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

[Grogg of the North]

I am starting to feel it right now.

It's not that I dislike running a game. In fact, I'm beginning to believe that I prefer running a game over being a player. It's mostly just I have so many other things going on in my life that finding time to prepare is hard to come by. When I do find time to prepare I'm never happy with how much I've gotten done. ("Hmm, my players will either blow through this in five minutes or it will take all night.") And since we've been playing on roll20, I find it a lot harder to improvise something on the spot. It's not as easy as just rolling out the mat and scribbling some "terrain" for the random encounter. So I definitely stress out over those things.

Thankfully, my campaign is wrapping up. I'll get to be a player again for a bit. Rest and recharge.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I voted "false" but it's kind of a lie. I've been burnt out during a session or for a moment while prepping (like writer's block), but I have never needed to take anything of a significant break from DMing.

I live for it.

 

[pogre]

It has not happened for a long time, but I have experienced burn out a couple of times. Each time it was a combination of frustration with the rules system and lack of prep time. Fortunately, that was before 5th edition.

I think one of the things that keeps me going is I have a built in break each fall with football season. I coach football and I reduce my sessions from weekly to about once every three weeks during the fall.

 

[GuyBoy]

I love DM-ing but have occasionally struggled in the past when I was working ( my job as a school principal was very long hours) and exhaustion got in the way of creativity or motivation.
I play in a group of five face-to-face, one of whom is @TheSword from these boards, and he and I both run a separate campaign for one day at each of our monthly gaming weekends. It works really well as getting to play, as well as DM, seems to mitigate any danger of burnout.

 

[TheSword]

I love DM-ing but have occasionally struggled in the past when I was working ( my job as a school principal was very long hours) and exhaustion got in the way of creativity or motivation.
I play in a group of five face-to-face, one of whom is @TheSword from these boards, and he and I both run a separate campaign for one day at each of our monthly gaming weekends. It works really well as getting to play, as well as DM, seems to mitigate any danger of burnout.

It helps a lot. It also reminds me what it’s like to be a player and therefore I can bring that to my DMing.

There’s also the purely practical side, that I travel down to our group usually after having a done a full days work so @GuyBoy can DM the Friday night and I can do the Saturday.

We have our groups mini-Convention next week. RyCon2022. Four days of gaming. Lots of takeaway, A one off delve into Undermountain, a session of my Odyssey of the Dragonlords, Guyboy’s finale to Saltmarsh, a bit of Warhammer thrown in. Possibly a testers of new rules, and a film or two no doubt.

 

[Art Waring]

I voted false, because while I have experienced burnout, its been as a player not as a GM.

I have had some bad experiences in gaming early on, but they paved the way towards seeking out games that were actually fun, and making my job as a GM easier.

I do all of my prep long beforehand, been doing it for years anyway, I have entire pdfs of monster and NPC volumes in abbreviated text form, giving me the the advantage of preparation so now when I run a game it's all there on my computer ready to go and easy to read. IME, prepping now for a weekly campaign takes ten minutes to come up a new scenario for the next session.

Yes, I did all the prep beforehand, but the payoff shows when you can draw on everything you need in quick fashion.

 

[Guest 7034872]

I'm sure I will experience it in time; I'm just too new to it right now.