DM For Hire - Rates?

[Raven Crowking]

A good DM gets just as much fun out of a session as the players, so how come its the players who have to pay the DM?

If I were going to go the "pay to play" route, I would suggest it was because the DM is doing a hell of a lot more work than the players. Well, a good DM anyway.

Recently, I bought the WLD with the stipulation that those who wanted to play in it had to fork over $10.00 to help defray the costs. I live in Canada, where the book runs $150.00 retail. By necessity, DMs have to spend more time and money on preparatory materials than players do (admittedly, WOTC is attempting to ammend this somewhat by making tons of player sourcebooks these days, but presumably the DM needs access to every rule the players have, and then some).

I'm running the WLD while I rewrite the d20 rules to better match my homebrew campaign setting. If I was paid to DM eight hours a day, I could run five different four- to six-hour groups, as well as spend two to four hours in daily prep time, on top of the "free time" prep time I already do.

In order to be able to spend the time doing this, I'd have to charge each player approximately $5.00 to 6.00 an hour (Canadian), assuming an average of 4 players and an average "game day" of 5 hours.

If I found 18-20 players in the Toronto area willing to do it ($25.00 a week average, with a minimum of $20.00 a week for a four-hour, and a maximum of $30.00 a week for a five-hour, per-player reduction for parties of 5-6 characters), I'd do it in a heartbeat. I'd even be willing to travel to games...after all, I already commute to work!


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

If I were going to go the "pay to play" route, I would suggest it was because the DM is doing a hell of a lot more work than the players. Well, a good DM anyway.

Recently, I bought the WLD with the stipulation that those who wanted to play in it had to fork over $10.00 to help defray the costs. I live in Canada, where the book runs $150.00 retail. By necessity, DMs have to spend more time and money on preparatory materials than players do (admittedly, WOTC is attempting to ammend this somewhat by making tons of player sourcebooks these days, but presumably the DM needs access to every rule the players have, and then some).

I'm running the WLD while I rewrite the d20 rules to better match my homebrew campaign setting. If I was paid to DM eight hours a day, I could run five different four- to six-hour groups, as well as spend two to four hours in daily prep time, on top of the "free time" prep time I already do.

In order to be able to spend the time doing this, I'd have to charge each player approximately $5.00 to 6.00 an hour (Canadian), assuming an average of 4 players and an average "game day" of 5 hours.

If I found 18-20 players in the Toronto area willing to do it ($25.00 a week average, with a minimum of $20.00 a week for a four-hour, and a maximum of $30.00 a week for a five-hour, per-player reduction for parties of 5-6 characters), I'd do it in a heartbeat. I'd even be willing to travel to games...after all, I already commute to work!


RC

EDIT: Of course, they'd have to be willing to play with my revised rules.

 

[dnabre]

It's game I like to play with friends. I don't pay my friends.

That's my basic feeling.

Of course, I recognize that the DM puts in a lot more work than the rest of us. Also that it falls to the DM to buy more books, often minis and battlemats. Most players I know, and myself, are to make our DMs feel appreciated for this.

Of course DMs generally volunteer to run games, we don't ask them to run or expect them to have piles of books or miniatures or anything. Most groups I play with generally have the table rule that the DM doesn't cheap in. If we're ordering pizza or getting some new module to play, the DM doesn't have to pay his share, we carry him. Seems reasonable to me.

If you're in the sort of situation where you can't find somebody to DM for you to the point you might consider paying for it, I'd suggest that you consider DM'ing yourself. Sometime's it a good way to get a group together. Once you've got the group, DM duties can be moved around or rotated possibly.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

I'll contribute towards the pizza and the beers, no problem with that.

 

[Driddle]

When the DM-for-Hire concept was first proposed here many moons ago, the front man was soundly booed and hissed for seriously suggesting its viability. If I remember correctly -- and trust me, I do -- the issue included such elements as how many in-game perks a DM should promise to his clients for the money paid. For example, should he provide +X weapons in return for additional funds? And should they all sign contracts to avoid misunderstandings?

The "professional DM" was often exagerated to a degree (can you say "pyramid scheme?") and great fun was had -- sometimes at the expense of those sadly lacking patience and/or humor. But if those forward-thinking individuals were still around here to witness the attitude changes revealed in this thread, I'm sure "I TOLD YOU SO!" would be the least expression.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Most groups I play with generally have the table rule that the DM doesn't cheap in. If we're ordering pizza or getting some new module to play, the DM doesn't have to pay his share, we carry him. Seems reasonable to me.

Well, of course, most people don't get paid to DM, do they? However, one can imagine the campaign world that would evolve over an average of eight hours a day, five days a week, with a good 20 to 30 hours of actual play during the week.

Back in second edition, I made a huge dungeon, the Dungeon of Thale, with over 20 levels, each of which had over 100 seperate encounter areas. The dungeon was large enough to support inns, towns, and even cities. Several groups adventured in the same areas, and they often saw the results of one another's dungeon raids. Of course, plundering the one dungeon was not all of the campaign, or even the largest part of it, but it did make for some very interesting evenings and weekends. There was some serious rivalry to open up previously unexplored areas.

(Side note: I think earlier editions were much better for exploration scenarios than 3.X. If nothing else, the regular use of battlemats seems to remove the need to map regions that was inherent in older versions of the game. Also, the sense of the unknown is thwarted by some much being rigorously known. YMMV.)

I would love to be able get paid to DM for no other reason than that work interferes with my gaming! And, tell me truly, who wouldn't like to get paid to play in a fun campaign?


RC

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

I think the key thing people here are missing is that pay-for-play DMs are usually only going to exist in areas where players can't find someone to DM a game for them. If there were DMs available for free, they'd be using them. The other possibility is if the DM is so amazing that he's got people lining up to play in his games; something that I think would be much more rare of a situation.

I think a more accurate poll would be asking how much players would pay when there is no other DM available for free as an alternative. It's very easy to say "No darn way I'm going to pay!" when you've got a plethora of DMs in your area willing to run games for you...

 

[Driddle]

Free market system. If someone is willing to pay, then someone else will provide the service.

 

[devilbat]

I introduced a "pay to play" system in our group about a year and a half ago, and so far it's worked great.

I charge each player $2.50 per session. With that money, I supply the odd beer and Pizza night, and I purchase gaming books to be kept in the group library. Once we even purchased $150 worth of new baby items, for a player whose wife had given birth to their first child.

If a player leaves the group, they agree in advance to forfeit there shares in the group funds as well as lose their access to the library.


Works great.

 

[Janx]

I think the concept here is that the DM-for-hire is the following:
not your friend, the other players are your friends
hired by groups that can't find a DM
hired by companies/organizations to run an event/team-building exercise
is a skilled DM

To make a career out of it, you'd need the following:
Assuming a base salary of $30,000
games last 4-5 hours
run 3 games every weekend (3 days : friday, saturday, sunday)
run 2 corporate team-builder games each week

That's 5 games a week, which is 20-25 hours. Assume the other time is spent working on the games, and pimping the business, so that easily doubles the time commitment to 40-50 hours (like a normal job).

5 games times 50 weeks (assume 2 weeks vacation), and that's 250 games per year.
$30,000 /250 = $120 to charge per session

So, more appropriately, would your group pay $120 to play a "good" game of D&D? That's $30 per player (assuming 4 players). Most folks would say no, but then, that's not the target market of the DM-for-hire.

Another way to look at it, is I just guesstimated what YOUR DM is worth. Have you shown him the proper thanks for the time investment they've made?

Janx