That's very nice and considerate to see about finding a replacement for when you don't run, but it's also not your responsibility.
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At My Most Burned-Out in 35 Years
- Thread starter Retreater
- Start date
GrahamWills
Hero
@Retreater -- I can empathize with your competing desires both to ease up on the amount of work you are doing and also not to disappoint or blindside the people you are running for. I see a lot of posts in this thread that are very assertive in saying what you should do and many of them suggest being pretty ruthless and endangering relationships you have, which might be fine, but in general people game with friends, and it can be a bad thing to harm those relationships.
Sometime that is necessary, but none of us know you and your relationships as well as you do, so I think it's a bit dangerous to make dogmatic statements about what you should do, so instead I'm just going to suggest an approach that works for me.
When I get stressed with too much stuff and too many expectations, I like to make a list of all the stuff I do, add some info to each of them like "how much time does it take up?", "how much enjoyment do I get from it?", "how much I enjoyment do I give to others by doing this?". Then I order them using my gut feeling
I then like to make a cut at what I would do in a perfect world; everything above is stuff I'd generally like to be doing and everything below stuff I'd generally prefer to drop.
Now it's easy for people to say "and now stop doing the the things below the line" but life doesn't work that way. There's people you like who you don't want to piss off and other considerations that get in the way of simple clean solutions.
For me, what I do is try and move in the right direction. for things below the line. I might look at plot arcs and plan to finish up the campaign with a fun, well-planned and hopefully memorable end, so that people don't feel you're quitting because you hate playing with them (even if that might be a bit true). Or I'll switch to a game being monthly. Or from being self-plotted to using more modules (I quite liked 4E Gardmore Abbey, btw).
Even for things you generally enjoy, lightening up the workload is a good thing. Frequency of gaming can be reduced. Can you find ways of reducing travel time?
Another option -- one I've used a few times, is to take an extended break (2-3 months is good) to give yourself time both to relax a bit and to plan out the next arc. Say something like "I'd like to take some time to do some long-term prep for our campaign; we've done a lot in the last year and I want to make sure I get a handle on it and am ready to run the next set of stories, so I'd like to go on pause until mid-July. If there's any storyline or idea you'd like me to focus on, please let me know".
If I had to give one piece of advice, it would be just to do something for each campaign you are running to move it to the state you'd like to be in. Reduce frequency, run canned modules, plan an exciting end, reduce travel time, switch to a simpler system -- whatever you think will help you. But take steps to move towards feeling better about running. It'll still probably feel like work for a while, and you may have to make hard decisions involving friendships and energy, but it feels like you're driving 90 on the highway, and rather than slamming on the brakes, maybe just ease down to 60 for a bit and see how that goes.
Sometime that is necessary, but none of us know you and your relationships as well as you do, so I think it's a bit dangerous to make dogmatic statements about what you should do, so instead I'm just going to suggest an approach that works for me.
When I get stressed with too much stuff and too many expectations, I like to make a list of all the stuff I do, add some info to each of them like "how much time does it take up?", "how much enjoyment do I get from it?", "how much I enjoyment do I give to others by doing this?". Then I order them using my gut feeling
I then like to make a cut at what I would do in a perfect world; everything above is stuff I'd generally like to be doing and everything below stuff I'd generally prefer to drop.
Now it's easy for people to say "and now stop doing the the things below the line" but life doesn't work that way. There's people you like who you don't want to piss off and other considerations that get in the way of simple clean solutions.
For me, what I do is try and move in the right direction. for things below the line. I might look at plot arcs and plan to finish up the campaign with a fun, well-planned and hopefully memorable end, so that people don't feel you're quitting because you hate playing with them (even if that might be a bit true). Or I'll switch to a game being monthly. Or from being self-plotted to using more modules (I quite liked 4E Gardmore Abbey, btw).
Even for things you generally enjoy, lightening up the workload is a good thing. Frequency of gaming can be reduced. Can you find ways of reducing travel time?
Another option -- one I've used a few times, is to take an extended break (2-3 months is good) to give yourself time both to relax a bit and to plan out the next arc. Say something like "I'd like to take some time to do some long-term prep for our campaign; we've done a lot in the last year and I want to make sure I get a handle on it and am ready to run the next set of stories, so I'd like to go on pause until mid-July. If there's any storyline or idea you'd like me to focus on, please let me know".
If I had to give one piece of advice, it would be just to do something for each campaign you are running to move it to the state you'd like to be in. Reduce frequency, run canned modules, plan an exciting end, reduce travel time, switch to a simpler system -- whatever you think will help you. But take steps to move towards feeling better about running. It'll still probably feel like work for a while, and you may have to make hard decisions involving friendships and energy, but it feels like you're driving 90 on the highway, and rather than slamming on the brakes, maybe just ease down to 60 for a bit and see how that goes.
Man!, I ain't really going to give advice, you have got all the advice you need. Now I really do not need to know the answer but running a rpg session at a wedding party (seems odd to me but...) then driving 4 hours and running another session (at 4 a.m.) and you gotta ask: Why? That has got to be one of the most out there things I have heard in my life. Were you even safe to drive, after midnight after several hours running an rpg in a noisy environment. I know I would not be. Why do you feel the need to do this. It is not reasonable, and I do not need to know your answer, but I does strike me that you are abusing your health to run games.
Talk to someone about this and no one that really cares about you would demand this level of commitment. Get help.
Talk to someone about this and no one that really cares about you would demand this level of commitment. Get help.
Sorry if the timeline wasn't clear.
I ran a game for a wedding party, which ended around midnight. I was able to sleep, have breakfast and shower the next morning. Then I drove back four hours and ran the game the next afternoon.
Ok, that is not as bad as I was imagining but still if you are stressing out and feeling pressured to run games, that is not healthy. If running the game is a cause of anxiety and stress you need to accept that and find the root of that. Take time off if needed and you remember, you are not obliged to be anyone's dancing monkey. They can make their own fun some of the time. They will have to anyway if you drive yourself into a nervous breakdown or worse.
The world will not end when you do and does not need your effort to keep turning. Take some time off and smell the roses.
Osgood
Hero
Not to derail the thread, but I had a short wedding themed adventure... at my own wedding reception, so that doesn't seem odd to me at all.
Granted, the wedding was at a castle, and the reception theme was "choose your own adventure," so we had booze in the pub, board games in the great hall, karaoke in the coach house, a scavenger hunt and s'mores on the grounds, and D&D in the library...
payn
He'll flip ya...Flip ya for real...
I think it slips the mind how exhausting a 4 hour drive can be. You dont think about it that way becasue you are just cruising, but its a long cruise and is tiring. YMMV.
payn
He'll flip ya...Flip ya for real...
I've come to find this is the way to do it. I dont necessarily mean a castle, thats pretty damn sweet, but separating several activities so everyone isnt just trapped in a room with a bad DJ.
There's a lot of pages here, and I haven't read them all, so maybe someone else has already said this, but if not it ought to be raised:
The above is not okay. Ultimatums like what your wife presented are a form of emotional blackmail, pushing all responsibility for dealing with the situation on you, rather than accepting a reality and trying to work through it together. It should not be acceptable.
Dustin Cooper
Explorer
What's preventing them from installing it on their own computers?
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