The top 2 reasons why gaming groups break up (that you can control)

[Emirikol]

Alrighty folks, somebody got me talking about this subject at a DM's improvement seminar and asked me, "What are the main reasons why gaming groups fail to thrive or break up?" Isn't it obvious? Not usually. A lot of gamers shift from group to group looking for stability only to be disappointed by the same problems over and over. Well, besides players moving or having work schedule changes, here are the two main things that I've seen over and over and over that doom a group everytime:

1. The DM tries to re-create the wheel every session and pats himself on the back for it but eventually burns-out.

2. The DM doesn't create or enforce speedy combats (nails 65% of the player boredom problem).

Now, the second problem is pretty obvious. It's called boredom. When there's no fun, there's no continuity. There are waaaaaaaaay too many DM's out there who don't keep their combats moving and efficient.

The first problem however is one that I didn't figure out until last year and so I added it to my presentation for our DMs group seminar.

It's the number one cause of DM burn-out: Thinking that you can be proud of hard work because of how much time you put into your game. DM burn-out is caused when he realizes that the work is not worth the reward.

Ever hear the saying,"The man who makes the most money doesn't work harder, he works smarter?"

Here's the deal: DM's think that the D&D game needs to be a lot of work and really be unique to be successful. Another deal is that gamers tend to think that adventure scenario writing is easy, so they place no value on pre-written adventures.

Here are some stats (actual figures):
95% of your gaming is spent adventuring
5% is spent in character creation or worrying about the majority of the campaign.

Here is the insanity (actual figures):
Of the two items purchased:
95% of DM's dollars are spent on Campaign Worlds
5% of DM's dollars are spent on adventures (ask the companies that produce them)

Anyboy see the problem? It's like having cancer and a toe fungus and spending 95% of your time treating the toe fungus. DM's dont' realize that they are killing themselves and their gaming groups by putting their efforts in the wrong direction.

Adventure writing and planning takes a lot of work. Anybody who has actually written an adventure and had another person edit or critique it knows this. What DM's are failing to realize is that they are working harder than they need to when they write a customized adventure from scratch. Worse, most DM's think that they can think up 10 adventures on the fly, that are better than 10 published works out there. Great, that's very noble thinking but let's be honest. Even the worst pre-written adventure can be made decent by a good DM right? There's no way to improve on an on the fly adventure and thus the quality starts to suffer.

Slippery-slope-style, the DM will become flustered as his quality suffers and players start to have less fun. The DM in turn starts to read more on his campaign world thinking that if he knows more about the world, players will have more fun. The effect then is even LESS preperation for quality adventures and even LESS fun. When players have less fun. The DM has less fun. DM burnout occurs after some period of this downward spiral.

If you're a DM who's burning out, try focusing on making your adventure preperation the focus instead of worrying about other things. Use of a series of pre-printed adventure (free or $$$) for several adventures. Although not every adventure is perfect, just remember that the hard work that the author put in is HALF the battle. You can make it great. Your group will have more fun thank you for it. Expect your group to last because you're less likely to burn out.

Now, I'm not going to go over 'selling,' 'enthusiastic clients' and 'brand loyalty' but for those of you who know what these two words really mean you should start finding out a way to incorporate them into your group's structure.

Thoughts?

jh


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[Bendris Noulg]

Thoughts?

Only that my experience, as player and GM, has been the complete opposite of your own and the conclusions you have derived from it. Indeed, the worst games I've experienced have always included a pre-written module.

Indeed, if your sales figures above are accurate, then I have a message for the publishers: Stop wasting your creative efforts on adventures and write more additions, alternatives, and variants. The GM wants world-building options. Options good, remember?

 

[Emirikol]

Only that my experience, as player and GM, has been the complete opposite of your own and the conclusions you have derived from it.

Interesting. Did the DM have a hard time running them? I've always seen that DM's can cannibalize ideas from sources and make things better, unless they completely avoid tailoring a scenario to their players.

How about combats? You ~like slow combats?

jh


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[LightPhoenix]

I'd have to agree, all the groups I've been in have broken up for one of those two reasons. I think the first one especially is something that you don't realize until you've gotten more life experience under the belt.

 

[the Jester]

Um, I'd say I spend at least 50% of my gaming time doing adventure/npc/world/whatever creation.

 

[jerichothebard]

Thoughts?

IME, I have found that the best adventures I have run come from striking a balance right in the middle of those two extremes. This last session, I had a great combat prepped, where the PC's had to make choices and seriously consider running away, and then followed it with an intense role-playing portion, where a *LOT* of the master plot came out... (well, not a lot, but more than they had previously known...) If I didn't know the huge overarching plot of my world, and know the NPC's place in it, that would have been impossible - or worse, it would have sucked.

This was by far the most successful game I have ever run, and it was because I split my prep time between the adventure prep and the world prep.

 

[Emirikol]

This was by far the most successful game I have ever run, and it was because I split my prep time between the adventure prep and the world prep.

No doubt combining the two elements counts, but once a DM knows his world he usually doesn't have trouble adapting material (for example: changing the gods listed, throwing in colorful regional catch phrases, incorporating the scenario plot arc into the major arc, etc.) Players appreciate the non-generic touch that only a DM can add, however a DM who is overworking himself will get burned out.

I think the thing that most pre-written adventures could use is a bit more room in the margins for "tailoring" your adventure.

jh

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Interesting. Did the DM have a hard time running them? I've always seen that DM's can cannibalize ideas from sources and make things better, unless they completely avoid tailoring a scenario to their players.

The GMs pretty much was able to just swing with things. It's mostly from the "they turned left instead of right" factor; Planning more often leads to winging it anyways because the PCs went in another direction (either adventure or RP wise), so it's better to just have a few basics thought up and roll with the PC's decisions and actions instead of wasted time, effort and paper.

At the same time, I (as a GM) use the carrot approach to campaign design (which I learned from another GM); I make it valuable to the players to interact with the world. Rather than options just being assumed to be available, the options are dispersed throughout the game world environment to be actively sought out by the players. This usually means that more than half of an adventure revolves around social-based role-play as the PCs gather clues, hints, and the like. Adventures involve politics, social and religious movements, piecing together clues from not obviously related sources, etc., before ever finding a "dungeon" (with dungeons being more reminescent of the South American ruins from Indiana Jones with a critter or two rather than extensive, miles-long dungeon crawls).

That said, I don't think that a GM spending 95% of his time developing his world is the problem; It's the GM that spends 95% of his time developing his world and not making it important for the PCs to interact with it in order to achieve their goals. If it isn't made important by way of success and gains, than why should the PCs bother?

How about combats? You ~like slow combats?

Combats are rarely slow, and when they are it's most often due to the tactical element rather than the rules/numerical elements (ex: two Rogues knife-fighting on slanted, shingled roof-tops during a heavy rain storm, making Balance, Climb and Jump far more important than BAB and AC that night). Our Mass Combat try-outs have been slow, as we've been testing out a few different systems (we want to use Fields of Blood, but we're still waiting on feedback from Eden concerning the manner in which the Realm Management and Mass Combat System are properly licensed and used [and I'm still debating if I feel such licensing should even be necessary], which may end up with us using Bastion's Arena instead if they don't respond in the near future), but then again, that's mass combat, so it's bound to not be very streamlined (especially if said players and GM are at least half-familiar with Sun Tzu and other military philosophers/strategists, as we tend to push these systems to their extreme capacity and then some during in-house playtesting prior to actual campaign use).

Note, I'm not saying that your experiences are wrong (indeed, LightPheonix seems to have had the same issues). However, in my experience, the primary reason for groups breaking up has been life (new jobs, relocation, kids, etc.) or (in my earlier gaming history) GM's that couldn't think outside the "gray description box" that pre-written adventures used to come with and thus resulting in drab, flavorless games. (i.e., the GMs I've known to use pre-written adventures didn't take the time to make them "great" the way you describe above.)

 

[Belegbeth]

I largely agree with you Emirikol.

I honestly do not understand the popularity of prepackaged campaign worlds right now. Nor do I understand why so many DMs are dismissive of (generic) adventure modules.

In my experience, it has always been a *very* enjoyable experience to design my own campaign world (history, cultures, religion, etc.). I find the process to be both intinsically rewarding, and one that pays off in terms of player enjoyment (my players really appreciate the fact that they are experiencing a unique world, and not the nth incarnation of the Forgotten Realms).

With a reasonably well-developed world in hand, I generally have no problems in adapting good adventure modules to my setting (even, in some cases, ones intended for another campaign setting). It might take some work, but far less work than building adventures from scratch. And since I am *the* authority with respect to my world, I know exactly what modifications are necessary in order to make the adventure fit in.

Moreover, this process saves labour and time. By establishing a clear "world framework" through campaign design, I can improvise encounters when necessary, and easily adapt published adventures as I see fit. Some adventures I design from the ground up, when I have time, but editing (even extensively editing) prepackaged adventures helps to avoid burn out. And I am far more comfortable spending two hours radically "fixing" a premade adenture, than I am spending six hours making sure I properly "understand" the Forgotten Realms before beginning to design my own adventure.

 

[random user]

I think it depends on how well the DM can insert the pre-canned module, which in part depends on the DM and in part depends on the module.

I've seen too many modules that read like Everquest, which is fine, if you want Everquest. But I don't want Everquest, I want something where the bad guy at the end ties into the main story, or the treasure is something the party has been hunting for a while, or... or something that I really care about.

I guess I'm just jaded but I don't want to "help the villagers that I will never see again" or "lift the curse of a town I will never go to again" (both of which I have done in the last 6 months).

My wish would be that adventure modules would focus more on ways to integrate it into an ongoing campaign rather than focusing on detailed NPC's and other details that I'll never see again and won't care about. This is especially true because when I create my NPC's from scratch, I understand their personalities and motivations. When I am forced to use a pre-canned NPC, and his description (or perhaps I should say his reactions to various events) is littered in various paragraphs over 10+ pages, it's a lot of memorizing to present this character realistically. ("Oh you ask about his daughter?" <flip flip flip> <mumbles to self hrm where is that> "Oh he looks at you impatiently and says 'That's none of your business!'")

But I know of some players who care less about a story arc. I'm not one of those people, and I wouldn't want to try and speak for them. But for me, I think it would be more difficult to string together 10 pre-canned adventures into a coherent storyline with interwoven plots and NPC's that span multiple adventures, and motivations which span multiple adventures, than to just come up with 10 adventures that fit from scratch.

With that said, it wouldn't be out of the question for me to take a pre-canned adventure, remove all the NPC's, use the town maps (if applicable) and dungeon maps, and modifying some (or all) of the monsters, treasure, and traps, while keeping the room descriptions intact. But then I feel like I got ripped off because I'm only using like 20% of the module.

If there were dungeon modules marketed that way ("bare bones" with some tips for integrating into current campaigns) I would be much more inclined to care about them.