Things you don’t like about DMing

[aramis erak]

So I recently saw the discord discussion that I’ve clipped some comments from because I found it very interesting. There was clearly one DM who felt if you don’t enjoy every aspect of DMing then why are you doing it. Others felt that labors of love are still labors.

What do you think? Are there elements of DMing you really don’t enjoy but have to do anyway? This isn’t so much about DMing things that you don’t bother with or find alternatives. But rather things you don’t like but have to go through anyway.

I generally prefer GMing to being just a player.

There are significant bits that are effort consuming, but often enjoyable:

• Adventure/dungeon design
• encounter design
• setting development
• VTT prep
• developing my cheat sheets for the rules
• learning new rulesets (be they editions or whole new games.)

Unfun, but not a major problem most of the time:

• errata application to rulebooks
• Learning new editions that are too close to prior except in subtle ways.

Parts I really don't like doing:

• Finding new tokens for the VTT
• acting as an authority figure in interpersonal problems for the group
• disciplinary discussion with problem players
  • expelling problem players unwilling to reform
• updating cheat sheets to new edition - it's often easier and more pleasant for me to just do whole new sheets from scratch, but it takes so much longer.
• Dealing with "players" who are really just there to talk to other people.

 

[Cergorach]

For me, the short of it, I enjoy DMing when I want to, I do not enjoy DMing when I feel I have to.

And when I talk about DMing, it's not just the actual session, that is imho the easiest part, but all the prep work is imho the hardest part. Not everything is a pleasure, but satisfaction is also enjoyable for me, maybe even more then direct pleasure from DMing.

I also think it's how you define 'work' for most it's the thing they have to to survive (work=job=money=survival). But as someone who made one of their hobbies their work (computers=IT), suddenly most often your work is no longer your hobby, but a way to earn something. Heck, a LOT of that part of the hobby I tried to automate away due to me already spending 40 hours a week on that on the job. But sometimes I can enjoy what I do for work in my free time. I can enjoy working in the garden when I want to, I do not when I have to. Work isn't my issue, but the motivation behind it is.

Something similar for DMing, and especially the prep work. I have spend more time on prep work then I've spend DMing the sessions. But there are times when my attention is drawn to other things then RPG prep work. That's why I spend do much prepping before even starting the sessions, so I have an enormous buffer to work with for the periods I'm not motivated to do prep work as a DM. Too much spending time on prep work when I feel like I have too, instead of that I want too, will lead to burnout.

And it might be that I do not enjoy the prep work for a particular adventure I'm running now, but I do feel enjoy prep work for another adventure/campaign/system/game. Funny enough, earlier this year, our RPG group had a 'break through' where we identified some issues with how we played RPGs the last 35+ years... We played a campaign until we burned out on it, often even switching DMs when a DM burned out (within the same campaign/party), this lead to messy campaigns, still burnout, and quite a bit of frustration. We also noticed that many DMs started great but petered out quickly, not to mention lack of time due to other commitments. We're now moving to a different configuration where we have a main campaign where we take breaks when someone pitches a oneshot for a few sessions as a break to the main campaign (and park that party), giving the DMs more breaks and a more limited scope. We also decided to give every DM their own playground/party instead of overlapping playgroups which leads to more frustration. It allows me to better prep, give me some breaks, but also variation to work on.

 

[Morrus]

Reading through a published adventurer. I don’t know why, but I always find that to be such a chore. The worst is reading through keyed rooms of a large dungeon or something. So tedious.

 

[BookTenTiger]

Most of the stuff in this thread (learning rules, organizing maps and counters, helping quiet players) are things I do enjoy about DMing.

What I really, really hate is scheduling games. Trying to coordinate four to six people, setting up calendars, double checking dates, sending out reminders, waiting to find out who cancels at the last minute... Talk about social anxiety!!!

I think I put a lot of my heart into running a game, and while it's understandable that players don't treat it with the same level of dedication, it's always a challenge for me when games sizzle out just because folks can't commit to a regular schedule. (Which again I understand on a human level but it's still a bummer!)

 

[BookTenTiger]

Reading through a published adventurer. I don’t know why, but I always find that to be such a chore. The worst is reading through keyed rooms of a large dungeon or something. So tedious.

Using prepared adventures always gives me the impatient wiggly feeling of doing homework (I was terrible at getting homework done), while creating adventures always gives me the exciting urgent feeling of creating art.

 

[AnotherGuy]

One thing I don’t like about DMing is the moment precisely before. An hour or so. I get a kind of stage anxiety or maybe performance anxiety/imposter syndrome. How am I going to entertain these people for the next three to six hours. It’s not every time but I would say more often than not.

Exactly this for me!
A mild panic sets in if I feel I have not prepped enough and yet I have been extremely fortunate as the sessions have gone better than I imagined.

 

[payn]

I was going to say the social referee bit but @Deset Gled covered it. Lil surprised not to see more folks mentioning it.

 

[billd91]

I feel fortunate that the group I'm running for currently doesn't seem to have any social referee issues. I've only had to really step in and do that a couple of times in the last 25 or so years.

I'm going to echo a lot of people here and say it's the moment before the session starts that's the worst part. I'm an introvert and I need to kind of kickstart myself into getting the ball rolling and pulling the attention on to me. This is for my home game as much as the con games I run. So we are now kind of starting with a ritual - I pose a role playing question to my players about their characters and we warm up with that.

 

[payn]

I feel fortunate that the group I'm running for currently doesn't seem to have any social referee issues. I've only had to really step in and do that a couple of times in the last 25 or so years.

Experience does seem to iron out some social issues. I tend to find them to be more like an onion, though. Layer after layer. You could start with scheduling, then playstyle, then campaign length, then... The longer a group is together the better the odds that the layers have been peeled away satisfactory. Though, all it takes is a group break up to start all over again. Even adding a new player to an existing group can be a rerun off all the layers again too.

 

[TheSword]

I hate juggling enemy and npc stat blocks, and most issues of game complexity for me are basically issues of whether the stat block is so complicated I actually need it at hand, or so simple it gives me no support for characters doing anything off-script.

I feel your pain. This is my pet hate too. I think it started in Pathfinder. Dipped slightly in 5e but resurfaced when getting into 5e on VTT. Probably because you have to do the stat block building otherwise the VTT won’t work. It’s a definite chore. Almost all my stat blocks are modified now instead of crafted.

On the flip side I really enjoy finding images for maps, NPC portraits and tokens. That’s really enjoyable, particularly with tokenizer!