D&D General "I have Experienced What I'd Call 'DM Burnout'" (a poll)

[overgeeked]

Ugh...that sucks.

Well, at least it's over now.

The more I learn about your gaming group, the less convinced I am that the 5E rules are the problem.

There were two main problems. 1) I wanted to house rule 5E. The players objected. 2) The players wanted to be the main characters of a grand epic centered on how awesome they were. That's nowhere near the style of game I run. I made both clear up front. Didn't matter.

Were they this contrary to earlier editions of D&D?

No idea. This was a new group that formed for that game. If any of them had experience with earlier editions, I don't know about it.

Because I get the feeling that no matter what the game developers produce in the years to come, your players are going to find a way to make a problem out of it.

It's not that they had expectations that differed from the 5E rules, it's that they wanted RAW 5E exactly and I wasn't doing that. Combined with the more neagative aspects of OC style play. Main character syndrome. RPGs as stories. Etc.

Anyway, this is a tangent.

 

[Reynard]

So. 2024 could do MUCH to make my DM job easier.

Spoiler: it's probably not going to.

 

[Emirikol]

Sure. It has caused me to grow afterwards (and usually involves kicking someone out of the group).
Since then, our groups are formed ONLY from players who also agree to DM/GM at least one session of an rpg per year. This requirement has gotten rid of 97.6% of flakes, leeches, zoom-dweebies, unpleasants, and selfish-ies.
Still...it's good when it happens. Means something needs to change or you need a break (usually both).

We are expected to run this every session..sometimes burnout happens.

 

[James Gasik]

The year was 1990. I arrived at my friend Rob's house, set up my DM screen, got out my books, everyone sat down. And I...blanked.

I had nothing. There was the module in front of me, and my notes. But I just...had zero desire to run that night. I had no problems with my group- in fact, they were one of the best I've ever had. I had no personal problems.

It was like the part of my brain that let me run a game shut down. I apologized and told everyone I wasn't able to run that night. I went home and called a friend of mine who was a fellow DM and explained it, and they were like "dude, it's ok, it's DM burnout, it happens."

And sure enough, next session I was fine.

What I've found, in the decades since, is that being a DM really does require you to be a creative person. And many creative people find their process can be disrupted by all manner of things, some so imperceptible that you don't realize it. The most damning, of course, is self-doubt. I don't think I'm a good DM. Or a good writer. Or a good storyteller. I think I'm a hack.

My players, of course, are constantly telling me otherwise (if they aren't griping about the encounters, lol). And the fact that people still ask me to run for them I suppose is a good sign. But it doesn't take a lot to make me to start thinking of being a DM as being a job. To have the fun sucked out of the process. To make me spend long hours doing prep, when I'd rather do anything else. Like veg out watching YouTube videos, posting on forums, or playing video games.

And if there is a problem with the players, it's going to make me want to check out even more. When I started running for 5e, I ran into this problem full tilt. First it was the AL group I was part of, where the event organizer at the local game store insisted we try to stick to the books as much as possible.

Then it was the constant resistance to any ruling I made, when the books weren't clear, and players who saw no reason not to stop the game to complain to other DM's, the organizer, search for developer tweets, or even go to the back of the store and read the adventure when I wasn't looking to "prove" I wasn't doing it right!

Even after swearing off AL, and running home games, I ran into this a lot- had a guy who was so immensely proud of his Bard (before we even sat down to play!) that he would claim he could handle anything the party encountered.

While navigating a swamp on a raft, they got attacked by some gnolls. "Don't worry, I have this, I'll upcast command!"

That gave me pause. "Uh, I don't think you can do that."

"What do you mean?!"

"Well, don't they have to understand what you're saying? Do you speak Gnoll?"

"No...but surely they understand Common!"

"Not according to the Monster Manual. Tell you what, your character should know this, make me a DC 10 Wisdom check so you don't waste the spell slot."

He rolled an 8, the spell failed, and he sulked the rest of the session, doing nothing but shooting his bow.

Afterwards, half the group dropped out, and only one of them was willing to explain. They said they had gotten together at Steak N' Shake after the game to rant about how I was one of those DM's who doesn't let players do anything.

To which I pulled out the PHB and showed him the command spell, and the sentence that specifically says "The spell has no effect if the target is undead, if it doesn't understand your language, or if the command is directly harmful to it."

"Well that's dumb. No other DM has ever ruled that. And you didn't have to."

And that was the end of that game. I could have gone on. I could have gotten new players, but my brain was done.

But hope springs eternal, and whether due to nostalgia or insanity, I keep telling myself I'll get back on that horse again soon, and this time it will be perfect!

Yeah, my vote is insanity, lol.

 

[payn]

zoom-dweebies,

What are those?

 

[Emirikol]

Something that

What are those?

Something vague that the school secretary mentions in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

 

[Cruentus]

You're lucky. But then in talking with people on here and other forums, apparently I have a uniquely bad experience with players. Doesn't really help stopping it, but at least it's not wide spread...I guess.

<snip>

Literally nothing. RAW or RAW or RAW. Your options are RAW. In my experience, 5E players do not want anything limiting their characters in any way at all. They will sacrifice nothing. They will risk nothing. I've had players rage quit over their character taking 1 hp of damage.

Nope, you’re not alone. The group I burned out with was the same way (unfortunately, this is the group I’ve been gaming with for like, forever). As I’ve gotten older, my interests in the RPG/DnD realms have shifted from power trips and min/maxing (not that I was heavy into those back then either) and have shifted even more to story, working within limitations (3d6 down the line, baby!), using smarts to overcome obstacles, finding hirelings, eventually establishing a holding/keep, etc. So I try to run my games along those lines (which they all signed up for - lower power magic world, more “historical”, more limited weapons and such, and so on).

What did they do? All made up magic using classes or MC’d into them, clamoring for magic items (which went unused in the bottom of the party treasury), ignored encumbrance, POWER POWER POWER, built to the ”I can see and attack the enemy but they can’t do the same to me and I can escape and I should never be able to be hit”, etc. As I’d tweak things toward our agreed start, I’d also get resistance.

So yeah, finding an online game that plays like what I’m looking for would be a dream… naturally.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Only from 5E. Went back to 2E and having more fun than I've had in years.

 

[payn]

I had a burnout reversal once. Tossed together a group to run a Paizo AP. One of my gaming buddies and few new folks I recently met. The new folks were very beer and pretzel fart joke types and sort of chased my buddy from the group. Afterwards, I kept trying to keep the campaign going. Putting a ton of work into it and just not feeling the love. I've just about had it at the end of one session when we were packing up. One by one the plyers started telling me about how awesome the campaign was and that is much more involved then just dungeon delving and how much they looked forward to or bi-weekly game sessions. Was too difficult for me to bring up stepping back or out on them at that point.

 

[James Gasik]

Just so.

DM: "In a world without drow..."

Player: "But the drow are in the PHB! They're my favorite! I have to be able to play a drow!"

DM: Sigh.

Every single change from the PHB is a fight waiting to happen. Players have expectations set by the books. The referee can either conform to those expectations or get ready to fight. Doesn't matter what it is. Doesn't matter if it's something anyone at the table wanted to actually use or not. Someone will fight you on any change you make just on principle.

Yes, please.

Depends on the prep. I like rolling on a bunch of tables to see what's in the world. That's my prep.

As long as you don't use the official rules to make monsters it's great. Use the 5E MM on a business card and/or action-oriented monsters and you can make fun monsters in minutes.

That's the one that's the biggest sticking points for me. Arguing about ranges. Arguing about how many spells a PC can cast in a round. Thanks internet for making my players think they can cast like 9 spells in a round, btw. Arguing about LOS on spells. Arguing about the legality of some stupid power gamer build. Arguing about cover. Arguing about carrying capacity. Arguing about whether their characters and their pack animals actually need food. (Yes, really.) On and on and on. The players expect the referee to run the game like a computer would. With the same precision and perfection. Input, output.

I was creating a custom game world for Pathfinder 1e. My roommate helped me compile all the rules changes and made a PDF for them, with full art and all my descriptions of the unique races and rules, it looked very professional and easy to read.

I gave the pdf to all my players to read.

Day One: "Uh, why are there no Ninjas?"

"The area of the game you'll be playing with has no real contact with cultures that are anything like Japan or Asia, so I felt there was no reason to have Ninjas or Samurai."

"You could have Ninjas, just call them something else."

"I could have, but I didn't."

"Whatever."

Day Two: "Hey! No Paladins?!"

"I'm tired of all the arguments about Paladin restrictions limiting roleplay, and I honestly don't want to feel like I need to step in and dictate how you play your character. The fact that the Paladin has built-in restrictions on behavior that I then have to enforce is then self-defeating."

"But I want to play a Paladin!"

"You can play a Cleric and be a soldier for your God. Or Good."

"But I wouldn't be able to Smite."

"Take the Destruction Domain."

"Couldn't you just let me play a Paladin without the restrictions?"

Day Three: "Hey! No Dwarves?!"

"They exist in the setting, but won't be encountered in the starting area."

"So I can play a Dwarf then, I'd just be the only one?"

"No. I want to keep Dwarves a secret for now."

"Could I be a Dwarf with amnesia?"

"AUGGH!"