Willie the Duck
Hero
I agree with the statements of others similar to 'if a group can't handle a little break, it isn't that cohesive to begin with.' However, social momentum is a thing, and if you take more than a few weeks off, people do find other things to do (and might not come back). As a suggestion in that regard -- most gaming groups have a number of shared secondary interests that they can explore for short periods of time. Board games, movie night (revisit all the movies that got you into fantasy gaming in the first place), dinner and a show, one-off sessions of other RPGs (maybe one of those 2 page indie games), etc. If a group can't handle 2-3 sessions of doing that, then yes it really never really was cohesive to begin with.
*not a productive road to go down, so we'll ignore.
It's not that I am not sympathetic, but my experience in the sobriety community tells me that the only answers we can provide that would be helpful are the tough love ones. We've consistently offered the (IMO) right answers, and they have been consistently rejected. OP needs to set boundaries, demand others take up some of the burdens, and explain that the give-take balance of the group is out of whack in a way that will not continue. That's it. Full stop. There's nothing else we can advise until they are willing to acknowledge this.
Or at the very least, it certainly is high time to say to this group, 'I've been saying this is unsustainable for years. Now is the time to take me seriously. I will be taking a break. There will be changes when I get back (or the group can die). Start discussing/negotiating which ones you are more or less willing to accept (note that 'none' is just a vote for the group dying).'Retreater, you've been complaining about your gaming situation on here for a LONG time now. And people have given you advice on questions here and there. But you always seem to have reasons you can't or won't take certain measures to make things easier for yourself. Well, if you are this exhausted, it is HIGH TIME to take time off. Push off the responsibility onto someone else for a while, and if nobody is willing to do that, then LET THE GROUPS DIE for now. Maybe you'll be able to bring them back up when you've gotten some time away, maybe not. But this burning the candle at both ends is turning this hobby into a thankless job. And you don't seem to want that.
Retreater, you've been complaining about your gaming situation on here for a LONG time now. And people have given you advice on questions here and there. But you always seem to have reasons you can't or won't take certain measures to make things easier for yourself.
Hopefully thats just a distortion from getting it second hand.
If you can't say to your group "Sorry, no game Sunday, I'm going to be at a wedding on Saturday 4 hours away" without getting pushback from your group, there's a level of toxicity there I'm having trouble understanding.
We're not supposed to make things about the poster. However, I don't think it does the OP any good not to know that their ongoing saga is indistinguishable from 1) a kind of self-enforced trauma akin to codependency addiction/factitious disorders/etc., or 2) someone unwilling to give up a burden, even if they can't handle indefinitely, or 3) not wholly factual*. The demands are unending, the player's are universally unreasonable, no quarter is given, the behavior is toxic -- but every suggested solution is always a no-go.I am having a similar feeling to all the system threads from this one. The particulars dont really matter. I think you are stuck chasing the dragon. Trying to achieve that exactly right experience you had in yesteryear. So, you continually pour more and more effort into an ever increasing pile of games thinking you can force it. It has to come naturally, and sometimes what you get is all you get.
*not a productive road to go down, so we'll ignore.
It's not that I am not sympathetic, but my experience in the sobriety community tells me that the only answers we can provide that would be helpful are the tough love ones. We've consistently offered the (IMO) right answers, and they have been consistently rejected. OP needs to set boundaries, demand others take up some of the burdens, and explain that the give-take balance of the group is out of whack in a way that will not continue. That's it. Full stop. There's nothing else we can advise until they are willing to acknowledge this.
Yes, this is the kind of things we have been advocating you look into. I am glad to see you can publicly acknowledge it as an option. What else do you think you can ask people to explore doing instead of having you do it all?I have a player in one of the groups (albeit, the less exhausting one) who volunteered to run a short adventure. I'll see if he's up for that. The more exhausting group, maybe I can tell them to handle their characters and rules on their own if they think they enjoy 4e so much? It still doesn't help me with adventure prep, but it takes a little bit of load off.