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Anyone who has been in the hobby for any length of time has had to deal with it; Hobby Burnout. This can be losing the mojo to paint, abandoning a project half-way through, avoiding playing, etc.

I posted some thoughts on how I deal with it on my Wargame Design blog here:

https://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2024/11/wargame-design-dealing-with-burnout.html

The highlights are:

1. Just Do It! - The hardest part is starting. Therefore, start.
2. Move the goalposts - Change your due dates and goals for yourself
3. Expose yourself to inspiration - Seek out things in other genres to help kickstart you
4. Touch Grass - Go clear your mind with some fresh air

However, there is no "right way" to manage Hobby Burnout. In addition, my incentives for dealing with it are different from yours. Therefore, what I do probably won't work for you and vice-versa. Sometimes, what I listed above doesn't help me either!

Therefore, I am interested in what you do to manage your Hobby Burnout?

I like to play with everything painted myself, BUT my rule for painting is simple.

If it looks good at arm's length, then it is good enough! Most of my painting is base coat + wash and that does the job!

Lower my standards and batch painting helps me finish a lot of projects in a timely way. Speedpaints make it even easier.

I appreciate your approach Bob and I have definitely seen painting as a barrier to entry. Like you, I don't particularly like painting that much.

I manage to get there because I do value the spectacle of a fully-painted game. Even if those paint jobs are not great and the terrain is make-do, homemade, and obviously found materials.

However, I can see how other folks would think about it differently both ways. For me, lowering some of my "finished" standards and let my imagination fill in some of the blanks has helped me get past burn-out. It doesn't have to be awesome, just awesome enough. I can see how various people will have various different tolerances to that approach across the spectrum.



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 Overread wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:


This is why I always point out that gamers are the worst part of the hobby. I never play pickup games because I might end up playing someone I won’t get along with. Everyone should have a group of likeminded friends to game with so they don’t have to deal with people who have a different idea of fun.

At some point you gotta play new pickup games against new people and run the risk that they become new likeminded friends to game with.

Though of course sometimes you're lucky and you've a good group of regulars who are friendly and who basically hang around for years/decades.

I have gone through this over the last three years as I started building up a local wargaming community where none existed before. I guess it worked as three years later we have three FLGS and a bi-weekly club meeting and monthly painting social in our small, rural community. However, I rarely go to any of the Club events anymore because now that we have a community, it did not take long for it to shift from what I had started into a competitive Warhammer 40K focused local meta. I have no interest in that, so mostly just go to the painting Socials.

The people have spoken and I have no intention of trying to move the club away from what they want. There are still a couple of folks I can count on for a non-GW game if I do the pre-planning and prep work, and that is good enough for now.

For me, the hardest part of Wargaming is dealing with other Wargamers. Other than wargaming, I do not have a lot in common with my own local player base. I even have a very different view of how to approach wargaming, so we really don't even have that in common anymore either.