I took a step back from gaming/DMing several times as I was burnt out; I still haven't started a new StarWars campaign after quitting 12 years or so ago. I DMed Dragonlance, and have an ongoing Forgotten Realms campaign, now in its 7th year and still going strongish. We only play once a month, that keeps it fresh (and kinda annoying since they have to recap everything time and again, but such is life)
I usually start again because it is the one constant in my life, aside from music and reading. After a few months/weeks/whatever I just wanna DM again. Sure I also wanna play but that is more difficult.
I fell out of gaming for a long time. It had nothing to do with frustration and everything to do with the fact that at a certain age, the people around me didn't want to be a part of a gaming group, and simultaneously, there was a nonstop parade of girls marching into my home demanding my attentions and they didn't want to play D&D. :\ Only make hot luvins. The humanity!
So with a dance card always full, and with me being more of a mentally addled relationship guy than anything else (intense, soul-devouring dead poet type dude back then), I didn't touch back down on the gaming scene for many years. I still bought D&D material and kept up... ran a pick up game from time to time, as a lark... but not until Paizo took over the D mags did I suddenly say to myself, "What happened to the game?! What am I missing?!"
Paizo quite literally brought me back to gaming. For that I will always be grateful. So when they lost the magazines, I realized where my truest artistic appreciations lay... and for the first time they weren't with the company that owned D&D. That was an intense revelation for me as I'd always been such a brand loyalist.
So now I'm an RPG drifter, traveling from game to game down a long lonesome highway, with my backpack strapped and my hitching thumb cocked. I stroll dispassionately by the roadside as The Hulk TV show theme plays in the background.
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I fell out of gaming for a long time. It had nothing to do with frustration and everything to do with the fact that at a certain age, the people around me didn't want to be a part of a gaming group, and simultaneously, there was a nonstop parade of girls marching into my home demanding my attentions and they didn't want to play D&D. :\ Only make hot luvins. The humanity!
So with a dance card always full, and with me being more of a mentally addled relationship guy than anything else (intense, soul-devouring dead poet type dude back then), I didn't touch back down on the gaming scene for many years. I still bought D&D material and kept up... ran a pick up game from time to time, as a lark... but not until Paizo took over the D mags did I suddenly say to myself, "What happened to the game?! What am I missing?!"
Paizo quite literally brought me back to gaming. For that I will always be grateful. So when they lost the magazines, I realized where my truest artistic appreciations lay... and for the first time they weren't with the company that owned D&D. That was an intense revelation for me as I'd always been such a brand loyalist.
So now I'm an RPG drifter, traveling from game to game down a long lonesome highway, with my backpack strapped and my hitching thumb cocked. I stroll dispassionately by the roadside as The Hulk TV show theme plays in the background.
Almost exactly my story, except the Dead Poet dude thing. I was stuck in Metal Band mode. I missed most of 2nd Edition and Dungeon mag drug me back in 3.0E. 6 months later 3.5 came out.....WotC pissed me off with that but I stuck around for Paizo and Dungeon. WOTC took the magazines back and I continue to stick with Paizo.
One thing I will say to the OP.....You will regret losing the gaming. I lost eight-ish years of gaming that I wish I could get back. If I had it all to do over I would've found a way to include the Game into my life at that time.
Almost exactly my story, except the Dead Poet dude thing. I was stuck in Metal Band mode. I missed most of 2nd Edition and Dungeon mag drug me back in 3.0E. 6 months later 3.5 came out.....WotC pissed me off with that but I stuck around for Paizo and Dungeon. WOTC took the magazines back and I continue to stick with Paizo.
One thing I will say to the OP.....
You will regret losing the gaming. I lost eight-ish years of gaming that I wish I could get back. If I had it all to do over I would've found a way to include the Game into my life at that time.
Even more similar. During all the dead poetry I still found time to front metal bands. ;)
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I took time out from gaming sometime after the 2E Skills and Powers stuff started coming out. I started collecting books again with 3E, but didn't start gaming again until World Wide D&D Game Day 2005.
The reason for getting out started with real life jumping in the way. People started having kids, being busy, or just growing out of the hobby. Then I moved up to Philly in the summer of 2001, and didn't have anyone to game with. With Game Day '05, I met a group of guys my age, and we are able to work our schedules around gaming. We try to get together once every two weeks, but sometimes it goes a little longer than that.
I took time out from gaming sometime after the 2E Skills and Powers stuff started coming out. I started collecting books again with 3E, but didn't start gaming again until World Wide D&D Game Day 2005.
The reason for getting out started with real life jumping in the way. People started having kids, being busy, or just growing out of the hobby. Then I moved up to Philly in the summer of 2001, and didn't have anyone to game with. With Game Day '05, I met a group of guys my age, and we are able to work our schedules around gaming. We try to get together once every two weeks, but sometimes it goes a little longer than that.
The staying power of RPGing is kind of amazing. You can leave it behind, like a phase in life, then meet up with new friends and bang, you're right back in there rolling.
I was stuck in western Kansas over a weekend on a business trip, and stopped in a magazine stand to pass some time. (I'd looked into 3rd edition after a long break of no gaming, but never made the time to get into it.) Saw Dragon on the shelf, flashed back to reading Roger E Moore's articles maybe 20-25 years earlier, and bought it on a lark -- and got that month's Dungeon as well, for good measure. Realized that the magazines were far better than I remembered them being, and immediately subscribed. I learned 3.5e just to play "Wormcrawl Fissure," in one of the first issues to arrive at my house. Been a Paizo fan ever since.
Like The Jade I fell out of gaming after high school because of lack of time during college and lack of people who wanted to play. Unlike The Jade I didn't have too many girls knocking at my door. :P
I got back into gaming after I married my wife. Her sister had been gaming for awhile and my wife thought it looked like fun, so we started a new group. The group membership has phased in and out, but it's been fairly steady for the last few years with the three of us and my sister-in-law's boyfriend.
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I went through a gaming dry-spell in, of all places, college. The group of friends I ended up with weren't into it and I couldn't coax them into trying.
There was one other guy who showed interest and turned out to be a borderline sociopath, so I avoided him like the plague.
There were other gamer-types, but everyone was playing MAGIC: The Gathering and spending large sums on cards - tabletop RPGs were getting snubbed as "old-fashioned."
It was a couple of years after college when my best friend from high school and my cousin got together and started the primarily D&D gaming group that has survived (in various incarnations) for nearly 10 years now.
Like The Jade I fell out of gaming after high school because of lack of time during college and lack of people who wanted to play. Unlike The Jade I didn't have too many girls knocking at my door. :P
If I had it to do over again, I'd nail my door shut and rock in place with my fingers in my ears, my eyes closed and humming a little ditty to block out the sound of knocking.
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I was stuck in western Kansas over a weekend on a business trip, and stopped in a magazine stand to pass some time. (I'd looked into 3rd edition after a long break of no gaming, but never made the time to get into it.) Saw Dragon on the shelf, flashed back to reading Roger E Moore's articles maybe 20-25 years earlier, and bought it on a lark -- and got that month's Dungeon as well, for good measure. Realized that the magazines were far better than I remembered them being, and immediately subscribed. I learned 3.5e just to play "Wormcrawl Fissure," in one of the first issues to arrive at my house. Been a Paizo fan ever since.
Interesting to see whether Wizards can achieve the same thing with the DDI.
As for me, I have only been playing for a little over 10 years, but there have been a few periods where I just had no time or opportunity for gaming.
My brothers and I have gone back to campaigns after a year or two in the dustbin and it felt like we never left. Especially the one where we played Ogre characters.
I know I've gone off and on for many years now. Sometimes as short as a couple of months, my longest break was 6 years. A couple of times it was a lack of a group. The group I am DM'ing now just played a couple of weeks ago for the first time since January.
I can't tell you how many times over the past 20+ years I've lost interest in either playing or DM'ing, or both.
Axcalibar, are you burned out from running a game, playing in one, or just the game itself? How did your last meeting go? What are the other players up to? Answering those would start to lead you to exactly why you don't have the motivation to get things moving again.
Maybe I could start a Dear JTStorm type of column??? :-) Just kidding...
My brothers and I have gone back to campaigns after a year or two in the dustbin and it felt like we never left.
Yeah, that's the best thing about it. As long as you're tight with the people you game with, length of break time is almost never an issue.
I've put my game on hiatus. Seems I can't bring myself to come off it. As much as I'd love to complete my current campaign (in part out of defiance to WotC), I'm just not feeling the motivation to pick it up again. I figure I'm stuck until I figure out what exactly is keeping me from it.
I invite the great old ones* to share some of their experiences with falling out of gaming. What was the cause? How long did it last? What brought you back?
*:No, not THOSE Old Ones!
In my experience, GM burnout is inevitable at some point. Even if we tell our stories here, it won´t help you much. I would recommend talking to your players and see what comes from it.
The cause is mostly that being a GM is draining your creativity over time, and your creative juices need to be given time to refill. It may happen that the campaign dies a dusty death on your shelf, or that you can rekindle the fire at some point, but trying to force it won´t help - on the contrary, it will probably kill the campaign for good.Take your time off and see what happens would be my advice.
Stefan
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Like The Jade I fell out of gaming after high school because of lack of time during college and lack of people who wanted to play. Unlike The Jade I didn't have too many girls knocking at my door. :PIf I had it to do over again, I'd nail my door shut and rock in place with my fingers in my ears, my eyes closed and humming a little ditty to block out the sound of knocking.
Ditto, although some of the stories are pretty cool to have.....
Okay Jade, after your earlier post I'm forever calling you Dean Moriarty.
-W. E. Ray
LOL.
Road trip, anyone?
Unlike The Jade I didn't have too many girls knocking at my door. :PIf I had it to do over again, I'd nail my door shut and rock in place with my fingers in my ears, my eyes closed and humming a little ditty to block out the sound of knocking.
I think it is really brave of you to come out of the closet like that.
I fell out of gaming because The Jade fell out of gaming.
I fell out of gaming because The Jade fell out of gaming.
And now, my friend. WE'RE BACK IN BLACK!
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...the doctor is in.
I've put my game on hiatus. Seems I can't bring myself to come off it. As much as I'd love to complete my current campaign (in part out of defiance to WotC), I'm just not feeling the motivation to pick it up again. I figure I'm stuck until I figure out what exactly is keeping me from it.
A few questions first, please...
1) How do you feel toward 4th edition?
2) How long was your current campaign running before the break?
3) Were your players good players? Did they bring the story to life, or bring you down?
4) For every hour of game, how many hours of prep time were you putting in?
5) Overall, how long have you been playing dnd?
6) Is dnd your primary rpg?
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I invite the great old ones* to share some of their experiences with falling out of gaming. What was the cause? How long did it last? What brought you back?
In both cases, these were things that were upsetting me and sucking the fun out of RPGs. Usually, RPGs are my outlet, my "feel-good" place. When even that doesn't give me any solace, then something's seriously wrong.
In one case, this had nothing to do with role-playing. I broke up with a girlfriend after a long relationship in not-so-peaceful terms, and this totally sucked the life out of me for a few months.
The other ended recently and started with the announcement of 4th edition. It took me a VERY long time to know where I stood on this issue (hint- I'm going to run some AD&D1/C&C for now, and some Pathfinder probably in the near future).
I'm guessing you might be worn out by the edition wars. Which, by the way, despite the people yelling "IT'S JUST A GAME", is normal when you take the hobby as your "home" zone like I do.
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Unlike The Jade I didn't have too many girls knocking at my door. :P
If I had it to do over again, I'd nail my door shut and rock in place with my fingers in my ears, my eyes closed and humming a little ditty to block out the sound of knocking.
You could always send them round to me...
...unless they all turned out to be psycho bunny-boilers, of course.
Are any of these ladies likely to see you give them such a glowing recommendation?
LOL
I stopped RPGing around 1993 when Magic:the Gathering came out. Aside from the occasional one-shot there was no RPGing to be found around these parts until about 1996 when I started a Warhammer FRP game. It lasted about 3 years and I went on to run a 2E game until 3E came out and I converted to it.
My main reasons for stopping RPGs during that time were mainly bacause I loved M:tG and hadn't been having any fun with RPGs for a long, long time (thinking back i think the last time I really had fun with RPGs was 1985 gaming with my cousin and his friends when I visited for a week in the summer).
Fast forward to today and I run 2 games (one 4E one 3E) and play in 2 (again one 4E and one 3E). I also host board game days at my house on a semi-monthly basis. I have never had so much gaming in my life as I have now and am loving every minute of it.
To the OP I would suggest trying something other than RPGs for a while. maybe a long while. There are so many choices out there for gamers that there is no need to limit yourself to RPGs.
www.boardgamegeek.com is an excellent place to start to find a game that suits you and your group.
The reason I've quit DMing in the past include frustration with the players and frustration with game prep, which becomes a chore after a while, especially with 3.5 at high levels. Switching games or editions sometimes helps.
My burnout usually lasts 3-6 months and then I'm back, usually with a new campaign/game. The main reason I've tried other gaming systems through the decades is because of burnout with D&D.
The only thing that helps burnout is time. Don't force yourself to game if you don't want to do it. Eventually something triggers an intense desire to go back to it. When that happens, hopefully you'll have a gaming group to satisfy that desire.
Unlike The Jade I didn't have too many girls knocking at my door. :PIf I had it to do over again, I'd nail my door shut and rock in place with my fingers in my ears, my eyes closed and humming a little ditty to block out the sound of knocking.You could always send them round to me...
...unless they all turned out to be psycho bunny-boilers, of course.
Are any of these ladies likely to see you give them such a glowing recommendation?
LOL
Yes. People do seem to, even decades later, track me down here at Paizo. I never would have thunk it, but it's happened. <8|
But, in all honesty, it wasn't usually them - although a couple were certifiable - it was me, and the rather destructive process of being an improperly matched romantic, destined to see every reasonable, and ridiculously unreasonable expectation of women failed. After awhile, I lost the ability to trust even the most promising outward characteristics and I steamrolled across a couple of dear souls without realizing that my relationship autopilot became utterly corrupt.
That doesn't sound anything like the person I've become. I'm still romantic, but not OCD about it, and I now recognize that nothing's perfect. Especially not me. It was late-teens early-twenties stuff... now encapsulated and filed away, but I hold onto regrets for my righteous insistence, my eventual pattern-duplicity, all of my other failings that caused me to let others down. They were all just so surprised by my ability to ruin a good thing.
Eh, screw it. I guess I was just a young guy playing the game with the wrong ruleset. But I did play the game, so I won't be having a midlife crisis where I get a Vette, a bad rug (aka hell toupee!), or a teen girlfriend who thinks the capital of California is its 'C'.
For some reason I saw this thread title as
Grognards: Experience with Quilting
ooooo a quilting Thread ..;-)
I read it that way a couple times after reading it correctly the first time.
Perhaps that should be a thread. Any old gamers here want to admit to quilting?
Perhaps that should be a thread. Any old gamers here want to admit to quilting?Maybe in the interim I'll get my wife to teach me. With my wife's embroidery machine (and its digitizing software) I could make an awesome D&D themed quilt! Seriously... I'll post pictures when it's done.
<envy>
I actually wish I had an embroidery machine. You load your art into its software and it spits it one on caps, shirts, everything.
But I did play the game, so I won't be having a midlife crisis where I get a Vette, a bad rug (aka hell toupee!), or a teen girlfriend who thinks the capital of California is its 'C'.
I am so planning on having one of those…just as soon as I get rid of the pesky wife.
Perhaps that should be a thread. Any old gamers here want to admit to quilting?
Since we are risking our ‘Man Cards’, I like to digital scrapbook.
But I did play the game, so I won't be having a midlife crisis where I get a Vette, a bad rug (aka hell toupee!), or a teen girlfriend who thinks the capital of California is its 'C'.I am so planning on having one of those…just as soon as I get rid of the pesky wife.
Perhaps that should be a thread. Any old gamers here want to admit to quilting?Since we are risking our ‘Man Cards’, I like to digital scrapbook.
Man, this is getting fun. I like all craftmaking. When I was a kid I used to make those hookrugs from the kits. While I may not want to make clay vases with the ghost of Patrick Swayze behind me, I'd like to try my hand (and invariably cut it deeply) whittling, and... well, I can think of a craft I wouldn't like to learn.
With all the hobbies I have, some of them must surely be girly. They just escape me at the moment (not the girlies, they're well fastened).
When I was a kid I used to make those hookrugs from the kits.
I did a couple of those as well. I painted ceramics with my mother a few times too. Only fair…she played D&D with me once. Only once, but at least she tried.
For some reason I saw this thread title as
Grognards: Experience with Quilting
ooooo a quilting Thread ..;-)
Actually the first time I saw my name printed in Dragon was about quilting. We used my mom's big quilting board because it had lots of nice little squares already on it. This was before the battle mats were sold (to establish my grognard status).
And my mom-in-law likened my gaming to a quilt tyeing session, because we sat around talking the whole time while other stuff was happening. Gaming is a bit like tyeing quilts in that respect: a circle of friends doing something together. She and Mate both make fun of me for the number of books involved though. Tyeing a quilt does involve sharp bits of steel and quiet a bit of blood, and some of the terms can sound arcane (especially when said sharp steel encounters my somatic gestures (quilting admission established).
To the OP: I moved from DnD to M:TG and the MUDS, but I considered that gaming as well so I can not say I really left it. I continued painting minis, and writing adventures too. It has been a struggle to find the groups however, especially some that are not teens--in my small town.
I don't know if I've got the grognard qualifications, but I do know about burnout and bad memories with former gaming groups. You know, the kind of groups that you hope are your friends and would stick with you, but kind of sit there and watch you self destruct and not help at all.
So I quit gaming. Gaming in general had become a sore spot, but like many people, after I separated the people from the game, I learned to want to play again, which is eventually how I ended up with my hubby (yay for gaming spouses).
As farewell2kings says, give it time. You'll get your gaming mojo back - something will come along and make you say, "Wouldn't it be cool if...?"
Oh, and for the record, I like to quilt, but my mom is way better at it than me. I wonder if she'll make me a Sihedron blanket for me...
*goes to call Mom*
I have done the assume gaming group = friends thing too. I need to turn friends into gamers. I think that would work out better.
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I have done the assume gaming group = friends thing too. I need to turn friends into gamers. I think that would work out better.
I only had 1 gaming Group = Friends... And that was the group I had before I joined the military back home..
What is Sad.. I have not met anyone in the 8 years since that I would call a 'Friend'
I was stuck in western Kansas over a weekend on a business trip, and stopped in a magazine stand to pass some time. (I'd looked into 3rd edition after a long break of no gaming, but never made the time to get into it.) Saw Dragon on the shelf, flashed back to reading Roger E Moore's articles maybe 20-25 years earlier, and bought it on a lark -- and got that month's Dungeon as well, for good measure. Realized that the magazines were far better than I remembered them being, and immediately subscribed. I learned 3.5e just to play "Wormcrawl Fissure," in one of the first issues to arrive at my house. Been a Paizo fan ever since.
Did you ever actually play Wormcrawl Fissure?
I went through a gaming dry-spell in, of all places, college. The group of friends I ended up with weren't into it and I couldn't coax them into trying.
There was one other guy who showed interest and turned out to be a borderline sociopath, so I avoided him like the plague.
There were other gamer-types, but everyone was playing MAGIC: The Gathering and spending large sums on cards - tabletop RPGs were getting snubbed as "old-fashioned."
It was a couple of years after college when my best friend from high school and my cousin got together and started the primarily D&D gaming group that has survived (in various incarnations) for nearly 10 years now.
I had a similar experience in university. It was vaguely possible to play a campaign in the first few years but by year three and four you'd just loose players randomly and for months at a time. By the time they came up for air they just could not be bothered to pick up the dice - basically they were burnt out.
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When I was a kid I used to make those hookrugs from the kits.
We learned how to macrame in scouts. I made a pot-holder that we then used to hang a glass terrarium with some salamanders in it.
On a 'manlier' note, we also learned how to catch, kill, clean and eat a squirrel.
I tore up my man card and went back to macrame class.
Do I remember right that you got married this 4th July?
Or have I got the wrong year?
It was going to be this year, but we couldn't get my mom and family up here. :( BUT! There is always next year, and I'm in no particular rush. :D
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I dropped DnD for MERP and Rolemaster during 2E, mostly because I liked the rule system better and was really into all things Tolkien. I lost that game when I moved away from my friends after college. The only player I had left was my wife. She wasn't into a one-player game, so my gaming pretty much died there for awhile.
When 3E came out, I bought the books and used them to corrupt my neighbors - essentially converting two folks who were convinced that gaming was only for geeks into game geeks themselves. Now I have a gaming group again, but finding time with young kids in your life is really hard. Honestly, the 4E thing just about drove me back to Rolemaster (and if Pathfinder fails, it may still). I'm not buying a whole new set of rulebooks. Just. Not. Going. To. Do. It. And neither are the other members of my group.
And in the end we're all ok with that. Paizo's stuff is good stuff and I'll keep on buying it as long as I feel there's a snowball's chance of converting it to some rules I like. PFRPG has me hopeful. I don't think I'll be quitting again, but you never know. At least now I have two little future gamers to look forward to now.
I tore up my man card and went back to macrame class.
I have had several offers from friends and family to go hunting. I just can not bring myself to do it. Do not get me wrong, I love me some hamburger. I am just not sure I could look a living creature in the eye and kill it.
I help spiders escape to safety when my wife is not around screaming for its death.
So I'm still in with a chance?
;)
Bob, Quit it!
I'm coming to your wedding remember?
Honestly, online alter egos get so free-willed these days!
I tore up my man card and went back to macrame class.
I have had several offers from friends and family to go hunting. I just can not bring myself to do it. Do not get me wrong, I love me some hamburger. I am just not sure I could look a living creature in the eye and kill it.
I help spiders escape to safety when my wife is not around screaming for its death.
heh I too set them free--unless they are hobo kind.