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

[Silver Moon]

I'm not sure about your conclusions. From my experience most gaming groups break up not because of the game-related reasons that you mentioned but due to life-related reasons of players' marriages, children, work schedule or relocation to other parts of the country.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Double Post!

 

[JoeGKushner]

Number one reason why gaming groups I've been in have broken up? Personality conflicts. People kissing person X's butt and treating person Y like dirt. Sides forming along those lines and half the group going direction X and the other half with Y. Sometimes it's three people instead of two, depending on the group's size.

Number two? GM burn out. Even the most creative minds often need a rest break and by the time the GM is ready to go back into the game, the other members of the group have moved on.

 

[S'mon]

I tend to agree on both points - I haven't really seen over-slow combats in D&D but they've turned me off several other game systems.

With regards to scenarios - "it all depends". I find that creating scenarios from scratch is tiresome, OTOH not nearly as bad as trying to run a big hunking monster of a scenario like Necropolis. The best pre-written scenarios I've run have either been short & simple affairs, like the free downloads from WotC, or else bare-bones structures that the GM can bring to life, like Lost City of Gaxmoor or the old scenarios like X1 Isle of Dread. IMO a good scenario gives a good base for the GM to build on rather than cover all eventualities and leave no room for GM (or player) creativity.

 

[Fiendish Dire Weasel]

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

Back in 2nd (and maybe 1st) Edition they had a book called "The Book of Lairs" which was basicly 100ish pages of ~5 page mini-adventures that were generic and you could stick in any game. I think products like these, small, generic adventures, would be valuable and may be able to sell well. Though Dungeon magazine seems to cover this need maybe, I don't really buy it so not sure.

I think in the end though, companies put out stuff that is profitable and DM specific stuff like adventures, by thier very nature, are only targeting a smaller marketshare of gamers. There is what, 1 GM per 5 players or so. This means any product only valuable to GMs automaticly has probably 60% less sales than a more general product? I can see why there is less interest making these products.

 

[MerricB]

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)

Thoughts?

Have another look at your statistics. You have to be able to back up your figures - those figures look like Guesses to me. If your going to be doing any presentation, and you start throwing around things like "actual figures", then you should have a good survey to quote from to stop people from cutting you down.

In fact, just looking at those first set of figures:
"95% of your gaming is spent adventuring
5% is spent in character creation or worrying about the majority of the campaign."

This is a problem. With that use of "your", you are addressing me, and I can say that 95% of my gaming time is not adventuring. I've seen several sources recommend that a DM spend 50% of their time preparing for the session, and 50% actually running it. Oh, you're trying to address a player and not a DM? But where do they come into this discussion, which is about the burnout of DMs?

Looking at the second set of figures:
"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)"

Oh dear - where did you get those figures from? For 3E, there's a huge amount of money being spent on setting-neutral rulebooks rather than campaign worlds.

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.

Never, ever, talk in such generalisations without being 100% sure that they're correct. If you want to lose someone's respect, make a generalisation that doesn't apply to them. If you can't back up your claim with statistics, get very, very careful with the wording. "Most DM's" might be okay, but probably not. "Many DM's" would work.

###

I don't disagree that DM Burnout and Player Boredom are two significant factors in making a group break up. However, I find your arguments about DM Burnout to be suspect. How many DMs actually use pre-packaged campaign worlds? The polls I've seen on ENworld and elsewhere indicate to me that the proportion of DMs that do so is actually nowhere near 100% (I think it's not even half, but I'm forgetful of the actual figures).

Thus, statements like "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" don't really apply to everyone.

While your conclusions may be correct, the arguments used to support them are not so good.

Cheers!

 

[Psion]

IME, the number one reason for group breakups is a high ratio of non-commital players.

Back in 2nd (and maybe 1st) Edition they had a book called "The Book of Lairs" which was basicly 100ish pages of ~5 page mini-adventures that were generic and you could stick in any game. I think products like these, small, generic adventures, would be valuable and may be able to sell well. Though Dungeon magazine seems to cover this need maybe, I don't really buy it so not sure.

AEG and FFG put out a bunch of mini-advetures that were 16 half size pages (~8 "real" pages). Some were pretty shoddy, but some were good. But to buy many of them was an expensive proposition, as they were like2.50-4.00 a pop, which gave them the highest price per full sized page ration in the industry.

AEG recently collected all of their mini adventure into 2 softbound volumes (Adventure I and Adventure II), complete with new maps and updated stat blocks. They are great to drop in an ongoing game (in fact, that's where tonight's activities are coming from...)

 

[StalkingBlue]

Hm, can't say I agree with you, Emirikol.

IME - and as others have already stated - real life interfering (i.e. people moving away) is the top reason for people to drop out and (if enough people leave) the game to end prematurely.

The next most common reason for people to leave games IME is personalities that don't mesh well.

Another common reason appears to be game styles that don't mesh, at least judging by the frequency of complaint threads started by 'storytelling' DMs frustrated with their 'hack-'n.slash' groups.


Looking at the first of your stated two 'main reasons', I see two lines of reasoning mixed up. You state a symptom (DM burnout) and proceed to explain it with 're-inventing the wheel every week'. May be true for you, but I don't share that experience. While DM burnout definitely is a common phenomenon, the causes for it are manyfold. For example, I tend to burn out if I DM exclusively for long stretches without getting to play, but creating my own scenarios doesn't tend to do that to me. Many DMs burn out because their game style doesn't mesh with that of their groups (see above). So nope, your explanation of DM burnout doesn't work, certainly not as a generalised statement.

So what about DM burnout in itself, leaving explanations apart for a moment? Sure it can cause a game to end and the group to break apart, but IME that happens only if there's no one else prepared to run a few sessions until the main DM is ready to kick in again (nothing like spending a few sessions playing for reviving to enthusiasm for the DM role!).


As to your second point, I can't say I've ever seen people drop out of a game merely because combat went too slowly.

 

[Liolel]

Some of my favorite games as a player have had no pubished modules being run. The combats were also slow because of the scale. I think of the times like when the party lead the dukes troops in battle against a group of bandits and their leader escaped. I also remember the later battle and the conculsion of the story arc, when the party assulted a ruined keep, very few forces remaining on either side, and fought a long battle against orcs and bandits, then a chase through the woods which ended with one well placed bow shot ending it.

These were some wonderful sessions and I haven't played a module as good as the better homebrewed adventures I've played.

 

[eris404]

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.

I can definitely see your point and I have gamed with DMs that have burned out because of this. However, making worlds, NPCs, scenarios and adventures is my hobby, as I suspect it is for other people on this board. I create these things even when I'm not running a game and I find it relaxing and fun to do. I do, however, also collect adventures, NPCs, etc. from various resources, too, but that's just another part of my hobby habit.