Root for your campaign
Posted by Yax on January 2, 2008
Wayne - a Dungeon Mastering reader - recently e-mailed me:
I’m bored to death with my Wednesday night game but as far as I can tell all the players are having fun. Any thoughts on what I should do?
Root for your campaign
Running a D&D campaign should be like rooting for your favorite sports team. You have a blast anticipating and talking about an upcoming game. It’s an incredible high when the game goes well. You wonder what happened when it doesn’t but you still had fun no matter what and you move on to the next game with enthusiasm.
If you’re not having fun before and during your games you should root for another campaign.
17 more levels to go!
One common characteristics of DMs I know is that whenever they start a new campaign they want to make it the best ever - go from level 1 to level 20 and blow minds on the way there. However 95% (or more?) of games don’t make it to epic levels… and it’s still all right to aim for the top each and every time. So you can’t be too disappointed when it doesn’t work out as planned.
Never take your campaign losing steam personally. It happens. RPG session should always be fun and easygoing.
This is some great advice, but if they’re not having fun then I am thinking you meant to let some one else DM, right?
In my group we just switched over to 3rd Edition because of 4th Edition coming out and the prices for the books are dropping. Well any way, they all want me to DM, but I really don’t like to at times. Though perhaps it is my own problem but I really do not wish to let them down. Maybe I am suffering from DM burnout that was written about in the 2nd Edition Catacombs source book?
So what should we do if we can’t “root for another campaign”?
you should definitly share with your players what you want them to do so you can have fun. More roleplaying, more active participation, etc… If you don’t find a solution I think you should play NWN a while and you will have fun with D&D again …
If you’re suffering GM-burnout, then I heavily suggest the alternating games setup: 2 GMs running 2 separate games that alternate weeks. That way everybody gets to be a player, which is the easiest (and often most fun) part.
One good way to do it is to have a main GM (you, at this point) and then encourage one of your players to come up with a short campaign (4-6 sessions). Try a new system, while you’re at it. Then, when that one closes, have a different player do the same thing. This way, you’re always trying new systems and new character builds (which keeps things fresh), but keeping your regular long-running campaign going as well (which is where you get the cool long-term RP fun).
>Any thoughts on what I should do?
Probably a little more details about your problem would generate more sudgestions :)
Anyway a few ideas:
- change the game to enjoy it more. There has to be a way of achieving it :)
- maybe you can change the situation simply changing the adventure instead of the campaign. It happens: an adventure is boring for the dm… kill it. Shorten it and move to funnier ideas. Instead of forcing them to cross the continent to kill the Lich, have the Lich get pissed and teleport to obliterate them :)
- a few times I found myself bored becuase the adventure prevented me from playing any NPC (es. the exploration of a citadel in the negative plane, infested with mindless monsters). Add a chatty NPC to the party. Warning: change the NPC often, you should avoid having “your character” in the party :)
- stop for a few weeks. There are only two possibles outcomes of this action: someone else starts mastering and you can play, or you recover from the burnout and find your mind full of new plots :)
Those are some great suggestions, though I guess it is my fault for not detailing my problem (though I must admit I felt a bit nervous commenting for the first time). The first major thing is that no one else wants to DM. So if we don’t play it is usually because I can’t muster enough energy to DM some thing that is worth time or energy to play.
There are the random times when one of my players wants to DM some thing but that’s about every 3 weeks. Once they’re done with the one session they seem to not want to pick it back up. And this gets annoying after you’ve created one or two characters that you like. x.x
I’ve tried a few things to liven up the game for me but that hasn’t done much. One such instance actually backfired and caught me totally unprepared (I summoned Fierna’s Palace from the Nine Hells on to the material plane…at the time I called it the Spire of Oblivion). I’ve stopped myself from doing things that catch me unprepared because that slows down play.
Though I do like the idea of adding an annoying NPC that the PC’s can’t kill either because it is too Good (thus making it an evil act) or one that is just too powerful. :P