DM Burnout

[paperarmor]

Yup I'm starting to burnout here. My lv11 party conquers all and we have a lot of fun at the table. However I find myself lacking the motivation to work on the campagin. Can anyone offer some adivce to mitigate this?

[watchwood]

Take a break and let someone else run a game for a while?

In my group there's a couple of us that take turns DMing in our own respective campaigns. Even if one person gets bored for a little while, there's a couple others with some material good to go.

[Nibbens]

Throw a curveball at them. Plan a fight that's considerably harder than anything you've given them and watch them scramble until they realize they probably should retreat.

Put them off their game with an entire session devised of role-play.

One of my favorite games that i played was the "Skinsaw murders" of Pathfinder campaign set. One section had the players going up against a haunted mansion. No creatures, just haunts that that told a story of what happened to the previous owners of the house and had the potential to TPW an group of LVL 4s. Great writing, and definitely a clean break from the traditional hack and slash dungeon crawl.

Maybe that'll cure some of the DM blues?
The idea that i'm getting at here is that you might be less bored if doing something original for the players (and thus yourself).

[Spore]

Take a break and let someone else run a game for a while?

Seconding that. You sound like you know what you like each other. The question is: Is that possible?

[incarnate236]

Rotating DM's is usually a good policy. If the group is getting too powerful or too optimized you might also discuss scaling back to level 1 with a new concept and less splat books available to simplify things. perhaps an E6 style campaign might be a better option if writing material for mid level is too onerous for yourself or the others.

[Magesmiley]

I'll also highly recommend taking a break. DMing when you're burned out is just plain bad for everyone.

A few options to suggest:

1. Let someone else run a different campaign for awhile.

2. Switch games. Preferably to something completely different than high fantasy. I did this at one point (running an Alternity game for about 6 months after years of D&D) and it helped a lot.

3. Go play non-RPG games for a few months. Crack out all of the various board games that everyone has accumulated. This can be a great pressure relief for DMs.

[weckar]

This is quite interesting to me. By lv 11 I find the game usually rolls itself..

Anyway, maybe to find motivation you can look back on what the campaign has accomplished thus far. That's what I'd do.

[dascarletm]

If you enjoy actually playing as a DM but world building and adventure writing is what you are loathing, then you could do a couple different things

1: Run a pre-written adventure. There will be some work involved in putting it into your campaign and meshing it, but it might not be too big of a hassle.

2: Make the characters run the campaign. I assume you probably already have the world pretty fleshed out. This could be a good time to let the characters have some time to accomplish personal goals. This is what I do in my games. For example, perhaps the wizard wants to start a college, or the monk wants to build a monastery.


If you want some help, I love world building and such, if you want to give more details I can offer you more detailed suggestions.

Do the players have anything they want to accomplish?

[BWR]

In descending order of what works for me.

1. Take a break from DMing. Either have someone else run a game, switch over to board games/card games, video games, whatever or just apologize to everyone and take an extended break from the game for a couple of months minimum.

2. Try to run something else. Pick up a new, different type of game with different rules and different ideas. Drop anything D&D related and pick up something else. Making a radical change like that can easily work to get you in the mood again. It doesn't have to be a long detour - just a couple of months of change can work wonders.
It can be anything: that game that's been gathering dust on your shelf for 20 years, something you've heard about and wanted to try for some time, or even just something randomly chosen off the shelf of your FLGS.
I'd recommend Legend of the Five Rings, Ars Magica, Call of Cthulhu or World of Darkness, just to get away from normal D&D conventions.

3. Run adventures written by others. It might feel like cheating but they really help when you're stuck. Heck, I've been running published adventures almost exclusively for 2 years now. They often require a little work to fit in to the existing campaign but it really helps to have something to work with if you feel a little burned out.
Heck, you can even just cancel or put on hold your current game and start running one of Paizo's adventure paths, Full, if accelerated, campaigns taking people from levels 1 to ca. 20.

[paperarmor]

Thanks for the replies and good advice. We're currently running through a character's backstory/sidequest to save her mother. but a problem i'm having is that they still expect me to come up with stuff on the fly, like that player while she was going through and narrating the groups arrival in her character's hometown asked me to roll up a wizard in the 12 seconds it took her to talk through the narration (so I handed her the Lich entry in the monster manual). It worked out well.

I've brought up rotating DM's but it's mostly been ignored, there are three other people in the group have DMed besides me and no one else wants to do it so eh I guess I'm stuck.

[Talos]

I feel you brother, when you are the only GOOD dm ( according to the group)in your group. I recently switched entire modes going from 3.5 dnd to shadowrun, now we are playing anima with a NEW dm yeah i get to play. now that he is DMing with good players myself in cluded. it is a real blast. when i run a game again i will definately run shadowrun or serenity.

[weckar]

You're never 'stuck'. You shouldn't DM if you don't want to.

[paperarmor]

You're never 'stuck'. You shouldn't DM if you don't want to.

well yes but we have a good group dynamic and all have fun at the table just no one else wants to DM

[KorbeltheReader]

Ugh, definitely had this happen to me, too. I've been GMing a campaign for coming on 2 years now, and there have been periods where I really didn't want to sit down and write the next part of the plot.

Other posters above have good ideas. It helped me to mix it up a bit. I ran a canned adventure or two just to take a break from writing and get ideas from other people. I did a "horror" adventure. I did a "comedy" adventure where I adapted the Hangover for a PC that was getting married (normally I hate pop culture references in D&D, but it's still their favorite adventure of the campaign, go figure). I based a whole adventure after a single monster I wanted to see in action.

Sometimes you're just in a funk for a month or two, like I was, and these things will get you through it. Focus on the payoff at the table if you're not wanting to write the next adventure.

As for improvising stuff, you could keep a couple of tables and online npc creators handy. They create crappy pcs with things like Toughness, but they work in a pinch.

[Captnq]

Man up and get back to work.

You'll never made it to the big time if you wimp out just because you aren't having any fun. When it stops being fun, you just need to dig deeper. I usually write a handbook or something. I find that gets me going again. If that doesn't work, I write a book and try and get it published.

And if the players are doing good, you obviously aren't making it very hard. Try cranking it up to eleven. Try doing an entire session with no planning at all and making up everything as you go along. Practice that improv DMing. That sort of thing.

[Magesmiley]

I've brought up rotating DM's but it's mostly been ignored, there are three other people in the group have DMed besides me and no one else wants to do it so eh I guess I'm stuck.

You're not stuck. It shouldn't be your obligation to DM all of the time. No one can make your do it. The hardest thing to do is to make sure that people understand that you're burned out. If you keep doing it while you are burned out, the next step is starting to hate it.

Just announce that you're taking a break for an indeterminate amount of time due to burnout and lay out the group's options as you see them. And don't take no for an answer. If they really want to keep playing D&D, one of the others will step up and do it. Otherwise play board games for a few months until you feel better about it.

[dascarletm]

Thanks for the replies and good advice. We're currently running through a character's backstory/sidequest to save her mother. but a problem i'm having is that they still expect me to come up with stuff on the fly, like that player while she was going through and narrating the groups arrival in her character's hometown asked me to roll up a wizard in the 12 seconds it took her to talk through the narration (so I handed her the Lich entry in the monster manual). It worked out well.

I've brought up rotating DM's but it's mostly been ignored, there are three other people in the group have DMed besides me and no one else wants to do it so eh I guess I'm stuck.

I've never had a problem with coming up with things on the fly. I think it is due to two things. Most ever player I have has tried their hat at DMing at least once, or DMs occasionally. So they know that if they pull something unexpected that I'll have to just roll with the punches. In your case they'd understand that the wizard is made on the fly, and wouldn't expect a detailed list of every spell he/she has.

That being said if you want my advice, when it comes to situations like that keep the character liquid.

If she wants there to be a wizard, here's how I'd handle it.

PC: And the town wizard Zimus the Fabulous, my old fiend would be greeting us as we entered town.
DM: Yes, Zimus appears in a flash of multicolored mist. "Hello Celeste, it has been quite a while since you were here last"
PC: DM, I'm going to need need to see those stats for Zimus, he's level 12.
DM: You can't see the stats Madam Metagame.
PC: Well, what spells does he have?
DM: You are not allowed to look at his spell book. Wizards are secretive of that sort of thing.

etc.

I find you can usually get away without knowing the details of an NPC for a while, and you can begin to fill those in as you play the NPC. Just take a few notes, and build him later.

In my example above you know Zimus has some sort of teleportation spell, could be dimension door or teleport. He probably also has that one metamagic feat that makes your spell effects cinematic.

[Ailowynn]

I change games. Our group plays through one story arc of one game, takes a brief break (about a month) and then starts a story arc of another game. It does result in longer campaigns, but it's also a great way to avoid burnout for both the GMs and players and helps my system ADD (I get really into one game, and then lose interest, and then get really excited about another one...).

[Nibbens]

And if the players are doing good, you obviously aren't making it very hard. Try cranking it up to eleven. Try doing an entire session with no planning at all and making up everything as you go along. Practice that improv DMing. That sort of thing.

This!

Seconded. lol.

[weckar]

Wait, since when is the players doing good a bad thing?

[Crake]

Man up and get back to work.

You'll never made it to the big time if you wimp out just because you aren't having any fun. When it stops being fun, you just need to dig deeper. I usually write a handbook or something. I find that gets me going again. If that doesn't work, I write a book and try and get it published.

And if the players are doing good, you obviously aren't making it very hard. Try cranking it up to eleven. Try doing an entire session with no planning at all and making up everything as you go along. Practice that improv DMing. That sort of thing.

This is pretty much how I feel about it, except instead of writing a handbook, I flesh out my world a bit more, since it's a homebrew campaign setting.

I also highly prize roleplay in my games. Players roleplaying earn just as much xp for a session of play as a player engaged in nothing by killing monsters and evil NPCs. In my current game, about the last... 6 or so sessions have actually been entirely roleplay, no real combat involved (there was a short bit of exposition combat, more a decision to be made by one of the players, which side will he pick when the cards hit the table sort of thing, nobody's life was in danger).

I also personally discourage taking a break from DMing. From my experience, all it serves to do is to rust your skills and make the first few sessions when you get back to DMing quite mediocre. This is made even worse when you get groups of like, 4 or so DMs rotating between eachother, taking 2 weeks a turn, and nobody ever really gets a chance to get into the real swing of things.

If you really want to get a chance to play, get someone else to DM in tandem, so you can play one night of the week and DM the other night. They don't have to run in the same world, or even in the same ruleset (although I personally prefer to stick to one set of tabletop rules so I don't start accidentally meshing them together like I've seen many others do). Might not be as feasible for someone without a lot of free time though.

[Nibbens]

Wait, since when is the players doing good a bad thing?

I was mostly in agreeance with the Improv Dming. Trying to stretch your limits. And sometimes, changing the game for the PC's can spice things up for all involved.

With cranking up the difficulty, however, now the players feel a little more challenged and sparks their interest, so they create new ways to deal with tired situations, forcing the dm to act on his toes.

I'd even go as far to say "so what if one of them dies because the DM cranked it up." A bunch of "doing good" pc's will now have to find a way to revive one of their fallen which could lead to improv sidequests and such. Good to stretch the brain muscles a bit, especially if someone is now bored with what they're doing. lol.

Change of pace is good for all; players and DM, in my opinion.

[weckar]

OKay :)

For a moment there it felt like you were driving a Players VS DM mentality.... which I hate....

[Nibbens]

For a moment there it felt like you were driving a Players VS DM mentality.... which I hate....

Totally agree.

[Knaight]

well yes but we have a good group dynamic and all have fun at the table just no one else wants to DM

This is where board games (or GMless RPGs) come in. If you're burnt out it's probably best to put the game away for a while, and if nobody else will GM, find something that doesn't need it. Try Microscope or Fiasco - Microscope in particular can help reinvigorate the original campaign, simply because you will have good ideas from it.

[Spore]

Thanks for the replies and good advice. We're currently running through a character's backstory/sidequest to save her mother. but a problem i'm having is that they still expect me to come up with stuff on the fly, like that player while she was going through and narrating the groups arrival in her character's hometown asked me to roll up a wizard in the 12 seconds it took her to talk through the narration (so I handed her the Lich entry in the monster manual). It worked out well..

As I feel creating NPCs is the most time consuming part - and for me the most awesome - but if you need an NPC on the fly there's always the NPC Gallery (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/mastery/nPCGallery.html).