I prefer Gamemastering to playing. I've run a few campaigns, and I enjoyed it, and so have my players, but I've lost my fighting spirit needed to go into the imaginative kitchen and cook up ideas. I have the urge to run a game, but not the will.
How does one recover one's mojo? I fear I'm stuck with a velleity.
Honestly? Don't force yourself. You'll probably just end up getting bitter and taking it out on your players. If you need a mental vacation, take one. Find another hobby, preferrably one that is relaxing and cathartic. Something where you can let your mind wander and find inspiration at it's own pace.
I've taken several breaks from gaming over the years/decades, but there were plenty of times where I'd be reading a book or watching a film or playing a video game and think, "this would be a cool world to play a game in." Eventually, you'll find your way back. I always did.
Try a few low responsibility and improvisational one-shots. But otherwise don't force it.
Run a one shot or two with something out of left field and low crunch, like Risus.
Quote from: Neoplatonist1 on September 14, 2022, 08:12:45 PM
I prefer Gamemastering to playing. I've run a few campaigns, and I enjoyed it, and so have my players, but I've lost my fighting spirit needed to go into the imaginative kitchen and cook up ideas. I have the urge to run a game, but not the will.
How does one recover one's mojo? I fear I'm stuck with a velleity.
Read. Read a lot. Not just the genre you want to game and not just history.
Ray Bradbury suggested new writers read a story, an essay, and a poem every day for at least 1000 days. It was to stuff with you things that you'll combine in what comes out.
Seems like good advice for Gamemasters as well.
It wasn't entirely clear, but are you burned out entirely on being a GM, or only the prep? Or maybe certain aspects of the prep?
Depending on the answer to that, you might find running a prepared adventure in a relatively low complicated system a good change of pace. That won't help, if you pick a prepared adventure in a system where digesting all the stuff is as complicated as writing it yourself. And what exactly that means, varies by person.
It's also finding a game that you can run without burnout. I hit several periods of burnout with Fantasy Hero and D&D 3E. It took me awhile to realize that it was the accounting in the system that was causing me to burnout, not the more imaginative side of the game. I'd dread making up something new, because then I'd need to stat it out. Plus, I'm either going to play the system as written or house rule it--and then play that as written--and both of those systems are not an ideal starting place for "house rule out some of the complexity that needs accounting". :D
Also, tolerances change over time. When I started both of those system, the accounting didn't bother me. A tolerance migration can sneak up on you.
That's why the answer really is, as others have said, to do something else (board games, read, music, whatever) and/or play a (very) different game. It's not just the change of pace--which is useful by itself as a refresher. It's exactly the exposure you need to examine more specifically what it is within your current game that is causing the burnout.
Quote from: Neoplatonist1 on September 14, 2022, 08:12:45 PM
I prefer Gamemastering to playing. I've run a few campaigns, and I enjoyed it, and so have my players, but I've lost my fighting spirit needed to go into the imaginative kitchen and cook up ideas. I have the urge to run a game, but not the will.
How does one recover one's mojo? I fear I'm stuck with a velleity.
First... take a break and gather up your juice.
Second - well I don't know how you GM. If you're just running straightforward linear(ish) adventures for your players, then you might be missing out on an important resource: the players themselves. If you run your game as a sandbox, where you're merely presenting the setting to the PC's (and players) then PC's start generating the action by you engaging them with their needs - or if they don't realize what they're doing, you engage them with the needs of your NPC's within your sandbox. The PC's will do whatever they're gonna do, and you just react as your setting dictates.
You'll find your gaming stamina (and creative energy) last a lot longer. The more you invest yourself into your setting and the sandbox you created, you'll find a happy medium (hopefully) and you'll incentivize your players to do the heavy lifting on generating their own content. I liken it to paving the road ahead of the PC's as they go doing what they choose to do.
And you just slap options ahead of them. You don't *necessarily* have to create full-blown adventures, the adventure is in the doing. You'll also sharpen your improvisational skills (but you got other tools like random tables etc.) In the meantime you can just focus on setpieces, machinations of your NPC's, creating stuff for the specific interests of the PC's.
You can have campaigns that roll for years like this.
Like most everyone has said, don't force it. And I'd add, don't feel guilty about it. There's always stuff going on above and below the surface and Lord knows there's been plenty of stressors in life lately that tends to chase the Muse off once in a while. The best thing I've found is to be OK with where you are so as not to add undue pressure, and then just do light worldbuilding stuff. Make a goal to just have one game-/campaign-related thought a day and stay in touch with your players, talk about related stuff, etc.
I find reading blogs and listening to podcasts on the subject sort of keep my head in the game but don't require a commitment from me until I'm ready. I tend to mentally swim around in RPG books and supplements until something strikes and then usually the Muse returns and I get back after it.
I hope it's a short term thing for you. I get that you want to run something but maybe now isn't the best time until the mojo returns. Keep your players on the hook by telling them something may be coming soon but just not right at the moment.
Everyone who is saying "don't force" it is a Communist.
You have to force it. Sitting around, sighing heavily while waiting for inspiration, is the most pozzed thing you can do. You need to clench your asscheeks, remember that you have an obligation to tell a story, and you need to fucking force it out. Don't got inspiration? Tough shit, twinkletits. Stop being a pussy bitch, come up with three encounters, put those encounters in a setting. Then repeat two more times. Then construct a narrative to connect them all. No matter how tenuous, once you've got the ball rolling, it'll come to you. And if it won't, just keep forcing yourself.
I am amused and find myself attracted to the grindset gm'ing philosophy. Last adventure arc I created I didnt know what to do (was a multi level dungeon for SW fantasy game) so I broke out the 1st edition Dm guide and started randomly generating encounters. There were a few that sparked my creativity and I made a link to the reasons they are in the dungeon and then cooked up the BBEG, his captains, and the reason for the complex to even be there. So I sort of agree with just do it, maybe look for a different inspiration (old DMG random generator for dungeon levels usually does it for me).
Do whatever works for you to get the imagination engine going again.
For me, I watched Cyberpunk Edgerunner on Netflix after work. I thought that it would just help my brain switch off so I could sleep, but it ended up energizing me to the point where I stayed up the rest of the night jotting notes down for NPCs, corporate city-states, adventure ideas, and setting ideas that I could use in my Star Wars and Traveller games that I have running. Hell, it got me to break out my old Cyberpunk 2020 books and start figuring out how to update them (especially with the pervasive use of smartphones).
So just keep your eyes open and your mind ready. You never know what can give you a recharge.
I will say this about the concept of just grinding something out, give it a try - it may be what you need to do. Remember though, if you are not having fun, then that will carry over to your players as well and a miserable time will be had by all.
Quote from: jeff37923 on September 15, 2022, 12:32:06 PM
Do whatever works for you to get the imagination engine going again.
For me, I watched Cyberpunk Edgerunner on Netflix after work. I thought that it would just help my brain switch off so I could sleep, but it ended up energizing me to the point where I stayed up the rest of the night jotting notes down for NPCs, corporate city-states, adventure ideas, and setting ideas that I could use in my Star Wars and Traveller games that I have running. Hell, it got me to break out my old Cyberpunk 2020 books and start figuring out how to update them (especially with the pervasive use of smartphones).
So just keep your eyes open and your mind ready. You never know what can give you a recharge.
I will say this about the concept of just grinding something out, give it a try - it may be what you need to do. Remember though, if you are not having fun, then that will carry over to your players as well and a miserable time will be had by all.
Ditto. There's not a lot of accessible cyberpunk stories yet because the genre is still filtering into the mainstream, but
Edgerunner was pretty useful for giving a personalized groundview of what it's like for the working and criminal class living in a cyberpunk dystopia. Even though my setting is a
d20 Future pastiche where a concept like "psychic cyborg wolfman mech pilot" is
merely vanishingly rare, it's still useful for certain areas of my setting.
Take a break. Have one of the other players run a game for a while. Once you've seen enough of them Not Doing Things the Way They Should Be Done, you'll be motivated to GM again, just so things can be done properly.
Quote from: I HATE THE DEMIURGE I HATE THE DEMIURGE on September 15, 2022, 11:38:36 AM
Everyone who is saying "don't force" it is a Communist.
Ah, yes. Because when I think of "communist," I think of a ideology that would NEVER force people to do something they didn't want to do. ::)
Wow, lots of good ideas here. Thank you all.
This is going to be a bit of an off-the-wall suggestion, and if you're feeling burnt out on the actual act of DM-ing, it won't work. If the root of the problem is writer's block, though, sometimes the best thing to do is just start the campaign. Pick out what kind of game you want to play in terms of system and tone, cobble together a first adventure however you can, and just kick it off. Sounds weird, but I find my creative juices often get jump-started by having the events of the last session to spin new ideas off of. (Having a deadline to work to doesn't hurt, either.)
As far as an actual creative process. To the extent that I have one, it kind of goes like this:
-Pick out a tone/setting for the kind of game you want to run
-Get a hold of as much source material as you can (books, movies, games, anything relevant to the genre of your game). Start going through it, prioritizing things you think are likely to give you multiple adventure ideas, or that you can get through quickly. Keep this up as you do the other steps.
-While reading/watching source material, jot down anything that sounds like a good idea for an adventure, magic item, character, anything. Don't worry about details. Even if it's one sentence, write it down, and you can build out from it later.
-Obtain or make a general campaign map (if playing on a VTT. Playing in person, you can probably leave it for later)
-Sort out your character creation rules and any homebrew you know you want to use.
-Hack out an introductory adventure. Preferably something self-contained, that doesn't lock you into any long-term implications for the campaign, but also something that will take at least a couple of sessions.
-Start the game.
-Let your adventure prep be dictated by what your players say and do in the session. Any NPC who survives an adventure is a possible seed for something later. Don't be afraid to throw down hints that you have no idea what they'll lead to, or items you don't yet know the exact purpose of. Having it out there will likely give you an idea on how to use it later.
-Periodically go back to your notes and see if you've got the energy/inspiration to flesh out one of the ideas.
-I also find "mini-adventures" very useful. Some ideas are no good for a full adventure, but you can drop a single well-crafted encounter in between adventures and get a whole good session out of it. You can often do all the prep-work for one of these in a couple hours or less. All you often need is a lead-up, an encounter, and some minimal loot.
-Try to partially start two or three adventures at a time, so that you can pivot to a finishing a different one depending on what your players decide to do.
-Steal from modules! I almost never use a full module as written, but I lift encounters, NPCs and puzzles all the time. Almost all my adventures have something from a module in them, and occasionally I take a whole module, copy and paste it, and then go through and re-write it for my game.
-Fill in important NPCs, locations, etc. during your downtime when not doing adventure prep.
-Also try to have some travel procedures, random tables, etc. in your back pocket, so you can stall for time if you have to.
-Tables and procedures are your best friend, when you draw a blank on ideas. Put named NPCs with bios (if you have them and it makes sense) on your random encounter table. You'd be amazed what you come up with if you suddenly find that an interesting NPC is just bumping into your party on the road.
As a general rule, work on whatever you have the brainpower or energy to do at that time. If you sit down to work on the campaign and think, "Fuck, I do not want to make a dungeon map today", write up some NPC bios, or fill out your loot table or whatever. Everything ends up being useful eventually.
Admittedly, this is a system I've started up pretty recently, and it works best for sandbox games run in fairly short sessions, but hell, it's working so far...
EDIT: Also, I tend to start this up after I've already been mulling a game around in my head for a bit, but not getting any actual work done. All the half-formed ideas knocking around my brainpan might make it easier to improvise if than if you're genuinely tapped out creatively.
Quote from: Brooding Paladin on September 15, 2022, 11:06:38 AM
I find reading blogs and listening to podcasts on the subject sort of keep my head in the game but don't require a commitment from me until I'm ready. I tend to mentally swim around in RPG books and supplements until something strikes and then usually the Muse returns and I get back after it.
This is something I also do on regular basis. It is said that children learn languages by immersion (listening fx.) and when I keep myself "immersed" in the gameworld outside the session also by listening to podcasts, Youtube videos and reading gaming material, I tend to get excited when I find something interesting, which sparks my motivation to come up with a plot or encounter for a session or campaign.
However, I have personally noticed, that when I´v endured a lot of stress for extended periods of time, which is really easy in the hectic world we live in,
I also tend to lose the interest to GM. I do not know what your life is like, however for me the stress decreases the creativity and relaxation increases it.
The worlds is a strainful place to live in and the struggles from another part of your daily life might seep in to your hobby, or maybe not.
I do however try to keep up with a weekly RPG schedule so that I keep the "immersion" on so to say. I´v also noticed that if I reschedule or take time off from gamemastering, it becomes increasingly difficult to motivate myself to continue. I do tend to GM even when I don´t want to and 9/10 times I enjoy the session, even when I have almost no prep at all and just wing it. This somewhat lightens the burden of "having to come up with fresh stuff to play" regularly.
One thing I also do is that I read/watch/listen RPG material on different genres, fx. if I GM in fantasy world, I might also delve in to sci-fi material and the
enthusiasm I might get from the scifi might transfer also to the fantasy game we are playing, when I let my mind run free of boundaries of only concentrating on the fantasy game. Personally, I have literally dozens of campaign ideas across the board in various genres that I can´t wait to run at some point, by using this method of "fantasizing of other campaigns" ;D
Of course, these are just my personal insights, your situation might be completely different. Anyhow, I hope you find your own way of keeping it up 8)
Quote from: ForgottenF on September 15, 2022, 10:02:22 PM
This is going to be a bit of an off-the-wall suggestion, and if you're feeling burnt out on the actual act of DM-ing, it won't work. If the root of the problem is writer's block, though, sometimes the best thing to do is just start the campaign. Pick out what kind of game you want to play in terms of system and tone, cobble together a first adventure however you can, and just kick it off. Sounds weird, but I find my creative juices often get jump-started by having the events of the last session to spin new ideas off of. (Having a deadline to work to doesn't hurt, either.)
As far as an actual creative process. To the extent that I have one, it kind of goes like this:
-Pick out a tone/setting for the kind of game you want to run
-Get a hold of as much source material as you can (books, movies, games, anything relevant to the genre of your game). Start going through it, prioritizing things you think are likely to give you multiple adventure ideas, or that you can get through quickly. Keep this up as you do the other steps.
-While reading/watching source material, jot down anything that sounds like a good idea for an adventure, magic item, character, anything. Don't worry about details. Even if it's one sentence, write it down, and you can build out from it later.
-Obtain or make a general campaign map (if playing on a VTT. Playing in person, you can probably leave it for later)
-Sort out your character creation rules and any homebrew you know you want to use.
-Hack out an introductory adventure. Preferably something self-contained, that doesn't lock you into any long-term implications for the campaign, but also something that will take at least a couple of sessions.
-Start the game.
-Let your adventure prep be dictated by what your players say and do in the session. Any NPC who survives an adventure is a possible seed for something later. Don't be afraid to throw down hints that you have no idea what they'll lead to, or items you don't yet know the exact purpose of. Having it out there will likely give you an idea on how to use it later.
-Periodically go back to your notes and see if you've got the energy/inspiration to flesh out one of the ideas.
-I also find "mini-adventures" very useful. Some ideas are no good for a full adventure, but you can drop a single well-crafted encounter in between adventures and get a whole good session out of it. You can often do all the prep-work for one of these in a couple hours or less. All you often need is a lead-up, an encounter, and some minimal loot.
-Try to partially start two or three adventures at a time, so that you can pivot to a finishing a different one depending on what your players decide to do.
-Steal from modules! I almost never use a full module as written, but I lift encounters, NPCs and puzzles all the time. Almost all my adventures have something from a module in them, and occasionally I take a whole module, copy and paste it, and then go through and re-write it for my game.
-Fill in important NPCs, locations, etc. during your downtime when not doing adventure prep.
-Also try to have some travel procedures, random tables, etc. in your back pocket, so you can stall for time if you have to.
-Tables and procedures are your best friend, when you draw a blank on ideas. Put named NPCs with bios (if you have them and it makes sense) on your random encounter table. You'd be amazed what you come up with if you suddenly find that an interesting NPC is just bumping into your party on the road.
As a general rule, work on whatever you have the brainpower or energy to do at that time. If you sit down to work on the campaign and think, "Fuck, I do not want to make a dungeon map today", write up some NPC bios, or fill out your loot table or whatever. Everything ends up being useful eventually.
Admittedly, this is a system I've started up pretty recently, and it works best for sandbox games run in fairly short sessions, but hell, it's working so far...
EDIT: Also, I tend to start this up after I've already been mulling a game around in my head for a bit, but not getting any actual work done. All the half-formed ideas knocking around my brainpan might make it easier to improvise if than if you're genuinely tapped out creatively.
Bro, you need to start your own topic on this, this is pure gold! 8)