Man, pen-and-paper has been unkind to me lately. As of this month I've been GMing for 30 years(!). I've run games in probably 15 or 20 different systems. For the last couple of years I've been dealing with a lot of GM burnout. It isn't the usual GM burnout, though. This is GM-Meta-Burnout! I've done the usual stuff that's worked for decades. I've taken GMing breaks. I've tried new campaigns. I've tried new systems, jumping from D&D to Torg: Eternity to Pathfinder 2 just in the past year. I've switched up genres. Then I get the fire in my belly and love the brainstorming, but as soon as I commit with my players and sit down to start working on a game, though, BAM! Any enthusiasm dies, and it dies hard. I want to GM. I love GMing. I love the moment to moment expression of the craft. But at the same time I've found myself miserable.
I've spent many hours over the past few weeks analyzing myself, my last few years worth of games, and this is what I've figured out:
1. The thing I've noticed I have the biggest negative reaction to is the technical side of the games. I don't enjoy elaborate systems anymore. I no longer enjoy the math. And forcing myself to do all of this makes me absolutely miserable.
This wouldn't be a problem, except for one thing: I'm a very technically minded person. I don't know any other way to function. Everything I do is in a series of organized systems, from my budget to grocery shopping to taking a shower. Throw a handful of junk on the floor and I sort and organize it in my mind as soon as I see it, involuntarily. And as I've gotten older, this tendency toward technical thought has grown more and more pronounced. This has caused my attempt to play non-technical systems (mostly Powered by the Apocalypse games - Dungeon World, Masks) to end in disaster. I don't know how to think that way.
2. For the last decade I've mostly run pre-written content. I realize now that this has contributed to the problem, as it has turned RPGs from being a creative outlet and an exercise in imagination into an exercise in memorization. I've now come to understand that this has sucked a
lot of the joy out.
Most of the time, the solution would be obvious: Go back to writing my own content. That's a problem, though. As I mentioned above, I'm no longer enjoying the technical elements of the games. I don't want to deal with the rules and math involved in writing and balancing session. I absolutely want the imaginative, creative elements, but the framework for implementing those things is killing me.
And the solution to that should be obvious, too: Play a system without the heavy technical elements. But see the part after #1. I've never had much luck without a technical framework to rely on. I tend to get very lost, very quickly. My instinct when struck by a situation is to figure out which rule applies. If there is none, I draw a blank, which makes me nervous, which makes me draw even more blanks. As I said before, my attempts to run systems like Powered by the Apocalypse have been disasters. I really do understand how their systems work, but in practice it is like writer's block with everyone waiting for me. Constantly.
And this is all terribly unfair to my players who try to get invested in my games only to have me burn out and either run mediocre sessions or switch systems yet again. This goes doubly when they invest in a system, buying rulebooks, studying rules, and so forth. I feel terribly guilty any time the burnout hits because I'm letting down long-time friends. Taking an extended break around here would probably mean the end of the group. Only one other person really GMs, and my impression is that he doesn't want the job long-term. And in a town of ~4,000 people located between two cows and a cornfield finding decent players makes finding a group in a city look like a cakewalk. Taking an extended break would probably mean giving up the hobby completely at this point, which I have no desire to do.
Short version: I'm a long-time GM who is losing the fun because he can no longer take joy in the technical aspects of the game while at the same time being locked by his nature into a technical mindset that makes non-technical games very difficult to run. And yet I still love and need the creative elements that you can't really find anywhere else, and don't want to give up the hobby.
Unfortunately, I've thought myself into a circle on this one. My nature is such that I have trouble running loose games, but loose games are the only thing that suit my needs, except that my nature is such that I... you get the idea.
I'm too close to the problem, and I'm getting stuck in a vicious cycle. I'd appreciate any insights.
Just a point for those that glossed over it: I have already taken GMing breaks, and yes, I was running PbtA correctly.
What jumped out at me here is the combination of running pre-gen adventures for a decade, and your apparent tendency to look to the rules, not your own imagination for what should happen, combined with "writer's block" with PtbA. You also say you were playing PtbA "properly", which I suspect is actually a symptom of the problem.
People are saying play boardgames and stuff, but I think your problem is more severe than that, and if want to enjoy this stuff again, you need to dial things back, and focus on
being capable of what you need to be able to do to DM. Which is "make things up". If you can't make things up, if you're reliant, in the way you've described, on pre-gen adventures and following rules, you've basically lost what it takes to actually be a good DM. I'm not saying that as a criticism - it's not something you sought to do, it's a potential result of the style of play you're describing.
As for the "losing enthusiasm when actually running stuff", I think that's a combination of not being able to "make stuff up" anymore, and having actually derived a lot of the enjoyment from learning and breaking in a system, rather than from the actual game.
I say this in part because whilst not as severe, I experienced a similar thing myself, quite a while back (when DMing 3E). I never got as far as you did along the path, but I could see how I could have. I tried taking a break and playing video games and boardgames and stuff, but it didn't really actually help. Instead I got briefly obsessed with the systems of those games, worked them out, then got bored with them too.
To break out of this cycle, I had to force myself to run mechanically simple RPGs, to not lean on the rules compulsively, and to write my own adventures only. PtbA could have been a solution if it was around then, but it sounds like you've the natural creative instinct of a DM, where you should be able to envision "what happens next" without any reference whatsoever to rules, and the rules are there simply to ensure consistency, fairness, and that everyone is on the same page. As such, PtbA will indeed, as you said, a disaster.
Re: PtbA, one thing I will say is some PtbA games are much easier to run than others. And it's okay to run them wrong. It's totally fine unless you're playing with some kind of PtbA veterans who are also kind of twerps. A PtbA game may be the solution, but it's not likely to be one of the exotic ones, or the original. Indeed, it's basically going to be Dungeon World or a Dungeon World hack.
So what I'd suggest?
1) Find a simple system that isn't mechanically too complex, and where you don't spend too long learning or engaging with the mechanics. You want to be kind of bored with the mechanics before you even start writing/running. If you're overly engaged with them, you're going to get the moment that ceases, and you'll lose all enthusiasm.
It's hard to say what game this might be for you, but I suspect a lot of modern OSR-style games fit this, Dungeon World played wrong fits this (Dungeon World played wrong is an absolute joy, note), some FATE sub-game might.
But I'd say the hell away from stuff like Shadowrun, fancy PtbA (like Legacy: Life Among the Ruins), City of Mist, Pathfinder or modern D&D of any kind, points-based standardized games like HERO/GURPS/etc. (they're vortexes - you can end up spending weeks or months building amazing villains and NPCs and settings and then have ZERO desire to run them - I speak from long experience), or just really any game where the mechanics are "exciting" or "complex", or even just really unfamiliar. Particularly stay the hell away from any game where writing up an enemy takes more than about 5 minutes (unaided by computers), mechanically.
If you do pick Dungeon World, just run it like D&D. Just get a D&D adventure (any edition will do, 1E and 2E work particularly well), don't obsess about anything, just the generalized monster stats instead of super-custom stuff (so really vanilla 1E adventures work well with the pre-existing Dungeon World list), and don't like keep looking at what's "legal" as move/hard move, go with your gut, or just run it like D&D with DW as the rules system (and changing who the focus regularly a bit like initiative). But I feel like an actual OSR may work better for you.
Again you want to be bored by the mechanics, because to get the DM skills you need back, you need to no longer rely on mechanics or being excited by them.
2) Write your own campaign. Keep it fairly simple. Don't give in to any impulse to make it ludicrously complicated or weird to make up for the simple mechanics of the game you've chosen. You can steal maps or even adventures from other places, but maybe re-write the stories and stuff if you do, and stick to older stuff, which isn't as tightly woven, story-wise.
3) Don't make up any house rules. No. Stop it. Stay away. Hit yourself on the nose with a newspaper if you even start thinking about house rules. You will be tempted to complicate a simple system with loads of "minor" additions and "tweaks" and "improvements" and false "streamlining" (which is actually the opposite).
4) Run the game, and try not to refer to the rulebook or rules if possible. Run it with some players you know, preferably, who are at least a bit sympathetic to your position. If you get it wrong, rules-wise, correct next session, don't obsess about it. The point here is that what you need to be doing is considering the dramatic situations, not considering the exact rules that govern them, and really not trying to use the rules as your guide. They're your servant not your master.
The more you can run in a way that makes sense to everyone without rolling dice or opening books, the better you'll be doing in escaping this.
Anyway, I hope that helps or is at least interesting. I don't think this is a problem you can solve by ignoring it, or by playing other types of game (board, war, video), or by changing up your system in a simple way (you need to actively avoid mechanically complex systems). I think this is a case of re-training yourself. I'm pretty confident the above will work, but it is a lot of effort, and won't be pleasant at first. You won't have the thrill of exciting rules in action, or "solving a system", but that's not the issue, an inability to do and enjoy basic DM stuff like making stuff up is. You need to stop being guided by the rules, and start making stuff up on the spot.
(Btw, if people disagree with some of the points I'm making here, that's fine, but not everything I'm saying here applies to you or your game, it applies, I feel, from my experience, when trying to fix this SPECIFIC problem that the OP has experienced, and which I also have. It's fine to let the rules run things or use only pre-gen adventures if it's not giving you this problem.)
