DM Burnout - Any Remedies?

[KenSeg]

A couple of replies.

In our group we have one main GM that has run our group for over 20 years now. Every so often he needs a break and either his wife or I run a game for four to six months and he plays. Seems to be a good break and a chance to recharge the batteries.

As to your own situation. I started my own business about 2.5 years ago and can tell you from personal experience that for the next year or so it may require so much time that your other interests will suffer. Not to much you can do about it, just the nature of the beast. :\

-KenSeg
gaming since 1978

 

[+5 Keyboard!]

Damn, man! I only posted this on Wednesday and already it's buried on page 2! WTF?

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

'Tis the curse of the General board.

Anyways, more about burnout.

I was stuck running a game for a bunch of young (around 12 year old) children in addition to running a game for some people my own age (late 20s) for about a year or so. Toward the end of the younger generation game, the DMing became a chore, even though I was training someone to take over from me.

Since I used to be on these boards a lot, I decided to meander back over here. And thusly I rejoined the Play by Post boards. Those allow for some D&D creativity without as much of the time investment, and also you can explore all kinds of wacky areas that you might not be able to in a face-to-face game. The Play by Post boards saved my game.

 

[ronin]

The best thing I ever did was to play in a couple campaigns as a break from DMing. It is amazing how many rules you forget about when you are just playing a character instead of running a campaign!

The other thing that seems to matter (at least to me) is the type of game you run. I ran RttToEE and was really getting burned out towards the end. I am currently running the STAP (about 7 months in) and am not even closed to being burned out. I think it has to do with the variety of locales/ enemies that makes it so interesting to run.

Luckily we have more than one person in our group that is willing (and able) to DM. That makes a world of difference.

 

[Teflon Billy]

Yeah -- listen to your burnout and take a break.

Either that or play very different games for a while.

That's all the boad advice you need right there.

If I could narrow it down a bit though, I'd say find out what's pissing you off about the game specifically and--if the game as a social event is important to you uys--play something diametrically opposed to that for awhile.

For me, D&D always started pissing me off when it stopped modelling the game world I had painstakingly constructed (read, higher levels) the way it had early on.

But I liked meeting up with htose guys weekly and ting, so Champions it was