Not loving the campaign

I need help! How do you get past the fatigue? Currently running a campaign and i am really struggling with it. There's nothing per se wrong with the campaign and the players are having a great time - its me. I've just completely lost my DM mojo and its a chore at this point. But I dont want to just quit it coz that would be letting people down and im not that person. I have said that after this campaign, I will not be DM going forward as ive been the DM for about 6 years now (with the exception of a couple random one shots). omegle

The normal solution to DM burnout is... stopping DMing for a while. If you don't want to quit, find someone who wants to run a medium sized self-contained story for a couple weeks to months, then return to the campaign.

If you feel like you're burning out as a DM, find a satisfying way to end the campaign and take a break. Maybe be a player for a while or just stop playing. It can be very stressful to keep making a campaign for others and sometimes it's just not the right role for someone. It's okay to pause and take a break.

Is this a home brew or a predesigned module?  Home brew is tricky as no one else can probably step in, if it was a purchased module, see if someone can swap their PC with you.

If it is homebrew, get to a natural stopping point.  This allows all to hold.  Take a siesta and then come back to the campaign.

I have had this happen before.  Despite some people's opinions, I find DND to be a labor intensive hobby. Much more so than other things I enjoy.  I spend 3-5 hours of prep for every hour of game time.  

I agree with the above.  Back off for a period of time and do not jump back in until you find it fun again.  If you don't get the itch again, either just play or do something else.

Quote from g1alelo >>

I need help! How do you get past the fatigue? Currently running a campaign and i am really struggling with it. There's nothing per se wrong with the campaign and the players are having a great time - its me. I've just completely lost my DM mojo and its a chore at this point. But I dont want to just quit it coz that would be letting people down and im not that person. I have said that after this campaign, I will not be DM going forward as ive been the DM for about 6 years now (with the exception of a couple random one shots).

You are a player, too. Your fun matters. There is no shame in stopping if you're not enjoying it.

You can just talk to the players. If you say something to the effect of "Hey folks. It's nothing to do with you, but I've been finding myself not really having fun running the game anymore. Would you rather bring the campaign to an early end, put it on a possibly permanent hiatus, or do you have another idea?", they ought to understand. (And if anyone treats you like it's your job to be their fun dispenser, don't play with them ever again.)

DMing is TOUGH, it is so creatively taxing and can really wear you down. I've personally experienced a lot of DM fatigue in my time. Of course, you can always take a break, but everyone else has already talked about that so I'll offer a different solution: Read a book.

I don;t mean that in a mean way or as a jibe, just actually read a book. I can't tell you how many times I've felt tired of my campaigns and then have read some book that reinvigorated my creative juices and kept the brain churning away. It's not just fantasy books either, sci-fi, mystery, mythology, anything at all you can rip ideas from. To quote U2, "VEery artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief." Cannibalize books and steal their ideas. When you run out of ideas, DMing stops being fun. Books help.

You don't have to quit the campaign. But it is okay to just "pause" the campaign for a bit. Find a beat in the story where the party has just accomplished something, and continue with, "...and then you all take some well-deserved downtime". Have a frank discussion with your players that you need a break from the campaign, but it's not over! The characters are doing downtime activities, and maybe researching the Big Bad™, and while they're busy doing that, you and your players will do something else for a bit. Still get together! The sessions must continue! But instead of grinding through the campaign, maybe you just get together to play board games for a few weeks. Or maybe a super silly one shot or two. Or maybe let one of the players practice at being a DM for a one shot, with you as their coach. That way, when the big campaign ends, someone else will be ready to take over as DM. 

It's okay to need a break. We all need breaks. It's better to be honest with your group and take the time you need to get your mojo back. It's better to suspend the campaign for a bit, and then return to a great adventure than to grind your way through something that leaves you increasingly tired and resentful. 

Do you often find that you're prepping material you don't end up using in a session? One reason you might be getting worn out is if you're over-prepping. If you don't want to take a break from the campaign or hand the keys to someone else (not that those aren't reasonable suggestions, absolutely consider it!), try cutting back on the work you're doing between sessions. Try to gage how much content your players actually go through in a session, and don't prep too far in advance. It's OK to only prep for the next session each week. In some ways it's even easier just planning session to session, because it gives you more flexibility to react to the actions of your players and respond to player choice since your plans aren't so set in stone when they throw a wrench at you. 

So, IF that happens to be a problem for you, consider just doing less work! 

EDIT: re-reading your op, you say you've been dming for 6 years? That's a LONG time. You should definitely consider taking a break! Good luck! 

Rest, the only way to recover from burnout is rest. The modern world doesn't like to hear that but it's true. If you're feeling burnt out on D&D, then a break from D&D is the only way to recover. Don't even use the time for prep, just take a complete break from D&D.

Quote from martintheactor >>

Rest, the only way to recover from burnout is rest. The modern world doesn't like to hear that but it's true. If you're feeling burnt out on D&D, then a break from D&D is the only way to recover. Don't even use the time for prep, just take a complete break from D&D.

 Being burnt out on DMing isn't necessarily the same thing as being burnt out on D&D; being a player is not the same experience. My usual burnout experience is running out of inspiration, but playing in someone else's game doesn't require that type of inspiration, and the experience of seeing how someone else does it might give me new ideas.

Giving your campaign a proper ending will be more satisfying than slowly burning out, imo. Some things stick with people better with an end. That said, that's just my perspective.

Change something!  New DM, new game system, comedy one-shot, play Settlers of Catan for a couple sessions, there are many options.

Very much to this. When I first got started, I was surprised how much it takes to prep for each week's game. And when you're having fun, it's awesome! My players all get to play the game only once per week. I get to play it all the time. 

But, yeah, if you're burnt out then just stop. I'd say it also depends on whether you feel like this is a short term burnout or if you really want to be done for a while. If you still love DM'ing but just need a break, then maybe pause the campaign for a while and let your players run some shorts or one-shots for a few months while you step back. If you feel like this just isn't your thing anymore then, yeah, hand off the reins. Just let someone else DM and you can play. I kind of feel like that's true homebrew or not. If it's a book, easy enough. If it's homebrew, hand off your notes and graph paper and let someone else take the story from there. Frankly that'll be more fun for you! It will let you be surprised by what's coming. 

This is a game, after all, it's supposed to be fun. If you're not having fun, then it's time to stop doing it.

Quote from g1alelo >>

I need help! How do you get past the fatigue? Currently running a campaign and i am really struggling with it. There's nothing per se wrong with the campaign and the players are having a great time - its me. I've just completely lost my DM mojo and its a chore at this point. But I dont want to just quit it coz that would be letting people down and im not that person. I have said that after this campaign, I will not be DM going forward as ive been the DM for about 6 years now (with the exception of a couple random one shots). omegle

 
It's a good idea to figure out what caused the burnout in the first place.  In my experience, burnout, while common, always has a root cause, and that root cause isn't simply "running a game".  There is almost always something about the routine, method, or style... its something.

In my case, I ran an online campaign using Talespire, and while it was a cool experience, the prep was heavy but really mostly unrelated to D&D and more about doing "computer stuff".

A friend of mine discovered that he burned out because the players were hyper-focused on in-between-session stuff, and he was constantly having to interact with them about the game between sessions.

I had another buddy who burned out because he was trying to run a really heavy story and there was a tremendous amount of things to resolve in it after every session and he just felt overwhelmed.

Point being that, simply running the game should not be something that causes you to burn out on, it can, not saying that is not possible, but you may want to think about and investigate a little bit to understand what the problem is.

For me personally, I was able to eliminate burnout entirely by doing three things.  It worked for me, not saying it will for you, I think every case is different but, being conscious of cause and effect can be really helpful.

For me it was 

1. Don't run D&D online at all.  I found the prep for an online game is about 1000% more than it is for an in-person session.  Just cutting it out of my life entirely did wonders and generally resulted in far superior games in every measurable way.

2. Don't run games you don't love.  I was running games like Pathfinder 2e, 3e and 5e and while I liked them ok, I didn't love them and that just burned me out.  It was exhausting to deal with demanding systems. I did it because my players wanted me to run those games, but in the end I just said: "look this is what I'm running, you can play in this game or not, but it's this or nothing".  That really fixed a lot for me.  I lost a few players, but in we replaced those players and have been running happily ever since.  After a while, even the players who didn't want to participate came around.

3. I find long breaks to be very uninspiring.  I want to play games regularly.  So I basically set the game up in a way where it didn't matter if everyone showed up (kind of open world west marshes style).  Then I scheduled a weekly game, and as long as at least 2 people could make it, we played.  If you couldn't make it, .. sorry.. better luck next week.  I just removed accommodating schedules completely as a concept, with occasional exceptions.  It allowed me to run for a much larger group as basically everyone making it to any given session never happens and the games have been a lot more dynamic and deliberate.

The only other adjustment I made was cutting out miniatures entiretly.  I found thinking about and prepping for tactical combat a real slog, so I just got rid of it entiretly.

It took my group some time to get used to this approach, but personally, I just figured, it's sort of like a "happy wife, happy life" situation, except its "happy DM, happy D&D" situation.  I saw no point in letting running D&D be a chore.

I'd like to just chime here and say that burnout is understandable. Some can run the same campaign (maybe with shifting characters and stories) for decades, other burn out after a single campaign. It is highly individual. 

I for one, burned out when I had children. That had nothing to do with the game, but simply because my children took up too much of my time for me to be able to muster the energy for running games as well. 

So, I basically called it, as others have suggested, and told my players, that I was open for roleplaying games, but I simply couldn't handle the DM'ing anymore. They were fine with it. 

Today, I am DM'ing again, and this time my children are actually part of the group :D

So, take a break, it can be a few weeks, a few months or even years. But talk it over with your group, if they don't understand or support it, then they are the problem, not you. 

Ask someone to run another campaign that you can play in once/twice a month. We play weekly and one of the players in my game runs another campaign once a month. It keeps me fresh and allows me time to reflect on what I enjoy about Dming and what I could improve. It also helps freshen up the story. 

I think the biggest factor with DM burnout is boredom. If it feels monotonous, like you're just reading out of a book and going through the motions, it becomes old very quickly. I'd start with the characters - how can you get them more excited. Reread their backstories. Decide how you could modify the campaign to get them motivated and give them their moments to shine. If there is a monster or NPC the players really responded too positively or negatively - use them! Once the player are excited and feel like the stories about them, they will be super excited to play and.....guess what?! You will too!!!

So start with modifying the game and you'll feel more invested and more motivated to DM