There is a very special kind of dread that can affect gamemasters. It can strike before prep sessions and even right before a game starts. Some very lucky gamemasters may never experience it. However, for the many that do, it’s a sign they’re suffering GM burnout.
First off, it’s worth stating: this is really common and it’s usually fixable. It’s definitely not a sign of being bad at running games. In this article, I’m going to look at some of the reasons burnout occurs; I also want to give some suggestions to help fix it that go beyond just taking a break.
So, let’s start with some of the causes.
Why GM Burnout Happens
One of the primary reasons for burnout, especially common amongst newer GMs, is over-preparing. Another factor, one that tends to be more of an issue for experienced GMs, is novelty loss. Lastly, something that affects GMs no matter their experience level, is role drain.
By role drain, I mean the GM must perform many roles: during sessions, they are acting out all the NPCs; they make rules judgments (and are likely doing the heavy lifting learning the rules); at the same time, they are improvising a world and events without downtime.
Additionally, in the real world, social facilitator, event organiser and even counsellor might fall into their remit. And this is all on top of out-of-session tasks like prep and any worldbuilding—hopefully keeping it weird—they feel they have to do.
GMs will likely enjoy at least a couple of these. Some may feel comfortable doing many—even all—of them. However, switching between roles without a break takes a considerable toll mentally. Additionally, any roles the GM isn’t comfortable with take an even greater brain tax; they will also cause more stress and ultimately be a greater drain on motivation.
Signs of Heading Toward Burnout
Here are some of the indicators a GM is experiencing burnout:
- Dread before sessions. As a side note, this goes beyond general nervousness and the adrenaline spike before a session begins. Even Matt Mercer from Critical Role said he gets nervous before games, even now, recorded or not. Many GMs put themselves under great pressure to do the best for their group. This isn’t that. I’m not talking about the fear of failing or doing a sub-par job; it’s a dread of starting at all.
- Cancelling sessions with increasing frequency.
- Relief when a session does get called off.
- Under-preparing sessions over and over. To qualify, this isn’t being taken by surprise by player twists; it’s also not a dig at GMs that can run a game with next to nothing ready. This is when a GM is repeatedly unready according to their own style, and not taking steps to correct it. This is despite the fact they are aware of the issue and likely feeling bad about it, too.
- Snapping at players. This is more of just an example because burnout leads to a spike in stress. When that stress runs too high, people can release it in uncharacteristic ways.
Tackling Over-Prep: Let It Go
The biggest cause of over-preparation is the mistaken belief the GM needs to be ready for everything. A few sessions should be enough to highlight the impossibility for this. In an imaginary world in which the players can go in any direction and do almost anything, this is crazy.
Letting go of this fallacy and reducing prep to starting situations is the first step towards a more manageable workload. How those situations play out and their consequences are where improv enters the game.
Rolltables: A Simple GM Burnout Sidestep
This can be hard to accept for some new GMs, and some never get comfortable with it (more on that later). However, there are more concrete ways to encourage this approach as well as reduce the prep load.
First, use flexible, repeatable frameworks. This is a big motivator for the six-dice, all-in-one encounter generator series. The output will be wildly different from roll to roll, but the overall flow is the same. Rolltables are often a great way to come up with fresh content quickly. For more specific advice on making these results consistent, check this article out.
Pre-Made Adventures
An extension to this is using ready-made material. There are some amazing indie dev adventure writers out there making brilliant one-shot and short adventures. I’m a big fan of Sersa Victory and Joseph R. Lewis for my Shadowdark game, but there are plenty more. Keep an eye out for creators that test their work a lot before release; this seems to be not as common as one might think.
Pick-up-and-play dungeons or whole [short] adventures work well both as one-shots and getting dropped into an ongoing campaign. The really good creators make their adventures very easy to run with minimal prep, meaning they can be run at very short notice.
Of course, there are whole modules out there like Curse of Strahd or Storm King’s Thunder for 5e D&D. However, running these in their entirety often involves reading ~250 pages and keeping track of important threads that run throughout. As this article is for GMs having a hard time with prep, I would save that commitment for another day.
Pre-Prepared Buffet
Instead, I recommend taking one or two locations and running them unconnected to the greater whole. The initial locations are particularly good for this because their design has little to no set-up in mind already. Run them as-is and players are unlikely to realise the GM is using pre-made material. Change the names and slip the places into the gaming world and they’ll have next to no chance.
In one 5e campaign I ran for two years, I grabbed the opening village and dungeon locations from Storm King’s; a castle from Hoard of the Dragon Queen; the asylum from Strahd; and an ooze temple from Out of the Abyss. The players had zero idea I was using pre-written material—I asked after the campaign had finished just to check. In fact, the response was mild interest; it definitely wasn’t horror and outrage (or mindblown appreciation, for that matter).
Unnecessary Self-Expectations Can Feed GM Burnout
Let’s be honest, players don’t often care where material comes from. Most gamers come together to roll dice, imagine amazing story moments, and have a laugh together. Anything that doesn’t get in the way of that is fair game. Players who’d leave because a GM makes use of another’s good work is going to struggle to find a group.
In turn, there is no reason for a GM to always reject using pre-made material besides the ego trip. I’d argue it’s actually beneficial for GMs to run others’ adventures every now and then. It opens them up to new ideas and approaches to adventure design.
The hobby is well over 50 years old at this point. In that time, designers and GMs have tried extreme gamer approaches, extreme narrative approaches, and everything in-between. Facilitating situations the table finds fun should be the GM’s goal. Needlessly hamstringing themselves by trying to make everything from scratch doesn’t just cause more stress, it’s ignoring a world of great material just waiting to be used.
Just a quick note here: when adapting material, making it fit for the group, look to cut wherever possible. Try not to add anything, at least not at first. Although this is tempting, and sometimes it’s unavoidable, remember the objective here is to reduce workload whenever possible.
Atmosphere Aids
I am not the only GM to have a number of music, ambience, and sound effects playlists ready to go. However, the time and stress savers these are shouldn’t be underestimated. The GM can start the session properly, change the vibe, and signal intent non-verbally in an instant.
Music and ambience are especially brilliant ways to establish a vibe while expending barely any energy. The preparation time is all upfront before the campaign begins. Once ready (like mine on Opus), GMs can use the tracks from start to finish, however long the adventure. Of course, special occasion edits may happen to the playlists; however, the expectation is the GM always has something appropriate to call upon given most situations.
Music and ambience don’t just reduce prep, though. They take some of the weight off the GM’s shoulders with regard to role drain, too. Instead of relying purely on narration to shift the mood, a soundscape change does much of the hard work with minimal effort. And because a location can sound different with a different track, familiar places don’t have to feel stale to keep using them.
Ear Worms
And when they do use the same, they can work to reinforce powerful themes. One of my favourite tricks running Curse of Strahd was always opening and often closing sessions with the same track. I also used the track for whenever Strahd appeared in an initially non-violent confrontation, and at the very end of the campaign itself.
The effect builds, reinforcing Strahd is never far away and dread anticipation when the track plays needing no verbal introduction. Unless the players do incredibly well, the final play underlines Strahd will return; the cycle of torment will return to Barovia. It’s a small trick, but it works brilliantly in combination with everything else.
Sharing the Load: Freshness High, GM Burnout Low[er]
Prepping more efficiently (Mike Shea’s Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master is a fantastic reference for this) and atmosphere tackle over-prep reasonably well between them. Role drain is a trickier proposition because it’s not about prepping less; it’s stopping being the one doing everything, all the time.
The simplest answer for this is the most obvious: let the players run a game occasionally. It doesn’t need to be a long-term handover; they can run a quick one-shot or a short adventure over a few sessions, letting the GM sit as a player for a change.
This is also an opportunity to change up the setting, adventure type, and system. It can give everyone a second wind; the old saying that a change is as good as a rest often holds true. It’s a good alternative to cancelling the session outright if everyone has enough of a heads-up to adequately prepare. Handing over control, even briefly, gives the main GM a real rest rather than a lighter workload.
Short and Sweet Outweighs Long and Unlikely to Finish
Capping campaign or adventure length helps too. I’ve done my dues. I’ve run three two-year campaigns and they certainly had their incredible moments. However, I’ve found shorter adventures—from one-shots to adventures a few months long—are equally good at providing these. There is the loss of seeing a character go from very low levels all the high to high, it’s true. On the other hand, the fun factor has felt more consistent, and satisfying conclusions much more attainable.
I also have a strong feeling long, uninterrupted runs let small frustrations quietly build; discontent with someone else’s decisions, boredom with combat rules, complex plots with a maze of threads to keep track of. None of these are big enough to cause a serious problem individually, so they simmer and compound. Scheduled GM, adventure or system swaps reset that far more effectively than pushing through and hoping it settles.
None of this needs to be dramatic. Rotating with everyone’s agreement can go a long way to offsetting GM burnout before it really becomes an issue.
Incidentally, getting a group to try another system really needs its own article. There can be a lot of resistance, especially from groups who have only played one system, like 5e. However, for now, I’ll just stress the importance to say the swap will be short-term, at least initially; also, anything that helps onboarding faster, like pre-generated characters, are a great help. Open communication is essential, even if it needs stating changes are needed or any game will be at risk.
Avoid GM Burnout by Keeping the Number of Responsibilities Human
Focusing more on role drain, honest communication with everyone at the table is the best solution here. Rules referencing is easier to pass off to keener players. Scheduling is another task anyone can do; however, if the GM is hosting, others can still help with set-up, clearing away, [even when online]; if it’s a face-to-face game, handling refreshments is often greatly appreciated.
Social facilitating and counselling are harder solves. As rules judge and game facilitator, groups frequently default to pushing the GM to do these, too. In fact, it’s quite simple: this is a group game, and it’s a group responsibility to keep things running smoothly.
Players can help each other out at any time. In the event of an inter-player argument, it’s on the group to step in. Few people enjoy confrontation; but assuming it’s automatically the GM’s place to handle social tensions is wrong. GMs are already handling enough. This is on the group to sort.
When GMing Isn’t the Right Fit
One honest caveat to all of this: sometimes what looks like GM burnout isn’t burnout at all, it’s a mismatch.
I had a friend who never really got comfortable letting go of over-prepping. They were convinced their improv wasn’t good enough compared to anything they planned; consequently, they kept trying to prepare for every eventuality, every time. Deep down, they knew this was mission impossible, but they just couldn’t stop themselves. The stress of it wore them down badly. Eventually they stepped back from GMing altogether, and they’re a much happier player for it.
This wasn’t a failure. People just run differently to each other. If nothing fixes the dread, it might be worth asking whether GMing itself is the problem. Some people make great GMs and are comfortable with it and others don’t. Trying to force the issue is likely to do more harm than good.
Quick Recovery Checklist
Here’s a brief summary of the tips above collated into a quick-reference list:
- Cut prep down to starting situations, not fully-mapped scenarios
- Borrow a location or short adventure instead of writing everything from scratch
- Use music and ambience to communicate vibe shifts instead of narration
- Switch the group’s GM for at least a session or two
- Cap the current adventure and plan a change after it ends
- Ask honestly whether it’s burnout, or whether GMing’s the wrong fit
Conclusion
GM burnout isn’t a judgment about how good a GM is. Most of the time it’s a sign their framework and group dynamics need adjusting, not skills. Reduce the load where possible, share it where it isn’t; don’t be afraid to lean on tools or other people to keep the table running. Nothing is worth running yourself into the ground.
