Burnout

[Finback]

what do other DMs do when they hit the wall? My group has been intermittent for a while, because Life Gets In The Way (eg tomorrow night's game is cancelled because I have the lurgey), but I've been stuck for ideas for a while. I have the big plot arc in mind. I know how the final battle will look. I've accounted for the players splitting into two groups (one in the employ of the BBEG, the others rousing a revolution in the gutters)... but I am stuck for good events leading to it. :/ I feel like I'm tapped out of creative ideas, and don't want to just throw a bunch of street fights at them.

How do others find a way around this, without disappointing their parties by calling a timeout for a while until you get your mojo back?

[Rogozhin]

I'm not only a fairly new DM but relatively new to D&D as well.

I'm running a campaign where this has come up and I've had some good results tossing in published adventures or riffs on them as sort of side missions.

For example... I needed the party to visit a small village to get information from someone. I found a great "village under siege" adventure from Konold's Press called The Ravens Call. I was able to slot it in nicely with some changes to the baddies and plot hooks.

I've also sent my party into the Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan from TftYP. Our campaign has some ancient holy weapons hidden in forgotten temples so this worked very nicely as one of those.

[nickl_2000]

what do other DMs do when they hit the wall? My group has been intermittent for a while, because Life Gets In The Way (eg tomorrow night's game is cancelled because I have the lurgey), but I've been stuck for ideas for a while. I have the big plot arc in mind. I know how the final battle will look. I've accounted for the players splitting into two groups (one in the employ of the BBEG, the others rousing a revolution in the gutters)... but I am stuck for good events leading to it. :/ I feel like I'm tapped out of creative ideas, and don't want to just throw a bunch of street fights at them.

How do others find a way around this, without disappointing their parties by calling a timeout for a while until you get your mojo back?

I play in a group of 5 people total. We have 2 main DMs who go back and forth, so when there are issues like this they will switch to a different campaign and put the one on hold. It isn't ideal, but it also prevents the burnout that you are feeling. Also, I have a group of semi-related one shots that I've made for monster character that I have ready to go when a DM just doesn't have it in them to be in charge that day.

[EvilAnagram]

My wife read a book by a woman who liked to frame things in terms of spoons.

It works like this: when you do a thing that takes effort or energy, no matter how enjoyable or rewarding, it takes a certain number of spoons. You pull those spoons out of the drawer, you do the thing, and now you don't have as many spoons. Some days you wake up with a full drawer, some days you barely have any spoons at all.

Taking care of yourself means recognizing when you're low on spoons and doing things that refill you're spoons. What refills your spins doesn't matter, just that you participate in activity that recharges you. Put aside the campaign notes and go for a swim, or have drinks with friends, or read a book start to finish. Do something that doesn't require mental energy and leaves you revitalized. Give yourself permission to put down the game and take care of your mental health.

[KorvinStarmast]

Taking care of yourself means recognizing when you're low on spoons and doing things that refill you're spoons. What refills your spins doesn't matter, just that you participate in activity that recharges you. Put aside the campaign notes and go for a swim, or have drinks with friends, or read a book start to finish. Do something that doesn't require mental energy and leaves you revitalized. Give yourself permission to put down the game and take care of your mental health. This puts a neat new meaning to that line in the Matrix: there is no spoon.

When there is no spoon, it's not a good day to DM. :smallcool:

[Tanarii]

Steal.

Mostly I steal from old modules from previous editions. But also from DDEX, AL, other game systems completely.

In truly dire moments, I will occasionally steal from books or even movies/TV shows. I try to avoid that though. TTRPGs aren't stories, and things with 'plot' usually don't convert that well to groups of player controlled PCs making decisions about what to do in a fictional world.

Because of that, the best thing to steal from are war shows or movies that focus on squad level shenanigans. Even then you need to remember to strip out the rails. Otherwise you'll and figure out what happens when the players totally blow up everything in 'scene 3' and walk away from the adventure and miss the vital clues in 'scene 5' that led to 'the final battle'. Or whatever.

Edit: also, it helps to know how much session 'gas' you have. I shut down after about 2 hours if I'm running a game after a day of work. On top of that, it requires 2 hrs of prep even if it's a premade module (read: stolen), probably double that for my own invented content. So that's 4 hrs minimum for weekday sessions. Prep time is important to account for when you're running multiple weekday open table sessions at flgs.

[Armored Walrus]

Steal.

Mostly I steal ..

This is what I was going to recommend. If you don't want to put the campaign on hiatus, grab a couple interesting-looking modules, put all the BBEG plans on hold for some reason, and go side-questing until you are refreshed.

Alternatively, move up the ending of the campaign. Focus your energy on wrapping up the campaign in a satisfying way, and then think of how you can start fresh with the next one.

Alternatively, look at your plans for the final battle, and think of ways to tweak it. Work backward from there to develop what would have to happen in order for those tweaks to come to fruition. ie. give yourself something new to think about so that it can refresh your enthusiasm.

[LaserFace]

So if I have an idea of how something will end up, but no idea how to get there, I ask myself if it really needs to be done at the moment. Sometimes ideas are cool but without a feasible vehicle to get there, it might better off to just write it down in a notebook and start doing something else with the group.

Whatever you're doing each session, it should excite everyone.

If you're burned out, tired and can't think anymore, maybe you need to find something else to do in order to relax and recharge. You should maybe consider a break from the game.

If you're enthusiastic about the game but just keep blanking on ideas, just think what could be exciting in the next session and no further. There is no need to figure out A through Z if you haven't even touched B yet.

What's a reasonable thing that could exist in your game that is even tangentially related to your plan?

You mention two groups. If you're rousing a revolution, just think of problems of revolutionaries. Crackdowns, and contacting other hidden pockets of resistance, and persuading possible allies with unique power and perspective that would be really helpful to the cause. The other group could be doing literally anything a BBEG is interested in: intimidating or crushing weaker factions, securing powerful magic, investigating the existence of hidden threats. Simply knowing motivations and the current environment in which everyone exists can inspire a lot of possible adventures. So long as you aren't tied down unnecessarily, you can explore anything that just sounds cool.

If you haven't already been doing this, I recommend you take things one session at a time and let the campaign build itself up. Do reasonable and cool things.

So, for example, I'm just going to assume the BBEG is an oppressive force and your would-be revolutionaries are those suffering under their rule. Maybe food is a problem acquiring for poor folks; they work hard and their wealth/food/whatever is regularly stolen by enforcers for an evil faction. A session can revolve around a person just complaining the PCs about how there's no food. Maybe they hint at evil rulers being responsible, prompting some sort of resistance from the PCs. Or maybe they find another solution, hunting the huge-ass monsters that make farming difficult out in the countryside. The monsters themselves might make for a huge feast; and no doubt gaining notoriety among the populace could put them on the oppressive BBEG's radar, prompting new possible adventures.

Anyway hope something in there helps

[shadowkat678]

My wife read a book by a woman who liked to frame things in terms of spoons.

It works like this: when you do a thing that takes effort or energy, no matter how enjoyable or rewarding, it takes a certain number of spoons. You pull those spoons out of the drawer, you do the thing, and now you don't have as many spoons. Some days you wake up with a full drawer, some days you barely have any spoons at all.

Taking care of yourself means recognizing when you're low on spoons and doing things that refill you're spoons. What refills your spins doesn't matter, just that you participate in activity that recharges you. Put aside the campaign notes and go for a swim, or have drinks with friends, or read a book start to finish. Do something that doesn't require mental energy and leaves you revitalized. Give yourself permission to put down the game and take care of your mental health.

That's actually a term that's used for a lot of us on the autism spectrum. Although I typically use battery life.

I think a good thing to do is go online and search for a campaign or story or something revolving around a similar plot that your doing, then take notes. Advice from a rogue: It's only stealing if your caught, and when it comes to stories, as long as you can turn it into something that fits you, it's more like "creative inspiration". That's what I had to do building New Neverwinter, since there's not much official content besides the Neverwinter MMO. And I was not about to go through all those playthroughs.

[Laserlight]

You could ask your players what plotline they want to pursue. Occasionally they will tell you something that you never intended to be a plotline. Just say "I didn't expect that you would figure out that the elvish hooker and the blind shoemaker and the blue count are all connected--well done! What else do you know about that? Okay, what do you plan to do about it?"

[Doug Lampert]

what do other DMs do when they hit the wall? My group has been intermittent for a while, because Life Gets In The Way (eg tomorrow night's game is cancelled because I have the lurgey), but I've been stuck for ideas for a while. I have the big plot arc in mind. I know how the final battle will look. I've accounted for the players splitting into two groups (one in the employ of the BBEG, the others rousing a revolution in the gutters)... but I am stuck for good events leading to it. :/ I feel like I'm tapped out of creative ideas, and don't want to just throw a bunch of street fights at them.

How do others find a way around this, without disappointing their parties by calling a timeout for a while until you get your mojo back?

I'll often run a one-shot or even a completely different campaign using a different system if I feel like I'm burning out.

If you're burning out on D&D try Paranoia, or Ars Magica, or Pendragon, or Hero, or BESM, or Dungeon World, or any of the thousands of other games out there.

When you're ready to run D&D again, the plot with the BBEG and the revolutionaries will still be waiting. Make some notes on it and leave them in a file on your computer someplace where you're likely to see it in a year, and see what you think then.

[Nidgit]

If you've got a big plot-driven campaign, try mentally dividing it into more manageable Acts. If you can identify a few major plot points you want to occur, or conceive of a cool fight or location you want to create, you can build towards those in turn. It's sometimes easier to just turn your imagination loose and tie it back to the campaign than to build directly off your skeleton.

And as others have said, shamelessly steal ideas from existing modules.

[Theodoxus]

I was running into this issue too, until I took a different tact.

I have an overarching idea for the campaign. I might even write down the ending, ala GRRM and HBO for Game of Thrones... But, I only write up one session at a time.

I run a weekly 4 hour game, and I've come to be a pretty good judge of time. Usually, a single page of notes to flesh out whatever chapter in the module I'm running.

As soon as the session is over and I'm back home, I write up a synopsis for myself of what transpired, and then over the weekend, I'll write up another page of notes for the next section, riffing on whatever shenanigans the party managed to do and expanding on their plot.

Generally, my notes will contain NPC reactions, faction movement, BBEG actions/reactions and quest hooks for the chapter. Then, in session, the players can act on what I give them, or not... but either way the world toils on and the meta plot unfolds with our without player knowledge.

Currently, the players are about 3/4 the way through LMoP, and have avoided two major plot hooks through willful ignorance. So my Campaign Notes #4 has a small section detailing how the town is suffering under the hands of the invading gang of badguys, and a few statements that I'll share with the players regarding NPC attitudes. It might cause them to investigate and confront, or they might still avoid the problem and keep searching for clues to the lost dwarven treasures buried deep under the Sword Mountains.

But either way, I'm not going to worry about it until Campaign Notes #5, where I'll have played the fourth session and know where the party is headed...

I've found this approach keeps me on my toes, lets me react quicker to party non sequiturs' and greatly reduces my desire to railroad them onto the overarching plot - because if they go completely off the rails, I don't have 6 weeks of prepwork going up in smoke...