HELP! I've lost the will to play...

[Dragonblade]

What do you do when you have lost the will to play?

I still like coming to the site and I love paging through my rule books but I just don't seem to have fun playing anymore.

I can remember ages ago back when I started playing Basic D&D with the Expert ruleset. I remember having so much fun DMing the Isle of Dread module for my friends. I yearn for the days when AD&D was new to me and playing with my friends was a highly anticipated event. When there was excitement around every corner and treasure to be found and monsters to be defeated!

Now, it seems like every game session I play in has become just a series of numbers and die rolls. I can't seem to breathe life in my NPCs anymore. Combat has become, "You hit and do 10 damage." ad infinitum.

I remember when the players used to gasp in amazement when the wizard unleashed a fireball upon the orcs threatening the party. Now, having the party wizard fly around with a belt full of wands seems dull and routine.

I have been trying to put my finger on what the difference was between those early days of D&D and now. It seems as if the "magic" has gone. (No pun intended)

The sense of wonder and excitement I felt upon playing or DMing has disappeared and now its all become drudgery. The thing is, I still love fantasy literature. And I still daydream about playing or creating an adventure during my free time. Its just that when my pencil touches the paper all my energy and will to play just seems to evaporate and melt away.

Occasionally, there are fleeting moments where I can almost seem to recapture those old feelings of wonder and excitment. Whenever I buy a new RPG book or whenever I visit EN world those old feelings seem almost within my grasp. But again they leave when it comes time to actually play.

Has anyone else ever had this problem? How did you get over it? I want to get the "magic" back!

 

[Rashak Mani]

Similar Thread

Check out this other similar Thread where another disenchanted DM/Player got some neat advice.

 

[pseudo_hero]

HAAAHAAA

Dragon Blade IS one of my players! Such a nice boy to come and seek advise for me. But I beat him to it heehee.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

I yearn for the days when AD&D was new to me and playing with my friends was a highly anticipated event. When there was excitement around every corner and treasure to be found and monsters to be defeated!...I want to get the "magic" back!

If you are serious about getting the magic back, I have a radical suggestion, which you may or may not jive with.

Find or assemble a group of young people, aged, say, 11-14 years. Preferably those who have never gamed before.

Throw all caution to the wind. Overcome your inhibitions. Have no preconceptions, and no prejudices.

Introduce the game to them. Share the wisdom that you have gained. Astonish, confound enchant and dazzle them with the world that you create. Nurture them. Be forebearing, equitable and understanding.

If you can do this, they will re-ignite the fire for you, and the magic will return.

 

[Breakstone]

Try taking a break. That'll get the D&D addiction roiled up again!

 

[Shadowdancer]

I went through a period in which I was always the GM of whatever game we were playing. And I got burned out. We'd trying switching games, and that would help for a while. But it's a lot of work and pressure being the GM. And it's not as much fun as just being a player.

So now me and another player take turns being DM. I run an adventure, he runs an adventure, and so on. It works pretty good. I haven't felt burned out while DMing in a long time.

Also, our group goes through long periods when we can't get together and play. Like during high school football season. Basically, Sept. through Dec. And then you have the holidays, etc., etc. So it ends up being a four-month break.

Then during the summer, when everyone is taking vacations, etc., we miss a week here and there. But that's OK, because it keeps us from burning out.

 

[National Acrobat]

It's hard once you've lost that fire to justify keeping the group playing and several years ago I did just that. I used to hear how great the campaign was, etc. etc. and they it got to the point where I dreaded playing. For about 10 years we had met every saturday for 8-10 hours of gaming. It went this way for me through several relationships in my personal life until something happened. I got married, then I had a kid. I could no longer play on weekends with my friends because my wife works weekends and we had a newborn. I had to quit the group. It ended up being the most positive thing I had ever done RPG wise. I basically took a year long sabbatical and read some new fantasy authors, hung out with friends in a new capacity, got to enjoy my growing child, etc. After about 10 months I started to crave gaming again. It was at that point that with some of my former players and some new ones, we put together a group that meets once a week on wednesday for 4 hours. It solved all of my problems. There aren't any lagging 8-10 hour sessions, we meet in the middle of the work week which gives us a needed break from reality, and we had some new members which breathed new life into things. Perhaps that could help you, try some new players or shorten the sessions which leads people to want to come back sooner to see what happens, but most of all, take a break for awhile and sit back to see what else life has to offer and then you'll want to do it all over again. Hope this helps.

"Americans don't want to be saved, they just want to be left alone." Dave Mustaine

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

An attempt to help

My name on these boards is Edena_of_Neith.
I understand what has happened to you, because it happened to me.

I wish to help ... I will give the best advice I can to help you, since you asked for advice.

First, I believe that Sepulchrave II's advice above is sound.
Think about this ...

What is it like for you when you visit an in-law's house, and they have children of ages 9 through 14, and they ask you to play with them?
Perhaps you play with them to humor them.
Perhaps you play with them because your parents on the in-laws ask you to - you don't really want to play with these children (you want to sit back and watch TV, or read a book, or chat with the in-laws, or something else.)
Yet, somehow you end up playing with ... the children.

Sometimes the play is just that: play, and you do it as an obligatory thing and you are glad when it's over (we can go home now? Great!)

And sometimes ... sometimes something very special happens.
The child in you comes alive.
The screaming, unrestrained joy of children playing is infectious - I know this because I have personal experience in playing with my nieces, aged 10 through 14.

You start with a drudgery necessitated by the demands of your folks or the in-laws, just trying to be courteous, and then everything changes.
You become excited.
You get pulled into the fun.
You find yourself gaping at yourself - here you are enjoying kiddie stuff! You're a grown man - you don't enjoy kiddie stuff!

Yet as they bang on you with nerf swords, and they scream in delight as you fight them in table hockey, and they run yelling for the ball in kickball ... you find yourself inexorably pulled in.

Before you know it, you're sweating, and you're winded, and you're enjoying the heck out of yourself ... doing things that you would never have thought would be fun.

The joy and laughter, the enthusiasm and energy, of children, is infectious.

- - -

It is NOT so different with older people, like us.
We may be older, but we all have the child in us, and that child is always trying to come out.

This does not mean that we should behave as anything other than the adults that we are, or engage in foolishness or immature behavior.

What it DOES mean, though, is that ... when you play Dungeons and Dragons, there is a kind of magic trying to happen.
The child is there, and the adult is there too, with his or her needs - companionship, friendship, social interaction, all the things people want and need.

Everyone in the group has these needs.
Everyone is trying to fulfill one or more of those needs.

Good Gamers try, and try very hard, to accommodate each other, to work together - even as a rock band or orchestra works together - to help each other to find joy, find companionship, find fulfillment, in the game.
And when those in the group try, sometimes it all works out, and the magic comes together, and there is real joy, and real fun, and very real fulfillment.

- - -

In a sense, simply coming here, to the ENBoards, is a kind of fulfillment of the sort I am talking about.
I STRONGLY RECOMMEND you come to the ENboard often.
Come, and be a part of ENWorld ... ENWorld is a kind of group (the Moderators forgive me my opinion, but it is true!)
There are real friends to be gained here, and there is real fun to be had.

Why do you think they spent 200 posts arguing over whether or not a house cat could kill the typical 3rd edition Commoner?
They did so because people want to socialize, want company, want the companionship of others who share their interests.
Such silly bantering and arguing serves to strengthen bonds, to form new bonds, to create a kind of group, really.

I asked a simple question, which was meant to be silly and enact silly responses: what would your PC do, if gnomes invented the Industrial Revolution?
That question went on to create an actual gaming group, here on the boards.
It gained me many new friends, and it caused many of the people here on the boards to gain new friends.

So I say to you: stay here. For here, on the ENBoards, there will always be a home for all of us.

- - -

Find those younger Gamers that Sepulchrave II talked about.
Their enthusiasm - the enthusiasm of teens, is infectious.
I know - I ran for a group of teens when I had burned out in my late 20s.

They will run riot over all the rules (rules, what rules? Our characters MAKE the rules!)
They will distort and destroy every premise of gaming you ever knew (Elminster? He's our personal slave. Dragons? I have a personal stable of 800 of them. Undead? My character is the greatest archlich in the universe. The world of Oerth? We nuked the place.)

However, their enthusiasm is contagious.
In their play, however silly or ridiculous you may feel that it is (can my God PC come on this adventure - that was actually asked of me ...) you will find yourself (hopefully!) caught up in it.
It's like watching a good film (like FOTR.) You get caught up in it. You live it. You feel the thrill and the pain.
In the case of teens, you will sometimes feel the pepsi spilled all over you, or perhaps groan as several hundred dice are spilled all over your DM's screen, papers, and your own dice.
Yet ... it works.
It works.
Give it a try. There is a very real chance it will work for you.

- - -

Whatever kind of game you were playing, change it.
If you were accustomed to playing good characters, try evil characters (and vice versa.)
If your DMing style was lasse faire, become strict (and vice versa.)
If your campaign was magic low, make it magic powerful (and vice versa.)
If you never allowed your players to play evil characters, change and never allow them to play good characters!

If your campaign was in a city, take it to the wilderness.
If your campaign was in a dungeon, take it above ground.
If your campaign was in the Underdark, try aerial adventures.
If your campaign was on land, try the sea.
If your campaign was planet bound, try high space.

Try taking inspiration from films - films are very good for giving glints of inspiration and ideas.
Try reading books (good books, like the Black Company books I keep hearing about.) Books are a FANTASTIC source for gleams of inspiration and good ideas.

See enough films, read enough books, you just might want to live those films, be in those books, and through gaming, you just might be able to do that.

ALWAYS keep an open mind.
Especially when you are burned out like this.
If it seems silly or ridiculous, try it anyways.
If it is outrageous or something you'd never allow, allow it.

Never be afraid of the new and different.
Never scoff at the silly and ridiculous.
Embrace it all.

And stay on the ENBoards.
Try the WOTC Boards.
Heck, try Nutkinland ... that site is less regulated, and boy do people say what they think there!
Or go over to the White Council, and tell them why you liked and disliked the new FOTR film.
Stay online. Don't let yourself be cut off from the community.

That's the best I can do.
I sympathize with your burnout, and with you.
I sincerely hope you return to gaming.
I hope you can find the fun again.

My best wishes to you.

Sincerely
Edena_of_Neith

 

[Dragonblade]

pseudo_hero is a great DM but this thread is for me as well.

I still want to play but it doesn't seem as fun as it used to. I was hoping people on the board might be able to come up with some insights as to why things aren't as fun as they used to be.

Part of it I think has to do with the world and the level of magic. Too much magic and it spoils the sense of wonder. I'm also sick of the standard D&D magic system. Its too mechanical. Memorizing spells feels too much like a game mechanic and not enough like magic should.

Thus my constant desire to rewrite the rules system. There is just something boring about a party brimming with magic or a wizard with a belt full of potions and wands. I think it spoils the whole sense of wonder and rarity regarding magic. I think the whole magic system needs a major overhaul. No potions, no wands, no magic belts of this or cloaks of that. All magic items should be major story items with a reason for existing.

The magic that does exist should be powerful but rare. And it should be dangerous. A person should fear magic as a dangerous and unpredictable force. Not having towns with magic lanterns on every street corner. Your very soul should be at risk every time you consider drawing that magic blade.

I still love the thought of gaming but I hate the current magic system. I also hate the common nature of magical creatures and races. Elves should be rare and alien beings. Exotic and incomprehensible to most of human kind. Orcs should be greatly feared and reviled as dark and brutish monsters. There should never be an orc wiping down the counter at the local inn. The notion of dark elves should be a near mythical story used to frighten children around a lonely campfire. Not the race of everyone's favorite dual scimitar wielding hero.

Hmm..I think I have begun to realize some of what my problem is. More thought needs to be spent on this.

 

[Shadoe's Lady]

Well, then run it that way.