Don’t trust the sweet, mellow words of your local games store owner trying to sell you the latest edition of the Dungeon Master’s Guide (check if they have weird hands, they could be a Rakshasa in disguise); being a DM is a tough job. While your players have the leisure of spending their week simply looking forward to the next session of Dungeons & Dragons, or your TTRPG of choice, you actually have to prepare for it. When you’re finally sitting at the table, you have to put on the hat of arbiter, narrator, mediator, and, let’s face it, sometimes parent, while also not forgetting to have fun yourself. It’s incredibly rewarding, but demanding.
It’s not uncommon for DMs to get to a point where the weight is just a bit too much. No one likes carrying capacity rules, after all.
I have been a DM for a weekly D&D game for eight years now, and while I thoroughly enjoy it and I want to keep doing it forever, there have been times when I felt that scary monster, “DM burnout,” breathing down my neck. Therein lies the problem: Even if I’m tired of my DM duties, I don’t want to simply stop, because I love what I’m doing. Still, DM burnout is something that can impact performance during a gaming session, making them just a little less enjoyable than they used to be. For anyone who has felt the same way, I bring the accumulated wisdom of decades of Dungeon Mastering, protected in the safest section of Candlekeep and all other cool libraries in the multiverse.
Over the years, I’ve found that there are a lot of things you can do to keep your DM energy high. Here are some tips to get over DM burnout without having to hang your cape, boots, and wizard hat for too long. They range from simple habits to improve your performance at the table to ways to recharge your batteries when they’re low. Feel free to use whichever you think applies best to you. Just like the lovely, toothy Slaads, we’re all different!
Keep it short and sweet
I know we all love to keep playing until we drop, but the truth is that there is a specific point where the session starts becoming less enjoyable. Energy levels fizzle out, players end up less invested, and you forget that this specific goblin merchant had a Scottish accent the last time the party met him. This is not an absolute rule: I’ve played plenty of sessions where the excitement levels were so high that we were able to end on a high note even after four hours.
However, as a general rule, it’s good to include timing in your session planning. If you have a general idea of what the players will do (easier said than done!), you can sort of predict the structure of the session and try to timekeep a bit. If you’ve planned a big reveal for the final part, and you notice that players are wasting a bit too much time in the middle act, you can speed things up by making changes on the fly, cutting some dungeon rooms, or whatever you think works in that moment. Having a target time can really help in making sessions not drag out and keep energy levels high from start to finish. I’ve found out my sweet spot is between two-and-a-half and three hours.
Keep your mind and body fresh
I would be lying if I said that snacking isn’t a big part of the “game night” experience. We’ve all been there, trying to clean our fingers of all traces of our crunchy food of choice before touching our precious books. Some of us also like to complement that with libations of the inebriating kind, and there’s nothing wrong with that. However, when you’re running a gaming session that often goes longer than three hours, you will notice that you won’t be as sharp as you’d like to be in those crucial, final moments when you have to wrap up an epic combat or deliver a memorable story climax.
If you have experienced this, try treating yourself like a marathon runner. Swap the junk food with fruits, either fresh or dried, or other healthy snacks. Perhaps eat before the session, so that you can get more blood flowing to your brain than to your stomach. Coffee is obviously a great drink of choice to stay sharp (better than energy drinks, I’m not a fan of those), but don’t overdo it; you’ll probably want to get some sleep after all the dragon-slaying and treasure-hunting is done. Water is the best thing you can sip during a game: It keeps you hydrated and, if you spill the glass during a particularly heated dice roll, it won’t be a tragedy.
Switch it up
Sometimes, your burnout won’t come from playing the role of DM, but from the actual game system you are running. I love D&D 5e, but I recognize the game has its flaws, which only become more evident after a hundred sessions. For example, combat always feels like a drag to me. I’ve tried adding house rules, thinking of challenging scenarios, and other tricks to keep it fast-paced. This type of solution can help, but I also found out that another great option is to change game system once in a while.
If you’re running a long campaign for a game, it’s usually good to take one or two weeks’ break to try another system in the form of a short adventure or one-shot. For example, I recently took a break from D&D to run some Dungeon Crawl Classics, and it was a blast thanks to its different approach, based on dungeon crawling and quick, lethal combat. I came out of it refreshed and with a few lessons I then applied to my D&D campaign.
Games with simple rules work best. I’m a big fan of the Warhammer 40k universe, but I don’t think learning the rules for the amazing Rogue Trader RPG would help with my DM burnout while I’m also running a D&D campaign. Luckily, a lot of modern indie RPGs are designed with a minimalist approach, so you’ve got plenty of choice, from Shadowdark to MÖRK BORG and more.
Step to the other side
This may be the most obvious suggestion on this list, but it’s also one that’s deceptively hard to accomplish. Sometimes, as a DM, you owe it to yourself to step to the other side of the table and spend some time as a player. This will have an evident stress-relief effect, but it also offers you an opportunity to improve your game once you don the (likely pointy) DM hat again. Freed from the duty of having to keep everything in check, controlling NPCs, monsters, and having to adopt a Scottish accent for Duncan the goblin merchant, you can now focus on watching the other players. Take note of how they react to things, what they seem to enjoy and what they don’t, and learn from a type of interaction you’re not usually allowed to have. This will make you a better DM for sure.
However, it’s not easy to make this happen. Not because there is no player in your group who wants to be a DM (we all have that hopeful aspirant who doesn’t know what they’re getting into) but because, often, you feel uncomfortable relinquishing your position. In the words of Bilbo Baggins: “After all, why not? Why shouldn’t I keep it?” Don’t be a power-hungry old Hobbit. Ask your players if one of them is interested in running a short adventure or one-shot while you take a break from your main campaign. Just make sure to take the Ring back once it’s over.
There are plenty more suggestions and tips to make sure your mana reserve as a DM doesn’t get depleted. Let me know in the comments what your personal tricks are to avoid or get over DM burnout.
