More of a discussion prompt than anything else today.
Everyone has bad days/weeks/months. However, just because you're feeling mentally fatigued, or depressed, or something similar doesn't mean you're going to cancel your game. Especially when it is some of the only wind down time that you have that week.
So, the question is: when you're totally not in the mood for doing the work needed to GM, how do you overcome it and get yourself in the mood?
For myself, I tend to use videogames to at least get my head into the idea of things. Depending on the game changes the videogame, but it is often a game that is very different from the game I'm running. (i.e. I'll do a few rounds of Mass Effect's multiplayer to get my head into place for L5R.) How about you?
When I'm not really in the mood for GMing it's likely to have been like that for a few days already. Usually I do a lot of other things that have nothing to do with gaming either, usually not even videogames. Most likely I'll watch a few episodes of a series, and do other things away from the computer (we play online), maybe read a book or something.
ReplyDeleteIf all that doesn't help, I usually warn my players beforehand I'm not really in the mood for gaming or just plain grumpy. My players are so awesome they tend to pick up on that and put an extra effort in the session itself. ^^ Some of the best sessions we've had were the ones where I first wanted to reschedule the sessions because I didn't feel up to it, but they wanted to play anyway.