One thing I haven't written about is GM burnout. Everyone who ever helms the mantle of game master eventually goes through this. I am currently experiencing this. Hard.
I've been running games pretty consistently for about three years now. I don't know if it's because I've almost exclusively been playing fantasy games or it's more of a general burnout, but it is has sapped all motivation to work on some of the longer term projects I had going (patrons, megadungeon, new classes,).
Which is unfortunate, because it's my turn in this rotating GM campaign a friend and I are running. I have an adventure in mind, too, but there is no gas in the tank to draw maps, create monsters, and draft a compelling narrative. I would much rather just play complicated board games or paint the various miniatures I have acquired.
But I can't, so I've been thinking about ways to break this. The short term is module dependency. I have greedily snatched up every single DCC adventure that Goodman Games has put out and only played a handful of them. I also backed the Appendix N Adventures Kickstarter, and those should ship by the end of the month giving me more crutches on this road to recovery.
I have, as of yet, not come up with a more long term option.
When I've been burned out, the recovery comes from a mixture of time and new input. New input is seeing a movie I haven't seen since I was a kid, reading an author/genre I've never read before, visiting some place I've never been before, and/or playing something completely different to the game that I'm blocked on. Basically, it's changing up whatever I can that I'm exposing my brain to... Even changing my 'exercise routine' (such as it is) like when or how much I ride my bike will help.
ReplyDeleteStill wanting to play, but feeling tapped out simply sucks, doesn't it?
I've been doing that and it still hasn't broken my fatigue. I've been playing DCC RPG since launch pretty much weekly, sometimes 2-3 times a week. And I love it. The prep is really what is killing me.
DeleteI think I'd like to switch gears to a more story-centric game, which, sure I could do in this system, but I'd rather run something that encourages that type of play.