Gamer Burnout Solutions

 In contemplating the prior post I realize that it actually makes lots of sense I am burned out. Some of the problem, for better or worse, is due to the way the pandemic changed the face of gaming: adding VTTs into the mix created a unique new sort of fatigue in the process, while simultaneously making gaming easier and more accessible. This perspective may not apply to everyone, but it does apply to me. To wit:

Since 2020 going VTT on Roll20 and other platforms meant that there was a reduction in travel time, and reduction in the physicality of gaming; in exchange, the demands of specific VTT platforms would consume some of that time as well as transform how prep work must be handled. For example, in a tabletop game I might content myself to draw some maps and maybe print out an illustration or two. I may carry a lot of books and campaign paperwork with the notion that I will have whatever is needed, potentially, just in case. In a VTT digital access makes it much quicker to look stuff up, but the need to lay out content in the medium of the VTT environment for use means that spontaneous battles (in those games where maps and minis are expected) are going to be more difficult. Not impossible, but difficult.

Running games on the VTT takes on a different kind of fatigue, as you have a reduction in social interaction. Voices, all sharing one channel with equal intensity are now normal, so side conversations require special tools such as text whispering. Some players who may dominate conversationally at a game table will absolutely stomp all over the verbal competition in a VTT. More mellow players used to waiting their turn may find a reduction in interaction, especially if the GM is more accustomed to scanning the room of faces to identify who is invested, who is waiting for their turn, and who appears to be tuned out and does not require engagement. In a VTT its whomever is most efficient at commanding the voice channel.

Returning to live gaming made me realize how much "work" it takes to make a live game happen. There's a need to understand the rules and your character more, and a lot of newer gamers* appear to only know the game through a digital platform like D&D Beyond now, and require more hand holding and cajoling to get them up to speed. These are commitment actions, though: prep game, get up, pack bags, drive to meeting spot, set up stuff, play game. But the reward is a more direct social interaction in the process, and the ability to make our old meat muscle brains remember how to play without using our digital brain substitutes for the task (ymmv). 

In writing this I free-associated to get somewhere and just realized I didn't get close. What I was aiming for (and missed) was that VTTs make it technically easy enough to play that you can end up letting it overwhelm your evening's free time. In doing so, your reservoir of creativity, which we will say for my purposes has room for 1 or 2 games at the most these days, is running dry because I am in various ways engaged with 2 nights as GM and up to 4 nights (many bi-weekly or rotating with my GM time) as a player. That is a lot more gaming time than my creativity cup has juice to cover for.

My ideal solution is to pare it all back down to what I know I can handle. There was a time in the past when I found once a week on Wednesdays and every other week on Saturdays to be a very satisfying schedule. Somehow, at some point, I got very much off the rails on that fine schedule. As a result, my ability to prep for my own games is saturated now, and the time I spend as a player takes away time I could spend prepping as a GM or, honestly, literally doing all the other hobbies I have (despite this blog being mostly about gaming, I am quite keen on enjoying video games, watching movies, reading books and comics, collecting obscure music on Bandcamp, and focusing heavily on reading all Japanese literature I can get my hands on).  It's really hard to find time for anything when 90% of my free time ties in to hours and hours of gaming that I am not feeling overly excited about, chiefly because it is time stretched too thin for me to invest in at any given moment.

So! I need to figure out how to fix this. I haven't yet got an adequate solution because, as mentioned last post, I am keenly aware that these games are all part of a highly specific social fabric that I am tied in to. But I will find a way, somehow. Just need to give it time.

*I'd say "younger gamers" instead but the truth is the phenomenon of a player who doesn't know the rules or their own character is a time-honored tradition that transcends age. The new phenomenon is a person who has never bought a D&D book in their life but has a paid D&D Beyond subscription through which they get all their game content, and who has never actually read any of it beyond the char gen process.