Your Game Should Not Be A Frustration

This is going to be brief, but it's something I need to say every now and then. GMing a game is hard work. It takes a lot of hours. It takes preparation. It takes communication. You have a lot of hats you need to switch through. You're responsible for an entire world and the chief source of adding fun into the game for everyone at the table to enjoy. Given the time and lack of need for funds, and a GM could easily put 40 hours a week into their game and still not have enough time for everything they wanted to do.

Never go into GMing thinking that it isn't work.

However, this does not mean that it should be frustrating.

Yes, you will run into frustrations during a game. There will be annoyances. There will be problems. There will be hiccups and cross communication. However, the game itself should not be a burden. The game itself should not be something that causes you stress or adds to your frsutration.

The difference between these two things is that a frustration in a game is based on some event in the game. Bad die rolls, a quip in poor taste, or a one off incident that can be worked past. A game being a frustration is either something that happens enough it is considered part of the game, or something in the game all the time it makes the idea of game itself less enjoyable.

It could be a problem player, or players. It could be the game going out of control. It could be the players and GMs being at cross purposes on what direction to take the game. It could just be that the game is not the fit you thought it would be. It can happen for a lot of reasons, and none of those mean you dislike your players or gaming itself.

So what do you do when that happens? Well, you need to address it. You, as the GM, should be having fun with games. You being frustrated is not only unhealthy for you, it is unhealthy for the group and the game itself. That frustration will leak through until you find yourself doing things to end the game, or spite it, when in fact the answer is right there: just back away.

Talk out your frustrations with your players. The game itself may have to end, but that is fine. Address the frustration, take a break from the game, and move on. It's just not worth it any other way.

It's not worth putting that much work into something that causes frustration.

You deserve better.