DM Burnout or DM Frustration With His Players?
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Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
S'mon said:
I think a little honey like that helps. I've been running a homebrew world since 3.0 came out and last year added a wiki. They all know I'm open to players fleshing out the setting around their characters, and people can put into it what they want and I review it and it's official.
If anything, I've got one of those "I wish I had that problem". One player who's tuned into my vision, creative and prolific. I've actually had to talk to him about doing in-game rewards like plot hooks instead of XP because he's done so much and I don't want to further widen his XP lead because of out-of-game stuff.
One the other hand, I have some very creative players who expand the world in-session but don't write on the wiki more then their character pages. And that's fine too. This is a game, forcing players (and unreasonable expectations and pressure ARE forcing) to write moves it from fun to work. Who wants that?
Since I'm in a little different position, where players are adding to the world instead of journaling what went on, I have the extra bonus of trying to work in things that they've written. My players get a big smile when I refer to places or myths or what-have-you that they came up with.
So I agree with S'mon - carrot works better then stick. And I'll add to it that different people may or may not enjoy/have time for/have talent to do out-of-session writing, and rather then taking your players to task, you need to accept it.
Good luck,
=Blue(23)
Dragon Vindaloo
First Post
I’ve seen this kind of thing before; I have been through this kinda frustration myself as a DM.
In the end I decided it can’t really be helped and it’s us DM’s that have to chill out and realise we are the biggest geeks, we are the ones who are most passionate about this game (it’s a ton of hobbies rolled into one for us and takes up a lot of our thoughts and time) and therefore its always going to cause some frustration when others don’t seem to care as much about it as we do.
To most players it’s just a game (a really fun and social game but still just a game) in which they get to hang out with their buddies and have a bit of fun and excitement. If they were as passionate about it as us they would want to DM! So yeah, just take a step back, don’t fret and chill out.
Thats what I did.
In the end I decided it can’t really be helped and it’s us DM’s that have to chill out and realise we are the biggest geeks, we are the ones who are most passionate about this game (it’s a ton of hobbies rolled into one for us and takes up a lot of our thoughts and time) and therefore its always going to cause some frustration when others don’t seem to care as much about it as we do.
To most players it’s just a game (a really fun and social game but still just a game) in which they get to hang out with their buddies and have a bit of fun and excitement. If they were as passionate about it as us they would want to DM! So yeah, just take a step back, don’t fret and chill out.
Thats what I did.
Emirikol
Adventurer
+5,
Many DM's have tried doing campaign journals (including myself). Statistically on this board, players do not care or contribute to campaign journals for two main reasons:
1. THey can't write (lack of material or creativity)
2. Players just aren't generally interested in that stuff. It seems really cool to a DM, but ask yourself if it's crucial to the game.
Allow me to share a more successful experience: I've gone to message boarding and short blurbs. We use yahoogroups and before each game I start up conversations regarding the upcoming game. Those that contribute know what's going on and those that don't usually have 50+ hour jobs or lives outside gaming
You'd better get used to being disappointed as a DM. Players are like children. They're capable of doing great things but...
jh
Many DM's have tried doing campaign journals (including myself). Statistically on this board, players do not care or contribute to campaign journals for two main reasons:
1. THey can't write (lack of material or creativity)
2. Players just aren't generally interested in that stuff. It seems really cool to a DM, but ask yourself if it's crucial to the game.
Allow me to share a more successful experience: I've gone to message boarding and short blurbs. We use yahoogroups and before each game I start up conversations regarding the upcoming game. Those that contribute know what's going on and those that don't usually have 50+ hour jobs or lives outside gaming
You'd better get used to being disappointed as a DM. Players are like children. They're capable of doing great things but...
jh
Nightchilde-2
First Post
Earthdawn has an in-game system for handing out extra XP if the players turn in an "adventure log," selling it to the Great Library.
Perhaps something like this would benefit you? Given them a little extra reward.....
I don't see how it would hurt. If they don't do it, they don't get the reward.
Of course, you'd want to make the reward something minor in the grand scheme, but seemingly important to the PCs, like a Story Award of current level x 75 XP.
Perhaps something like this would benefit you? Given them a little extra reward.....
I don't see how it would hurt. If they don't do it, they don't get the reward.
Of course, you'd want to make the reward something minor in the grand scheme, but seemingly important to the PCs, like a Story Award of current level x 75 XP.
Olaf the Stout
Legend
At least I don't feel so bad now. I had a similar situation happen with my game. I used to send an e-mail out after each session of the memorable moments and quotes from each session. Sort of a quick summary of all the really cool and/or funny moments that had happened for the session. I asked the players if they had any moments or quotes to add. Not once did I get a response. Some of the players read them (but not all of them). I did at least manage to get the players to write down any quotes as they happened during the session as I had enough to do. After about 10 sessions I decided that it wasn't worth my effort so I stopped doing it.
Another thing I tried was handing out XP for a background story. A couple of players did it but only about 2 out of the 5.
I also tried to get players to add more detail to their characters. I photocopied some memorable articles from Dragon and gave them 1 article (about 2 pages long) each session for them to read and do by next session (a fortnight away). Those that did the work got XP for it. One article was about giving your weapon a name, another was about coming up with a theme for your spellcasting (everyone had at least 1 level of caster), another was about sayings for your character.
After about 4 sessions I gave up on that as most of the players weren't even reading the article, let alone coming up with what was suggested. One of the players said it felt too much like homework.
After all of that I decided that I would only do what I enjoyed doing myself. I cut back on a lot of the effort that I was putting in because it didn't really seem to be appreciated. I'm a bit happier now but I still wish I had players that were more "into" the game.
Olaf the Stout
Another thing I tried was handing out XP for a background story. A couple of players did it but only about 2 out of the 5.
I also tried to get players to add more detail to their characters. I photocopied some memorable articles from Dragon and gave them 1 article (about 2 pages long) each session for them to read and do by next session (a fortnight away). Those that did the work got XP for it. One article was about giving your weapon a name, another was about coming up with a theme for your spellcasting (everyone had at least 1 level of caster), another was about sayings for your character.
After about 4 sessions I gave up on that as most of the players weren't even reading the article, let alone coming up with what was suggested. One of the players said it felt too much like homework.
After all of that I decided that I would only do what I enjoyed doing myself. I cut back on a lot of the effort that I was putting in because it didn't really seem to be appreciated. I'm a bit happier now but I still wish I had players that were more "into" the game.
Olaf the Stout
robberbaron
First Post
I'm with SiderisAnon. Players generally do as little beyond turning up as they can. Some don't even manage that.
robberbaron
First Post
[Edit] Post edited 'cos it came over as stupid when I re-read it.
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