There are so many strain mechanics.

In many tabletop RPGs, there is the obvious mechanic of hit points. Then, depending on the theme, you can have sanity, mental strength, morale. Even spell slots can be considered a mechanic of that category, if you think of them as the mental capacity of a caster to cast spells without having any negative effects on their mind or psyche. But all these are character-facing mechanics. What about GM strain?

Sometimes, it feels hard to GM games. Between work and life in general, having to prepare the session (no matter the system, there will be some sort of prep, even if a little bit), trying to schedule the session, failing miserably and trying to reschedule, actually managing to run the session, realising you did not prepare enough for that particular session and having to run on the fly half of it (as is tradition), and then getting burnt out, strain builds up. You need to fix this somehow. And while theoretically, there are many ways you can try to do so, only some will be suitable for you.

For me, the work thing hasn’t been fixed yet. It’s a work in progress. However, I have managed to find solutions for other aspects. For example, a way for me to fix burnout is getting to play in other people’s games. And this year I got the opportunity to play in two of them. I have mentioned before that one is a heavily homebrewed 5e campaign. The other one started as a Pirate Borg one-shot, but we have played 3-4 sessions so far, and I take full responsibility for making sure there can be a continuation of the game by making some really interesting rolls. More on that will be covered by the GM of these sessions later.

Another sort of fix for burnout is that I have started reading again. And since I cannot choose, I am juggling 4 books at the moment. And incidentally, one of the is Eberron: Rising from the Last War, since I want to freshen up my Eberron lore because I really want to run a campaign starting in autumn. So this is a hack for me specifically so I can get some inspiration for the upcoming campaign.

Now, as for the prep part, there are a few ways one can tackle it. Running from the seat of your pants is not always a valid option, especially when you are running a published adventure and not something your own. But again, there are things that, as you play and gain more experience, will seem more relevant and important to have prepared than others. There are also frameworks that help you so that you don’t have to rediscover the wheel by yourself. For example, the Eight Steps of the Lazy DM are not a bad thing to check out. They won’t necessarily resonate fully with you or the system you are running, but, at the very least, will make you think a bit about what you need to prepare in a more abstract way.

As for the scheduling part, good luck. I can’t really say anything about this. With players in different regions in Greece, and very different schedules, it’s not easy to organise a session. It takes some luck and a lot of willingness from everyone.

And that’s all for today. I’d like to hear some of your thoughts about how you handle these things I mentioned above. Maybe I’ll get a new idea to try. Tomorrow’s prompt is Regard. We’ll see about this tomorrow. Also, I’m trying very hard not to make a pun regarding tomorrow’s prompt.

And until next time, have fun!