I'm a successful gamemaster and that's it. It's all I've ever been good at, ngl. I've run a 12 year campaign, a 9 year dragonlance campaign and my forgotten realms games is turning 41 this year (I started it when I turned 14) and yet, I've never been able to parlay any of this into any real success in the real world. My players still talk about all my games to this day. I'm miserable. I'm going to die alone and penniless. All that work, countless hours, wasted. I'll never amount to anything but dungeonsimulator 3000. No one gives a single, solitary fuck. My kids used to love to play rpgs with me are now too tired, too burnt out by the world, to care. All my friends are busy with marriages, jobs and kids. The thing is, even outside of a game, I care about all of these people. They ask me about a game all the time but when it comes time to actually play, no one can be bothered. Ig my time for all of this is done. I still love reading about it but I haven't made any oc in at least a year. My last game was meticulously planned and it went well but when it ended, that was it. No feedback, no atta boy, no joy, nothing. How do you guys cope with it?
>>97299741Games aren't really about deeper fulfillment, they're essentially just ways to spend time when you have nothing else to do.As with all things in life, it's up to you to find the meaning in what you're doing.I've spent my entire life seeking good things, and never getting them regardless of the changes and compromises I've made. You've had some positive experiences at least, so find some small joy in that, that your efforts weren't entirely wasted.
>>97299741Several ideas>write a book about it >try a new game style, play instead of run Sounds a bit like you're strongly motivated by positive feedback, which makes sense but try doing something for you.
>>97299741>there are 55 year olds on this boardat the absolute earliest you could have started using this site when you were 32. what drives a man to this?
>>97299741How the fuck did you put your entire life on hold just to run D&D games?
>>97299741At least you have kids and presumably a wife. All I have are players who moved away and a pile of paper.
Thanks for chatting with me about this, guys. I'm sorry for doomposting>>97299820You're right. It just seems so useless now. I know all this stuff about castle battlements, pixies, dwarves and dragons and it's been exactly 0% actually useful to me in any capacity. My normie friends don't know anything about this hobby so the question of what color a pixie's panties are never comes up. I exaggerate but you get the gist. Thank you for your encouragement>>97299826Yk, I really wanted to be but I have no big talent at writing an actual book because I have tried and they were all heavily retreaded genres, tropes, styles. I could do nothing to escape it because I lacked only one key critical thing: story. I could do plot, sure, but 99.9% of my stuff was a complete ripoff of some other property. I based a game off of elfquest for years and none of my friends were the wiser. None of them had ever read EQ. I could do the same with the Xanth books, greyhawk, dragonlance, fr stuff. That's j ust the tsr stuff. I think I got addicted to reading and I memorized the 1e dmg, phb, mm 1, mm and ff and just spiraled into Greek and history. It was a never ending loop that I thought was a reward in of itself. I could do denouement, chapters, pacing, language, grammar, dialogue, footnotes, epilogue, opening sentence, just everything basically. Characterization my friends say I'm great at. But I could never just come up with an original story. I'm a shit writer without a story and who wouldn't be? My group can't stay away from d&d though other rpgs are played occasionally. D&D is just swords and sorcery to us. It's a far as most people will go with a pencil and paper game. Car Wars wasn't available to us. Toon wasn't available. Vtm gained some traction but my whole group hates vampires. Over the years, counting all the ppl I met that might actually play vtm equals a group of 5. I've got dark ages vtm game in the cannon ready to go for at least ten years now. Sorry this is so long
>>97299834I was looking up the lyrics of hey man, nice shot which eventually led me to a post on and I just haven't ever left since then. Moot made it rain shit encrusted dicks down the catalogue page. I've been here longer than that. I rarely post and you can see why. I'm long winded. My descriptions are off the chain though. I I've ran a small play by post zombie rpg here and I literally scared some kid off. I want even bring gruesome, just spooky. He was waking up to an ambulance and heard some growling coming from it. Anon said sorry and jetted. He never posted again lol
>>97300127>I have tried and they were all heavily retreaded genres, tropes, styles.Doesn't have to be original. Just has to be good.
>>97300127write some nonfiction dm advice or something along those lines maybe
>>97299882Man, fantasy is just a hobby but it did take over my life. I read every high fantasy, dark fantasy, realistic fantasy, historic fantasy, swords and sandals, sci-fi book I could get my hands on. I couldn't stop and I wanted my time on shit like Arrakis when I should have been putting all this energy into the real world. I'm ashamed of myself and I'm venting to tg. I'm trying really hard not to but it became that in the very first post. For that I apologize. Bitching and moaning about rpgs isn't helping this board
>>97300079I did. I got grandkids. I separated n 1996, divorced by 97. Mine is my grandkids are the slightest but interested in rpgs. It's just an age thing. When they get a bit older, I think they'll like it, when they understand it better
>>97300146Man, I'm almost there. My last story that I actually ran in d&d was perfectly told from the beginning to the end. Most of it was OC and two giant notebooks that tied it all together. That was part one. Part two will probably never get written. Thanks for your advice
>>97300152I think I can do that because I've strung so many long running campaigns together. It is advice I'd think 99% you've all heard before. Among my friends, I'm the hardcore one. Here, I'm the pleb and I accept that, even though I've been here a long time. I love to read all your ideas and I never stop. My opinion here is never needed so I just try to shut my mouth on commenting and just read. There's very little nuance, precious little, on 4chan but tg has some. You guys are at least as philosophical as lit, especially about rpgs. Lit could be your sister board of it weren't for then actually being an affront to the Lord
>>97299741>My players still talk about all my games to this day.>No one gives a single, solitary fuck.Quit contradicting yourself faggot.
>>97300198Ah, I do miss this. I will try not to be a faggot in the future. I predict utter failure. I can't even spell my sentences correctly
>>97299741dude you just need to find people who want to play. you sound super cool, honestly. id love to play with you mate, where are you from?
>>97300219USA, I live in Kentucky
>>97299741If no one wants to play with you then play solo. You might not like it, and you'll certainly get some fag tell you it's Not Real Games, but you can do it on your own terms.
>>97300231Damn I'm from the greater Seattle region, too bad. It's super hard to find friends at our age, but I promise you there are some people out there who aren't burned out and want to chill and play tabletop games.
>>97300231What part of Kentucky
>>97300248My nephew lives in Seattle and the gaming scene there is robust >>97300267SW KY
>>97299741>9 year dragonlance campaignimpossible or gay, dnd hates dragonlance and fights against it and demands a railroad. you lie. kill self.
>>97300366I set mine in Taladas so I could change whatever I wanted. So no I don't think I will
>>97300398>so I could change whatever I wanted.dragonlance fans/players will NOT abide that shit unless its the chaos war onward.
>>97300429I only changed tiny details and besides none of my players had the actual modules anyway. We read the novels but otherwise only I had the modules. One of the players named his son after a DL character so I would say they were big fans of the setting. I downplayed the heroes of the lance and sidelined certain characters so the players could step into those roles and they loved it. I converted White Plum Mountain to taking place on Kyrnn, as their climax for the campaign and they still talk about that game and their characters. My gf played a knight of solamnia, made it to Sword Knight in her class
>>97300143Behold, our honored forebear.
>>97300366>>97300429>playing games is impossibleFuck off autist.
>>97300550>playing dragonlance with autistic dragonlance fags is impossiblebegone no games nigger jew
>>97299741>My kidsYou've already won life, op.
>>97299741>12 year campaignMy kids would hate me too. I hope you die alone, sad and decrepit.
>>97300886no u
>>97299741I think some people make a living being a paid professional dungeon master. That could be something to look into, even though I understand that the main reason you did it is to bring joy to your friends and family, and it wouldn't be the same doing it for random people that pay you money to do it. But, at least, that could be a way to make money with your skills, and if you somehow pivoted into making a good youtube production with your games (getting help from people that know that stuff), that could also start something that can get you more ways to get money, through merchandise, sponsorships, what have you.
>>97299741>baby's first brush with existentialism>at 55Parents are the retardest retards on the retard pile.
>>97300167Boardgames anon, get them with boardgames early. There's a bunch of good ones for younger kids and you can just keep adding more complexity over time and they'll branch out.
>>97300951Yeah, he could also try publishing stuff from his homebrew campaigns at DriveThruRPG.
>>97299741Yeah, I can relate. I spent a large part of my 20's running games, hoping to build a lasting group of friends that could take turns, have epic, long-running campaigns and maybe even build worlds and histories together. What I found was just a series of ungrateful, entitled twats who showed up to consume the fruits of my hard work. It took me a long time to snap out of it and give up, but it's kind of reassuring to know that there are people who have it even worse.
>>97300321>SW KYThats, uh, where I live
>I've never been able to parlay any of this into any real success in the real world.> I'm going to die alone and penniless. All that work, countless hours, wasted.You fill your wallet with an actual job, and you have your hobbies to fill your hearth. If you're so monumentally stupid as to try and fill your wallet via your hobby without a solid business plan for how to turn it into an actual job then, yeah, everything ends up empty. No surprises there.
>>97303672Fr? Small world, huh. Where at? I'm in Clinton
>>97305385Awesome. What street do you live on and what does your daughter wear to bed? You are on 4chan, brainlet. Think things through.
>>97299741You could just run online sessions and get paid for it, congratulations you did not waste your time you are a professional in your new job
>>97305482Idc. I live by myself, my daughter's are grown. There's literally nothing you can do to me. I live on moss drive
>>97305505I would like that. I never wanted to be paid to gm. I always thought rpgs would lead to writing them, that's what I wanted to do in life. But you can't support yourself with writing. It was just a stupid dream and now I know way too much about wood elves to ever be useful in society. I just feel dumb for stacking all my eggs in the same basket. I never expected it to be easy, promise. Doable, yes, though. It's only disabled if you live in a urban area, so your name can get "out". In a rural area, people are just trying to get by and games are seen as frivolous pastimes. My bad. I waited too long to pivot into anything else and I'll spend my last years dwindling like the elves in LOTR. I'm basically useless at this point unless something like a zombie apocalypse happens. Then my fresh water finding ass will be appreciated. Maybe
>>97305553Doable* not disabled
>>97299741If someone told you that they spent their entire life playing music but never got any real professional success, would you think they were as much a failure as you? They could have the same exact circumstances - they might be a great musician, but unable to write anything original. All of their knowledge about music is just as "pointless" as fantasy knowledge. Unless your a cynical bastard, you probably think their past performances are worth something, that the fact they can take an instrument that would be useless in so many other's hands and bring a song to life to be worth something. Isn't the same thing true for gamemastering?
>>97305385Murray>inb4 self doxthe mods can see your ips
And I'm happy playing tons of freebies and PWYW.
>>97300248Hey anon, I'm also in Seattle. Did you already have an established gaming group?
>>97305862You're right. I was just feeling maudlin and sorry for myself. I usually have a punk rock fuck it attitude but it is just getting to me, year after year. I've been through ego death two times so it's not really an existential crisis. It's more of I have a chance to bitch about this on tg but I shouldn't do that, either. Y'all are already dealing with bs here constantly. This happens at least once a year here for me. I get called a faggot 18764368 times and eventually suck it up and try to learn something from it, from people that are trying to help me. I look outward just as much inward. Having a successful game isn't really bragging rights except here. I could go on for awhile how to make your have successful too but I promise it's 99% advice you've all heard before. It satisfies a deep party of some human's mind to see tropes played out. It's something predictable in a random world. It can be as simple as of this dwarf is tough, this elf is snooty, this gnome is hilarious, etc, because the person's thoughts and suspicions are confirmed. A good grounding for fantastical setting. I was not sure what to do with a svirfneblin when I first encountered them but after awhile, you just figure this out on your own. I love seeing that going in a player's eye when they figure something out through pure deduction and logic of their own. It's really like watching them open s present. I'm a player oriented dm. I'm as perfect world, no one would have to be player orientated but without the players, you have no game. You have notes and countless hours put in to something no one will ever see until you die and probably not even then. My oldest will not go through my d&d stuff. She would bawl the entire time, that's how she is. It'll all get burned more than likely and as a hobby, rpgs are great. They can help kids learn math and how to read. A dyslexic friend of mine taught himself how to read because of the phb, dmg, mm etc. This was in the 80s when dyslexia was not we
>>97305868This was in the 80s. Really doubt that info is even there anymore
>>97305868Wait, I'm sorry. I misread your post. You're in Murray? Cool, I'm glad y'all got a scene in ky. I only ever found one dick head here that would actually run games at all. They were 99% dogshit but I won't blame y'all for that faggot
>>97306546Well known. I'm sorry for blog posting but my thoughts are convoluted rn about this whole hobby. Being serious on 4chan is never recommended but I literally have no where else to go anymore. I'm old and no one wants me there. Don't do this to yourself. Yeah, I was obsessed. I can run close to 30 different rpgs. I've been reading Traveler to see if I can get anything out of it but I'm not really into writing and building the whole universe from the ground up. I like to dabble in already established settings. Esp if they have deep lore. Knowing Waterdeep better then my own home capital has never helped me. Don't obsess and overwork it. Two hours prep is all you need for one session. Anything more than that can overkill it. Players don't care if you have eleven different elf types they can play. They only want to know if their elf race is available. I would spend hundreds of hours detailing all of this and none of it was much perused past five minutes, if that. Ofc until it is needed, then they might pore over it. You can have all the money in the world and all the tea in China, all the gold, all the boats, all the buildings, all the cocaine in Bolivia, literally everything, cars, guns, girls, and you can't buy a measly second with it at the end of your life. Just be careful with your time if you are young. I'm sorry for preaching at you. I don't want to see you go through this. Games are great and I would say even necessary for the human mind. We've been playing at games for thousands of years at this point. I'm a huge proponent for games but they are a hell of a time sink. I admire those guys that paint their minis. Actually, it's now like awe. I can't paint a fucking fingernail much less a mini. Huge props to them, and sometimes, they sell their stuff. Amazing.
>>97299741Man, seeing an old as fuck grog or whatever on here is cool. I remember hearing about programs where people would run DND games and what not for prisoners. It would be funny if some super old head took Hosé the paladin and Jamal the wizard on some epic dungeon adventure. You could try looking into that.
>>97306618So you live for gaming, not necessarily for fantasy. The happiness you seem to find in prep is easily compared to a craftsman perfecting a piece, even after he's finished it to the standards of a client. Taking joy in one's craft isn't degeneracy, and we don't call Then everyone you used to share the results of that work with don't find time for it. Now it seems like the one thing you've dedicated the most of your free time to is worthless to anybody but yourself. And you clearly attach your identity, and maybe most self worth to your ability to entertain others at the table. Existential crises are pretty reasonable at that point. I've certainly felt unwanted before, and that shit sucks. I don't have much experience for this situation, but here's what I'd recommend. If the problem is that the people around you don't find the time to play, then the best solution is to start trying to find people that do. If you have any local high schools, or even middle schools in the area, you might try meeting with the principal to start an after-school program where you can run games for some of the students. If that doesn't work out, you're a clearly a creative person given the settings, and with that much time in prep likely a good organizer and planner as well. Figure out your current emotions, and when you're calm, just give the problem some thought, and entertain all the unlikely or even stupid ideas. Or the obvious ones, like putting those skills on a resume and applying for a job that uses them.
