Too many supplements a cause for burnout?

[papastebu]

Unexpressed anger, sadness, or other forms of upset cause depression. Depression can make you feel burned out, almost especially about things that have a large hold on your time and energy, like your job, which you probably need, or your loved ones, whom you... love, or even a hobby that has provided hours--possibly years--of enjoyment.
I think that the reason we are seeing a larger number of these threads is in reaction to WotC's ill-handling of the recent news about Dungeon and Dragon magazines, coupled with the sadness of the loss, and redoubled by our sense of powerlessness. All of that compounded emotion is difficult to slog through, even if you have all of the stuff there you need to have to deal with it. None of the people who were so deeply offended by all of it have been given much closure, if any.
The "burnout" threads are coming because they can't beat up the people they want to beat up, so they're doing--perhaps unconsciously--the next-best thing. They're saying, "I don't want to know you, anymore." :\
"If an eye offend thee, pluck it out."

 

[Old_Man_Fish]

I run alternating campaigns, one will be completely open - bring in a character with any supplement, the next will be core rules only (perhaps a single outside source, such as stormwrack in the Savage Tide, but only for the variants on the pre-existing skills and for naval combat rules and whatnot).

It seems to me that I have a better time DM'ing the closed campaigns than I do the open ones. There are a few players in the group who enjoy the open campaigns better, but these are really the "Power" gamers of the group. The silly thing is that there characters are 100% completely unmemorable. They have no real personalities besides the whole "I'll try to be a warforged priest of god from book of exalted cheese with feat x from splatbook y who takes nothing but the instant heal spells"... I know that it is a rehash of the old argument, but to me having less options is probably better for character development in that you have to do something with the character to differentiate between him and the other {insert class here} that came before him. With all of the splat books, most people feel that having the different feat x is what will make him stand out, and, unfortunately, this really isn't the case.

So, to me it's not really that the books cause burnout, but that the extra options will cause extra time to be spent preparing for games and oftentimes bring about a lessening in the roleplaying of a small portion of gamers. Which will eventually cause burnout.

 

[Dark Psion]

To me, the burnout from new books is not in their freqency, but in the lack of support.

As I am tryng to dream up support for Incarnates, Artificers, Shadowcasters, Warlocks and Swordsages, that is where I will burnout. I get so lost in the techncal side of creating new spells, feat and items, that I lose the fun side of just playing the game.

On the other hand, I will pick up a new book and it may inspire me back to the fun. Paizo's new look at Goblins and Kobolds makes me want to take a new look at several of the "classic creatures" of D&D.

http://paizo.com/paizo/blog

 

[billd91]

As I'm seeing some of these posts, it's not the proliferation of sources that is the cause of the burnout. It's the dipstick players waving the new sources in your faces despite requests that they not do so that is the cause of the burnout. Players who don't whine about adding a new source or who put together a reasonable presentation about why you should include something and/or are accepting of any final decisions not to include them for this campaign can prove that it's not the proliferation of supplements at fault in burnout.

 

[megamania]

This is part of why I am growing wary of the game. I generally will buy many of the books but have little time to study them. One player in particular buys a few books, borrows others and creating real PITA characters to deal with. Right now with 6 characters of 14-15th level I am forced to use 17-20th level encounters since things are so perfectly pieced together by the player (whom is helping others now).

Folks are having fun but I had more fun at much lower levels.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Someone mentioned making it clear what sources one would use in a campaign from the start, and while I did this, and said clearly what I wanted to use and not, a couple of the players (gone now) constantly were bringing up "cool" variations for their classes/spells/feats/skills/ familiars/weapons/armor and so on, ad nauseum, most of which I considered corny, others out of character with the flavor of the milieu, ultimately being not just frustrating but boring, empty and soulless.

So deal with it. Tell them that you've "closed" the campaign as far as new material goes. Find better players. Adjust your game to suit what your players want, instead of just what you think is cool. What-the--ever.

 

[William drake]

I'm wondering whether other DMs and players are getting burned out because there's so many new Rulebooks, supplements, variant classes, feats, and so on. Personally, it seems like some of my players seem to be into all these variations much more than roleplaying, and there's been many times where obvious facts about the fantasy world they are playing in seem to slip their minds, because they are all agog about some exciting new variant to their character's class recently published in some new third party work.

Is the marketplace actually driving the joy out of roleplaying?

I agree. I own the core books...that's all. I've read or glance at things that my players own or bought, but I don't always agree with it or allow it in game. Yes, all these new books and supplements, while they allow variety, turn the game into a Stacking System. Where feats, weapons, armor and overall Combat has become more imporant than ever before. Yes RP'ing as a whole, I feel, is down. I find that most players are Hack`n Slash...and that's fine, and if so, then all the new feats, and weapons, and combat skills fit into it. But not for me and not for the game I want to play or run.