Kind of a shower thought, and maybe it’s just how I run campaigns, but it feels like there’s a lot of parallels between DMing and that guy who has a great idea for a book/movie but will never write a single page.
The DM comes up with “So what if there’s this guy with this magic power, and the only way to beat him is through a very specific process.” And then all the Players decide: who are the characters? What do they do? What do they say? How’s it all work out?
I don’t even hide it. I keep iterating back and forth between running TTRPG games and writing short stories. I do think I’ve started to hit something more satisfying with using a looser system (plug for https://lemmy.world/c/owboybeboprpg devoted to a fairly dead TTRPG that I probably only like because I haven’t done enough research into more popular TTRPG systems)
For me, it was this cycle where I would just get kind of exhausted at the writing process, outlining, writing, editing, and then feeling a bit dejected when its never quite as good as you remembered, then when I DMed tabletop games, it felt like I wanted more control to ideate high level visions for the narrative. They both scratch different itches in the creative process, and sometimes its nice to just switch up the itch.