Dealing With GM Burnout: My #1 Tip
A Wizard of Adventure sent me this note about their current GMing burnout:
I’ve totally lost the passion for it. Not sure why. Folks say take a break, and I’m doing that but I see no end to the draught.
Burnout has been discussed several times in the newsletter as it’s a common affliction. GMs have a lot of responsibility, expectations, and work to do to keep a great campaign going. And all that effort can lead to partial or total apathy behind the screen.
Below I link to a cornucopia of tips to help you solve burnout if currently suffering.
However, let me give you one tip here about the most effective solution I’ve found for when I lose passion for GMing.
Discover Something New
Ultimately, great games are about learning. When we stop learning, we stop having fun. The brain gets fatigued and less excited by repetitive stimuli that doesn’t seem to be taking us anywhere.
That’s why discovery is such an important pillar in our campaigns.
To me, discovery equals learning. When I discover how to do something better, faster, or differently, that’s exciting!
Likewise, when I encounter a new GMing problem, I get excited because that means I’m about to go on an “adventure” to find solutions, and that means challenge, discovery, and learning.
Some harsh advice: sometimes it’s time to call it quits. “Been there, done that, moving on.” We often reach this decision when we feel like we’ve explored all the interesting bits of something and it has nothing left to offer.
The good news for us is, RPGs offer an infinite amount of potential discovery and learning. From NPCs to treasure to adventures to worlds to systems, there’s ALWAYS something new to discover if we care to.
For example, I was burned out a few years ago and shuttered three campaigns. I took a break and then examined my bookshelves. I realized there was a lot left to explore, because I haven’t delved deeply into world building, game design, and my GM Bucket List shelf.
Digging into all three got me passionate about the hobby again.
A great way to discover something new is to create a challenge for yourself. If the challenge inspires you, the rest will take care of itself.
For example, make a list of things you have not yet experienced or explored in the realm of RPGs. Pick the one you find most interesting and turn some aspect of it into a 7-day or 30-day challenge.
Some example RPG aspects worth discovering:
- Define your perfect encounter (or monster or ____), create it, play it, iterate
- Roll & Write RPGs
- Solo RPGs
- Blue Booking
- World Building in a genre you haven’t played a lot
- RPGs with unusual mechanics
- Map drawing RPGs like this or this
- Painting or printing minis
- Make your own RPG
- Create cool treasure and non-monetary rewards
- Play in a bunch of one-shots for different systems
- Rotating GM games like Ars Magica
- Join the One Page Dungeon Contest
- Take a voice acting workshop or course
- Make terrain
- Play around with various digital RPG tools and virtual tabletops
Burnout Tips
Here are links to more ideas on what to try to get past your burnout.
- Remedies For GM Burn-Out
- The Care and Feeding of Your GM
- 9 Symptoms Of GM Burn-Out: Avoiding GM Burn-Out – Part I
- 8 Tips For Recovering From GM Burn-Out: GM Burn-Out Tip – Part II
- GM Burnout: Tips For Prevention and Recovery
- Motivating Yourself As A GM
- Shaking It Up – How to Fix Game Rut With These 3 Techniques
- 3 Things To Do When You Get Bored With Your Campaign
- Playing With Fire: Dodging GM Burnout
- Hitting The Wall: When You’ve Got No Creativity And Have GM Burnout
I hope this helps a bit!
Cheers,
Johnn
roleplayingtips.com
https://discord.gg/6MxTRAqQ76
Have more fun at every game!
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