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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Emirikol" data-source="post: 1474013" data-attributes="member: 10638">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 adventuring5% 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 Worlds5% 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..</blockquote>

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