Gaming and Me

[Tinker Gnome]

Have you decided what to do? Will you take a break or possibly try some other games for awhile?

Well, it is not like I have a group to begin with anyways. I still hang around here for fun. I guess you could say I am taking a break. The last game I DMed was during the summer, and that was only for a couple of sessions due to scheduling reasons.

 

[dnoonan]

The laudable thing is that you _know_ you're burned out. In our hobby--as in many others--you can sometimes lose the joy of what you're doing and rely on inertia to get you to the table every week (or whatever). When a D&D table "fades away," it's often just accumulated fatigue and burnout in multiple people, not just the DM being too busy or whatever.

So yeah, take a break. D&D will still be awesome when you come back. And moreso than a lot of other hobby games, it's easy to catch back up with whatever your favorite flavor of D&D is.

--David Noonan.
nnnooner.blogspot.com

 

[Mercule]

It happens. I'm currently trying to decide if I'm going through burnout, am too busy for the commitment I'm used to putting into the game, or if I just need a change of scenery.

I finally killed my (seemingly interminable and painful) 3.5 campaign just before Christmas. After a month off, we're doing our first game of 4e tonight and I'm kinda psyched just to be doing something different. We're only doing one module, then moving to nWoD (Hunter), but the vote was close enough, and I wanted to be able to formulate my own opinion of 4e before leaving it behind for a while.

If 4e tickles me, but nWoD doesn't, I'm going to chalk it up to time commitment. If it's the other way, I'm going with change of scenery. If neither is fun, I'm burned out.

When all is said and done, I suspect there are multiple factors. We've got four kids and are gearing up to build a house (which I'll general and do some work on myself), so time is a huge issue. On the other hand, I did a lot of system switching in my formative years, so sticking with any system for more than 18 months (a semester in school was about right) gets painful -- meanwhile, I know at least one person (and probably the majority) in my group would rather find one system to use henceforth.

I suspect the next twelve months will be pretty interesting for my gaming. I see a non-trivial possibility that I may need to find a new group or stop gaming. Since I view gaming as a social, friend activity, the latter is more likely.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

When I get this way with my gaming group it is usually because the story isn't grabbing my attention. I like to hang out and BS, thats fun and all, but its not as captivating as hanging out and BSing with a great story to go with it.

I usually try to prod everyone into putting some more effort into the story at this point (by posting some fiction or other interesting things for inspiration) and things usually pick up and get interesting again.

DS

 

[el-remmen]

I have gone through various phases of love of and interest in gaming in the 25 years I have been playing - with breaks as long as two years where I didn't play at all.

If you don't feel like playing or buying stuff or reading it then don't. Simple. One day you may get back into it, or you won't - It is no big deal. Gaming is not life. It is something we do (or should do) for fun.

Right now I am back in a waning phase. I enjoy our sessions and writing the associated story hour, but I spend a lot less time thinking about it and prepping for it. This may change, or it may not. . . My interest may increase or decrease even more. I don't know, only time will tell. I am not too worried about it either way - even if I never RPGed again, I would still have a ton of great memories of great games.