we were playing hybrid in-person/remote games and more than one player was dealing with heavy out-of-game distractions). Every session was a disappointment, so I pulled the plug.

 

[Yaarel]

Huh.

It looks like the 2024 edition needs do doubledown on "DM friendly" convenience.

 

[iserith]

IMX, this is by far the biggest issue that leads to problems. Game schedules and systems can be changed. But if the players aren't as committed as the DM, there's not much the DM can do that will lead to long term stability.

This is probably easier for online games, but what I have found is that a player pool solves scheduling issues. You have X number of players in the pool and only Y seats at the table, where Y is less than X. Then you set a quorum and it's first come first served for sign-ups that week. Almost never do I have to cancel sessions and that tends to happen only when everyone's on vacation or the session falls on a major holiday.

Online games also solve for people who can't make it because they need to stay at home for one reason or another, but who could pay attention to the game while home. It also makes it easier to opt in because you don't have to get yourself together and travel to the game, then travel home afterward.

I'm happy to say that dealing with player scheduling is a thing of the past for my groups, so it doesn't contribute to DM burnout.

 

[not-so-newguy]

Yes I do. It's guaranteed. Fortunately, I planned for this and told my group that "eventually I'm going get burned out and someone else is going to need to DM if we want to keep playing." We just started our second campaign with a new DM

 

[el-remmen]

This is probably easier for online games, but what I have found is that a player pool solves scheduling issues. You have X number of players in the pool and only Y seats at the table, where Y is less than X. Then you set a quorum and it's first come first served for sign-ups that week. Almost never do I have to cancel sessions and that tends to happen only when everyone's on vacation or the session falls on a major holiday.

I can't imagine this working for a game with continued serialized campaign where adventures can take several sessions to complete. If Session #1 ends with the party deep in the lower level of a dungeon and then at the next sessions half the group is made up of different people with different characters because they were the first to sign up, how do you handle that? I know some people just handwave that kind of thing - but I would not be satisfied with that.

 

[iserith]

I can't imagine this working for a game with continued serialized campaign where adventures can take several sessions to complete. If Session #1 ends with the party deep in the lower level of a dungeon and then at the next sessions half the group is made up of different people with different characters because they were the first to sign up, how do you handle that? I know some people just handwave that kind of thing - but I would not be satisfied with that.

Wherever possible, we end sessions outside of the adventure location. In cases where it doesn't make sense to do that, then it's handwaved. Some characters fall into the background of that episode and others come to the fore. They're always "there" though.

It's either that or live with scheduling problems. I'll take the above over scheduling problems every day of the week except next Friday at 7 pm. (I'm busy.)

 

[DEFCON 1]

I have had it happen on occasion. Thankfully I have been able to wrap the campaigns up quickly so there was still a proper ending to them though. I usually can power through the last few sessions to get to that point.

 

[el-remmen]

It's either that or live with scheduling problems. I'll take the above over scheduling problems every day of the week except next Friday at 7 pm. (I'm busy.)

I guess I'm the opposite. I rather deal with scheduling problems than play that way. Though, I guess that is easy for me to say, as I have been blessed with pretty dedicated groups who make it a point to be there. This past week was the first time in nearly 3 years of playing with my current group that we had to push a session back because someone could not make it last minute - though twice we've had to have players join into the face-to-face game via zoom because of COVID diagnoses or exposure.

 

[overgeeked]

I think there are at least a few types of GM burnout, and yes I've experienced it.

The first, is just too much going on in your life to be able to dedicate running a great game and taking care of your life. Family, job, school, etc... Burning the candle at both ends can lead to GM burnout. This one is pretty obvious to see coming and doesn't have a lot of options for rectifying. Pass the GM wand or cut some other things out of your life perhaps.

The second, is system burnout. Obviously, this will be dependent on which game and/or edition you are using. Can be a combination of the system just making game prep take too much time, and the beast that high level play can become. This isnt something that is easy to see coming. You need to experience a system before you know how to sidestep this type of burnout. One of the reasons that early on in a new game/edition cycle you have many acolytes enjoying the journey, which eventually gives way to frustrated opinions from GM burnouts.

The third, player attentiveness, buy in, appreciation, playstyle, etc... The GM puts in a ton of effort to deliver a really great session and campaign. The players don't care and just tell fart jokes and cancel half the time. One of the hardest lessons I learned about TTRPGs, is that sometimes your best friends make the worst gamers. This type of burnout can be avoided by screening your players. Either through organized play, one shots, or whatever method you have of ensuring a likeminded playstyle is shared across the table.

Absolutely. I see the first as a life thing not really connected to the game, so it's more life gets in the way than DM burnout, to me. For it to be burnout it needs to stem from the game itself. System, players, etc. But yeah, 2 and 3 are killers.

I have experience 2 primary causes of Gm burnout: 1) the system is too complex to sustain over time and i just can't muster the wherewithal to deal with it, and 2) a specific player or players are too much work to keep engaged or make happy or just put up with. Sometimes, those two thing collide (a crunchy system with a minmaxitaur player) and it's curtains for that campaign.

A completely different thing happens sometimes, though, and isn't really burnout: I have an idea for a campaign and get all excited and do prep work and invite players and then find out that it was just a passing fancy and I have no interest in doing that thing once a week for a couple years.

Exactly. My burnout comes from the system being too complex and the players breaking Wheaton's Law. That's why I nuked my 5E West Marches game. I just got tired of fighting the system to get it to play how I wanted and fighting the players to keep them from constantly breaking Wheaton's Law.

It looks like the 2024 edition needs do doubledown on "DM friendly" convenience.

Yes, please. Cutting the rules by half or more would do wonders to alleviate a lot of my burnout. If we could get it down to 20 or so pages that would be great. Less than 5 pages would be ideal. Getting the players to stop thumping the rulebook as if it were some kind of authoritative text would also do wonders. Do both and that would mostly finish off my sources of burnout.