So I'm going to vent, and it may sound like me whining. If it does, I apologize. In any case I finally acknowledged to myself and my group that I'm dealing with DM burnout.
We've been running through Hoard of the Dragon Queen, and we just finished Skyreach Castle, so it's a reasonable place to take a pause, but I think I'm just going to take a huge pause and drop the campaign altogether. Which is a pity, because Rise of Tiamat looks more fun than Hoard of the Dragon Queen. I'm REALLY looking forward to Descent to Avernus, so it makes sense to drop things now, but it also makes me feel like a failure.
I just moved, and I just changed jobs, so there's a lot of stress at home and at work. The group I play with are entirely from the old job, and we had a lot of our communication over Slack at work; now we use Discord for some coordination stuff, but only a couple people use it. The new job is better pay and will have me learning things that are incredibly important for my career going forward, but I just don't like it as much as the old one, and so that's burning me out as well.That and I wrote up the whole campaign on Obsidian Portal, and I guess I was doing it for my own benefit, because only a few people ever read what I wrote. But dammit, I thought it was important, especially once we got into Rise of Tiamat, so the party could coordinate who they were dealing with and who was where when. Then there's the guy who just decides at the last minute that he's not going to show up because basketball playoffs or some damn thing. He's there about 75% of the time so I don't feel right about booting him from the group, but I've given him several outs that he could take.
So I guess I just wanted to talk through it with somebody. It's mostly a good group, which apparently is really rare (I've been lucky), and I really want to enjoy Descent to Avernus, but there I am.
Good news is your at a good break point. Just like a good tv show season 2 might take awhile before it comes out. So let everything settle. But it sounds to me you need to play instead of dming. Take a break from the extra stress, sounds like you got plenty of that in your life right now.
Reminds me of the hiking/running mantra: Not too far, not too fast, not too long. Know your limits. If you need a break, then you need a break. I've had the experience of being a part of two different groups that started rotating DM repsonsibilities between the players. Was a lot of fun to only be responsible for 1-2 months of adventures then be a player for a few months. Sometimes that meant sampling other games (call of chthulu, marvel, paranoia).
Not sure what your options are, but if walking away from gaming until you feel recharged enough to continue quality DM'ing is the answer, then communicate that to your players.
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So I'm going to vent, and it may sound like me whining. If it does, I apologize. In any case I finally acknowledged to myself and my group that I'm dealing with DM burnout.
We've been running through Hoard of the Dragon Queen, and we just finished Skyreach Castle, so it's a reasonable place to take a pause, but I think I'm just going to take a huge pause and drop the campaign altogether. Which is a pity, because Rise of Tiamat looks more fun than Hoard of the Dragon Queen. I'm REALLY looking forward to Descent to Avernus, so it makes sense to drop things now, but it also makes me feel like a failure.
I just moved, and I just changed jobs, so there's a lot of stress at home and at work. The group I play with are entirely from the old job, and we had a lot of our communication over Slack at work; now we use Discord for some coordination stuff, but only a couple people use it. The new job is better pay and will have me learning things that are incredibly important for my career going forward, but I just don't like it as much as the old one, and so that's burning me out as well.That and I wrote up the whole campaign on Obsidian Portal, and I guess I was doing it for my own benefit, because only a few people ever read what I wrote. But dammit, I thought it was important, especially once we got into Rise of Tiamat, so the party could coordinate who they were dealing with and who was where when. Then there's the guy who just decides at the last minute that he's not going to show up because basketball playoffs or some damn thing. He's there about 75% of the time so I don't feel right about booting him from the group, but I've given him several outs that he could take.
So I guess I just wanted to talk through it with somebody. It's mostly a good group, which apparently is really rare (I've been lucky), and I really want to enjoy Descent to Avernus, but there I am.
Good news is your at a good break point. Just like a good tv show season 2 might take awhile before it comes out. So let everything settle. But it sounds to me you need to play instead of dming. Take a break from the extra stress, sounds like you got plenty of that in your life right now.
Maybe see if one of your players wants to dm?
Reminds me of the hiking/running mantra: Not too far, not too fast, not too long. Know your limits. If you need a break, then you need a break. I've had the experience of being a part of two different groups that started rotating DM repsonsibilities between the players. Was a lot of fun to only be responsible for 1-2 months of adventures then be a player for a few months. Sometimes that meant sampling other games (call of chthulu, marvel, paranoia).
Not sure what your options are, but if walking away from gaming until you feel recharged enough to continue quality DM'ing is the answer, then communicate that to your players.