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There comes a time when players get jaded, either with a game or an entire line of games. In my case, I got bored with 40k and none of the alternatives either appeal or are widely played.

My question is: How do you cope?
-Do you take a break and look for a new hobby?
-Do you homebrew for the heck of it?
-Do you ignore the game and focus on the modeling and painting?
-Something else?

I'm mostly sticking with the second and third options for now, strictly since I have a large bitz backlog to clear, but how do you cope when you're dealing with gaming burnout?

Theres so little time in one humans life to see the "Full Earth Experience™" to sit there, sad, thinking about how wargaming doesn't appeal to you anymore.

I just go and do other things. As every hobby, is something one does for fun on his free time. Whenever I recover the desire to go back to wargaming, I do. Sometimes it takes weeks, other months. One time I spent 4 years without touching anything related to wargaming. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter.

Pack it all up, put it away for a few months/years, and maybe someday, you'll be inspired again. At least that's what I'm doing right now. There's just too much going on with the hobby right now and too little money to invest in it, that I feel a long break is needed. YMMV

Definitely Homebrew. It's what I did when I stopped playing in 6th.

Go nuts with it and don't put any restrictions on rules or options. I started making a 40k skirmish game on a themed 3x3 with all the Bells and Whistles.

I gave a Chaos Terminator a bolt pistol and a custom chain axe, made a dismounted heavy stubber team from a bailed out tank crew, among other unsanctioned units.

To me 40k as a game is boring as hell, but the models, terrain, and universe are amazing. Enjoy it your own way, with rules and modeling that fit your own interests.

It's normal and natural to get bored.

When it happens within a hobby there's few things you can do;

1) Start a new army or game - sometimes a new army gives you a fresh perspective; or a new game type can be a fresh new thing that helps you get more engaged. It's not always that the old game is bad; but that you've just played enough of it, so something new sparks new interest.

2) Shift to another focus in the hobby - you might be bored of gaming so you might try focusing on modelling or painting.

3) Focused specific projects/goals - ergo putting structure to what you do to focus your interest and give you something to keep you going through the short term hump of a period of bordem

4) Try another hobby. Doesn't mean you have to sell it all off; but does mean that you put it into storage or on the display shelf and try something else. Might be something totally different, but try something new. You'll like as not come back in time to the first hobby.


Some people find an interest that consumes them totally; that they never grow tired of. At the other end there are people who get bored so quickly that they jump from interest to interest in very quick succession. And in the middle is everyone else.

What I did was I stepped back and started to make games i wanted to play, and then make everything I need to play it. Then, I played it.

It was a breath of fresh air to me and completely re-invented the hobby for me. I learned how to do all sorts of stuff like scratchbuild, sculpt, use programs to make tools, etc.

Good times. I haven't looked back since.

I think it's a simple matter of deciding what you're actually bored with.

1) Are you bored with the rules? Play a different edition or actively work toward making your own adjustments to the game...that can range from scenarios to army building, to actual rules changes, customized units, house-rules, etc. If you think a game like 40K (from a strict Tournament rules setting) is going to provide longevity...you're out of luck.

2) Are you bored with your army? You could consider another army but this often leads to selling off unpainted grey plastic 3-6 months later because you don't really like the second army so I hesitate to recommend this.

3) Are you bored with your table? When was the last time you spent time working on a genuine new table or terrain? Get a new mat, buy some new terrain, give yourself options when it comes to constructing a table. Fighting games on the same felt mat with a half dozen grey plastic pieces of terrain will get old...immediately.

4) Are you bored with the fluff/lore? If so, this is probably the time to bail if you're not going to create some yourself. Ain't no shame in falling out of love with an IP. Happens all the time.

5) Are you bored with the scenarios and games you're playing? Chasing tokens is boring as feth. Consider spending time designing your own actual story-driven scenarios. Start linking these together into a loose campaign...then start adding a few campaign rules. Give your characters and stand-out NCO's names, etc. Start building the movie or novel around what is happening. Let the story become organic and drive itself to creating the next scenario. Couple this with new terrain and new house-rules and there's zero limit why you should stick yourself to the basic "Go grab token 3..." rules and scenarios.

6) Are you bored with wargaming in general? Take a break. Again, no shame in getting tired of a hobby. Put stuff aside for 6 months and see if you really miss it. You may not. I've taken breaks for as long as four or five years at times. When I come back to it, I find I still really like, but this isn't always the case. If you do find you've grown tired of it - sell it off and move onto greater things.

The other obvious option is that if you like the "hobby" itself, look at other games. A bunch of a great skirmish games out there to get into for relatively little money.

Maybe I'm lucky.

I've never got bored of "the hobby" (whatever that is). Between the different facets I've always found something I enjoy.

If I didn't - and that's happened with other hobbies - I've taken a break or stopped.

 Elbows wrote:
I think it's a simple matter of deciding what you're actually bored with.

1) Are you bored with the rules? Play a different edition or actively work toward making your own adjustments to the game...that can range from scenarios to army building, to actual rules changes, customized units, house-rules, etc. If you think a game like 40K (from a strict Tournament rules setting) is going to provide longevity...you're out of luck.

2) Are you bored with your army? You could consider another army but this often leads to selling off unpainted grey plastic 3-6 months later because you don't really like the second army so I hesitate to recommend this.

3) Are you bored with your table? When was the last time you spent time working on a genuine new table or terrain? Get a new mat, buy some new terrain, give yourself options when it comes to constructing a table. Fighting games on the same felt mat with a half dozen grey plastic pieces of terrain will get old...immediately.

4) Are you bored with the fluff/lore? If so, this is probably the time to bail if you're not going to create some yourself. Ain't no shame in falling out of love with an IP. Happens all the time.

5) Are you bored with the scenarios and games you're playing? Chasing tokens is boring as feth. Consider spending time designing your own actual story-driven scenarios. Start linking these together into a loose campaign...then start adding a few campaign rules. Give your characters and stand-out NCO's names, etc. Start building the movie or novel around what is happening. Let the story become organic and drive itself to creating the next scenario. Couple this with new terrain and new house-rules and there's zero limit why you should stick yourself to the basic "Go grab token 3..." rules and scenarios.

6) Are you bored with wargaming in general? Take a break. Again, no shame in getting tired of a hobby. Put stuff aside for 6 months and see if you really miss it. You may not. I've taken breaks for as long as four or five years at times. When I come back to it, I find I still really like, but this isn't always the case. If you do find you've grown tired of it - sell it off and move onto greater things.

The other obvious option is that if you like the "hobby" itself, look at other games. A bunch of a great skirmish games out there to get into for relatively little money.

Generally #1. That's usually where it boils down to. It got to the point I started writing a completely different ruleset from scratch. I have a soft spot for terrain projects (half the reason I wish I could find folks for a Mordheim campaign in my area is for an excuse to build new terrainpieces), and so that's definitely an item. Likewise, reducing the backlog has its own appeal; there is something theraputic in chop-shopping and kitbashing.

Rules are easy to adjust and to make more interesting - the problem lies with finding a group of like-minded players who are on board with the idea.

I model and paint.

Cheers,

CB

Although I do not think I have been bored with the 40k universe in the 26+ years of playing.

 MagicJuggler wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
I think it's a simple matter of deciding what you're actually bored with.

1) Are you bored with the rules? Play a different edition or actively work toward making your own adjustments to the game...that can range from scenarios to army building, to actual rules changes, customized units, house-rules, etc. If you think a game like 40K (from a strict Tournament rules setting) is going to provide longevity...you're out of luck.

2) Are you bored with your army? You could consider another army but this often leads to selling off unpainted grey plastic 3-6 months later because you don't really like the second army so I hesitate to recommend this.

3) Are you bored with your table? When was the last time you spent time working on a genuine new table or terrain? Get a new mat, buy some new terrain, give yourself options when it comes to constructing a table. Fighting games on the same felt mat with a half dozen grey plastic pieces of terrain will get old...immediately.

4) Are you bored with the fluff/lore? If so, this is probably the time to bail if you're not going to create some yourself. Ain't no shame in falling out of love with an IP. Happens all the time.

5) Are you bored with the scenarios and games you're playing? Chasing tokens is boring as feth. Consider spending time designing your own actual story-driven scenarios. Start linking these together into a loose campaign...then start adding a few campaign rules. Give your characters and stand-out NCO's names, etc. Start building the movie or novel around what is happening. Let the story become organic and drive itself to creating the next scenario. Couple this with new terrain and new house-rules and there's zero limit why you should stick yourself to the basic "Go grab token 3..." rules and scenarios.

6) Are you bored with wargaming in general? Take a break. Again, no shame in getting tired of a hobby. Put stuff aside for 6 months and see if you really miss it. You may not. I've taken breaks for as long as four or five years at times. When I come back to it, I find I still really like, but this isn't always the case. If you do find you've grown tired of it - sell it off and move onto greater things.

The other obvious option is that if you like the "hobby" itself, look at other games. A bunch of a great skirmish games out there to get into for relatively little money.

Generally #1. That's usually where it boils down to. It got to the point I started writing a completely different ruleset from scratch. I have a soft spot for terrain projects (half the reason I wish I could find folks for a Mordheim campaign in my area is for an excuse to build new terrainpieces), and so that's definitely an item. Likewise, reducing the backlog has its own appeal; there is something theraputic in chop-shopping and kitbashing.

Pretty much no other way than finding someone with close enough approach to 40K and establish a true "40K friendship" with that person. You can practically forget about convinvincing strangers/rarely met people to huge homebrews. But with just a single person who likes 40K in a way you do, the sky is the limit and boredom never really happens or is "final" and without further questions. Good luck finding such person or... "nurturing" one yourself. Speaking from experience, even the "dreaded 7th ed" 40K can be made great fun by houseruling codices, scenarios, army construction etc. As you may recall from other threads we are pretty much on the same boat, with one exception - I'm lucky enough to have someone to play "my 40K" with... But when I didn't it pretty much ended my passion for 40K for more than a decade.

But you could start of with finding a person wanting to play 8th on interesting terrain, with interesting one-off missions, not focused on tournaments and competetive approach and build from there.

Swtching to pure modeling and painting when you don't see a fun way to use all those models can be off-putting and deepen aversion to this hobby. Been there, done that...

multiple projects within multiple games, also a few other activities help.

I've got a scalextric set and dither with my laptop teaching it to drive nearly as badly as me.

would like to get back into role play games as well.

When you start getting bored the key is to back off, keep pushing and you grow to resent the whole thing

I have too many games and armies to have ever been bored so far.

leopard wrote:


When you start getting bored the key is to back off, keep pushing and you grow to resent the whole thing

Seen that happen more than a few times. People change through time, but often don't realise it. So when they are bored or suddenly find that they don't enjoy something as much they can sometimes lash out. They push themselves way too hard and get depressed about not enjoying what they used to and often as not will take it out on others in frustration.

The general style of the internet to comment on faults over praise tends to fuel this. I've seen more than a few people get disillusioned with an online community/hobby and go out in a blaze of fighting rather than simply stepping back and moving on with their life. It's sad because often as not they sour the community for others and will even turn newer people away; all before they set fire to bridges as they leave in a blaze of trolling/fighting/general disruption

 Overread wrote:

leopard wrote:


When you start getting bored the key is to back off, keep pushing and you grow to resent the whole thing

Seen that happen more than a few times. People change through time, but often don't realise it. So when they are bored or suddenly find that they don't enjoy something as much they can sometimes lash out. They push themselves way too hard and get depressed about not enjoying what they used to and often as not will take it out on others in frustration.

The general style of the internet to comment on faults over praise tends to fuel this. I've seen more than a few people get disillusioned with an online community/hobby and go out in a blaze of fighting rather than simply stepping back and moving on with their life. It's sad because often as not they sour the community for others and will even turn newer people away; all before they set fire to bridges as they leave in a blaze of trolling/fighting/general disruption

seen this a couple of times at FLGS level as well, amazed people take it all so seriously but there you go.

Doesn't help when some seem to delight in baiting people

leopard wrote:

 Overread wrote:

leopard wrote:


When you start getting bored the key is to back off, keep pushing and you grow to resent the whole thing

Seen that happen more than a few times. People change through time, but often don't realise it. So when they are bored or suddenly find that they don't enjoy something as much they can sometimes lash out. They push themselves way too hard and get depressed about not enjoying what they used to and often as not will take it out on others in frustration.

The general style of the internet to comment on faults over praise tends to fuel this. I've seen more than a few people get disillusioned with an online community/hobby and go out in a blaze of fighting rather than simply stepping back and moving on with their life. It's sad because often as not they sour the community for others and will even turn newer people away; all before they set fire to bridges as they leave in a blaze of trolling/fighting/general disruption

seen this a couple of times at FLGS level as well, amazed people take it all so seriously but there you go.

Doesn't help when some seem to delight in baiting people

Thankfully I've not seen it much in clubs, internet side I've seen it a good few times (its also a pain to deal with when you're a mod watching a user basically self-destruct on a site). And yes sometimes people do bait them on, or you get a little clique of a few people who are bored at the same time (or disillusioned with the community because its moved on since they became members).

take a break from the bits you no longer find fun whether that's gaming, modelling, painting, terrain, tournaments, your local game group etc

it may be that by dropping the bits you're bored with the rest will be better

don't sell/give away or dump any of your stuff (unless your really need the space or money) as you will hopefully come back to it but if you get rid of it all you're much less likely to ever try again

I go do other things.

I also usually have 2 different game systems on the go at a time - they both stop me getting bored with the hobby.

If I haven't gone back to playing with stuff after a long break, I divest myself of it. Usually at the prices I paid for it (10+ year old prices) which is often seen as a "bargain basement" price.
No regrets - I had fun with them, they gave me their "value" and are now surplus to requirements. There's always newer shinier stuff to attract me anyway.

There are always sweet conversions to be made and sweet paint jobs to lay down. If you enjoy the modeling and painting aspect you will basically never want for something new to try, especially if you just paint a unit or two from each faction that really strikes your fancy.

There are also always ancillary games like Underworlds and Necromunda.

I play in campaigns where tournament rules aren't really a thing so we don't have the stale meta driving us to boredom. Being able to put houseruled modifications in keep the game interesting and keep things from stagnating down into the same armies over and over again.

Otherwise I pack it up and leave for a few years.

Do something else.

When I "outgrew" 40k I started Infinity. Made 40k seem more boring, but Infinity is great.

Use some of your 40k squads for shadow war or Necromunda. maybe try picking up a fun skirmish game? If you're interested in the DC universe their mini game is a lot of fun and the models are superb.

Buy more, play new games, start new projects

 chromedog wrote:


If I haven't gone back to playing with stuff after a long break, I divest myself of it. Usually at the prices I paid for it (10+ year old prices) which is often seen as a "bargain basement" price.
No regrets - I had fun with them, they gave me their "value" and are now surplus to requirements. There's always newer shinier stuff to attract me anyway.

I do this pretty regularly as well. Sometimes it's even refreshing to see models not up to par with my current painting skills go on their way.

Certainly a great way to collect funding for the new shiny.

I would say that I tend to avoid boredom rather than wait for it to arrive.

First, 0ur club plays a variety of games. If one feels a bit stale, there's always another one we can play. Being able to have a variety of games on top is probably the biggest advantage of not buying into one major (and likely expensive) game. You don't have to wait for one to get stale to mix it up. As an example, we played a few weeks of Konflkt 47. Then a few sessions of Walking Dead. The next two meetings we'll do somethign else, then go back to the Walking Dead campaign. Mix it up, keep it fresh, enjoy your hobby.

As for Modeling and Painting, our club only plays with painted figs, so there's always plenty of oportunity for that and since we play a variety of games it's easier to keep getting stale there as well. Building Terrain is one of my favorite parts of the hobby and it never feels stale to me.

Regarding Homebrewing, there's no sense in "for the heck of it". We houserule all the time either to clear up a rule or for the sake of the game but full on "Homebrew" rules are another thing entirely. A truely good "Homebrew" ruleset is a really tough thing to get right. There are so many great rulesets out there that I've never had trouble finding ruleset that does what I want for a given game, either as-is or with minor modifications. I would never try and bar any one from taking a stab at writing rules, but maybe first look at what's out there already to get some ideas for your own. Otherwise you're likely to wind up with a poor 40k clone and/or an unworkable mess.

Lastly, when it comes to "new hobby', I've been steadlily wargaming for almost a decade now (and sporadically for over a decade before that) but all through that time I've maintained other hobbies, especially music (mostly bass playing in various bands) but also LEGO and more recently model railroading. If you're the type of person who has multiple interests, there's no reason to constrain yourself with just one hobby. Variety being the spice of life and all that.

As far as homebrewing goes, I've written two games for our club to put on as participation games at shows. Sometimes it's fun to do as its own reward (and because no-one that I could find was selling a set of sci-fi "kart-racing" rules).

OK, so one of them started out as Chris Peers' Saurian Safari, but by the time I'd chucked half of the original rules away, it didn't bear much resemblance any more.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
As far as homebrewing goes, I've written two games for our club to put on as participation games at shows. Sometimes it's fun to do as its own reward (and because no-one that I could find was selling a set of sci-fi "kart-racing" rules).

OK, so one of them started out as Chris Peers' Saurian Safari, but by the time I'd chucked half of the original rules away, it didn't bear much resemblance any more.

The "thought process" itself definitely its own reward. The system I am making was once called "the bastard child of 40k, FFG games, and Magic: the Gathering" but it has been quite rewarding to think of a game in terms of edgecases, rules vs player agency, etc.

I picked up an Ironblaster this weekend and am also kitbashing it fot bitz.

No matter how much you enjoying doing something, you'll eventually get sick if it if that's all you do. The trick is have variety without getting hobby ADD.

I have two main hobbies - wargaming & cycling. During a recent lull in motivation to paint, I shifted focus and am now in the middle of a complete rebuild of my bike (and working lots of overtime to save up for a much better one). Once that's done and winter settles in for a few months, I'll get back to the brush. My favorite way to spend a quiet Sunday is to go ride 40 miles or so before sunrise and then paint away the rest of the day.