>end campaign of campaign has arrived, tell them I am burned out and will not be running a new one
>every player's response is some variant of "recover soon, and don't forget to invite me to the next campaign! :)"
>no check-ins, private conversations, offers from them to run games or to play some multiplayer games, nothing
I hate these cheery little fricks, I'm just some fricking entertainment channel to them. Worse than subhuman.
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Find new players.
If these are online games, then try a few IRL.
both are disposable
also
>not having a group of friends and playing with randos
kinda your fault
My game friends were randos at one point, and my personal experience has been pretty good.
If their response to "I'm burned out and think I'm done." is "Haha, invite me to the next one" then you're better off finding another group. If what would have been the day of the next session already passed, you can write them off. Try to get in a different group as a player, that way you're not coming on as the perma-GM.
To play devil's advocate (for randos, not OP):
I had nothing, but bad time when playing with few different groups of friends. In some cases, I knew beforehand it's going to be a shitshow.
I had predominately (about 5:2 ratio) good experience when playing with randos. And no, randos that eventually became friends aren't magically going bad, but they don't count as "starting a new group with friends".
So while randos are disposable, they are also universally better source of good players, by the sheer virtue of endless supply - you can always find new good ones.
are you by any chance Russian ESL? it's like I can read your post in the voice of my favorite dota or hearthstone player and it fits perfectly lol
not complaining, I like Russian ESL
Have you tried taking the initiative in talking to them about things you could all do together? People aren't mind readers, they might get the impression that you don't want to be bothered by them, that you've got other things you're busy with or that you're taking a break from gaming in general. If you want to be more than an entertainment channel a part of that will be taking a more varied active role. This is the hard part of maintaining friendships as an adult because it demands consistent effort and a degree of vulnerability.
A lot of people live in areas where the hobby is much smaller or nonexistent. They also might be a part of demographics that are averse to tabletop. Beggars and choosers. It goes without saying that people in this hobby can often have trouble maintaining circles of friends, even if they're normies they can still be introverted/anxious.
This matches up more with my experience. I've been a perma-GM for decades and people generally are grateful even if there are no shortage of buttholes. People will always be imperfect but generally speaking over time you find the people who you get along with without much effort or confusion. It probably helps that I'm the go-to GM for obscure shit, or at least obscure in a scene with so much emphasis on D&D and at best a handful of popular competitors. It gives you a sort of bargaining power where they'll actively go out of their way to make it appealing for you to GM for them because it's a system that lives and dies by prep work and other aspects of GMing.
It’s sad that your pals are dipshitty. Much sad, many such cases. You’ll literally have to talk to them about it, as life is complicated. Run simpler games if you’re feeling the burn.
Have you considered that your players might reasonably assume that you enjoy GMing and will want to keep doing so? And 'check in,' what are you, a teenaged girl? I say this as a GM who has burnt out before, though in my case one of the players did run something for about a year.
>what is OP, a teenage girl?
No amount of wienersucking can fill the longings of his heart, yet he keeps buying training bras. What a champ.
What if they offer to GM but it’s a game you don’t like?
Why are GMs viewed as disposable...?
They're not, at least, not in my experience. Everyone in my group is well aware of the fact that GMs have to put considerably more effort into running a campaign than players, and people interested in GMing are rarer to boot. That said, I don't know how closely my experiences translate to the broader rpg community, my group's been playing together for about 10 years now,
i'm married to one of the two regular GMs and see the other at least 3x/week since we work at the same hospital and attend the same gym. If either of them said they were feeling burnt out then I like to think I'd have a pretty good idea whether the appropriate response was "cool, tell me when you're feeling up to another campaign" vs "is everything alright babe/my dude".
gay married, right?
>Being a homosexual
No. My wife is a woman(female).
She's cheating on you with a bigger, blacker man.
You Americans have something wrong with you
Yeah, it's called "progressive politics" that just involves morons ruining media and starting fights without any actual progress being made at all.
If only you knew how bad it really is.
>how dare you question the powers that be you fricking fascist!!!!
>man
This. Get mogged DM
I bet the bvll only plays Conan
I didn't see anything in the little fit you threw that implied your players view you as disposable.
I run the game entirely through random tables. I can't burn out.
I can referee infinite games, every session is as surprising to me as to the players.
Oh the giant wandering monster wants to trade for water.
They have a nice interaction with him, I roll and find out his personality and problems.
They spend the session helping him.
See you next week.
Being a DM isn't about being a fun referee , it's about using the game to trick players into thinking you as a DM is special. You need to use trickery and cunning to keep players engaged, be too transparent and they lose respect for you.
Both are a dime a dozen, and thus both are just as disposable
Everyone except me is disposable NPCs. You exist for me to abuse as I see fit.
Eh, can only do a hi-five, bro, as I'm in the same shit. Forever GM for about 25 years now give or take. Played SOME games as a player but never a whole campaign to completion. And I have a group of friends I play with. It's just they are complete fricking pussies. Yes, Timmy, you won't be as good as me. But you sure as shit *should* try, and I'd help you every step along the way. Yes, Billy, I know that you "don't have it in you", guess what. Neither did I when I started all those years ago, but I got better at it because I wasn't such a lazy c**t.
basically the cure is to play with a group which mostly has people who have also run (or at least genuinely tried to run) at least one campaign
now that you're not running it might be a good time to force one of them to run
tell them you're burned out but don't want the group to break up and feel like you could get back to it if you got to experience it from the other side for a short campaign
and, more harshly, don't expect the kind of friend who doesn't check in on you to turn into that kind of friend just because you did something nice for them
Happened something similar with the group I'm playing,
Talked with them and discovered none have realized I was burning out. Asked for someone else to take the DM seat and two of them proposed.
Really unexperienced but trying thier best , and helping them give me back the energy to take the final chapter of the campaign back online
so, try to talk with your player, never assume they understand what you are feeling if you don't tell them
If you tell them and they still don't care, then ditch them as soon as possible as they are draining you of your energy without giving back
I'm fricking with you op, same goddamn thing happened to me. I introduced four brand new players to dnd mostly so I could get to know my wife's friends.
They fall in love with it and three of them start their own campaigns, two of which featuring players from my campaign.
Years go by and none of them ever invite me to play in their games. Then when I tell them I don't have the time to Dm a new campaign do you think any of them offered to? Frick no. They just fricked off to play their own shit.
Moral of the story is dont bother investing time or energy into other people. The only thing worth investing in is yourself.
gming for someone you consider a good gm can be intimidating and stressful. Most beginners will clap at anything, but an experienced gm will have opinions and that can be scary when you start
If the experienced GM is really experienced, he will shut the frick up and be a good sport. Then MAYBE offer some comments after the session, if you both agreed to that. See, the moment the experienced GM will start opining all over his less experienced friend is the exact moment his friend will either a) not invite him back or more likely b) stop GMing because why bother.
If you want to make friends through RPGs do NOT dm. Being a fellow player forms a bond of adventure that encourages you to get to know each other and hang out more.
The DM is the other. He sits on the opposite side of the table. We can’t talk about the game with him because anything he says could be a spoiler. All his flaws are exacerbated as his campaign isn’t 100% perfect. He runs a good game but he isn’t a guy like me and the other players.
This is how the average dndtard sees something, to them a DM is a no different than a tv.
>I hate these cheery little fricks, I'm just some fricking entertainment channel to them.
Maybe I'm quibbling, but I kinda like the idea of my campaigns being like a channel. I mean, you don't get to whine and negotiate with a TV lineup. If it's October, there's going to be something spooky on, December is for something comfort food-y with Christian themes like Home Alone, Summer is for Blockbusters and so on.
Modern gayamers think it's like Netflix and they get to demand specific house rules and adventure modules and never have to do anything even slightly outside their wheelhouse.
>every player's response is some variant of "recover soon, and don't forget to invite me to the next campaign! :)"
This sort of thing is a great litmus test. If you're being put in a corner and used for one specific thing, you're being used. Cut people like that off.
EG, if you have a "platonic friend" and she just texts you for attention/support but doesn't introduce you to her girlfriends. Psychic vampires and moochers move on weirdly quickly when you wise up and jettison them. It was never anything personal, after all.
Did OP say "I would be willing to play if someone else ran a game", or "I'd be up for a boardgame night", or some variant?
You aren't entirely wrong, but it's complicated, in that A.) The DM is often viewed as a shot caller, so calling no shots is the same as saying "We're not doing anything", and B.) DM/player isn't an especially close relationship, so "I'm burnt out" can be taken as "don't bother me"
>A.) The DM is often viewed as a shot caller, so calling no shots is the same as saying "We're not doing anything"
This is true, yeah.
I find people really lack initiative these days. It's really pronounced in Zoomers and younger Millennials but it's seeped into all the age cohorts.
So as GM/leader you have to herd them around or they just won't do anything. But they'll also rebel if you're too authoritarian. EG how if you schedule a party or something 8 weeks in advance no one will show up because it's not cool/spontaneous and it reminds people of school or work.