Weird blunders I have encountered while gaming (first example) and avoiding gamer burnout

     So I have written before about my experience in the previous post about how I have made mistakes.  I assure you that they are quite numerous but I will start with just a small samples of blunders.  Let's first talk about overall gaming burnout among the group and how life gets in the way.  A reality that a lot of people have come to accept about doing this hobby is burnout.  Trying to keep things fresh, fun, and unpredictable is a challenging so I would have to say consider taking a break from the game once in a while by doing other activities.  Well, that doesn't make me sound like a normal fan but people's lives get in the way of roleplaying sometimes  and the break is needed.  Another tactic you can use is to change out the frequency of playing, depending on what your work/college schedule allows.  I find that a weekly meeting time should be enough, but whatever works for your group should work.

    "Look, the drawing is a penis", "It is not a penis, it is a drawing of the top view of an island" , "no that is a penis", "here, I added trees and buildings", "now it looks like a diseased penis"....... While running a Ravenloft campaign as a DM in a custom designed realm, I had the PCs travel to an island.  I had to demonstrate what the island looked like in a drawing.  I drew trees on picture, some house symbols on it, and caves, but it still looked like a penis from other people's point of view.  What else can I say to my defense?  Well, that is about it really, I wasn't thinking about anything perverted.  I guess I am going to have to avoid any type of drawing anything that looks elongated.  However, humor adds levity to any situation.  If you are running a campaign and a lot of humor occurs in gameplay while you are running the session, consider that to be a good omen and that you are doing a good job as a DM.

     So where does the side topics end and the actual roleplaying begin?  Well, that depends on the group and how much time you have for roleplaying.  I like getting caught up on all sorts of stuff that is happening in the lives of my friends so it seems okay to let in a few bits of unrelated talk and gossip into the conversation.  Also, hilarious analogies and quips can be inserted about your campaign in general.  This is okay in my opinion because other less serious perspectives on the situation can lighten the situation, like how I fall asleep during major dragon fights as a player (this has happened a few times).  "Crap, the wizard is sleeping and we are gettimg fire breathed on us". Yeah ...... The negative side of irrelevent conversation during roleplaying is that this form of talking bogs down gameplay and This is usually when arguements can occur, which I will discuss in a future post called rules lawyering.

Anyway, I will try to enjoy my day off by having fun and maybe I will draw some dungeon maps later and write up statistics for custom monsters.  For all of you future roleplayers, have fun!!! :)