Quinns' Campaign Diaries, Vol 1 Pt 4: Burnout Edition
Added 2025-10-28 14:47:49 +0000 UTCComments
Just my opinion but I'm not sure how much you owe your players closure if you've given them 11 sessions and you're completely drained by the game. Im inexperienced, bit BitD seems to really lean into collaboration and story over mechanics and so I would level with the players about how you're feeling and let them carry more of the weight for one more final session. They can talk together about what happens during that session and figure how they want to leave their characters' stories. As a player I would love to be able to do this to treat the gm, letting that person enjoy the show a bit more and as a thank you for running the campaign
Jacob LaBruzzo
2025-11-13 02:48:41 +0000 UTCWell that explains a few things. I think if you take a look at these comments, you'll see that your community is full of very smart, empathetic people. Personally, I'm here to support you. Financially, as I'm able, but also because I genuinely like you. Shit, man, I *love* you. Person to person. No creeper. I see your numbers and get that you're feeling obligated. And in a very real sense you are. But adjust your fucking mask first, man. Take care of yourself, give yourself some grace. What you think we require of you is inaccurate. Slow down if you need to. As others have said, something, anything is better than nothing and to that I would add, "Perfect is the enemy." We are a LOT easier to please than you think. And I bet I'm not the only one who loves you regardless. Peace.
Rob Sothoth
2025-11-06 14:50:57 +0000 UTCThank you so much for this, Jack. Appreciate the thought. I do think I've been fixated so much on loving TTRPGs that it's easy to lose sight of loving the job, or for that matter just loving putting evenings together for my friends. Hm.
Quinns Quest
2025-10-30 18:31:17 +0000 UTCGosh. Another very good piece of advice. I've been meaning to take up therapy again, but asking specifically for someone who can help me through my creative burn is suuuuper thought-provoking...
Quinns Quest
2025-10-30 18:29:31 +0000 UTCHa, gosh. I can feel that in my body but I never thought about it like that before. Thanks. This'll stick with me.
Quinns Quest
2025-10-30 18:28:30 +0000 UTCI love this comment, Ennis. I've taken it to heart, where it will sit next to other pieces of good advice in a small pile that may eventually get through to me 😉
Quinns Quest
2025-10-30 18:27:45 +0000 UTCLove. What an annoying word. The greatest wisdom I can remember is that being "In Love" is the feeling, but that feeling is only ever the product of the act of "Loving" something. And loving something is its own job. Maintaining that relationship, be it to a person or a concept or a thing, is WORK. The subtle trick with your line of work, our dear Mr Quest, is that loving the TTRPG (or the Board Games, or the Video Games, etc) is only part of the required rubric. You have to also love being the TTRPG *journalist*. If the literal job is not treated with the respect a relationship deserves, it's going to wilt. My distant knowledge of your life makes we think you've seen that happen already. So sure, give more work to ride the popularity wave. So fine, do your best work for your pride and reputation. But at the end of the day, your relationship with your work is not our relationships with it. You have to, fundamentally do it for your own sake, not just the job's--and especially not ours. Be well, and don't optimise yourself out of your self-respect. You put the RGP in TTRPG ("Really Gud Peopson")
Jack Lightfoot
2025-10-29 23:22:35 +0000 UTCIs it possible to do the TTRPG equivalent of a beach episode?
William Melton
2025-10-29 17:33:34 +0000 UTCSomething I both admire about and fear for you, Quinns, is your commitment to making and putting out content in a very specific way. I can't think of another creator in the YouTube TTRPG scene who so consistently follows their own style guide, and when it works, it produces some amazing results...but it sounds like it's not working, right now, for you. As a writer, I constantly struggle with breaking free of my own process, but sometimes it's needed to keep the work from falling apart. Think of this: if McDonalds' supply of beef ran dry, they wouldn't close up shop, would they? They'd lean more into chicken nuggets, shakes, breakfast items...they'd adapt by trying out different products, anything to stay afloat. If you want to continue developing Quinns Quest as a business, you need to act flexibly like one. All that is to say I think plenty of us patrons would rather a different kind of content from your hyper-polished, longform reviews, than no content at all. Sorry if that came off a bit like tough love, but it's what I tell myself when I'm in a similar space to what it sounds like you're going through — I hope it helps!
NonBinaryBomb
2025-10-29 02:07:44 +0000 UTCThanks for your honesty. I agree with everyone that you should take care of yourself and maybe try being a player
ItsCole
2025-10-29 00:26:08 +0000 UTCHave you come across any of Winnicott’s writings on play in your wanderings through gaming? There’s some dense psychoanalytic theory in there, but this post made me think about how he saw play (when it’s working) as a foundationally enlivening experience, that it can still involve generative frustration, that things can be experiences of ‘play’ that aren’t just games (e.g. companionate argument, doing the dishes), and also that there are circumstances where games might fail as experiences of ‘play’ (some professional sportspeople, for example, don’t seem to be enjoying an enlivening state of play when they’re doing their sport). You talk a lot here and in some of your other recent things about obligations (e.g. your players deserve a good complete story, you have a responsibility to use your platform for good) - it feels like that could easily create distance between you and what makes you feel energised and alive in games? When playing a game is too much about meeting your responsibilities, that sounds like the death of play to me, as well as potentially lonely. In the spirit of speaking about something still relatively rarely openly addressed (but without wishing to pathologise you), struggling with feelings of burnout that risk deadening something you usually deeply love in ways that are a little obscure to you is something a psychodynamic therapist might be able to help with if you can spare the time and cost!
Michael Lam
2025-10-28 23:09:47 +0000 UTCBrains burn the same calories that muscles use. And human brains are absolute *hogs* for energy. Not metaphorical/emotional/vibes energy, I mean thermodynamic energy from your blood sugar. When you have to think very hard, very fast, do a lot of emotional regulation, or all three (as GMing often requires), you will become tired. Do it for days and days on end, you will become more than tired.
Jake G
2025-10-28 20:17:53 +0000 UTCI don't think you should play with guilt. It's ok to cut short a story or drop a review - you don't owe people closure, this isn't the big leagues it's a home game that everyone at the table is supposed to enjoy. Maybe you need to hire an assistant to help with prep, or as others have said try being a player for a game you review. TTRPGS are a very big space, you don't need to only explore them through a DM's lens. Whatever you do though, I'm sure it'll be dope.
joss arnott
2025-10-28 19:12:35 +0000 UTCThis is a beautiful entry to the campaign diaries, both for the honesty and the wordplay. That QQ keeps you in your body and creativity is an absolutely beautiful thing, an increasingly rare one. That it is growing, and matters to you——we, your audience + community, are genuinely happy. We respect you as a creator and an artist; no one benefits more than us from the way you push yourself and your work. But this— : “Happiness isn't important! Some of the most popular pieces of writing I've ever done happened when I was heavy with The Miseries. And actually, when I'm unhealthy that can be fine too! If life really powerbombs me, like I get the flu or back when I broke my leg? If I can't play TTRPGs or write at all, that actually feels like a rest for me. I come back super rejuvenated.” — respectfully, is fool shit. This is not sustainable long term. You are a very talented and impressive creator and we all admire you here, but you are not Superman. You need to slow down. I apologize for the over-familar tone, but you said you were accepting wisdom, and fan-creator relationship aside, just human-to-human across the web here for a second: I think what you are missing in this moment is restraint. You are a bit of a workaholic. You need to work on that. I would also advise against the whole Make Number Go Up mindset you seem to have about your audience, personally? I understand that you guys need financial support to make these projects happen (I am literally here for that reason), but do you honestly think that the healthiest thing for your career, your art, your community, yourSELF is to make that happen asfastaspossible ? I don’t! Apologies again if this was all much too terribly personal/direct (I will happily delete the comment if you like). No disrespect meant in any of this, you just really seem like you’re struggling here and it is very sad to watch. We love your work! We care about you, in our parasocial way! We don’t want you to have a heart attack and keel over before the English Language Jubensha Revolution!!! Wishing you well from Chattanooga, TN. Please go make a cup of tea right now.
Ennis Jackson
2025-10-28 17:04:27 +0000 UTC
