This is less a thread asking for advice and more of a vent off steam rant. So, apologies for errors in grammar, spelling, etc...
So I feel burnt out from D&D and really most everything else to do with role-playing. I recently realized how little pleasure DnD gave me these days. The group I play with are all good friends but my play styles and theirs are completely different. More than half of them like a "pen & paper first person shooter" game whereas I require roleplaying to derive the maximum satisfaction... well, actuallyy, I require it to derive any satisfaction from the game. Otherwise I might as well be playing Halo or Ghost Recon both of which I enjoy playing more than DnD currently.
/end: first paragraph of ranting, inititate: sencond paragraph
Now it's all fine and good to say "talk to them about it" unfortunatly because we are all firnds outside of the game and their individual personalities they sweep problems under the rug and ignore them where they fester and rot. It's come to the point where, because I was the foudner of our group, they bend over backwarsds in attempts to satisfy my play style yet the end result is that none of us have fun. While I never asked for the attempts at satisfaction they seem to have come to see me as the "controlling whiner".
As such I recently informed them of my resignation from the group on the grounds that it was making me a nast irritable jack@ss amound other reasons. Now they all claim "oh yeah, we noticed those and we weren't having much fun either" to which my response is to ask why the hell they never mentioned it? Indeed the entire affair has cause intense strain in those friendships with all but one of the other members.
It was this member ("Rob", we'll call him) who proposed the splitting of the 10 person group into two separate 5 person groups based around different playing styles. Whielin my opinion Rob's idea is excellent it is possessed of two specific problems. The first of these is that the nominated leader of the other group feels that we picked who we wanted and dumped him with the rest, he personalizes the issue and seemingly refuses to see the commonality in role-playing styles among those chosen for the gorup that would include Rob and I. The second problem is my own despair for the game and my current lack of any enjoyment of it.
To whit, I feel stuck and haven't had anything that truly caught my attention or stirred my imagination in eons. I find myself simply sitting at my computer for hours doing jack squat.
I must admit that I have been feeling some serious burn out on D&D for a while as well.
I have played RPGs for 23 years now and have gone to the far reaches of systems and styles of play over the years. I got serious about gaming in college playing WW (vamp, Were, Mage, ect), but since just before 3rd edition's release, it's basically all that I have been playing in some form or another (except for a couple short CoC campaigns, although those notably have been run d20, with great sucess). I am totally burnt, and strangely enough, am just not willing to put up the effort to learn 4th edition. Kinda like some old man to tired to lift his arm off the bed(I am not yet 30 so I can still be trusted and all, jk).
Anyhow, I am thinking of playing some 4th Edition Shadowrun, CoC, D20 modern, whatever just some different stuff for a while. Maybe even try out the new Wold or Darkness, I have heard good things about it.
so I totally know what you mean, even if for me it is a different expression and all.
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I was burnt out for a little while, mostly because we had an unruly party in general. There was only one other person close enough to my play style (well, 2 but the other one always put the group in unnecessary danger) and the GM wasn't that great. I'm a couple of states away from them for the summer, and I'm taking the time to come up with interesting races, classes, and most importantly of all, stories and plots to DM when I get back.
To solve my problem, I just put up a flier in a local hobby shop. Much to my surprise, I got a decent turn out of people, but alas, I had to leave before getting a single game going. If anyone's interested, I'll probably be posting some of the stuff I've been coming up with some time, maybe some of you will be able to use it.
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Hunter has the right idea - find a new group to game with. It might be hard, but sometimes the "rip off the bandaid" technique works best.
Or, consider forming a splinter group with the caveat that to play, your friends must get into roleplaying (this would probably require playing in both groups to spare feelings).
Otherwise, maybe a break is in order. Or an Edition change?
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I've got another suggestion -- instead of breaking into two groups immediately -- first, find something other that rpgs to do with your 9 friends: bowling, poker, Risk or Monopoly, movies, or whatever. After a few months you guys should have a better handle on what you want to do.
See, the "leader" of the "second" proposed group says he's getting saddled with the Players no one wants. That means there's 4 Players that are just "different" than the other 6. My bet is that after a few months of hanging out doing other stuff you guys'll see that those 4 or so "other" Players aren't as much fun to do the other stuff with either.
Then you six (your group + the other group's "leader") can discuss if y'all want to start a smaller game and just not invite anyone else.
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In my experience this kind of thing is very common, maybe even the rule, for large groups. Especially groups that started smaller and grew over a few years. Finding 10 folks that want to play is easy; finding 10 folks that have fun playing the same style can be nightmarishly hard.
-W. E. Ray