D&D 5E Understanding DM Fatigue

[Laurefindel]

So is this vexing like a player that shows up inconsistently, ( a common theme it seems)?
Are you DMing on the fly or scripted?

My own personal belief, is at high level the DM does not need to worry about balance.
It just drives the DM crazy, and adventuring parties in the groove are pretty unstoppable.
unless they roll poorly
Though, Bards, Halflings, and Fighters ( to name a few) can handle even that.

Nah, not interested in balance; just in a good, fun fight. But the best ones always were those where I managed to gauge just right; hard enough to make the players sweat, not hard enough to result in dead PCs.

As I said, some DMs handle high level play much better than I do. It’s all cool, I’m not complaining, and neither are my players. Helpful people, like you, tell me “you just have to do X, Y and Z”. While I do appreciate, i know about X, Y and Z (and the rest of the alphabet for that matter). But in this particular thread, all I’m saying is that applying X, Y and Z gets me out of my “zone” where I’m best at DMing, which contributes to DM fatigue.

I did say it was anecdotal. I never intended to claim that high level play was causing DM fatigue for everyone. Yet somehow I suspect I’m not the only one in this boat.

 

[ccs]

Are you DMing on the fly or scripted?

Yes.

 

[Todd Roybark]

I get it. I’m more interested in the root causes of fatigue, then offering unsolicited advice on “how to fix your game”...(which forgive the hubris if that is how I ‘sounded’)
I too like a tough fight like you described, and also find it frustrating when the amount of tension I was hoping for fails to arrive.

I wonder what is more fun:
A) the high tension, hard fought scenario
B) the use of resources by the players to circumvent or downgrade the tension of choice A above.

As a DM I like A. My Players probably like a bit of both options..

 

[Iry]

One of the neat things about the "Attrition" model of D&D is that you don't need to spend much time balancing encounters after the first few levels. The party gains enough resources (including HP) that they can defeat dangerous encounters by throwing more resources at them. You need to be aware of meta situations like increasing the value of nova classes over short rest classes, but any reasonable effort to have more than one fight per day tends to keep that under control.

It's basically a self correcting system, most of the time.

 

[Laurefindel]

I get it. I’m more interested in the root causes of fatigue, then offering unsolicited advice on “how to fix your game”...(which forgive the hubris if that is how I ‘sounded’)
I too like a tough fight like you described, and also find it frustrating when the amount of tension I was hoping for fails to arrive.

I wonder what is more fun:
A) the high tension, hard fought scenario
B) the use of resources by the players to circumvent or downgrade the tension of choice A above.

All good: your advice wasn’t unappreciated, and while most people’s intentions are to fix the(se) issue(s), I always feel that some try to tell me they aren’t issues in the first place, because they don’t experience them. I’m quick to react as if it were the second.

As for your A/B question, I’d say whichever the DM can sell best and with most enthusiasm.

 

[oreofox]

Scheduling, losing desire, not having time or motivation to work on it between game times, work, not enjoying the direction the story is going in, unable to figure out what to do next. Those are most of what I have experienced.