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[bryant]

WISH #92 asks:

Have you ever gotten burned out as a gamer? What did you do to combat burnout? Which things you tried helped, and which ones didn’t? Which ones would you recommend to a gamer with burnout?

I actually feel a little burned out right now — not a lot, but a bit — so good timing. Hm.

I think that burnout is a life phenomenon for me, not a gaming-specific phenomenon. My work is keeping me too busy to think about gaming as much as I’d like, and there’re a bunch of other things swirling around, and I have trouble working up the enthusiasm to generate characters or think about GMing or anything. Which saddens me. (Yes, this is a typical symptom of depression; yes, I know.)

Mostly I just nudge myself to press on regardless. I don’t skip gaming even if I want to. I grind out character descriptions no matter how I feel about them, because I know they’re better than I give myself credit for. I read gaming material that’s given me joy in the past. I spent a while this week transcribing NPCs from Classic Organizations into Hero Designer, just to get myself back in the groove of thinking about HERO. And all that works pretty well.

Comments

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

Gaming is one of those activities that we pour so much effort into that its only natural when we need to take a step back and refresh our batteries by doing other things.

I find what keeps me energied these days is the great circle I find myself part of. That and its a welcome break from chasing boy and changing diapers.

[bryant]

Heh! See, I don't have the diapers to change. (No, that is not an offer.)

It's very startling to me to look at the way my gaming has changed over the last two years. My reasons for gaming are the same, but the bag of techniques I use has changed immensely. It's been incredible being part of such a transformative group.

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

I think my gaming today is loads better than it was 3 years ago. And even more radical from what it was 10 years ago. I've always considered myself on the experimental side of being a gm, but frankly playing with an entire group looking to push the envelope on a regular basis has really challenge me.

I also like seeing lots of other gm styles. I take the best from them. For example robotnik realy opened my eyes on the flexbility of chronology in roleplaying.

[robotnik.livejournal.com]

That's nice of you to say, especially since it was your games that really got me back into gaming and demonstrated to me that it could be an intelligent pastime for grown-ups (more or less). I'd better not say which controversial indie RPG guru I got my ideas about the flexibility of chronology from... :)

[thebitterguy]

Ahh, classic Orgs. CLOWN PNZ ME.