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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7715043" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>Assuming you are my friends, and this is the only game I'm running, I might be willing to do that for the cost of (gluten free) pizza and a couple cans of Dr. Pepper. In other words, I'm doing the work then as a hobby for as much for my pleasure as yours.</p><p></p><p>But if I don't know you, and this is a 'gig', then I wouldn't do it for less than $500 a session.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>No. The material costs here of game books, printer paper, graph paper, and so forth are trivial in the long run compared to the cost of my time. Seriously, running a game is a lot of work. Back when I was younger, I knew DMs putting 40 hours a week into their games in order to run weekly sessions (while working retail during the days and living with their parents). Games like that are priceless. You couldn't afford to pay for them.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>That's what, $9.95 from a used book store? If you supply the module and I get to keep it, then maybe that's a $10 discount.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>If I were to run for you a pre-canned adventure out of a series of adventures that I select, using pregenerated characters of my selection, then we might get that cost down to say $250 a session. That's because I would have already done all the prep work, and been prepared to improvise out of my past experiences with the module which presumably (having run dozens of times) I'm intimately familiar with. And I can choose somewhat linear adventures that are straight forward to run, with the result that I can run this session just by printing out the materials and showing up.</p><p></p><p>My guess is that the professional DM in the article, for his two 'after school' engagements, is doing something similar. He's probably also limiting the session to just two hours, which might get his cost down to $120 for the session. Of course, if your revenue stream got high enough, then it might be worth it to donate time to school and bill it as charitable work for the tax break. I doubt however he's gotten that far into turning this into a career.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7715043, member: 4937"] Assuming you are my friends, and this is the only game I'm running, I might be willing to do that for the cost of (gluten free) pizza and a couple cans of Dr. Pepper. In other words, I'm doing the work then as a hobby for as much for my pleasure as yours. But if I don't know you, and this is a 'gig', then I wouldn't do it for less than $500 a session. No. The material costs here of game books, printer paper, graph paper, and so forth are trivial in the long run compared to the cost of my time. Seriously, running a game is a lot of work. Back when I was younger, I knew DMs putting 40 hours a week into their games in order to run weekly sessions (while working retail during the days and living with their parents). Games like that are priceless. You couldn't afford to pay for them. That's what, $9.95 from a used book store? If you supply the module and I get to keep it, then maybe that's a $10 discount. If I were to run for you a pre-canned adventure out of a series of adventures that I select, using pregenerated characters of my selection, then we might get that cost down to say $250 a session. That's because I would have already done all the prep work, and been prepared to improvise out of my past experiences with the module which presumably (having run dozens of times) I'm intimately familiar with. And I can choose somewhat linear adventures that are straight forward to run, with the result that I can run this session just by printing out the materials and showing up. My guess is that the professional DM in the article, for his two 'after school' engagements, is doing something similar. He's probably also limiting the session to just two hours, which might get his cost down to $120 for the session. Of course, if your revenue stream got high enough, then it might be worth it to donate time to school and bill it as charitable work for the tax break. I doubt however he's gotten that far into turning this into a career. [/QUOTE]
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