Weekender XLBS: How Do You Deal With Gamer Burnout?
February 4, 2018 by brennon
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![Warcradle Studios Reveal TINY New 10mm Festive Marker! [Updated]](https://images.beastsofwar.com/2025/11/christmas-kyle-main-600-338.jpg)
First!!!! Yeah Baby …. unless Warren has snuck in a sneaky Haiku
No you definitely beat me to it this time lol
Your butt is welcome
Remember @higgy, my butt didn’t get one lol
Happy Sunday!
Well lute we have here! A light that burns twice as bright, burns half as long…and we have games that burn so very very brightly…err or something 😉
Good morning, everyone. 😀
Okay, to answer @warzan ‘s question – the US Marine Corps used to bolt those wooden planks on the sides of some of their tanks during World War II (I’ve recently been mildly corrected on which tanks exactly), not really to add any extra armor thickness (it’s just wood, after all) …
… but to defeat Japanese magnetic antitank mines. So less like schürzen, more like improvised Zimmerit paste.
The first Marine unit to really use this was Charlie Company, 4th Marine Tank Battalion, during the landings at Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands, February, 1944 (Source: US Marine Corps Tanks of World War II, Steven Zaloga). This was mostly a measure taken for Shermans as far as I can tell (and @foehammer888 has mentioned on the other thread), but those planks look pretty awesome on this Stuart as well!
Marines have always been a “improvise, overcome, adapt” breed, and although tank vs. tank combat isn’t something you see very much in the Pacific Theater, you do see plenty of improvisation, added and applique armor, crew-invented camo schemes, etc. “Bird Cages” were another thing you’d see over hatches to prevent Japanese infantry from tossing in grenades or satchel charges.
Definitely some great work on that Stuart, though, and a well-deserved Golden Button! 😀
Oh, and @dignity is right about the schürzen. Completely useless against any kind of kinetic-energy antitank shell (AP solid shot, ect.) because the schürzen is really very thin and the shot goes right through to hit the main armor face with virtually no loss in projectile velocity or impact energy.
But schürzen works wonders against any kind of HEAT-based projectile (High Explosive Anti Tank) – especially shaped charges like bazookas, PIATs, etc. These kinds of warheads, because of how they work, are only effective when they explode RIGHT against the target. This is because the shaped charge inside the warhead sort of “inverse explodes” . . . it focuses a tiny jet of liquid metal that more or less “blow-torches” a hole through the armor.
But anything that triggers this explosion prematurely, even six inches away from your main armor face, completely defeats its heat-based injector “jet” to burn through the armor. So schürzen (or really any spaced armor) really works great against that kind of warhead. Since these kinds of warheads were becoming more and more common as the war went on, it was natural for this kind of spaced armor to be added to more and more vehicles.
In the post-war era, spaced armor started to give way to laminate armor, which defeats these “liquid metal jets” even better.
Thanks @oriskany exactly as I thought all along mate 😉
“… Exactly as I thought all along mate …”
See that? We’ll make a historical grognard of you yet! (steeples fingers, sinister chuckle)
Yup Jim got photos of Marins Shermans like that, Think Warlord do a model. Though my hero Marine tank crew is the one with a Japanese tankette strapped on the back.Must have been an interesting conversation when he tried to get it shipped home.
Yeah, kinda figured Sam was gonna be Seal Club’d. Tho Justin had logical reasons to field the stuff he did, it was maybe subconsciously but undoubtedlt built to beat Sam at every turn.
I was cringing more & more throughout the *logical-ing* that was, to me at least, thinly veiled power-gamey. Maybe it was in good faith, but damn, even tho I don’t play MB:P, I could tell it was over before it started.
Blaster was here… no offense intended, just calling it like I saw it
Hmm, idea for non-Greek deities to “guest battle” in the Greek pantheon?
Lets get some Egyptians and Babylonian blood in there.
Isis and Ishtar vs. Aphrodite and Athena. Tag Team “bra & panties” match.
You’re welcome.
Soooo, that was a fallen AT-AT on the table. Someone spill the beans!
Happy Sunday!!
Happy Sunday!!
Sounds like it might have been an interesting topic today but for the first time in a long time Xlbs kept pausing,resetting itself to the start of the video or just went to a blank screen so sadly gave up
If your on a mobile device or tablet click the cog wheel and select 520p
That seems to help
Thanks
For a invading god maybe juptier or mars coming to put the final nail in the coffin for the greek god and firmly planting their sit on the table
fully on board for the Bootcamp
@warzan thought that might give you a boney part 🙂
It did mate lol
Gamer Burn Out – also know as Hobby Burnout
Interesting article I came across some time ago:
http://www.stevensavage.com/blog/2013/12/geek-job-guru-the-danger-of-hobby-burnout.html
Interestingly I don’t suffer gamer burn out as I don’t get to play more than once or twice a month … that sort of keeps it special. Hooby burn out as described above by the dashing and knowledgeble Mr @ultramarine40 used to be a problem for me until I got over it by having four projects on the go at once , and you just do what you feel like doing… It’s a hooby not a chore.
Only 4? You are doing better than me with the multi tasking as I reduced it to 2 only painting projects on the table at any one time to help me stay on task when I get Hobby time and actually get stuff completed that being 1 unit of infantry and 1 unit of vehicles max.
For me it wasn’t so much Hobby burnout, more Hobby frustration as I had too many things started and only getting limited windows – stop – start – just fail really at getting any completions.
Breaking these down into manageable smaller goals has seen me complete more models and enjoy the time spent rather then grinding away with limited perceivable outcomes.
I’ve hit this burnout issue.
First it was miniature games last year. One day I couldn’t face the thought of another massive ruleset to learn, the cost and the painting of loads of new minis actually made me depressed. Finding people to play a new game was difficult as although you could teach people, very few people now seem willing to take on and invest in a a new minis game.
I turned to board game, with cheaper costs, smaller rulebooks and less space required.
I always loved painting and painted most days but two weeks ago I couldn’t face picking up a brush.
Is there too much choice?
Or is it too easy to turn on the TV and watch rubbish?
Good point about TV. My hobby life entered a new era about 4 years ago when we had massive work done on our home.
Right at the beginning of the project the builders took out an external wall and severed our TV aerial connection.
There didn’t seem much point reinstating it until we had progressed further into the build so I left it and left it and left it…
We went without TV for over 12 months and it was amazing. My painting increased exponentially. I started a gaming club in my local town. I moved away from GW into a plethora of new games and systems.
I dumped my xbox in the garage and left digital gaming for dead.
I had never been so happy or productive.
My wife could only watch so much youtube so we did eventually get our TV and satellite reconnected but I never went back to it.
Happy Sunday 😀 .
So when do @dignity and Mr Ronnie Renton go head to head in ( what i refer to as ) a ” Bard off ” ?
For burnout, I consider myself quite lucky.
With work and everything, I get to play any game so rarely now that its always a novelty and enjoyable, my hobby is mostly painting miniatures now. However, when I get a bit burned out on that, I switch things up, and make a scale model of some kind. I find just changing subjects a bit works wonders.
In fact, after I have painted a squad or two of miniatures, I always try and do a vehicle, or some terrain before I start on the next mini, again, breaking things up so the hobby stays fresh.
I do sometimes spend a couple of weeks away from the site as well, I still watch the weekenders, but i find keeping away from all the news can be good for me. I’m a hoarder, and its easy to get overwhelmed by all the new models, and avoiding the endless news for a while helps with that.
Well for me the guest God into Pantheon would have to be Blind Io from the Discworld, or any of the Discworld gods for that matter because they are essentially based on the different gods of history and so it would be good to see them matched up against their counterparts…:-)
This. All of this. Just… just yes. Discworld.
Hobby fatigue – have had it more than a few times. Biggest case resulted in a 7 year gaming break. Something I’d say straight off the bat is that your hobby time is your entertainment time. if you are not enjoying it or if it is feeling like a grind or like work then something is probably up. You might need to evaluate what is causing you to feel this way – if you can zero in on it being one particular aspect of the hobby process you can probably work out ways to address it.
Without doing a full-blown process map or decision tree, a few things that might help with particular aspects of gamer fatigue follow:
– Feeling guilty. If you would just rather be doing something else then do that for a bit until you feel like coming back to hobbying. This is supposed to be downtime for you so if you would rather be binging on a console game or grinding on an MMO for a bit go nuts and have fun. we won’t judge and we’ll all be here when you feel like coming back 🙂
– Rules overload. Too many gaming systems to keep up with/learn/maintain, constant FAQ updates and new sourcebooks to memorise etc. If this is happening maybe just limit yourself to one or two games like @brennon is trying to do. Or go for something rules-light that you and your gaming circle have fun playing. Maybe limit the games you play to just the core rules or select add-on’s/expansions for a bit. Or just play a previous edition of a game or a non-supported game for a while where the rules are no longer in flux. (I’m personally still playing 8th edition Warhammer Fantasy and consequently don’t need to worry about rules changes…).
– Painting/assembly. If you are daunted by masses of unpainted minis then just set small manageable micro-targets for progress. I spent last year setting small goals on the Hobby Weekender threads and by the end of the year had knocked out over 300 minis and dozens of terrain pieces. If you don’t think this will work try starting a Hobby Log on the forums to keep the momentum going, or organise painting days with your gaming group or set time aside to paint online while watching others paint on twitch etc. If you have the funds and inclination, consider having an army professionally painted. If not, maybe there is someone in your peer group that would be happy to help you out with painting the minis for you. Failing that there’s the Army Painter method if you want to get minis with some colour on them down on the table quickly.
– Just too much stuff. If the volume of projects you have in front of you is preventing you from getting any hobby done consider offloading them. If you can’t bring yourself to part with things, maybe keep a few things aside, box up and label the rest and place them into storage somewhere safe but not necessarily visible. This will limit the amount of things you have to work on and hopefully take some of the pressure off.
– Change of focus. If you are just burned out from playing one particular thing consider switching games and or themes. eg if you are a miniatures gamer and are just not feeling it maybe switch to board/card/RPG’s for a bit. Or if you play one type of game consider switching genres (historical/fantasy/sci-fi/horror) or scale (skirmish/tactical/operational etc)
– Rediscover the classics. Go back to the games that got you excited about the hobby in the first place and break one of them out for a bit of a nostalgia hit. 2nd edition BattleTech/Talisman/Hero Quest/Dragon Warriors anyone?…
– Source material/lore. Maybe do some reading around the lore of a game, or around a theme in general to get you back in the hobby groove. Doesn’t have to be directly connected to the game per se, reading Neuromancer might get you wanting to do some cyberpunk stuff, or Robert E Howard’s Conan stories might get you excited about the prospect of a swords and sorcery RPG not directly tied to the Hyborian Age.
– Terrain. My personal fallback, If I don’t want to paint minis I’ll just start building terrain pieces for whatever gaming system or theme I’m interested in playing.
Having said all that, if you can’t work out what is causing you to lose interest in hobbying maybe just set yourself a period of time where you are going to commit to not going to do any hobby at all (maybe 2 weeks?) and see if you start to miss any aspect of it or start to look forward to the end of that time period. If you do, well and good. If not, maybe you do need to set the hobby aside for a while and try your hand at a different skill set or diversion until you feel like taking up hobbying once more. As I said I stopped for 7 years at one point but am quite enjoying being back now. And if you do decide to take a break please don’t feel like you’re letting the side down, we’re all in the same boat and we’ve all felt burnout to some degree at some time so there’s no judgement here 🙂
Lots of good ideas here @evilstu
really great post @evilstu
happy sunday! now im on hobby time painting some elven union comission and having fun with episode.
@dignity wow you really pooped the bed on this one. it’s like you’ve never seen a tree in person, the star shapes one is maple (canadian flag) and ash is so different from many others that its really hart to mix them up. @warzan may I suggest that you take justin on one of youre walks, so he can see for himself that cows are not purple and sheep don’t wear really fussy pullovers.
p.s. I love all of you
lol @tosjeck I will have to drag him out with me for a ramble mate
Justin in codpiece
No tickets sold for boot camp
Sorry Game of Thrones
Would rather in than out of codpeice…..
Burnout is a fascinating topic. Something that is probably worth saying is that the solution for avoiding it is very specific to the individual.
Personally variety is huge for me. Like Justin I cannot face playing the same game week in, week out.
Board games don’t appeal to me as I know I cannot play them more than a couple of times before the experience becomes stale. Miniatures games offer variety of factions, armies within factions and variety of opponents. Much more exciting for me.
My point?
If you are not enjoying something any more, spend a few moments to really reflect on why and do NOT feel guilty or self conscious about setting parameters on your gaming hobby.
If a good friend comes to you gushing about their new card game but it’s not your thing. Don’t force it.
My feeling, informed by experience and not evidence, I have to add, is that it is often pressure that creates burnout.
Pressure to keep up with as games release schedule.
Pressure to keep up with a rapidly changing meta.
Pressure to participate in games with friends that you really don’t feel a passion for.
Using myself as an example. I have gone off large scale combat games and I am largely indifferent to GW games systems.
I prefer small scale skirmish style games with lower model counts. Frostgrave, Malifaux, Infinity etc.
I dislike investing in board games as I find them too restricting.
I dislike power gaming and meta chasing.
My gaming club is typical in that most people are 80% 40k players and they will happily play that every week.
I do not feel pressured to ‘fit in’. I keep buying new games and trying to get new players interested and I have had some success with Frostgrave and Malifaux.
I’ve made time to visit a gaming club in a town 7 miles away recently and met a guy called Karl who I totally sold on Frostgrave and who in return is offering to show me The Hobbit SBG, a game I have yet to try.
Obviously at 46 years old I have had over 30 years to become comfortable with my own gaming ambitions and I can honestly say that I have not felt ‘burned out’ on the hobby, or any aspect of it for years.
With age comes wisdom.
How do you deal with gamer burn out? badly for the most part.
The thing is when it comes to most gamer burner out I think comes from other reasons. For example, I have had wargaming burn out for a long time mostly because of the opponents in my area but when someone who is a mate of mine wants to have a game of any wargame I get really excited because I know we are going to have a good time. Like when I got tabled by my mate but I won on points in one game we had a great game because it was close and it wasn’t all one-sided. There wasn’t arguments over rules, we looked stuff up sure but we wanted to get things right not a leg up over one another.
I think usually having a single game is really good because often the game is a backdrop to something greater especially with RPGs where the game is just a vessel for story. I think one of the best ways to avoid gamer burn out is to avoid the things that cause it primarily bad players, bad situations and poor environment.
Rather than bad, I’d say opponents with a different mind set. But the point is very valid.
If you game for fun and the social experience and face off win at all costs net listers on a regular basis this is a recipe for misery certainly.
see I don’t even think it is netlists I think it is everyone being on the same page, I loved competitive magic and people playing netlists was super common but everyone was on the same page. I think netlists are a bit more toxic in wargaming because the average game lasts hours not minutes. But ultimately I think we agree, but yeah I meant bad I can accept different mindsets, but maybe if you met some of the opponents in my region you might get it ha ha…
Yeah there bad :/
Going through a burn out now as it happens. I can barely dare to look at my work area, it feels ( and frankly is ) so cluttered right now i really don’t want to sit at it, i only wonder where to start. So, having realised this i am now taking steps to combat / drive through the burn out. I have some storage boxes on their way, which will be filled ( and labelled ) with what goes into them. Then i will begin work on an eight man unit of Dane Axe Hearthguard for the forthcoming SAGA v2.0. This i hope will be the fresh start i am looking for in my hobby and provide me with a good springboard to future projects ( Star Wars Legion first among them ).
It actually felt good getting that down in black and white, BoW is therapy 😀 .
For the next step, we shall conduct a Rorschach test.
They all look like butterflies don’t they 😉 ?
That’s very interesting, tell us what significance does the butterfly have to you?
Butterflies are evil and all descended from Mothra.
Mothra (モスラ Mosura) is a kaiju that first appeared in Toho’s 1961 film Mothra. Mothra has appeared in several Toho tokusatsu films, most often as a recurring character in the Godzilla franchise. She is typically portrayed as a colossal sentient caterpillar or imago moth, accompanied by two miniature humanoids speaking on her behalf. Unlike other Toho monsters, Mothra is a largely heroic character, having been variously portrayed as a protector of her own island culture, the Earth, and Japan. Though identified as a kind of moth, the character’s design is more evocative of a peacock butterfly, and has caddisfly-like mandibles rather than a proboscis. The character is often depicted hatching offspring (in some cases, twins) when approaching death, a nod to the Saṃsāra doctrine of numerous Indian religions.
Closet Lepidopterist maybe ? Or it may be i’ve seen my fair share of ” tramp stamps”, but that’s a totally different thread 😉 ……
I know it would hurt from the beginning to remove those stripes.
@warzan Well this was a busted Sunday weekender loaded once on my tablet a samsung galaxy tab A , have even dropped the video to 360 with no help. I guess I will try again later today.
@shadowwarl did it work when you came back to it?
Really looking forward to the beta weekend, will check out what spare sprues I have.
@warzan I have a sort of feeling when it comes to games or wargaming. During the day and evening if I do any wargaming or modelling, the following morning I feel childish, I feel I am an adult and I should not be doing this.
How do I get over that?
“I feel childish”
Here in Northern Ireland we have a saying.
Cherish it mate… you will be a long time dead 🙂
There is absolutely no shame whatsoever in taking time to enjoy such a rewarding hobby as the one we share. When you compare it to all the other shite and unconstructive ways we could be wasting our lives away on, it’s definitely something to not only be proud of, but to cherish – there are a billion folk out there who would give their right arm to have a moment of childlike feelings once again. 🙂
Thank you @warzan I will ignore those feelings and continue with my hobby 🙂
That’s the spirit!
One idea for you though, if you want to get a little bit more grown up stuff into your hobby perhaps pick out a historical period and have a go at that from time to time. I have found it utterly fascinating and have learned so much about the world as a result.
WW2 would be the most popular and probably the easiest to get into but every historical period you can imagine will be covered if you fancy having a stab at it 🙂
“When I became an adult I learned to put away childish things, and one of them was the fear of appearing childish.” – C. S. Lewis
Yes adulting is over rated 😉
Thank you @dracs I will ignore those feelings and continue with my hobby 🙂
You still have the Turn 8 set?
Man, I miss that show. Not to rag on the Weekender, but personally I found Turn 8, with the interaction with the viewers, to be far more interesting.
While there will be no return of the furniture (we have no desire to be scratching and itching again lol) we could explore a live weekender but it would most likely be a MidWeekEnder taking place in an evening time. (Probably a Thursday Evening like when we did Turn8)
But it would definitely be a replacement for the Weekender that week as we couldn’t run both 🙂
Ahhh, come now… Itching’s fun, isn’t it?
I must admit that I did laugh at that story… 😀
As for a live Weekender, that would be great. Maybe once a month with the rest being ordinary Weekenders?
As for hobby burnout…
For me, it’s down to several things.
For one, I simply think we have too many games right now. There seems to be another big game getting KickStarted every other week. I’ve barely unboxed one before people start hyping about the next.
I miss the simpler days where all we had to do was to figure out if it should be Fantasy or 40K we played tonight. With less options there seemed to be less stress and more time to dive into a specific game and really get to know the ins and outs of it.
I’m actually selling off a lot of stuff right now, simply because I realised that I had too much. I never got anything done because I was constantly chasing the newest and shiniest toy.
And secondly, it seems to me that game are getting bigger and more complicated. I miss the days when you could get by with perhaps a dozen or so models. Just look at games like Mythic or Joan of Arc. You open the box and there’s hundreds of models to be painted. Where do you even start? Where do you find the time?
At some point you realise that you have hundreds, if not thousands, of unpainted models laying around. And that where – to me, anyway – the burnout happens.
I found that the best way to get over hobby burnout is to turn your hobby into a habit. It takes about 66 days to develop a new habit. So by scheduling in your hobby weekly overtime you’ll get the urge to hobby. So there is a level of commitment involved initially. For days I didn’t feel like hobbying I might paint something that is simple or familar. For example I have a formula for painting skeletons plus skeletons are pretty simple figures to paint. I might also spend that time reading something related to the hobby like the Horus Hersey novels.
wearing a codpiece
Justin serenades our game
we are not happy
best i could do, @dignity is too many syllables
a fabulous funny show guys, a video for Justin to practise with.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Blackadder+titles&&view=detail&mid=036A0CF55DCD3882CDF9036A0CF55DCD3882CDF9&&FORM=VDRVRV
@warzan you should get YouTube through the kodi
lol
The ‘god’ I would cross over into mythic battles pantheon would be Monkey, as seeing him fly around on his cloud would be fun.
G E N I U S ! ! ! ! !
Please make it from the old 70s TV show rather than Sun Wukong. That show is genius.
Born from an egg on a mountain top, the funkiest monkey that ever popped!
Just got the entire dvd collection of the TV series. Fond childhood memories
For gamer burnout. I guess I handle it by having multiple hobbies. Board games, RPGs, antique cars, reading, movies, toys, models, etc. I guess I could be considered a hoarder as I don’t sell most of my stuff, but my interests cycle through all of the different things and I come back to them. One of the reasons I like games is that for the most part, they don’t require me to update them perpetually. If I want to play AD&D, pull the books off a shelf. If I want to build a model, pick a box and pull out the micro tools. Update something on the Ford? Dust off the wrenches. I guess what I’m saying is I solve the issue with diversification.
Happy Sunday ! and @dracs Sam Poland is in the middle of Europe not east 😀 I know you have been lied in school.
I stand corrected.
I’m in the process of reducing my gaming hoard, fir extra space, getting rid of stuff I’ve had for a while and know I won’t paint, and games I no longer play. The money I make will be used to purchase items I know I’ll use such as paint, brushes and terrain.
We all get burn out and have a tendency to hoard, you just have to be disciplined enough every now and again to reduce items you’ve been.hoarding for a while and never used. I basically have tell myself I’ve had it for ages, an I really going to.paint it and game with it. Generally if I’m honest its a big fat NO, so get rid.
I’ve been going through a bit of a burn out recently, struggling to sit down.at the painting desk as well attending my local club. I managed to turn it around because I’ve gotten back in LotR, and started building and painting scenery for it. I’m in the process of doing a cull of my hoard and being quite disciplined regarding what to keep and what should go. My 1/72 Napoleonic’s have gone but get the 28mm stuff. Warpath has gone, Deadball gone, plus other items
HOLY C**P! A GOLDEN BUTTON!!! Never thought I’d sport one of those! Thanks BOW, glad you liked them. Somewhat fitting that I won them in the competition you ran!
And oh yes @warzan, the
Oh and yeas @warzan, the bear is coming….
Great show, very funny and insightful as always.
Thanks for sharing the Shapeways model print, I should point out I didn’t sculpt it myself! I do have a couple more models on order from them, so I’ll be posting those in the forums later in the week I expect.
On the subject of burnout, I have to agree with Justin that I need variety. More in rulesets than anything else. I love to read rules, and play different mechanics (more than I enjoy painting mini’s if I am completely honest, though I enjoy that too). My wife is heavily into board games, so I do regularly play board games, but most games I will play 2/3 times max. Miniature games tend to get a bit more time out of me.
I do sometimes overload myself with projects, and have to take a step back and say I am going to focus on A or B for a while, but not both. It can be upsetting though, walking away from something you have put a lot of effort into, but sometimes for you and the project it’s the best thing to take a break.
On the jousting thing, I was very very lucky that on my stag do, my best man arranged for me to go to the “Knights of Middle-England”. Now I’ve done quite a bit of HEMA (Rapier, Longsword and Messer) over the years, but that was the first time I did anything medieval on a horse. We got to do quintans and even had a run at jousting against the instructor. I’m not sure I got my horse up to more than a trot, but it was still an amazing experience and one I would recommend to anyone vaguely interested in that kind of thing.
Having watched the Dresden Files TV series before being exposed to the books, Paul Blackthorne IS Harry Dresden to me, and I would have loved the show to at least get a full season so that it had the space to follow the books and do them justice (rather than try to compress a few threads into about 5 episodes).
If – like me – you ain’t got time to read, the Harry Dresden audiobooks narrated by James Marsters of Buffy fame is something I can strongly recommend. I can’t recommend the RPG very much (mostly because I detest the FATE system, though the production quality on the two core books makes them very nice objects to own and read through) and at some point we should be seeing a ‘lite’ version of the system that could be more enjoyable to play.
As for the card game DFCO, it is an interesting little game with a very literal approach to presenting the books as different ‘missions’ you can play, and a wide choice of characters to choose from as long as you pick up the expansions. Probably the best thing I can say about it is that it is co-operative, has nice art, plays fast and fits into a fairly small box. During the KS they were trying to create a ‘lunch break’ game and in that they very much succeeded. Once you know the rules you will usually complete a session in about 30 minutes. Oh, and there’s a digital version of the game due out shortly.
As for the HP LARP, I can see @warzan sending @dignity on the morning of day 2, dressed as an owl, with a ‘package’ to deliver to @dracs …
Hey guys,
great Weekender… and timely subject matter: Burning out hard right now, but coming through it. Long one coming: feel free to skip over…
What caused this major burnout is Gaming! Specifically 40k! After the launch of 8th we all got really excited didn’t we? So I pulled out my old Dark Angels, tidied them up a bit and made an effort to get some games in with a regular group: friends of another friend of mine.
After decades of not playing 40k I was getting right into it, relearning the the rules, tweaking my army, refreshing my paint jobs, painting new stuff… but playing against hardened veterans. Supportive and friendly veterans, but veterans who hadnt stopped playing for all those decades I had. So I was losing. And the more I was playing the worse I was losing. Until finally after being thoroughly tabled by the 2nd turn… again… I was pretty dejected. Then realising on my way home from said trouncing that I had NEVER won a straight up game of 40K… Ever…
Over the last month I have not wanted to look at Any hobby stuff: not just 40k, everything. No fantasy, no Kingdom Death, nothing. I couldn’t stand to look at it.
I would go and sit at my hobby table, then just not do anything. I’d procrastinate, find other things to do… like stare at stupid memes on Imgur… for hours…
I’d withdrawn from this site, barely logging in, vaguely perusing the news on the front page, but that’s about it. Before the burnout really kicked in I catalogued all my gaming stuff… I have 2000+ miniatures… probably this was a factor in my feelings.
I just did not want to even be in the hobby at all. My feelings specifically on 40k were “get good or get out” but I’ve so much invested (emotionally and financially) in 40k that getting out is undesirable, but I don’t feel I have the time to invest to get better at it.
The only hobby related thing I was getting involved in was my fortnightly DnD sessions, since it was social, fun and not “competitive”. Ultimately this is part of what is pulling me back.
My DM Steve came to me before last week’s session and asked if I had some specific minis for the next part of the story. Yes I had them, but they weren’t prepped… so I had to prep them. And it was fun!
Another hook pulling me back is teaching, as you guys mentioned: Teaching some non-hobby people to play Kingdom Death! Steve convinced his wife, and one of our coworkers Nick (who enjoys board games) to try it out. Last week we had a second session, Nick convinced his girlfriend to join in (didn’t need much convincing) and we all had a great session with plenty of laughs.
Finally, last night my mate Damian invited my over to play the last mission of the Infinity: Red Veil box set, though it has been a while since we played I found myself remembering the rules moderately well. Though I lost, it was a close fought game that came right down to the wire, with my last remaining grunt charging across the board, unscathed through cross-fire to take down Damian’s walking tank-dude!! (Not a TAG) I couldn’t secure the objective in the end, but damn it was fun!
Tonight as I’m watching the Weekender I’m prepping my minis for the next dnd session this coming Monday, and looking at what I Want to paint. Steve is desperate for me to paint my Kingdom Death stuff… lol, and I think that’s part of what is working for me: when I see the reactions of my fellow hobbyists/ gamers, when I can contribute to Their enjoyment, that’s what is really making my hobby enjoyable and worth it.
I just wanted to share this experience with the community, and maybe someone will get use out of it.
thanks for this @rayzryr I’m really glad you are finding ways to re-energise your love for the pastime!
well done Sam for making the wizards academy happen. i told my sister when you guys put this up last year and she loved the idea.
the topic is a great one, but it’s expansive. i would love to have this conversation face to face as writing it down requires a short essay.
i don’t suffer from burnout, i’m having too much fun, but overload is another matter and i think a little closer to the point, as well as Ben’s reasoning. Ben and Warren recognises that not everything about the golden age is golden. i can certainly see a counter culture evolving, especially from the miniature gaming community. the high paced mass market consumerism just doesn’t suit the traditional miniature wargaming and rpg communities in the same way it does with the board gaming community. in fact i’d go as far as to say it’s already happening.
Ben has been smart putting the breaks on and seeking to find some balance. if you want to find that part of your inner child that was lost in that epic D&D campaign where you read and re read the lore and used it as a framework to fire your imagination. an imagination that sparked a tale that consumed you utterly. or if you love miniatures and the zen of hobby, then you require time and an altogether different pace.
i say Ben has found a decent balance with a couple of skirmish games, a card game and a more focused boardgaming approach supporting his first love of RPGs .
sure you may pick up the odd thing above and beyond that but by drawing a line in the sand you will stop it getting out of hand. my balance is a little different but i have adopted a simalar approach that worked well for me last year.
Game fatigue for me was caused by one member of the gaming group who turned up late every week , liked to play minatures game but never brought any and was late so he didnt have to help set up. If he was pushed to put on a game, to give others a break , just brought either robo rallyy or Formula D, which he would turn up, throw them on the table, and wander off whilst the rrst of us set them up. Both great gsmes but the later has not been played gor about 10 years, and I thratened too shoot anyone with the latter.
Burnout is very real. Been through it several times since I started gaming back in the ancient times of the 1980s. When I was younger I tried to tough things out with very mixed results. Some games I still don’t play due to those times. Others I only returned to after a very long time. (I think I had a twenty year gap between games of Warhammer Fantasy Battle at one point.) As I have gotten older (I’d love to say . . . matured . . . but the inner child rebels at that) I’ve taken an easier approach. Burnout on something? Just give it a rest and come back to it later.
It’s not just the actual games. Painting really gets me at times, especially with army projects. I find it helps to have something on hand for a totally different game to break the burnout. Currently I’ve just completed my Farmers for Guild Ball and was attempting the Mortician’s Team next. 5/13 minis later and I really can’t face another Mortician, so I’ve dug out the neglected Tomb Kings box and started a Necrosphinx. By the time I’m done on this I’ll be ready to go back to the Guild Ball things. 🙂
A Game of Thrones Bootcamp you say? With a tour of GoT locations? Jousting? Court Jesters? Justin in a cod piece? WHERE DO I SIGN???
YES! Yes @warzan the habit of playing WILL break the habit of just building, acquiring, and barely painting. I haven’t played ANY tabletop game for about 3 and a half years now, it’s a struggle to get setup for even a small few hours of a skirmish game. That’s good advice to just get gaming and use that to break the aimless “shiny syndrome’ which overcomes burn out. Shiny syndrome can occur even with a ten minute page view of a kickstarter, then BAM.. you have more stuff on the way, it’s endless.
As long as we don’t get stuck into buying things for the army where are NOW using, without downsizing our collection, YES.. it’s hard to get rid of stuff we THINK we’ll ever use.. it must be done!