Remedies For GM Burn-Out

by The Roleplaying Tips Community

Lots of great tips from subscribers in this Flash Back Friday submission,covering everything from being sick of gaming to having writer’s block. I hope the cure for you lies herein!

Note on Navigation: To quickly move between readers’ emails, use your application’s Find or Search feature and look for @@@@@@. I have purposely used six ‘at signs’ because they do not appear in anyone’s post and will not confuse searching.

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From: Craig P.

As a player in a long running campaign (20+ years) may I

make some suggestions to avoid burn-out based on our GM?

1. Be open to new players. The GM and I are the only

original members of the campaign. New players bring in a

different style and feeling with their characters, adding

new interests for both GM and the other players.

2. Nurture new characters. As you can imagine, after 20

years there has been what seems like hundreds of player

characters. It is easy for both players and GMs to get

bored with a character after months or years of playing.

(This is much easier with a skill-based system than a level

based one. A well rounded 100pt GURPS character can

contribute almost as much as a 300pt one.)

3. Encourage players to help build the world. It is

impossible to work out every detail of your world. Allowing

the players to participate in the creation gives them an

investment in the world. One of my characters became the

leader of one of the main cities in the campaign, giving me

the opportunity to flesh out the entire governing system.

4. “Play” NPCs. There is usually little objection to the GM

running a well thought out NPC, especially if it fills a

hole in the party composition. Just make sure he doesn’t try

to solve all the party problems. Player characters can also

change to NPCs when the player leaves the group. The GM has

a ready-made NPC complete with background, personality and a

connection to the party. Retired characters can also turn

into Semi-NPCs, being still run by the player but showing up

just occasionally.

5. Ask the players. When a dry spell hits, ask the players

what direction they would like the campaign to go. Their

ideas may jump-start a whole new chapter.

6. Take a break. There is nothing wrong with taking a hiatus

in playing. Our longest break was nearly a year as various

personal things got in the way. If you keep in touch with

the players, you can pick up again as soon as things

improve.

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From: Cameron Goble



Hey Johnn,

Our group’s GM has been a real trooper. Week after week he’s

had good story and development, he’s plotted out at least

three ways for our party to go, and he’s always up on the

rules he’ll need to bring into play. But in the face of a

40+ hour per week day job, a fiancée, and other things out

there in the real world, the prospect of keeping up with

everything was getting to be tough on him.

Our solution was to have two games with separate GMs going

within the same group. When one game reached a narrative

appropriate point to stop for a while (generally after three

or four sessions), the GM would step down and become a

player in the other game, while one of the players would

turn into the GM of his own game for a while. Two separate

story lines, two GMs doing their own thing, two totally

different parties.

It’s been working great. Each GM gets to play on the other

side of the screen for a while – our “first” one hasn’t been

a player for years, and I think it’s really reinvigorated

him. Also, he gets a couple of weeks to cool down, go over

his story line, and spend time cooking up our next adventure

without having to worry about time constraints. When his

game starts up again; he always presents a polished, well-

constructed scenario for us. Perhaps one of the contributing

factors to GM Burnout is the constant sense of flying by the

seat of one’s pants – having a couple weeks break seems to

get around this problem.

It works well preventing player burnout too: everyone gets

to shift party roles every few weeks, as nobody plays the

same type of character in both games. We’re an experimental

bunch of players, so we get to explore lots of different

ways to play characters.

The reason we started doing this, by the way, was to work

our way into using the 3rd edition D20 rules. Our game had

been 2nd Edition AD&D, and when D20 came out, we didn’t want

to have to switch our beloved characters out without knowing

exactly what we were doing, so a separate D20 game was

started. Now both games are D20, and the benefit is that if

the actual GM doesn’t know a particular rule off-hand,

chances are the playing GM will. Our games have therefore

been very balanced, and we haven’t had a confrontation over

rules interpretation yet.

Thanks for the great work you’re doing!

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From: Tom Z.

If you’re burned out on the original theme then start again,

but within the same setting and campaign. If you used the

Vikings example then rather than trying to emulate Nordic

sagas, switch themes totally. Invade the homelands with

pseudo-Normans and switch to a Robin Hood outlaw game. Turn

on the Cthulhu and start to reveal conspiracies between

sorcerers, priests and unholy sacrifices to unknowable gods,

or even suggest that Odin himself is an avatar of something

more unknowable. Basically re-invent the campaign as another

game but layered upon the previous one. This actually

creates a deeper and multi-layered game.

1. Research. Watch new films, read new books. Maybe reading

noir detective books can be layered into the game as a

series of dark ages murder investigations. Maybe your dark

vampire game could cope with a touch of super hero inspired

heroism? Keep feeding new and wildly divergent ideas into

your existing maps and cities. SF games can absorb space

dwelling dragons, fantasy can cope with swashbucklers or

espionage.

2. War-game, board game. Buy Hordes of the Things or Chain mail

and run some large battles, tied into the campaign but maybe

without the PCs as heroes. Letting your hair down with what

is a rest from roleplaying but which still builds the

richness of the world. If you play the games straight, with

no PC heroes, the outcomes can be used to spark off new

campaign thrusts.

For example, a set battle between the Necromancer Slarge and

his host of skeletons against the Dwarfs of the Bumpy

Mountains. Play it, have fun, see who wins or loses. But if

the skeletons win, then the campaign will be full of

dispossessed dwarfs looking for work, trouble, help,

finance, revenge. The Bumpy Mountains will be full of

undead, the balance of power will shift, the lands may be

threatened. And the defeat of the Necromancer may reveal a

deadlier threat, the nomadic hordes that his undead zone

held back, or the dwarfs may prove to be not so friendly

with their key enemy gone, and the victorious dwarf forces

may march on the PCs’ homelands. The idea is to relax, let

the PCs play the game, moderate and share the fun, receive

creative input that you can’t wholly predict.

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From: Andy T.

Johnn,

The one thing that I have found to be a sure fire remedy to

lack of inspiration is just to sit back and let somebody

else take the reins for a while. Watch some movies, be a

player, forget the hassles, and relax. Essentially, recharge

your batteries and play the game, have fun and enjoy. If you

don’t enjoy the game you won’t run an enjoyable game. It’s

as simple as that. If you are running a sci-fi stealth game

(i.e. Shadowrun), try some fantasy for a while. If you have

been playing fantasy try some Sci-fi, change tack.

My best, basic tip is to turn the game on its head. Have a

breather, like your favorite TV show for example.

Occasionally they have a weird episode (musical Buffy for

example) and it’s a change of pace, something new and when

you go back to what you are used to, it seems fresh again.

Give it a whirl, have a time out, play a board game. Remember

that too much of a good thing is a bad thing.

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From: Dave W.

Hello there,

Yes indeed I did suffer from burn-out with my games. I had

been playing pretty constantly, 1/week, with 4 friends. I

GMed and I was having a good time for most of those 13-14

years. I had played in a few games but mostly I GMed. Well

we had started a new game, sorta a traditional game meets

Arab/desert world idea. People made characters and we were

playing but things just didn’t fit, didn’t work. I was just

not happy with the game.

So I left fantasy. I played some dark games, Vampire, and

Werewolf, and though they were fun, it just wasn’t the same

grand types of games I had run before. I tried Trinity/Aeon

this was a romp but really nothing great for me. I kept

feeling I lacked or rather my games lacked a certain oomph.

Now, I guess to my credit, players continued wanting to run

games with me as GM. Which I did, but my heart and soul

really weren’t always in it and I could see it even if they

didn’t.

What changed for me was coming up with a new idea, something

I had hashed out in bits with friends over the years. Well

about two years later I had worked on it and I really liked

it! It had a great long term goal, mysteries, and secrets

the party would have to discover, potential for a lot of

growth and interesting (to me) villains and heroes.

D&D 3E was just coming out and I felt this was a great way

to try out an old favorite whom I hadn’t played in nearly 10

years. It has turned out to be great. For me I needed the

background story. Sure there may be parts the players never

learn about, but they don’t need to. I do. It helps me make

my decisions, and where villains do what they do and what

countries are at conflict and why.

Well it has been fun so far and we’re still going.

Thanks for the great info you provide weekly.

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From: Dwayne T.

Hi Johnn,

I just got the new Roleplaying Tips Weekly and it was like

Andrew was an alien who kidnapped me to brain tape my mind

and then give me amnesia so I didn’t know, and then used the

biggest problem that exists in the gaming partition of my

noodle to write about…or maybe it would just be easier to

say he read my mind?

GM burn-out is THE NUMBER 1 BANE OF EVERY CAMPAIGN THAT OUR

GROUP HAS EVER PUT OUT. It has been appearing before we even

begin in my campaigns, but the prologue session of this

radically different post-modern campaign has changed that a

lot.

Last Saturday, we were going to go to a party but it

seems that the hostess did not show up, so it was

unanimously decided (by all but me) that I GM a meeting

between the present players’ (which are all but one)

characters. Despite my total lack of preparation (and my

neurotic fear of trying to get the players to interact

without a plan in my head) the session was a TOTAL success!

I had to introduce a plot thread a little early, but it got

everyone introduced, and most of the characters on one side.

It rocked! And I think that the new genre (as well as some

blunt analysis on my techniques, a reestablishment of

techniques that got players excited and some great advice by

both Robin’s Laws Of Good GMing and…of course…RPTips).

We have one other real GM who always seems too burnout at

the apex of the gaming excitement. It really sucks too,

because he is a spectacular GM who makes every player’s

character who tries to be a good addition to the game feel

like he’s in the limelight. It’s a lot like going on the

roller coaster that you just absolutely know is going to be

the best ever and then stopping just before the big scream.

Not just stopping, but falling out of the carts to fall all

the way to the cement. I have said many times that I will

not play in another of his campaigns because of his

constantly giving up. Isn’t that crazy?

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From: BillyBeanbag

One of the greatest lessons I learned about GM burn-out came

at a time when I was playing instead of running the game.

When I got started in the hobby, I was the first one to own

the books, and for most of my early gaming career, I was

always the one running the games. The few exceptions didn’t

really give me a chance for character development or

progression. So I groomed a replacement and switched sides

of the screen for a while.

What I learned is that at first it’s kind of like a parent

riding beside a young driver who’s learning the skills

needed to make it without you. It can be frustrating and

fun, but eventually you get past that and can relax. In

gaming, the feeling of ‘having to be the GM’ can overshadow

your whole experience. Once I got to play I started

thinking about what it was that I wanted from the game as a

player.

This was a fundamental shift in my thinking that changed the

way I run games as a GM. By listening to the things I

responded most to, and those things that really excited

other players, I got a much better sense of how to put

adventures and campaigns together that will suffer less

burn-out and create memories that people will talk about

years hence.

Just my two coppers’ worth

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From: Simon M.

My History Lesson. It’s happened to me about 3 times. The

first time was when I started college, I got a real social

life and was working in a part time job. Most of my friends

were starting to date girls and there seemed more important

things to do than game.

I return to gaming some 5 years (I was in my mid 20’s) later

when an old friend was cleaning out some junk at his parents’

house in order to move into a small unit. He discovered a

box of gaming stuff. Three weeks later we had a few games &

it set the course for 3 strong years of gaming. AD&D 2nd

Edition had just come out and we were really hooked on

Planescape. Computer games and getting married put an end

to our weekend sessions and it wasn’t until I heard about

D&D 3rd edition in 1999 I came back to gaming.

1. Starting Points & Ideas Fade. This can be stopped &

solved by having well fleshed characters with plenty of

personality traits, backgrounds, convictions, contacts &

family links. Throw stacks of NPCs at your characters & let

“THEM” do the work. Your idea should be brief and simple to

attach them to a part of the story line.

Players are the lifeblood and we all know that factory of

adventure ideas takes a dive at some time. The best thing to

do is to find out what you players are hungry for, then

“FEED” them. Bill likes a dungeon crawl, Jenny likes a

murder mystery, Bob likes long ships & keeps, and lastly

Anna likes dragons & romance. So work with that. Keeping a

campaign fun is hard work and takes a good deal of work &

time. Make sure you know that before starting. If your

personal life is really full with work, studies, children,

and hobbies then it might not be a good for you to run a big

campaign. Stick to small short Quests. Don’t start something

you can’t finish.

2. Villains, Creatures & NPC Villains. Treat them like a

proper character, with their own history, backgrounds,

flaws, perks, convictions and all the rest. They must have

goals and reasons for doing what they are doing, while

keeping it simple.

Joan is working on a Villain. She is using a Viking campaign

setting template and so selects a Frost Giant Chief as one

of her three bad guys. She then lists things about him.

Strong, Bossy, Mean, Tough, Fit, Swordsman. Killed many, bad

childhood, no family, no partner, trusts nobody.

Visualize to heighten areas (Caverns & Dungeons). Room

descriptions can be a really big problem. It’s a lot of work

to write up a 30 room level and by the 10th room it’s

downright painful. Change the way you do it. Imagine your

self as a hero walking into this room, look around, what do

you see… Creatures? Conditions? Color & Components?

3. Quest Preparation Feels Like Work. Putting together a

campaign is a lot of work. The idea is to cut the work down

into manageable chunks or blocks. Work out the nuts and

bolts for the first quest, make some brief notes for ideas

for any connectors along with possible creatures and setting

briefs and leave it alone till you get up to that stage.

Things change over the course of one or two games and you

might have to change things.

Never work on your quests for more the 2 hours at a time,

keep it fresh by doing it in small, punchy, half hour bites.

Work with lists, small paragraphs and flow charts rather

then huge masses of hand written or typed material. Keep

areas like caverns & dungeons to a room limit of say 15

rooms and only 2 levels. Try and invent at least 3 creatures

per quest. And never be afraid to scrap possible ideas for

some thing new that may prove better…

For example:

Joan is now running her first quest, “The Dogs of Death”.

The story hook is very simple, The players must solve the

murders in the city area in order to claim the 140gp reward.

A rival party is also attempting to solve this mystery and

claim the prize. The party needs this 140gp in order to

repay a loan from a Loan Shark.

The party soon collects enough facts & clues discovering a

secret gang of mercenaries working in the bell tower who are

using trained hunting dogs to attack unsuspecting victims

and rob them. Rather then infiltrating their lair in the

bell tower, the party in a complete turn-around instead

informs the Home Guard and sneaks into the Loan Shark’s

hide-out.

Joan, now in a complete panic, decides to cut for a break

while she works out a new tack. Working on the fly, 10

minutes of think-tanking comes up with the following

connectors. The Home Guards are corrupt and work for a rival

thieves’ guild, the Bloody Cutlass. The Loan Shark works for

the thieves’ guild, Blue Griffins. The third party here is

a band of goblin night assassins. This quest & campaign

turned out to be one of Joan’s best.

4. Player Expectations. Make sure players start off with the

character profession they want. Make sure their characters

are fully fleshed out giving you lots to work with. Make

sure you know what they want in the game, Action, Mystery,

Romance, etc.

Even if the party is all fighters and thieves, work with

that. Never have a player use another player’s character,

that always leads to tears and infighting. Don’t try and

save them from themselves, if they do some thing stupid let

them wear it, you don’t however have to kill them–just

punish them. Yes we should be aware that players are

expecting us to keep delivering… But as the

Narrator/Storyteller/DM you should know this and revel in it

by setting up you players with story baits and hooks, the

ones they in turn asked for at the start of the quest.

5. Player Envy. Avoid player envy (i.e. wishing you were the

one playing) by playing in a completely separate game group.

It’s good advice to never just constantly run games. Even

playing a computer game can do the trick.

6. Frustration & Restless Bored Players. GMs have told me

countless horror stories where players almost drove them

insane with constant nagging about their character, nagging

about the lack of magic items and how such-and-such new RPG

is loads better.

Stick to a generic campaign setting (boringly plain) then

select areas to enhance, with simple themes & ideas, to

flesh out later. For the Northern Hinterlands have a Viking

theme, while the Midlands have a Forgotten Realms theme.

Players can move to and from areas as they please. Always

keep things local and work outwards as the players work

outwards. Keep mostly to ideas with stuff inside the

players’ main circle of interest.

Make sure players are aware that they are in fact in control

of their characters’ lives. They can multi-class their

profession, they can go and choose their own skills and

talents, and they can go and train in whatever they want.

Put the ball back into your players’ hands, let “THEM” do all

the work. This also stops them from getting fed-up.

Always KEEP PLAYERS BUSY with stuff. Looking for clues in

a long lost journal (a hand-out you gave). Putting together

bits of a torn map (a torn hand-out you gave them), a

newspaper you email them monthly, looking for a lost family

relic in between normal adventuring.

In one of the campaigns I was running I had a player who was

starting to show loss of interest with her character, a 6th

level female half-elf Magic User. Always go straight to the

player & identify the problem with them. She was feeling

left out when the others in the party got stuck into combat.

Work with the player for a solution….I found the player to

be a closet Kung-fu nut. I gave the party a side mission

that led her character to multi-class into a Magic

User/Monk-Twin Dragon.

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From: Scott Fitz

MoonHunter

1. GM’s block is a serious problem in the roleplaying world.

Nothing stops a campaign faster than a burned out GM, except

maybe unhappy players. Signs of burn-out are a) lack of

enthusiasm for your own play, b) throwing the same old plots

at your players time and time again, c) seeing your

scenarios fall flat on a regular basis, d) not finding a new

hook or things to do in your campaign, e) players expressing

dissatisfaction about the game which they never have before.

2. Most people have a time of day when they’re the most

creative. Do your brainstorming then. Try going without

sleep for a while. Two o’clock in the morning is usually the

time when the brain is least reasonable. You can come up

with great ideas (or simply crazy ones) that can be added

together with other random thoughts. Always leave a notebook

and pencil by your bedside. You might wake up with a new

approach that can get you started again.

3. Read! I’ve been burned out before, and reading new things

always reawakens my imagination. I read fantasy books to

stimulate my creativity, but any genre will work. They do

not have to game related fiction. In fact, books of a type

you never normally read are best for inspiring you.

4. You can get ideas from movies. Watch movies with

different themes. A western can give you ideas completely

different from ideas inspired by a martial arts movie. Get

ideas from dramas, mysteries, suspense, horror, whatever.

Reading and watching movies may have some feature that might

provide the spark of inspiration from which a campaign might

be born.

5. Use your eyes. Artwork, both fine and graphic, are great

sources of inspiration. You can get ideas from a painting of

the countryside, a castle, or maybe just a portrait. Flip

through your books and see what kind of artwork is in them.

I recommend the annual Spectrum book series as the best

inspiration art book of all time.

6. If it does not work one way, try another. Consider

switching to another campaign setting or system. A new

setting may be a refreshing break from the standard things

your players are used to. If you play Fantasy all the time,

use a different section of your brain and try a science

fiction game. Sometimes you really need a break from the

usual. A change is definitely required if you’re out of

ideas on a topic.

7. Sometimes you need some help to get over the rough spots

in your creative drought. Don’t be afraid to read and borrow

stuff from others. Take ideas and add them together.

Roleplaying magazines always have little things that help a

GM, and they can be scoured for ideas you could use.

8. Review your previous work. It might help to go looking

through some of your old material. Look back at other things

you have written, and try revising them to fit your current

campaign. Update and modify it to fit your current tastes.

Also, the players may react differently to a situation than

another group of players. If they do, this will get you

thinking on a different line.

9. Try developing different parts of a campaign that you

haven’t already. See what the players could explore, be it

physical, emotional or spiritual. Try a moral dilemma

instead of your normal court intrigue or combat. Take the

group to a new part of your world as yet unexplored. An

invasion from space will always take a game in new

directions.

10. Ask a friend who is not involved in your current

campaign read over your work. Talk about it and see what

ideas he or she has that can be integrated. There is no such

thing as bad constructive criticism. If the friend doesn’t

like something about it, change it or make it better. Listen

to their comments and suggestions no matter how negative

they are regarding your work. After all, you don’t have a

better idea at this time.

11. If you can, try writing a little short story or stories.

Make your brain work in a different way. Put something down,

anything. Make it small. Start in the middle or write just a

piece of it. Make an outline. Think creatively about

something unrelated. Spend time just sitting quietly day

dreaming. Take a break. Give up for awhile and do something

different. Most likely you are burned out because you are

overworked. Enjoy some down time to rest your brain. Curl up

with a good book and let yourself drift to a different

place.

12. Try writing small pieces of information or creative

thought. These could be one line of scene description,

three sentences describing the organization of a religion,

the fast write up for an NPC, some game mechanics that when

a piece of description added could be a new monster, or even

a game tip. Once you can begin to write things down, they

can inspire you to move on to other things.

13. Sometimes there are physical reasons for why you are not

feeling creative. Try to make sure you are getting enough

quality sleep, taking in a little exercise, and limiting the

amount of chemical modifiers you are taking (caffeine and

nicotine being the biggest contributors). If you have any

physical ailments, try to get them resolved. You can’t do

your best when you don’t feel your best.

14. The hardest part of being creative is “the starting”.

Try taking pieces of the middle of what you want to do, then

go back and work on the beginning.

15. Sometimes you just need a change of pace. Trying going

someplace new, or just different, from where you normally

go. The change of location may help you to dislodge the GM’s

block.

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From: Jerry M.

Hello Johnn,

I’ve been running a home-brewed game for the past 6 years

with another friend, and GM burn-out creeps up on me very

often (usually once or twice a month). I have a suggestion

for other GM/DM’s to help overcome burn-out and make their

game and/or game world seem “better”.

I find that relaxing while listening to music and letting my

mind wander in my game world helps. While relaxing, try to

picture yourself walking around in your game world and paying

attention to what people do, their surroundings, and just

generally what goes on. Once you’re walking around in your

game world, close your eyes and let your mind wander

(preferably in your game world)… Do this for a couple

hours a week (sometimes 30 min a day for a week really gets

me wanting to GM).

You can take this to the next step further by making stuff

happen. Example. While walking to the store, you see someone

hit by a car. What do you do? What if that person is your

enemy, friend, spouse, noble/high class, commoner, etc.?

Sometimes seeing the day to day life of your game world

through the eyes of a commoner, or just some traveler, you

will begin to know more about your game world that usually

isn’t in any books. Your game world has a life, why not look

at how it is for a couple hours a week. Plus, don’t think of

plot hooks, let them come to you. The more you “see” your

world, the more you can probably figure out how to make a

campaign unlike any you had before…

This may be difficult if you do not have a fully developed

game world, or have little knowledge about the system. This

has been very effective for me because I built my whole game

world, system, and NPCs from scratch, so I know of many

aspects of day to day life in my world from planet to

planet, realm to realm.

These tips have helped me, and maybe they can help someone

else.

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From: Mitch Michaelson

Hi Johnn,

Your recent issue struck very close to home: I suffered GM

burn-out and I had to have a character leave the game.

First, because we play online, that means we don’t know each

other as people very well. And no matter how many smiley-

faces you use, it’s very easy to offend someone in a chat

room. The group lacked cohesiveness. I lost interest in

holding it all together. So I asked that we skip a week,

then come back and discuss the problems.

The remaining players and I talked our issues out. In some

cases, I was at fault as much as anyone. In other cases, I

had to play the “it’s my game” card while demonstrating

concern for their feelings.

One of the players pointed out a flaw in the way I set up

the game. As mid-level characters (ancillae), I wanted them

developing their own schemes and domains… but because

there were few low-level characters (neonates) in the city,

the player characters were effectively just powerful

neonates.

I didn’t think bringing in dozens of neonates would make

things better so the players suggested they take control of

my non-player characters! They each chose an existing NPC

neonate and will play them from now on, in addition to their

normal ancillae. This troupe-style play expanded the ranks

of player characters and since the two groups know each

other, the ancillae can send the neonates off on dirty

missions they devise. This completely dispelled my lack of

interest and my burn-out was gone!

Second, at the same time as all of this I had to expel a

character from the game because he simply didn’t fit in. The

player was also rarely present, so that contributed. One of

the players contacted the expelled player and asked if he

still wanted to play, which he did. The player brokered a

discussion between the ex-player and I, and now the ex-

player is creating a new character that fits the game and he

will show up more often.

The game is back on. The lost player is coming back into the

game. The moral to the story is, involve your players when

you suffer burnout. They will probably surprise you with

something out of the blue.