DM Burnout or DM Frustration With His Players?

[Erywin]

IME, players also get excited during a game, and think they will do more outside of the game than they really will do.

This happens in my campaign as well. Altho they are getting better at doing small things outside of game time. Have one player, Blarg that started DMing this campaign with me but we decided it best that there only be one DM after awhile, it was getting to confusing, plus he wanted to run a Xen'dric campaign (Savage Tide). I currently use him as a sounding board for a bunch of ideas, he is great about keeping out of game info, out of the game Plus things evolve alot after the intial go round He has been a great boon to the campaign especially now that things are alot more free form, without him I believe the rest of the players would just flounder... Don't know what I would do with out him

Cheers,
E

 

[Asmor]

I think the problem here is the expectation that the players should be appreciative of your efforts. This should not be a given, or even expected. Rather, the players will take your DMing as a given. Certainly on some level they are aware of the effort you put into the game, but it's not something that they're conscious of.

How do you fix this? You don't. DMing is, largely, a thankless job, and it's always going to be that way. If you're not enjoying running the game for the sake of simply running the game, then change it up so that you are. Just remember that you're not the only person who's got to derive enjoyment from it.

These are the reasons I DM:

*I like hanging out with my friends
*I like D&D, and right now no one else is running D&D (there's an All Flesh game, a homebrew system game, and tonight I'm going to the first session of a Scion game).
*I like seeing what happens

On the rare occasions when the players do make known their appreciation for my efforts, it's a nice reward. It's like getting a bonus at work. But it's not something that I expect.