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D&D Goes to Work Part II: Professional Game Masters
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<blockquote data-quote="vandaexpress" data-source="post: 7688024" data-attributes="member: 6790472"><p>This was a fantastic article, Morrus. Bookmarking it for later reference. Two thoughts.</p><p></p><p><strong>Tax Benefits</strong> - A number of people have (correctly) asserted that it would be a rare situation indeed where one could make enough money from GMing to justify the opportunity cost of a typical 9-5 job. That said, for those that are very passionate about the hobby and spend a great deal on their games, there is still a strong financial incentive to find a way to operate it as a business: <strong>taxes</strong>. Even if it's a horrible, failing business that's hemorrhaging cash, the ability to write off some of the expensive purchases as legitimate business expenses is worth considering as a way to make the costs of this hobby easier to manage.*</p><p></p><p><strong>DMing as Advertising</strong> - I've given a great deal of thought to the whole DMing business. For me to do D&D full-time, <strong>the compensation would need to be high five, or low six figures</strong>, otherwise I'm not sure it would be worth the stress, risk, and effort of quitting my day job and taking the entrepreneurial plunge. I'm not convinced there's a way to do this by DMing alone, simply because it <em>isn't scalable</em>. To earn that kind of income for just doing sessions, you would need to adopt a billable hour model similar to that of an attorney, but with considerably more complexity due to the collaborative nature of a fun D&D session. <strong>Hard pass.</strong></p><p></p><p>I think a far more effective way to turn DMing into money is to do so indirectly. Recruit high value players that people enjoy watching play, film sessions, edit them, etc. then upload them as advertising for your own website where you sell RPG products and merchandise. Your videos would have to absolutely knock it out of the park though, attract a viewership outside the D&D community. For example...</p><p></p><p>Anyone remember that guy who filmed himself DMing a group of Porn Stars? I think it was called D&D with Pornstars (at work, otherwise I would find a link). It was just run of the mill D&D with a bunch of conventionally attractive people that you would never expect to play D&D. I have no doubt they were compensated for playing, but even so, listening to (I think) Sasha Gray (do NOT google at work) ask about the political dynamics of a goblin community was... surreal. <strong>I wouldn't go that route exactly, but you better believe I would have no problem compensating attractive, charming, fun people of both genders to play at my table for marketing purposes if I felt I could make a decent ROI off of it on the backend with merchandise sales.</strong></p><p></p><p>A more safe-for-work example would be the recent session with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLEMb_RIZ3o" target="_blank">Vin Diesel</a>.</p><p></p><p>*<strong>Do your research and seek professional advice where appropriate before doing this for tax purposes.</strong> <em>I am <strong>not</strong> advocating tax fraud or anything like it. But I think there are legitimate cases where this could be done, as long as a good faith effort is being made to make money as a result of one's purchases. For instance, I know self-published authors who can justifiably write off parts of their vacation expenses to foreign countries as long as they're using those experiences to help come up with ideas for their next book; e.g. my mother's novels take place in many parts of Europe that she has personally visited.</em></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="vandaexpress, post: 7688024, member: 6790472"] This was a fantastic article, Morrus. Bookmarking it for later reference. Two thoughts. [B]Tax Benefits[/B] - A number of people have (correctly) asserted that it would be a rare situation indeed where one could make enough money from GMing to justify the opportunity cost of a typical 9-5 job. That said, for those that are very passionate about the hobby and spend a great deal on their games, there is still a strong financial incentive to find a way to operate it as a business: [B]taxes[/B]. Even if it's a horrible, failing business that's hemorrhaging cash, the ability to write off some of the expensive purchases as legitimate business expenses is worth considering as a way to make the costs of this hobby easier to manage.* [B]DMing as Advertising[/B] - I've given a great deal of thought to the whole DMing business. For me to do D&D full-time, [B]the compensation would need to be high five, or low six figures[/B], otherwise I'm not sure it would be worth the stress, risk, and effort of quitting my day job and taking the entrepreneurial plunge. I'm not convinced there's a way to do this by DMing alone, simply because it [I]isn't scalable[/I]. To earn that kind of income for just doing sessions, you would need to adopt a billable hour model similar to that of an attorney, but with considerably more complexity due to the collaborative nature of a fun D&D session. [B]Hard pass.[/B] I think a far more effective way to turn DMing into money is to do so indirectly. Recruit high value players that people enjoy watching play, film sessions, edit them, etc. then upload them as advertising for your own website where you sell RPG products and merchandise. Your videos would have to absolutely knock it out of the park though, attract a viewership outside the D&D community. For example... Anyone remember that guy who filmed himself DMing a group of Porn Stars? I think it was called D&D with Pornstars (at work, otherwise I would find a link). It was just run of the mill D&D with a bunch of conventionally attractive people that you would never expect to play D&D. I have no doubt they were compensated for playing, but even so, listening to (I think) Sasha Gray (do NOT google at work) ask about the political dynamics of a goblin community was... surreal. [B]I wouldn't go that route exactly, but you better believe I would have no problem compensating attractive, charming, fun people of both genders to play at my table for marketing purposes if I felt I could make a decent ROI off of it on the backend with merchandise sales.[/B] A more safe-for-work example would be the recent session with [URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLEMb_RIZ3o"]Vin Diesel[/URL]. *[B]Do your research and seek professional advice where appropriate before doing this for tax purposes.[/B] [I]I am [B]not[/B] advocating tax fraud or anything like it. But I think there are legitimate cases where this could be done, as long as a good faith effort is being made to make money as a result of one's purchases. For instance, I know self-published authors who can justifiably write off parts of their vacation expenses to foreign countries as long as they're using those experiences to help come up with ideas for their next book; e.g. my mother's novels take place in many parts of Europe that she has personally visited.[/I] [/QUOTE]
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