Fighting DM Burn-Out

[maggot]

Okay, here's the detail. I’ve been DMing a group for almost five years. That is a long time. We started when 3.0 came out and converted to 3.5 along the way. We don’t meet every week, so the characters are only about 15th level. All the players love the game and show up each time it is run. And the plot has become very complicated (which I like). And I’ve become very burned out (which I don’t).

It isn’t the stress of coming up with new plots, I have plenty of those. I have years of plot hooks and ideas to use. The problem is that I’m not that into running the game. I don’t want to run shopping trips to cities, deal with player complaints, or play out another session-long combat.

So I simultaneously like the game and loathe it. I don’t want to end the game without wrapping up the grand overall plot: it would be like B5 ending after its 3rd season. But I don’t want to continue playing a game I dislike.

I thought about putting the game aside for a while, like a few months or even a year. But one player is moving away very soon. And I had a cool plot idea for how his character leaves the game (I told you I have lots of those). An awesome plot idea, but one I almost cannot bring myself to play out. Almost can’t bring myself to play it, but still probably will because I owe it to my friend and player of five years.

So, I feel trapped by the game. But I don’t want to feel trapped. I want all the great plots to come to fruition. Is there anyway to get over this feeling, and quickly before my friend moves away for good?

 

[Sanackranib]

the best way that I have found is to take a step back and be a player again. by doing this you will rekindle your love of the game by getting back to what ever it was that attracted you to gaming in the 1st place. play that race or PrC that you have been itching to all this time and give yourself a chance to recharge.

 

[Breakstone]

Yup, I'm feeling it right now. I think I'm just not having fun DMing for this group. So I'm going to ask someone else to DM for a bit. Honestly, after a session or two I'll be itching to DM again.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

I usually just have to wait a period of time to recharge. Being a player can help too. Though I've always wanted to be a player in a long term game, I've never had the oppurtunity to. Usually any game someone else starts running is just a one shot or ends abrutly for whatever reason.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

I've been burned out for over a year now. I was the primary DM for several D&D campaigns going back 15 years or so. My burnout eventually caused me to completely let a 3 year campaign that was on the edge of becoming epic wither and die. I decided I needed to be a player again, and maybe that would recharge my batteries. Well, that's not working out so well as we get to play very, very infrequently. And just as we begin to hit a schedule, I was in a major car wreck and have yet to rejoin the fray.

Now, I run an occasional game for my son and his friend (they're both 11), and those are fun. Their games don't demand the intensity and set up work as those for the adults, so I find I am able to run fun and rewarding games for them. What is probably the worst element of my burn-out is that I have tons of cool ideas, plots, NPC's, etc, but just completely lack the impetus to write them down. Whenever I sit down to work on something, it's like the flow of creativity from brain to hand just stops.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I've tended to plan breaks into my DM'ing. It helps that I currently have a lot of very good DM's in my groups, so that's easy to do. I also find that places like ENWorld and the Rat Bastard DM Club (see link in sig) help a lot - when I'm drawing a blank I can ask for help and talented people help me plan my sessions...!

 

[Woas]

Play a few games with a piss-poor DM... works for me

Dude, you don't even know how true that is for me...

 

[jmichels]

I agree with the people that said to join the game again as a player. Sometimes sitting on the other side of the screen gets you pumped to DM again. It's also fun not having to worry about anything but your own party too.

Another thing we do is to play 4 sessions and then take about a month off. That way everyone is fresh and ready to start playing again. It gives the DM time to work on the scenerio and rethink the direction if needed.

 

[Liquidsabre]

I'll have agree with the "taking time to play the game as well as run it" helps to avoid DM-burnout, as long as you've got a decent fellow DM to take advantage of that is. Not that learning how "not-to-DM" is a perfectly valuable way to pick up DMing tips as well. I've found IMOE that being able to maintain a "player's" persepctive makes me a more effective DM, especially since as a player I spend less time as a DM focusing on the myriad of things to successfully run a game (rule/spell/monster/PrC-familiairity, etc.) and more time on more specific rules, spells-stuff, etc. that involve my own character that increase the depth of my game knowledge that as a DM left to my own devices would not necessarily be able to achieve.

Now while I've never suffered from DM burn-out myself (5+ years of GMing experience and currently have a campaign I've been running for the last year and a half) but I've come awfully close and I've seen others overcome by it. DM burnout generally comes down to one thing that all DMs feel at some point: "Is all this effort really worth it?"

As long as the answer is an emphatic "Yes!" then you're alright. At any point you find yourself uncertain or teetering on the fence, you've got to look at what you're doing. Usually for DMs it's usually a matter of working too hard, whether it's due to being a work-a-holic DM (too much work wasted) or having players that have no interest in the level of involvement the DM desires them to put into their characters and the gameworld.

For example, a group of players may be just looking for a saturday night dungeon-crawl while the DM is looking for telling a story about a group of heroic vilagers who become lost in the under-belly of a great and mysterious series of ancient ruins secretly tied to the past of their village ancestry, scattered subtle clues exist all over the dungeon linking each character to their ancient heritage...

This will either shake the players out of their hack & slackishness or send the DM into a bout of DM-burnout.

Another example, a DM puts in 20+ hours in detailing the background, personality quirks, mannerisms, dress and equipment, mode of speaking, and bulding the villain's stats. Only to find the PCs kill the villain in their first encounter. The same DM has also put in 100's of hours of manwork in a longterm game setting for the campaign and knows every nook and cranny, every detail of every plot they'd enjoy running the characters through only to find the PCs want to search and discover underground passageways or play a sea-going game instead of his setting-nation. A work-a-holic DM easily falls pray to DM-burnout.

Myself, I avoid DM-burnout, not just by being a player (as I said I use this primarily to retain my player-perspective, which helps me run a better game - as I have a better perspective on what the players enjoy seeing in the game), but by placing the burden of creation on the players as well, not only myself. You see I don't create everything in the game world, instead I create and flesh out wherever and whatever the PCs do, but just that. I generally set certain aspects, NPCs, quirks, significant details, but leave the rest of the real-world details to be filled out as the PCs get close enough to explore them. If the PCs never go there, the place, the NPC/NPC organization, etc. never gets fleshed out (unless I purposefully involve them on a whim, player background ties, or they are tied to another plot-thread the PCs have involved themselves with unknowingly). This most often leaves me plenty of wiggle room to alter things behind the scenes before the PC-light uncovers it to discover that the details of all they have done make sense and are completely and entirely tied to the story we are all looking to tell, making the whole plot make more sense and appear to be a masterfully planned, meaningful, and cohesive whole (something it most definately was not!).

Often a PC's background and individual character will bring in elements I never expected to see in the game but since they created the character such things will be brought into the campaign, making the campaign a trully cooperative story-tellign experience, rather than a more or less one-sided one (something I see all too often in other games).

 

[reanjr]

Play more.