| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
What follows is a wall of text, and I apologize for taking up so much space. But, sometimes what's inside has just gotta come out, regardless.
Ok, here’s the thing. In 1991, I began to lay the first foundations of my homebrew campaign world. 2e was still kind of new, and my players (who had been with me since 1985) were eager to get started. Over the next decade, between my world building, the adventuring, the player character development and input, we built a richly detailed world with many distinct cultures and nations. It was just about my proudest accomplishment.
Then, in 2000 my wife decided we should move to St. Louis, Missouri to work on her doctorate (which she never finished, thus wasting that entire year, but that’s not relevant to this story). Before leaving here, my players and I wrapped up our decade long campaign with some epic adventures. Then, two of my best players decided they were going to divorce, and they went their separate ways, as well. It was the end of an epoch, and the beautifully wrought world we’d built together went on the shelf.
While in St. Louis, 3e made its debut. I bought the core books, met a few players, and we played sporadically. We liked the new rules, but our schedules didn't allow us a weekly game like I’d always known before. The year went past and my family and I moved home. Reassembling my players, minus the two who’d divorced and my wife who no longer wanted to play, we went about converting our world to 3e rules. We had some good times revisiting our “home world”, but things had changed. We still had a ton of fun together, but the world we built began to stagnate. We tried several different campaigns, all of which frittered and died on the vine. 3.5 came out, and our games became even more sporadic and irregular as the demands of adulthood and growing families began to take more time.
During the first year or so after 3.5 came out, it became apparent that I was beginning to show signs of major clinical depression and related issues. I had a breakdown and lost my job and am now classified as permanently disabled (not just because of the mental issues, but some physical ones, as well). Almost 2 years went by where we barely played at all, and I, as the only one who ever DM’d because no one else wanted to, became unable to create interesting adventures or villains and finally just stopped playing altogether for a year.
With the advent of Pathfinder, we were all very excited. We all loved the rules, and the ones we didn’t we ignored or house ruled without complaint. And now, I have all the time in the world on my hands with which to begin building on what we’d created before, and even create a “side campaign” in a different region of the world. We only get together once a month now, if even that often because of our middle aged lives, so you’d think I’d have all this time to create really grand adventures with encounters as memorable as the ones we had in the early 2e days of the setting. But my games have begun to stink, really, really badly. The adventures are lackluster, the encounters pushovers, there’s no character development or new inspirations for the world we loved so much. My players, all of who are wonderful, decades long friends, all say they have fun, and we do have a blast laughing and cutting up. But the games themselves, from my perspective, are getting worse and worse.
So, here’s the gist of my whine; I have nothing but time on my hands with which to create a wonderful, epic setting but when I sit down to write notes on it or begin to put together an adventure, I have no passion for it anymore. Creatively I’m empty, and the things I come up with feel forced and contrived. Yet I still love the game and I buy so many of the products because of their quality and ability to inspire, but nothing comes. No one else in my group will DM, and I’m afraid I may be losing my love for the most loved and greatest hobby I've ever known. I almost dread trying to come up with an adventure for our group, because I know, at least from my end of it, I’m not going to do a very good job at what was once my forte’. Does anyone else out there have this problem, or know of a player/DM who does? I don’t want to lose my love for the game, but I’m afraid that’s what’s happening. Any advice or suggestions are welcome.
Thanks for taking the time to read an old gamer’s woes.
When the game (GM-ing in particular) gets stale for me, I start looking at other stuff for inspiration. Read books and watch movies, and don't be afraid to adapt extra-genre stuff into an RPG scenario. One time I made my gaming group play Breaking Away the RPG, and they never even knew what I was doing.
Also, if you're feeling burnt out, don't be afraid to turn the GM reigns over to someone else, running a PC takes the pressure off. :)
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
You could always run modules or adventure paths too. Keep on chucking! (The dice that is)
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm a big advocate of some of the lesser played games. One thing you might be able to get out of them is some variety. You don't even have to venture out of the fantasy genre, but they might adjust the experience enough to help jump start your passion again.
Burning Wheel: The primary thing I like about this game is the Beliefs-Instincts-Traits system. It does a good job of helping provide player input, statistical growth and character growth. Characters only improve if they provide story hooks and interact with those story hooks.
Dungeon World: A very rules light system. As a GM I like it because even without extensive system experience it is much easier to ad-lib a session. The rules are designed to create unforeseen events.
Sorcerer: Often a dark and very personal game. Excels with small groups who are very tightly knit. You have a 'demon', your demon gives you power. It also demands things from you, forcing you into tough choices of what you'll do for power. Again, heavily reliant on player input as to what the story is about and where it goes.
Generally for me, I highly prefer to GM games where the players tell me what is going on. I want to give them opportunities that they are excited about. The most direct way for me to do that is to just have them tell me. I have my own suggestions and get to put my own twist on it, but the initial creative impulse comes from the players.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It seems to me that the issue isn't you losing your love for the game (since you're still having fun playing), but rather that you might be losing your passion for creating adventures and settings. If that's the case, I would suggest using published adventures and published settings rather than creating your own. Paizo, for instance, creates wonderful Adventure Paths as well as stand-alone Modules for their Golarion setting (but they could certainly be adapted for another setting).
And who knows, perhaps playing someone else's adventure for a while would even rekindle your own love for creating adventures :)
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I can relate to some of ur pain as an old AD&D player loyal for these past 35 some odd years. What helps me is taking a break for a bit and try to relax as best as possible. When my mind is clear i like to think back to some of the adventure i played in and hosted from my glory years and let that inspire me.
Btw i too have a running game that has been going on for about 25 years that i get to play on a monthly bases. It helps that there is space travel in the game so when i have a some what crazy idea i jot it down and dedicate an entire world to it for my players to explore and elaborate on. The game is real sandbox with the players doing most of the leading and me, as DM, just setting up the bones sorta speak.
Also some times playing a game that is not all that serious can be a fun once in a while thing to lighten up game play.
I'll second what Irontruth said.
Burning Wheel is fun, and makes you think about game structure differently.
Sorcerer is one of my all-time favorites. Having other players play your character's inner demon (and getting the chance to do the same for someone else) is an extremely visceral experience. Two of my all time favorite games were Sorcerer games.
Also, you may want to look into some of the gamer-oriented board games that have come out in the last few years. Sometimes you want a game, but don't have the energy to run something. On those days, I like Arkham Horror or Smallworld.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think part of the problem may be that you compare the adventures now to what you felt back in the day. Understand that that isn't a fair comparison. We forget the bad parts and remember the good - if you were able to really see what it was like, you would see that much of what you feel is bad about it today WAS PRECISELY THE SAME. And now, nothing will measure up to that vision, which isn't strange.
Do what they have told you above, take some time off, ask someone else to GM, run published material, switch systems/genres/settings, do and read other stuff. But more than that, realize that your players are telling you they are having fun. The problem is in your mind, not theirs. When creating, it is so easy to become overly critical as a habit, which ends at not creating.
What you are doing is fine, but nothing is meaningful from the start. Let things grow, build and develop. What you did once is not the same. You have to let things mature again. Make stupid diagrammatic dungeons and populate them with random monsters. Let the heroes save a princess from an evil dragon. You're a craftsman, relax and understand that you will add what quality is needed once you're at the table.
Best of luck, and keep us posted.
Thanks for all the suggestions, folks. As far as switching to a different game for awhile, I've brought it up more than once. But the overwhelming consensus was "No" because we get together so infrequently nowadays no one wants to play anything else. I'd LOVE to play some Call of Cthulhu (Chaosium or d20), Mutants and Masterminds, Torg, or the old Mayfair DC Heroes again. These are games we all loved when we were young, single, or still without children. When M&M hit, I rushed out and bought several of the books and supplements, and not a single game has ever been played.
On rare times I sit in as a player in a friend's game, but their group is full of people with outside interests and the same woes and weal that mine have. I play an Bladebound Magus in that game, and love every second of it when I get to sit in with them. In my own group, I have been the primary D&D DM since Day One. In the old days others would run games, but not anymore. If I don't organize the games and write then run them, we don't have games. We did take off from November last year until April of this year, which did feel pretty good. My shrink doesn't want to alter my med dosages, either, though I've asked her to a number of times for reasons other than gaming.
Purchasing Adventure Paths and modules is something I'd love to do, but I have a teeny fixed income begrudgingly given to me by the Social Security Administration for my disabilities. I own a few, and despite having had little success in running pre-written adventures with my band of miscreants before, I'm willing to try again.
I may go through my stacks of old Dragon mags for the adventures they used to publish in the halcyon days of 1e (The Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga's Hut, anyone?). Everyone has given me good suggestions (which is one of the many reasons I love the Paizo community) and I'm willing to give them all a shot, provided I can browbeat my merry band into trying some of them. I was recently given many mint to good condition copies of classic 1e modules, so I'm going to try and dust those off again. I'm not dismissing anyone's suggestions; I just know my group very well.
Stay tuned, boogie chilluns!
I can relate on many levels, Cal. I'm currently in a really bad rut, feeling creatively burned out as well. I used to pour over extremely detailed settings, I used to sit and brainstorm a massive list of character concepts, backstories, etc. I used to sit and homebrew entire settings, factions, the works.
But now? Nothing. The short answer is, I think I'm just burned out. The more I sit and think on things, it's really just a mixture of bad gaming experiences over the past year that all sort of snowballed into me associating gaming with those bad experiences, spoilered below for wall 'o texty goodness;
A year ago, my 3.5 group had run through a few lackluster, slow games, and kept jumping into other adventure paths, modules, etc, and just weren't "feeling it." I had a burst of inspiration, and homebrewed a fairly large, very flexible and open-ended campaign. I was so inspired, I went out and purchased tons of flipmats, map packs, other setting material, etc.
But, I spent too long working on all of this(I'm a sucker for detail, and a perfectionist to a painful degree). I got everything ready to present to the group, and then they tell me "We're not playing 3.5 anymore, we're playing Pathfinder. So, no thanks." Just like that. Totally sprung on me. All of that creative work and detail, all those purchased goods, for nothing. The flip mats and map packs are still in the plastic.
Around the same time, I was running my first major Pathfinder game with another group, using the old 3.5 Red Hand of Doom adventure(I figured it'd be OK, since PF was supposed to be so backwards compatible). I had run several short one-offs and small adventures, but this was my first major game(that basically lasted more than 2 months). It was a bust. I was constantly tripped up with rules changes, constantly converting on the fly, the players were steamrolling every encounter to a laughable degree, on top of half of the table being completely tuned out with cell phones and whatever neato gadget they ordered on the internet that week. Out of 5 players(originally 7), maybe 2 of them actually gave a damn. The combination of bad players and constant rules flubs, really shook my confidence as a DM.
I figured since my experience attempting to run a PF game went so sour, I could fall back on my other 3.5 group for the big, boisterous campaign I wanted to run. They all switched to PF, literally as I was switching away from it. Which, isn't actually that big of deal, except for the part where they will only play under the "PF material only" clause and none of my 3.5 is allowed, for pretty much anything(which includes any game I want to run for them).
It has actually given me a complex against playing Pathfinder, which I consciously know is silly, but the bad experiences have made my brain now associate PF with those bad experiences, and slighted me against it. I'm still here, trying to turn my head around and snap out of it, so to speak.
I had a lot of things going on in my personal life as well when all of the above went down, and honestly, something in me just "broke." A huge part of me just gave up on gaming, period. The game I was running fell apart, the next game I wanted to run was shot down into pieces, etc. Since then, I have had literally zero creativity. The PF games I've involved myself in(mostly to spend time with my friends), my characters are flat as cardboard. I didn't even bother taking any traits. I'd be content playing a Human Commoner if I thought the DM would let me.
I'm not sure where to go from here. Part of me wants to run a game; I have some small ideas for plot hooks, but the burned out part of me is scared that it'll just crash and burn like my previous games.
I'm worried that if I "take a break," that there might not be a game to come back to if and when I decide to come back. I'm just really stuck right now.
I own a few, and despite having had little success in running pre-written adventures with my band of miscreants before, I'm willing to try again.
Why haven't you had much success with them?
Hang in there Cal.
I recently went through a similar stage. I wanted to continue writing Pathfinder things, but whenever I tried, nothing useful came out of it. Soon, a pretty large period of time passed by since my last thing was published, and that was a pretty big downer. I hadn't really written anything in a while, but when I tried...nothing came out. And then I started going to the forums a lot less often than usual, and PF was a bit easier to brush aside for other things on my designated game days.
This recently changed when a long project of mine (that I had sent over a while ago) was published, and when I started to play other (video) games than my usual mainstays. The influx of new ideas brought on by the games really helped me out and made me excited to do some work again, and seeing something of mine actually get released breaking the drought amplified these feelings.
So I too recommend checking out some new video games. Or a new book. Or a new fantasy TV series. Anything really, to get the noggin joggin'.
Best of luck!
I own a few, and despite having had little success in running pre-written adventures with my band of miscreants before, I'm willing to try again.Why haven't you had much success with them?
Not speaking for Cal, but I'm not a huge fan of pre-written adventures. I'm always screwing up some detail that seemed minor at the time, and winds up derailing the entire adventure later on. I have trouble keeping the information straight.
Also, they just feel to railroady in general; the players spend less time coming up with creative solutions to encounters, and metagame focus on what the adventure "wants them to do." They wind up siding with NPC's they would not have normally, feeling like if they don't, then the adventure won't work.
In short; it often becomes less about game immersion, and more about "Okay guys, the book obviously wants us to do this thing and grab this macguffin, so we'd better just do it and be done with it so we get our XP and can do something else."
That being said, I'm not anti-module; I used to peruse through some of them sometimes for inspiration to use in my own games. Even if I don't like a particular adventure, I'll maybe use an item or an encounter out of it and shape it to fit in my game.
Modules and pre-written adventures are awesome for groups who like that sort of thing, I just suck at running them, and my usual players don't enjoy playing them most of the time.
Modules and pre-written adventures are awesome for groups who like that sort of thing, I just suck at running them, and my usual players don't enjoy playing them most of the time.
Yeah, I was just curious if his situation fell into the "GM doesn't like them" case or the "players don't like them" case or both.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm worried that if I "take a break," that there might not be a game to come back to if and when I decide to come back. I'm just really stuck right now.
I can relate to this. It's been made fairly clear that if I were to stop running games that the group might disband (where gaming is concerned) after being together over 25 years. At the risk of sounding self-important, I'm the glue that holds the gaming part of our friendships together. That's not to say we'd not get together for other activities (bbq's, our annual Christmas party, etc), but the gaming would pretty much come to a stop.
Why haven't you had much success with them?
Back when Dungeon Magazine first hit the stands I bought every issue for almost 2 years, which I ended up really just mining for ideas. Modules tend to run on the assumption players will choose either Option A, B, or C, for example. My bunch always chooses Option Q, M, or Pi and wanders off or even out of the adventure or dungeon. I hate railroading, so the flexibility of altering the adventure on the fly by by writing it myself always seemed to work better for us.
Let me also say this; when I mention my low income and difficulties in purchasing game materials I am NOT asking for handouts from my fellow players. I swear by every d20 I own that I'm not trying to garner pity or beg for free stuff. But having said that, I AM very grateful for the support shown by wonderfully generous anonymous (and occasionally not anonymous) fellow Paizonians who have surprised me with gift certificates. To whomever you may be, thank you. They're wonderful, touching gestures and I wish I could express my gratitude beyond a mere "Thank you".
Have you considered a random dungeon?
It really helps to be a player, not the GM, when this sets in. Especially after so very long behind the screen/being the screen-monkey.
Personally, I suggest 2 or 3 sessions of Call of Cthulhu 6th Edition. If anyone else will GM it, so much the better. CoC is great for scrubbing the brain. If you must be the Keeper, then run the sample scenarios in the book.
The best advice has already been given.
I'm not a video gamer (when the controllers when from a single red button and joystick I was completely outclassed by the technology). And like I mentioned before, my group doesn't want to play anything except Pathfinder, so other games that I'd love to play just ain't happenin'.
But, I try to keep my silver linings half full and all that, despite my occasional whine and cheese fest. Thanks again, everyone!
If budget is a problem than consider the PDFs. A lot less expensive than the written version. I'm old school though and love the look and feel of books lol
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
One thing that I find inspires creativity is using random generators as seeds, and figuring out how the word will grow from their.
If you look at some sites like the Alexandrian, Welsh Piper, and I am sure there are others, they discuss all sorts of theories and techniques for generating worlds, plots, adventures. One particular thing that is discusses that it sounds like you might like is how to include modules and plots into your own adventure, and how to deal with it if they do not follow the path at all.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm not a video gamer (when the controllers when from a single red button and joystick I was completely outclassed by the technology). And like I mentioned before, my group doesn't want to play anything except Pathfinder, so other games that I'd love to play just ain't happenin'.Consider finding a different group perhaps? Two timing is allowed in this case.
What he said. Go to a local gaming store, get into a random group. Have fun. And try PC games, at least indie titles where you do stuff just for kicks.
I highly recommend Dungeon World as well. It is my game of choice these days. Not able to get together often? Try running DW on Google Hangouts, it's got a great, very active, Google+ Community as well.
Also, you have a wealth of knowledge that anyone of a number of start up gaming communities and independent game companies would love to have access to in terms of feedback and advice. Look around find a vibrant growing community or indy game that you click with and join and support it. You can help yourself by helping others and it's fun to get in on the ground floor of something.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Hey Dude, that is a tough patch to go though. I've been going through something similar in that the idea of GMing Pathfinder games and creating my own adventures seems more like a chore than a joy. Maybe this won't work for you, it sounds like your group are pretty stubborn on this count, but perhaps they might be willing to return to 2nd ed AD&D?
I really like the setting of Pathfinder, and making a character for the game can be a lot of fun. However, I sometimes feel that the system tries too hard to give us an answer for 'everything' as a port of the rules. This can lead to spending more time double-checking the 'rules' then working on story ideas, or even throwing out story ideas because they don't match the rules. This has been an issue for me because I feel like the massive sprawling rules of Pathfinder are sometimes actually constricting my creativity, and thus my joy for gaming. Sadly, my group are very much a hard core bunch of RAW types. Thankfully, I'm not DMing at the moment and taking the break to come up with something different and new for my next campaign.
Recently I have been taking another look at the older game systems. It was then that I started to get the passion back. I'm actually looking into the Microlite20 system because it is based on the concepts of d20 but leaves plenty of room for a player and DM to modify the system with what they feel that they want or need while still keeping to the philosophy of as few rules as possible.
With simply switching THAC0 to the ascending AC system 2nd ed starts to feel more comfortable, and that opens up a lot of opportunities to return to the 'feel' of the game that you enjoyed so much. It sounds like it was the actual act of discovery and creating that inspired you and your players. Perhaps a less detailed rule system, or one that your players haven't memorized, will bring back those feelings?
Beyond that, would it be possible to consider starting a new game world? Something that is different from what you made before and filled with other challenges and adventures? Maybe something happens and your player's characters are transported to this new place and now must find a way to survive, and explore this new place, from the perspective of complete newcomers.
Recently I have been taking another look at the older game systems. It was then that I started to get the passion back. I'm actually looking into the Microlite20 system because it is based on the concepts of d20 but leaves plenty of room for a player and DM to modify the system with what they feel that they want or need while still keeping to the philosophy of as few rules as possible.
I highly recommend 13th Age as another option. It borrows heavily from 3.X and 4E. There's a lot of room for interpretation and compromise, both on the player and GM's side. They did a lot to lighten the game and make it flow faster. I've done as many as 3 fights, plus plenty of roleplaying in a 3 hour session.
Don't know if it's still going on, but if you pre-order the book through your FLGS, you get the PDF for free through the bits and mortar program.
Oh, and the monk class, which is coming in the second book, is the best monk class I've ever seen in a d20 game.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Hmm.
Writing stuff for your players requires passion. Passion is squelched by depression. Depression makes it so you don't want to write stuff, thereby squelching your passion, and then you feel bad about not running a great game, which makes you not want to write stuff...bad cycle, all around.
Advice from an art-school graduate, who now works exclusively in the cold hard world of computers:
* Take a story. Any story. Just pick one up off your shelf. Make it a short one, or just a passage you really like from that story.
Now rewrite it from the perspective of one character, or if it's a first-person narrative, a different character. Or a table. (I always liked writing as the table.) And whatever you do, don't you dare do this for more than fifteen minutes! That's part of the magic.
This should hopefully kick start some sort of creative force. And it doesn't matter if the story sucks/is total crap, because that's not what it's about. It's just about pushing through the bleah-rut.
* To hell with writing or trying to find inspiration. Read nothing but non-fiction for a few hours. Watch a terrible movie, preferably one with huge plot holes you can drive an entire gated community through, if you could pick it all up and load it on one flatbed. It's possible by this time you're throwing things at your TV. This is a good sign. Throwing things requires passion, even if that passion erupts from a person in the form of disgust.
* The hardest one: check the FLGS for their board game nights. Yes, board games. Not RPGs. From here, you can launch Nefarious Plan #3: making friends who might RP who might have schedules that are a bit more open! I once got a guy to join our group by telling him we had a board game that didn't use standard pieces and for certain bits of the game you had to play Charades, sort of. Best player I ever met...
And feel free to use APs on the alternate group.
* Ignore all this advice and don't sweat it.
If the depression gets to be so much though that it's interfering with things you used to love doing (like gaming) it might be time to do something different, generally. I don't know and can't speak to that issue very well, I'm afraid. All I can tell you is that I learned that depression doesn't enhance creativity in most folks and that art is hard. Very, very hard. As a mistress, she's pretty cruel, evil, and ungodly temperamental. She's also sometimes neglectful.
Good luck!
I might be in a particularly unique position to help you, as you and I share many things in common. I, too, have played largely with the same people for many years. Though I no longer play with those who played with me back in 1st Edition, I do still play with some who played with me in 2nd, came up through 3.x, and into Pathfinder. I, too, built up a huge world during that time. I have lost a player or two to breakups, as well. My wife plays with us, but really it is to involve herself with something that matters to me.
I also have suffered a rather major meltdown, going on two years ago. The meds have been the hardest part, as I find I still have great ideas, but sometimes have not had the initiative to make them so. I don't know if this is something that is affecting you, but I will say that in my experience the very medicine that makes the anxiety go away and helps me feel okay, can also make me feel complacent. It might sound crazy, but the sense of time constraints and some measure of pressure fueled much of my creativity. (Maybe that's not crazy, now that I think about it. A lot of us work better under pressure.)
I can tell you what helps me to stay productive and to keep enjoying the hobby.
First, I have, for the time being, abandoned the old campaign world. You can't get back what you've had, but you can make new amazing stories. So I moved on, and began building world that were totally different from the old one. Variety has helped me a lot.
Second, it may sound counterintuitive to what I said above, but we rebooted some characters. That is to say that we gave them the full Battlestar Galactica treatment. We made some of the males female and vice-versa, busted them to lower levels and set them down in totally different environments. Sort of like the new Star Trek flicks. The sense of a mix of familiar and totally, wildly different is very intoxicating. Keeps everybody interested.
Thirdly, I challenge myself a lot. I have set some Pathfinder campaigns in real-world eras on Earth, and we have some players playing real-world historical figures in a fantastical way. I also mix things up with modern games (we have a homebrew d20 Modern/Call of Cthulhu game that we visit from time to time), particularly in a horror vein. I also like to design systems. I also like to build terrain features and paint minis. I guess with this last part, I am back to variety, which is truly the spice of life and the spice of any RPG situation.
I would say don't try to recreate the past. (Unless you go female Starbuck, in which case, DO recreate it, and blend and puree it until it begs for mercy). Let yourself off the hook. You don't HAVE to perform for anybody. Forget the old. Follow the most secret, crazy Muse you have been keeping your group from knowing, with no fear. She will lead you to new glory.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It might not be the system, or burnout.
I have this weird psychological thing where I'm always thinking if only I had more time to be creative and prep adventures! But then on the rare occasions where I do have large chunks of free time with nothing important to do...I can't focus. I sit around watching bad scifi, or planning magic decks I'll never use, or any number of dumb@ss things.
Anyway I finally realized that I, like at least a few other people, need boring chores and responsibilities to other people in order to build up the motivation to do anything productive with my free time.
I can't judge if this is your situation, but if you think it might be the case, I suggest putting yourself on someone's clock. Do chores or home improvement projects for a spouse or parent; volunteer somewhere, anything. Just make sure someone is depending on you, so that you don't just shrug it off after a few days.
Again, thanks for all the good advice. One of my players is a member of some international board game cabal and is quite passionate about them. No one else in the group is, though. I'd be willing to play anything he brought to a game night, however.
The FLGS where we play is populated mostly with card gamers and Warhammer players. There is one other RPG group there, and like us, they play Pathfinder. I do sit in on rare times with a friend and his group, but again, it's Pathfinder.
I don't read much of anything except non-fiction, except for lately I've decided modern fantasy is about as exciting as watching my toenails grow. I've gone back to the beginnings with Wells, Verne, Burroughs, Lovecraft, and Howard, and I have been pulling ideas from their works. I don't watch TV (I have Netflix, and that's it. I barely even watch that).
Everyone has offered many great tips here, and I am going to give many of them a shot. Now, off to listen to Manowar sing lullabies about gods and heroes. Nym will know where I'm coming from with that... lol
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
What follows is a wall of text, and I apologize for taking up so much space. But, sometimes what's inside has just gotta come out, regardless.
Ok, here’s the thing. In 1991, I began to lay the first foundations of my homebrew campaign world. 2e was still kind of new, and my players (who had been with me since 1985) were eager to get started. Over the next decade, between my world building, the adventuring, the player character development and input, we built a richly detailed world with many distinct cultures and nations. It was just about my proudest accomplishment.
Then, in 2000 my wife decided we should move to St. Louis, Missouri to work on her doctorate (which she never finished, thus wasting that entire year, but that’s not relevant to this story). Before leaving here, my players and I wrapped up our decade long campaign with some epic adventures. Then, two of my best players decided they were going to divorce, and they went their separate ways, as well. It was the end of an epoch, and the beautifully wrought world we’d built together went on the shelf.
While in St. Louis, 3e made its debut. I bought the core books, met a few players, and we played sporadically. We liked the new rules, but our schedules didn't allow us a weekly game like I’d always known before. The year went past and my family and I moved home. Reassembling my players, minus the two who’d divorced and my wife who no longer wanted to play, we went about converting our world to 3e rules. We had some good times revisiting our “home world”, but things had changed. We still had a ton of fun together, but the world we built began to stagnate. We tried several different campaigns, all of which frittered and died on the vine. 3.5 came out, and our games became even more sporadic and irregular as the demands of adulthood and growing families began to take more time.
During the first year or so after 3.5 came out, it became apparent that I was beginning to show signs of major clinical depression and related issues. I had a...
Thanks for sharing your story. My brother that got me into tabletop gaming would be from your age cohort, and sounds similar to you.
How to explain this, it is all in your head.
There are any number of things that can inspire a good game, even just a feeling you want to convey (fear, awe, disgust, terror), a great reveal (it was the butler's cat!), a culture you want to express (so it is an Aztec, Greek fusion with a dab of university culture, oh and everyone isn't human at all), a series of bosses they must fight (this one is only vulnerable to copper), some difficult choices to make (pie or ice cream? A world hangs in the balance), lead or perish scenarios (time to take charge and kill some zeds), competition (Sembia is mine!) buddy comedy arrangements (so I perform the grapple, he does the shiv, we both laugh about it later).
The fault is not external. You may be done with the hobby, over it, tired of it (this happens, I wish it didn't), but you can make great games with the power of the days past. You sound depressed, and you are beating yourself up over recent games that sound like they were pretty good, there was entertainment, joy and laughs. That is all a game needs. It doesn't need to be the best that ever was.
So please, please, don't over-think it and don't attack yourself. People with your level of experience can be the best dms out there. Fight on brave world-builder and keep creating. Tell another story aged storyteller.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I can relate on many levels, Cal. I'm currently in a really bad rut, feeling creatively burned out as well. I used to pour over extremely detailed settings, I used to sit and brainstorm a massive list of character concepts, backstories, etc. I used to sit and homebrew entire settings, factions, the works.
But now? Nothing. The short answer is, I think I'm just burned out. The more I sit and think on things, it's really just a mixture of bad gaming experiences over the past year that all sort of snowballed into me associating gaming with those bad experiences, spoilered below for wall 'o texty goodness;
** spoiler omitted **...
Your spoiler info, I've seen it. Pathfinder or nothing, really surged out a few years ago, but you didn't see this in the years of beta. People got left high and dry.
Now some are tired of it, and moving back to 3.5 and its range of material. Welcome back to the old gods.
Hey Dude, that is a tough patch to go though. I've been going through something similar in that the idea of GMing Pathfinder games and creating my own adventures seems more like a chore than a joy. Maybe this won't work for you, it sounds like your group are pretty stubborn on this count, but perhaps they might be willing to return to 2nd ed AD&D?
I really like the setting of Pathfinder, and making a character for the game can be a lot of fun. However, I sometimes feel that the system tries too hard to give us an answer for 'everything' as a port of the rules. This can lead to spending more time double-checking the 'rules' then working on story ideas, or even throwing out story ideas because they don't match the rules. This has been an issue for me because I feel like the massive sprawling rules of Pathfinder are sometimes actually constricting my creativity, and thus my joy for gaming. Sadly, my group are very much a hard core bunch of RAW types. Thankfully, I'm not DMing at the moment and taking the break to come up with something different and new for my next campaign.
Recently I have been taking another look at the older game systems. It was then that I started to get the passion back. I'm actually looking into the Microlite20 system because it is based on the concepts of d20 but leaves plenty of room for a player and DM to modify the system with what they feel that they want or need while still keeping to the philosophy of as few rules as possible.
With simply switching THAC0 to the ascending AC system 2nd ed starts to feel more comfortable, and that opens up a lot of opportunities to return to the 'feel' of the game that you enjoyed so much. It sounds like it was the actual act of discovery and creating that inspired you and your players. Perhaps a less detailed rule system, or one that your players haven't memorized, will bring back those feelings?
Beyond that, would it be possible to consider starting a new game world? Something that is different from what you made before and...
Right with you there (yes a 3.5 loyalist can appreciate 2nd ed, lol). I tried a drastically simpler game in the AD&D style and had a blast. These days, even my 3.5 is drawing a lot from AD&D. There is no problem with that.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I have been running D&D (and other system) games for 35 or so years now. I have had periods where I've had less enthusiasm, and periods where I've had more.
It has been my experience that how much free time I have has virtually no correlation whatsoever to how much I enjoy running a game, or how well I do at it. If my enthusiasm is high, I manage to scrape together the time I need to do what I want with the game. If my enthusiasm is low I don't do much with the game no matter how much free time I have.
This is true of most things in my life, btw, not just gaming. How well I do at anything is far more related to how much interest I have in doing it than how much time I have to devote to it. If I'm highly motivated and enthusiastic I can do more in two hours than I can get done in two weeks if I'm not into the endeavor.
I've never really bought into the idea of "burnout" either. Perhaps that's because I've never really experienced the condition. If I lose interest in something, it has never been because I've just gotten bored with it, it's been because something else has caught my attention and I am obsessed with learning and mastering the new thing.
What I've done over the years with my gaming is tried to adapt my gaming to benefit from my other obsessions. Right now I am heavily into building terrain, and I use gaming as an excuse to indulge my desire to create interesting physical worlds to game in. Bringing those elements to my gaming group as part of the game experience allows me to enhance their own gaming experience.
If you have some other interest that you can use to jump-start your gaming, that might be a way to get the spark back. Perhaps you can pick up some cheap unpainted miniatures and paint them to be NPCs in your game. Or better yet, maybe you can pick up some epoxy putty or poly clay and sculpt custom miniatures and then paint them to be NPCs in your game.
Or perhaps you have a hidden talent for painting fantasy scenes. Why not pick up some paints and find out? Or you may want to provide some mood music for your games using a cheap keyboard...
The options are really only limited by your imagination. And what it seems you need to do is rekindle that imaginative spark. It's that spark that keeps me going, both in gaming and out.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think part of the problem may be that you compare the adventures now to what you felt back in the day. Understand that that isn't a fair comparison. We forget the bad parts and remember the good - if you were able to really see what it was like, you would see that much of what you feel is bad about it today WAS PRECISELY THE SAME. And now, nothing will measure up to that vision, which isn't strange.
Do what they have told you above, take some time off, ask someone else to GM, run published material, switch systems/genres/settings, do and read other stuff. But more than that, realize that your players are telling you they are having fun. The problem is in your mind, not theirs. When creating, it is so easy to become overly critical as a habit, which ends at not creating.
What you are doing is fine, but nothing is meaningful from the start. Let things grow, build and develop. What you did once is not the same. You have to let things mature again. Make stupid diagrammatic dungeons and populate them with random monsters. Let the heroes save a princess from an evil dragon. You're a craftsman, relax and understand that you will add what quality is needed once you're at the table.
Best of luck, and keep us posted.
can't favorite this enough.
If all else fails, head to your local park and take a long walk and listen to the birds sing.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
One thing that inspires me to GM is playing in online PbP games.
Or my latest thing just watching them be played. Why? Because they are glacially slow and there are SO many cool ideas from a vast horde of games. So I get into their story but don't have the patience to wait the better part of a year between leveling... So I steal the idea and run my version at the table top.
It sounds like you're getting lots of pressure. No wonder you're not feeling creative. I've gathered that your friends...
Only want *you* to GM.
Only want you to GM *pathfinder*
And if you don't GM, your group of friends will stop gaming.
In addition...
You're putting pressure on yourself to write epic games, like you did in the old days.
That is a *lot* of pressure, my friend.
You gotta let all of that go.
There is one reason, and one reason only, to game-- Having Fun!
I know you love your friends... but forget them!
Ask yourself- what is intriguing, curious, thought-provoking, inspiring today? And do that.
Board games, or new gaming system. You can connect with new folks for just about any gaming system on roll20.net. Its an online (virtual) table top that's pretty quick to learn. And you can play with new people. No pressure.
And... once you've found something that is really juicy and fun for YOU-- then invite your old friends.
(I'm not saying forget your old friends forever. I'm saying take a time out and do some exploring for yourself. Once you've rediscovered fun for yourself, then you can invite them.)
If all else fails, head to your local park and take a long walk and listen to the birds sing.
Go OUTSIDE?? Are you mad??!!??
I have two rescued dogs who insist on taking walks to relieve themselves, so I am out and about some. I live in a very quiet, very old section of my hometown where the houses are not all modeled the same and the yards have huge, even centuries old trees in them. And last night, I had the house to myself (except for the dingoes. That's my name for them) and I had on no lights, no tv, no music, and didn't even speak at for an hour and a half or so. It was pure bliss.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Sounds like an Anne Rice character. :D
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
rescue a dog. He'll make sure you get that walk, fresh air, and sunshine. And there's nothing better for depression than a critter who thinks you are the most wonderful thing ever!
I have two rescues. Both mixed breeds (most people automatically brand them as pit bull mixes because of their brindled markings...sheesh). Buster is the younger, possibly pit or mountain cur mix. Rosie is the older and first one I rescued. She's part black and tan coon hound and something something something... lol. I refer to them as "the dingoes". Rosie is actually part of my depression therapy and is referred to as a "therapeutic companion animal". She's not trained as such, but my therapist fudged the paperwork to get her allowed to move in to my apartment. Buster was a big if with the landlord, but I've always had a great relationship with him and his family. He's not an animal person at all, even in his personal life, but he knows me and that I'm good for any damages they might cause (which thus far has been digging a hole in the outside pen I set up for them that I'm pretty sure will reach the Earth's mantle soon).
They are really wonderful therapy for me. They're neither one too bright...LOL, but I love 'em.
Incidentally, is Herolab available through the Paizo store? I still have some store credit left.