There comes a time when the dice cease to sparkle, when the monster loses its luster, when the DM screen becomes a prison, and all that is left is a DMs love for their players … Those little campaign-ruining jerks! Or not — maybe your players are victims of your burnout just as much as you are.

Every TTRPG campaign is different, but one thing never changes: Without the DM, there is no game. And a burned-out DM is one of the biggest game-killers in any table-top RPG you’ll play.

What does burnout look like? What does it feel like? Can you play your way through it? If not, how do you handle it? Thorin, Tony and Dave have all had their own brushes, and sometimes head-on collisions, with burnout. Here’s what they’ve learned and tips to start healing.

2:00 What does DM burnout feel like?

9:00 Can you play your way through it?

15:00 Things that burn us out #1: The setting gets old

22:00 Things that burn us out #2: Spending too much time on maps

26:00 Things that burn us out #3: When we’re not playing the kind of game we want to play

37:00 Things that burn us out #4: High expectations – both from the players and ourselves

40:00 Balancing DM and player expectations with running the kind of game you want to play

50:00 Things that burn us out #5: Players who think they can kill everything

52:00 The one biggest sign that you’re burning out

58:00 Things our players do that protect us from burnout

65:00 Things that burn us out #6: Players set in character roles they can’t/won’t/don’t play well

68:00 What we do to heal from burnout

76:00 Final thoughts