I feel almost too exhausted to write this post.
Over two years of two weekly games in different systems with only the occasional missed session.
Last weekend, I ran a bonus marathon session for around 8 hours (for different players in another system).
This weekend, I ran a game for a drunken wedding party that lasted until midnight (for yet different players in yet another different system) - turned around, drove 4 hours, and ran another 4 hour game.
In the regular game, people don't pay attention to their turns, don't know their character abilities, argue with me about their character abilities (that they don't know), have a "joke journal" instead of keeping pertinent adventure details.
Yesterday, I rushed home from the wedding party game. Got home just in time to level up 5 characters for the players, printed out 30 pages of character sheets, organized the table, and had about 1 hour to lay down and feel hopeless that I had nothing to run for the group. (My previous planned encounters had been made worthless when the group decided to flee the adventure the previous session.) No suitable pre-made adventures were available, because I'm running a dead system notorious for bad adventures.
Thankfully, we are taking off next Sunday for Mother's Day. I'm about to collapse - not kidding. I don't want to stop running the games and kill the groups. Also, if I take time off, that will be the same as killing the groups. In at least one of the groups - I'm the only person willing to DM. My wife - who is a player - literally got mad at me when I told her I was tired. ("I guess just tell everyone you don't want to DM anymore and that we're not going to play.")
I don't know why I'm posting this. I guess to vent? Maybe to help organize my thoughts about how to try to recover from this?
Over two years of two weekly games in different systems with only the occasional missed session.
Last weekend, I ran a bonus marathon session for around 8 hours (for different players in another system).
This weekend, I ran a game for a drunken wedding party that lasted until midnight (for yet different players in yet another different system) - turned around, drove 4 hours, and ran another 4 hour game.
In the regular game, people don't pay attention to their turns, don't know their character abilities, argue with me about their character abilities (that they don't know), have a "joke journal" instead of keeping pertinent adventure details.
Yesterday, I rushed home from the wedding party game. Got home just in time to level up 5 characters for the players, printed out 30 pages of character sheets, organized the table, and had about 1 hour to lay down and feel hopeless that I had nothing to run for the group. (My previous planned encounters had been made worthless when the group decided to flee the adventure the previous session.) No suitable pre-made adventures were available, because I'm running a dead system notorious for bad adventures.
Thankfully, we are taking off next Sunday for Mother's Day. I'm about to collapse - not kidding. I don't want to stop running the games and kill the groups. Also, if I take time off, that will be the same as killing the groups. In at least one of the groups - I'm the only person willing to DM. My wife - who is a player - literally got mad at me when I told her I was tired. ("I guess just tell everyone you don't want to DM anymore and that we're not going to play.")
I don't know why I'm posting this. I guess to vent? Maybe to help organize my thoughts about how to try to recover from this?