Hello everyone.

Been DMing for a while on and of now. I started a campaign on Wildemount with my players. Now...: I really love the backstories of my players characters and have some pretty good ideas.

But prepping just somehow starts feeling like a chore. I need to reread stuff very often in order to grasp what I really wanted to do and what makes sense in my spin on Wildemount. I also want to incorporate the players characters etc. On the one side I feel like full of ideas and I can really see the potential of the characters and also the potential of how the plot is able to continue to evolve into something pretty strong and complex. But... somehow I just feel a little exhausted, unorganized not inspired "enough"? It just feels like that there is so much prep to do to play one session.

I am also thinking about grabbing a campaign-book but I am not sure if this will really resolve my problem.

Have you checked out the Lazy Dungeon Master by Sly Flourish? You could be preparing too much?

I find myself often over-preparing. I don't know about your players, but my players always take far far longer to get anything done than I expect them to. I often find myself scrambling to prep maps and encounters for the upcoming game, only for players to get caught up with hanging out with the goofy Kobold I tossed in as a joke. If you let them, players will just hang out in a tavern all day long drinking and playing tavern games. I think it's common for DM's and, honestly... creatives in general to focus too much on the end game. If you have a good idea for integrating your players' backstory into the campaign, odds are you won't actually be able to do so in anything but the most superficial manner for at least a month, if not more.

I think the first adventure in a new campaign can often be simply a fun little thing for everyone to get used to their new characters. There's no harm in running them through, perhaps, a pre-written adventure just so you can get a feel for how they want to go forward with these characters and give yourself time to prepare mentally for the game you want to play. I say don't worry too much about getting everything "perfect" ahead of time... no matter how thoroughly you prepare, someone in your party is eventually going to do something stupid you never expected and you'll have to ad-lib something. Eventually they'll meet a bored merchant reading a book, and suddenly they need to know the name of hte book,t he name of the merchant, what their race is, how long they've been working in the shop and you'll just be sitting there dumbfounded as all this amazing content you have prepared has to sit on a back burner while you make up the backstory of some random merchant on the fly.

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Quote from Garr_Feyld >>

Have you checked out the Lazy Dungeon Master by Sly Flourish? You could be preparing too much?

But... somehow I just feel a little exhausted, unorganized not inspired "enough"? It just feels like that there is so much prep to do to play one session.

It sounds to me like you are heading into DM Burnout. If you don't prevent this, you will eventually stop and it might be many years before you want to DM again. My best friend ran a long D&D and a long Champions game back to back, like 15 years ago now, I think, and he *still* can't stomach the idea of GMing because he got so burned out. 

When you start feeling like this, it's probably best not to push through it, but rather, to call for a break and ask someone else to take over. Matt Coleville was asked this question too -- what to do about DM burnout, and his answer was: play. He gets over DM burnout by playing instead of DMing. Just a few sessions might be enough. So that is my recommendation to you. Tell your players that you aren't stopping the campaign forever but you need a break, and ask if someone can run a short adventure or two. Maybe someone can run a couple of adventures from Candlekeep or Lost Mine of Phandelver or something. And this will give you a breather. After a few sessions, you should find the creative juices going again and you will be ready to get back into the saddle.

If you don't find a way to head off the burnout, you may end up like my friend, not just burned out for now, but it seems like he's basically permanently burned out, and unable to contemplate DMing every again. And you don't want that -- not if you enjoy DMing like I do. And like he once did.

I think that's super advice from BioWizard I had abit of a low and needed a break, and one of my players was eager to run a Call of Cthulhu short adventure Forget me not from The things we leave behind if I recall correctly... anyway it was super we all had a great time and was just what I needed    

Quote from TransmorpherDDS>>

I find myself often over-preparing. I don't know about your players, but my players always take far far longer to get anything done than I expect them to. I often find myself scrambling to prep maps and encounters for the upcoming game, only for players to get caught up with hanging out with the goofy Kobold I tossed in as a joke. If you let them, players will just hang out in a tavern all day long drinking and playing tavern games. I think it's common for DM's and, honestly... creatives in general to focus too much on the end game. If you have a good idea for integrating your players' backstory into the campaign, odds are you won't actually be able to do so in anything but the most superficial manner for at least a month, if not more.

Totally been there, especially the part about players fixating on an element I threw in at random.  Still, I'm curious, with all the prep work you do and the party not keeping pace with it, don't you eventually reach a point where the party is far enough behind your prep work that you can basically "coast" for a few sessions and prep at a much more leisurely or whimsical pace?  I mean one of my parties spent a whole session swinging between deliberating and haggling and counter offering with a ship captain for passage home (off a sort of Archangel basecamp community that was in process of dismantling and evacuating ahead of the ice storm season) and hanging out with the proprietor of the hot chocolate and ceviche counter (you're advised to order one or the other) who "knows things."  Once they get back to a major seaport, they've got a lot of things that could happen, I keep in a notebook, which I've built out with references to characters past actions, and some in jokes etc.  "Prep" for me now is just refreshing my memory by looking over the notes and coming to the table with a set of contingencies based on what the players do next.  

I think the first adventure in a new campaign can often be simply a fun little thing for everyone to get used to their new characters. There's no harm in running them through, perhaps, a pre-written adventure just so you can get a feel for how they want to go forward with these characters and give yourself time to prepare mentally for the game you want to play. I say don't worry too much about getting everything "perfect" ahead of time... no matter how thoroughly you prepare, someone in your party is eventually going to do something stupid you never expected and you'll have to ad-lib something. Eventually they'll meet a bored merchant reading a book, and suddenly they need to know the name of hte book,t he name of the merchant, what their race is, how long they've been working in the shop and you'll just be sitting there dumbfounded as all this amazing content you have prepared has to sit on a back burner while you make up the backstory of some random merchant on the fly.

I find myself doing more work reworking published adventures than I do when I'm making it up on my own.  I actually like the ad-lib challenge, sometimes I'm actually more amazed with what I pull out of thin air than what I've invested time in.  I think having reconciled myself to that, I have hit for me the balance between prep and "improv skills" I guess.  

All that said, I know my DM style does literally tire me out.  I actually plan "post game cool down" time for me on my calendar.  

Yeah, I often find myself prepared more than I need to and for the next 3 or 4 sessions I dont' really need to prep anything else... but I also kind of get too relaxed with the free time I've accidentally bought myself and forget to prep until I realize I'm not fully ready for the next place my PC's are headed.

I get what you’re saying. I play with two/three new player groups, where I can’t really ask someone else to run something, and I really don’t want to let my players down, as they are IRL friends. Additionally, at least two of these are duets and I’m running DMPCs with them to keep the players alive and adapting modules… it’s a lot.

I purposely don't over prepare, many years across many systems has taught me that over preparing results in one of 2 things

Best case scenario you spent all your time preparing this over here, and players choose to go over there. 

Worst case you unintentionally  stick your players on rails forcing them to do everything you have written as you wanted because, I put time into this and you WILL enjoy it as intended. 

So I have a story sketched out, I have some very rough plans but, if it isn't important for the next session then it isn't more then a few bullet points as a memory jog when we get to it. I spend a little bit more time on maps, but I love playing with Inkarnate and making maps anyway so thats just a relaxing exercise for me :).

If you are finding yourself getting lost in all the possibilities of the campaign then my suggestion very seriously is learn some meditation techniques and ways to clear your mind, reset yourself and then just focus on whats important, the next session. One of the best things about our kind of storytelling is that stories can move slowly in real time, if you need an extra session to think about the next plot point then stick in a random combat encounter as they travel from A to B, this is why i love milestone levelling. I will be honest, sometimes I am creating my next session, when the session starts.

I'm not sure if it will help or not but one thing I realised about myself is that when I started getting exhausted and when DMing was not feeling fulfilling it was because I wasn't doing the things that I enjoyed. I was focusing too much on plot/story/pacing and forgot to bring in the things that really energize my imagination. Once I noticed that, I purposely made space for the sort of things I enjoy (as well as the things the players enjoy) and the game stopped being work and became fun again.

Finding out what it is - exactly - that you enjoy as a DM and/or player is a whole thing on its own tho. Took me a long time to figure that out. 

Quote from Robhock >>

Hello everyone.

Been DMing for a while on and of now. I started a campaign on Wildemount with my players. Now...: I really love the backstories of my players characters and have some pretty good ideas.

But prepping just somehow starts feeling like a chore. I need to reread stuff very often in order to grasp what I really wanted to do and what makes sense in my spin on Wildemount. I also want to incorporate the players characters etc. On the one side I feel like full of ideas and I can really see the potential of the characters and also the potential of how the plot is able to continue to evolve into something pretty strong and complex. But... somehow I just feel a little exhausted, unorganized not inspired "enough"? It just feels like that there is so much prep to do to play one session.

I am also thinking about grabbing a campaign-book but I am not sure if this will really resolve my problem.

 It sounds like you may be overthinking things. Not every encounter needs to unveil a crucial plot point. Not every quest needs to tie into a character's backstory. Trying to put together all the pieces perfectly so everything has significance and ties to other events and backstories and NPCs is wearing you out because its freakin exhausting to run a game like that. 

Throw in some filler. Some sidequests or something that offer exp and loot and maybe relationships with an NPC or two that may be important later or may never be seen again. Or maybe it runs parallel to the main story and sheds a bit of light on some optional info. Or it just highlights an interesting part of the world that the players might not have seen otherwise. There are lots of little payoffs you can give that make it worthwhile. At any rate, don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Take a break if you need to.

My favorite trick is to force myself to think about something other than D&D for a while.  Something as different as possible, in fact.  No magic, no superheroes, and no combat!  I find that books do it best for me; my favorite author for D&D detox is Jane Austen, because of her masterful character studies, which fascinate me.  Other favorites include Shakespeare, the Freddy the Pig series (a children’s series from the early 20th century, by the author who created Mr. Ed), Jonathan Swift, history books (or Wikipedia articles!), nature books, and books of comic strips such as Calvin and Hobbes, Peanuts, or The Far Side.   Most of my favorite books and authors are fantasy, so I have to deliberately avoid them, or they just create more ideas for D&D.  The idea is to get as far as possible from the genre.

If I can disconnect from D&D for a few hours, or even a few days, it helps rest my frazzled imagination, and lets me go back to it when I need to.  I plan breaks for myself during the week; books, tv, or other activities which are completely unrelated to fantasy.  Sometimes I have to take a week off, and that’s okay.  My players know that if I don’t rest, I can’t DM, so they’ll only lose out in the long run if I push myself too hard.

I was feeling that way, and I rescheduled my sessions to once every two weeks instead of every week. I am a lot more excited about my game.

I actually invited my players to guest DM one-shots. One of them has spun off into a campaign.

Quote from HazelSage >>

My favorite trick is to force myself to think about something other than D&D for a while.  Something as different as possible, in fact.  No magic, no superheroes, and no combat!  I find that books do it best for me; my favorite author for D&D detox is Jane Austen, because of her masterful character studies, which fascinate me.  Other favorites include Shakespeare, the Freddy the Pig series (a children’s series from the early 20th century, by the author who created Mr. Ed), Jonathan Swift, history books (or Wikipedia articles!), nature books, and books of comic strips such as Calvin and Hobbes, Peanuts, or The Far Side.   Most of my favorite books and authors are fantasy, so I have to deliberately avoid them, or they just create more ideas for D&D.  The idea is to get as far as possible from the genre.

If I can disconnect from D&D for a few hours, or even a few days, it helps rest my frazzled imagination, and lets me go back to it when I need to.  I plan breaks for myself during the week; books, tv, or other activities which are completely unrelated to fantasy.  Sometimes I have to take a week off, and that’s okay.  My players know that if I don’t rest, I can’t DM, so they’ll only lose out in the long run if I push myself too hard.

Yeah, I have to do a lot of "real world" reading for work; but I think I've budgeted my free time to no more than 25% RPGs.  At least my playstyle (and because of other games) I'd even exclude The Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes from my "untouched by D&D" reading/watching.  I'll read real world 19th-20th history, science books (or honestly, science articles), stuff on math, art that sort of stuff.  The hobby is engaging and can be consuming.  

My problem is that even with other interests, I relate them to D&D. Fantasy novels or films? Plot inspiration. History? Political worldbuilding. Travel and outdoors? Exploration and description.

I definitely have a "time budget" at least during the normal academic year (I teach college) -- I have a music track that I listen to. I start working on D&D... I start the track. The track lasts about 1 hour. When the music ends, I stop. I might allow myself to finish up a sentence or two if I am nearing the end of a thought while writing something (so I don't lose it), or if I am 5 or 10 minutes from completing the map, I let myself finish it. But that hour per day is it, max. (I will maybe go a little long on our off-weekend, since we aren't playing that night -- I'll use the session time on the off week for prep work.) But this definitely helps me avoid burnout. (Plus, I didn't have time to do more than this while grading papers and such anyway.)

If you think about it, 1 hour a day x the 13 days I don't play = 13 hours of prep for each 4 hour session. That should be more than enough (and usually has been).

Quote from BioWizard >>

I definitely have a "time budget" at least during the normal academic year (I teach college) -- I have a music track that I listen to. I start working on D&D... I start the track. The track lasts about 1 hour. When the music ends, I stop. I might allow myself to finish up a sentence or two if I am nearing the end of a thought while writing something (so I don't lose it), or if I am 5 or 10 minutes from completing the map, I let myself finish it. But that hour per day is it, max. (I will maybe go a little long on our off-weekend, since we aren't playing that night -- I'll use the session time on the off week for prep work.) But this definitely helps me avoid burnout. (Plus, I didn't have time to do more than this while grading papers and such anyway.)

If you think about it, 1 hour a day x the 13 days I don't play = 13 hours of prep for each 4 hour session. That should be more than enough (and usually has been).

 Most of my prep all happens in my head, but I have always been like that. I am the kind of person who will prepare a presentation in my head, look things up, bullet point my slides and then just continuously tweak the words mentally. 

For DnD physical prep is limited to making maps and then boing down the thoughts on my head that have stuck, I very rarely write out dialogue or descriptions. 

Yeah I can't do stuff in my head. It has to be on paper or in a file. Even classes I have taught 2x a semester for 10 years, I can't prep in my head.