Advice/Help Working with Game Master Burnout

Hi, guys, feel free to post more help, encouragements, and advice for game masters who want to continue their roleplay, but are having a tough time with burnout. Cheers!

• Don't Rely on Inspiration by Idea
• Shows Have Seasons, So Should Your RP!! by Beckoncall
• Focus on the Narrative, Bring a More Tougher Solidarity to Your People by Elephantom

A couple of idea generators, map generators, and other utilities posted by the helpful folks of RPN to make your GM life easier! Thanks for the tools guys!

My main tip is the following: don't rely on inspiration. It's gonna betray you. You are NOT as good at improvising as you think, even if you already think you're pretty bad at it. Have the possibilites planned out and more importantly make sure the world exists instead of being staged. You should not come up with the world as you go, less the players suddenly decide on something unexpected and now you're left without anything because you don't have anything to react to the unexpected.

My apologies if this was a bit of a crude statement.

My best advice is shows have seasons, so should your RP!!

My RP has been going for 2.5 years now for a couple of reasons—

When it becomes too much of a burden or burnout or life happens I know I can take time off, regenerate, come up with more ideas, and come back which in turn...

Allows the Rp to be really good and the best players will generally be willing to come back to it.

Know when to take a break, and when you can’t do that, have random utilities like donjon; RPG Tools
To back you up

Beckoncall said:

My best advice is shows have seasons, so should your RP!!

My RP has been going for 2.5 years now for a couple of reasons—

When it becomes too much of a burden or burnout or life happens I know I can take time off, regenerate, come up with more ideas, and come back which in turn...

Allows the Rp to be really good and the best players will generally be willing to come back to it.

Know when to take a break, and when you can’t do that, have random utilities like donjon; RPG Tools
To back you up

Click to expand...

Wow, 2.5 years? Which RP is this? Also, I'm gonna just add a link of dojon to the starter thread, thanks for sharing this.

"Lost Continent -- Flight from Muurdaan"

"Lost Continent: Flight From Muurdaan" (BeckonCall's FNB!)

Beckoncall said:

"Lost Continent -- Flight from Muurdaan"

"Lost Continent: Flight From Muurdaan" (BeckonCall's FNB!)

Click to expand...

Thanks!

Focus on the narrative, bring a more tougher solidarity to your people. The introduction of an RP with breadth yet a linear structure, and a more novel-esque approach to the story, is something I'm trying and testing out right now. So far, it's going good, lasted more or less a month, and has little signs of stopping. As Idea outlined before me, we try to rely heavily on preformed plot elements and planned out scenes rather than improvising or coming up with it on the go, holding regular worldbuilding sessions as a means to promote foresight— there's more emphasis on the overall narrative rather than individual character interaction, and therefore individual character decisions. By breadth, I mean multiple sub-story threads going on at the same time, connected to an overarching story, segmented by individual arcs; whenever we feel like a thread's gone stale, that there's no inspiration or motivation to pull through with it, we put it aside and continue on to the next thing occurring at the moment.

The emphasis on overall narration rather than individual character spotlights or establishment, thereby evenly distributing attention to characters in a manner that could be consider fair, means that there's no sharp boundaries between characters and non-playable characters. Everything is discussed beforehand, and character sheets are scrapped in favour of group brainstorming sessions. Posts are often long, may concern multiple characters. Conduct is lenient, no post limit, no time limit, no nothing.

This may have the drawback of introducing a terribly sluggish progress, a lackadaisical morale, when it actually comes down to the RP itself. But, my guys are okay with it; they've got no problem, they've got no issues, and they feel like they've got some handle on the story too.

To further that point, I implemented a loose voting system, so that the members can contribute to the story, or veto parts they feel are too winded. I believe that people form a more stronger commitment to something if they feel like they actually have something to do with bigger picture. To complement that, I also try to ask the members for feedback, and try to listen and implement whatever ideas they pitch. This doesn't mean I'm completely lax, but this does ensure long-term survival for the whole thing.