Professional GM: Possible Return

[Captain_Commando]

I'm getting a business counceling session tomorrow morning. I hope I can get some good advice.

TODAY'S UPDATE

I'm going to try and create business relationships with other companies and businesses to make this work.

I'm going to be offering promotion and advertisement to game companies in exchange for incentives such as product samples or discount coupons that I can put together as a "gift basket" for clientele.

I'm still waiting for the battlegraphs from Longtooth Studios to arrive but I'll start promoting their product today on the site.

Mongoose Publishing has expressed interest as well.

Local businesses such as chocolate/candy stores/companies and restaurants might bite at this as well.

This could increase the value of my services beyond quality of service and convenience of scheduling.

Following some advice, I've fixed my blog on the site to come off as more professional. I'll try to update my photo tonight.

 

[ProfessorPain]

I am glad to hear you are moving this forward. Sounds like you are making the right connections.

Definitely keep at the business counseling sessions. They really helped me. They will directly challenge many of your assumptions, but the key is to discover what you don't know through their questioning and then go find the answer.

Good Luck!

 

[Bullgrit]

Sorry, I definitely came off wrong. I wasn't trying to call you out...I'm really interested to see if there is any kind of market for what CC is proposing.

Apparently there is.

Please don't take offense...I'll reflect more and post less. If there's any issue with my post, feel free to PM me. I really do apologize.

OK. All’s cool.

As for there being a market: I’d be surprised if a person couldn’t find a way to make this work. I’m not saying someone could necessarily make a good main income living at DMing, but I can definitely see a sideline income, at least, from something like this.

After all, people make money as clowns or magicians at birthday parties. People make money judging or refereeing sports events. People make money mowing lawns, waiting on tables, and standing around wearing clothes (just saw a “live mannequin” this weekend at my local mall).

I think setting up and running a fun RPG session is work worthy of payment.

Bullgrit

 

[Captain_Commando]

After all, people make money as clowns or magicians at birthday parties. People make money judging or refereeing sports events. People make money mowing lawns, waiting on tables, and standing around wearing clothes (just saw a “live mannequin” this weekend at my local mall).

It's become easier to explain what I do to people by comparing it to clowns or magicians thank you very much.

TODAY'S UPDATE

I've shortened standard game sessions to 2 1/2 - 3 hour lengths since I've been told that most potential clients probably can't fit the 4-5 hour length into their schedules. Right now all prices are halved because of the grand opening special ($7, $8.40, or $10.50 a player for a regular session with a normal number of 4 to 6 players). By the time they go back to normal, I may have some really good incentive for continued business. Depending on what sort of business I get this month, maybe I'll reduce the price further.

I've figured out that local businesses are most likely the way to go to creating client benefit packages. Food purveyors in particular. I may be able to get $5 coupons from one gourmet deli in the city and $1 coupons at another. People have to eat so they spend on food anyway. There are other basic necessities or luxuries I can try for as well (chocolate, bath products, barbers/hair salons, etc.). This sort of business partnering could cut the effective cost of my services for most of my potential clients. This may be the key to success.

Video game development teams might be a prime target for my services, probably not for team-building but perhaps for a break away from their computer screens into any place in the cosmos they can imagine. Plus they might see my services as a potential source of inspiration or a good way to brainstorm for their projects.

Delver's Requiem is available for request. I'll be demoing it at the Dave Arneson Memorial at the Compleat Strategist game store. Since It's going to be shorter than 4-5 hours, I'm thinking of a second game I could run at the same table afterwards. A short game that gives a nod to the original Blackmoor.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

So everyone in your group agrees that they'd each pay $8 for a game session?

Also, just checked the revised site. and the pricing is...Hey, Bullgrit, how does your group feel about doubling that price? $16 each for a 5-hour session of WLD sound good to your players?

Now that apologies and acceptance of said apologies were made...

I think these are still valid questions to help CC gauge his market.

DMs who would like to play are definitely a valid market. But CC's plan involves groups hiring him. Would the rest of your group be willing to go from paying you nothing to paying for another DM to run? (I know where you're coming from here. I could probably convince someone in my group to run an extended one-shot, but not a full campaign. Apparently that's my job :/ )

Also, you mentioned a price point value of $8, would you be willing to double that and still consider this to have value? (I mean I like 89 cent tacos at Taco Bell, but I don't think I'd consider them worth the price if they upped the price to $1.78 a taco.)

 

[Bullgrit]

I'd pay $8/hour, and I believe my group would agree (again, compare to movie prices). $16 is too much, unless the gaming experience is excellent, beyond what we could normally get playing among ourselves.

Bullgrit

 

[Piratecat]

The new photo on your site isn't really welcoming. Instead of a head shot, see if you can have someone snap some photos of you while you're GMing. That'd be kind of cool, and will help sell yourself.

One of the reasons I don't think your concept will fly is that it's a tiny market of potential customers who are hard to reach and difficult to sell; you have to create demand instead of having them flock to you, and that's usually the kiss of death. If you're serious about making money through D&D, I'd suggest that instead you write articles for magazines (Kobold Quarterly is a great one) and write many short-short pdfs that you sell for a low cost. Phil Reed did this in 3e incredibly successfully. He ended up with hundreds of pdfs for sale, most just 2-4 pagers that were highly focused, and the aggregate income from his catalog turned out to be a pretty nifty way to earn some cash through his work.

In my opinion, doing that is a far more lucrative use of your time and energy.

 

[Pbartender]

One of the reasons I don't think your concept will fly is that it's a tiny market of potential customers who are hard to reach and difficult to sell; you have to create demand instead of having them flock to you, and that's usually the kiss of death.

This got me thinking... There's another way to market this.

Instead of focusing on gamers as your core customer base (or pehaps in addition to gamers as your core customer base), consider targetting non-gamers.

These are the people who may have heard about D&D and RPGs, and are curious to see what it's actually all about. Offer to a run a short session, with pre-generated characters--not unlike a convention demo game. Keep the adventures straight-forward, and the characters stereotypical. Use simpler rulesets (OD&D or BD&D, maybe). You can play up the "kitch" of the game a little, but don't go too far overboard. You'd want to cultivate a certain amount of gamer-geek atmosphere, because that's what you'd be selling... A couple hours of gamer geekdom for people who aren't ordinarily gamer geeks.

 

[Captain_Commando]

The new photo on your site isn't really welcoming. Instead of a head shot, see if you can have someone snap some photos of you while you're GMing. That'd be kind of cool, and will help sell yourself.

One of the reasons I don't think your concept will fly is that it's a tiny market of potential customers who are hard to reach and difficult to sell; you have to create demand instead of having them flock to you, and that's usually the kiss of death. If you're serious about making money through D&D, I'd suggest that instead you write articles for magazines (Kobold Quarterly is a great one) and write many short-short pdfs that you sell for a low cost. Phil Reed did this in 3e incredibly successfully. He ended up with hundreds of pdfs for sale, most just 2-4 pagers that were highly focused, and the aggregate income from his catalog turned out to be a pretty nifty way to earn some cash through his work.

Actually at a business networking party I met a professional photographer who's willing to trade services.

I passed the test from Reality Deviant Productions. I'm being offered a decent rate (2 cents a word) for a new writer. Once I get established from that I'll try the 2-4 page pdfs as well. By mid 2010, my writing should be in much greater demand.

I really am going to be getting new people into the game. I even give a link to WotC's quick start rules.

Since a new thread chronicling my exploits has been denied, I'll just keep posting updates on this one.

DAVE ARNESON MEMORIAL UPDATE

Today three groups ran games at the Compleat Strategist (the fourth was a no show). It was a decent turnout considering there wasn't a lot of advance notice.

I tested out and demonstrated "Delver's Requiem". I gained a lot of new insight into running the kinds of 1-shots that my writing/design style produces.

I had a big scare when halfway to the game store on the train I noticed that I'd left behind a significant portion of my adventuring notes in my rush. Surprisingly, I was able to reconstruct enough from memory to run the session. There's a big difference at the game table when you're not reading narrative from a script.

The players enjoyed the story and loved the combat. I was told that my story was much deeper than usual fare ( a good thing apparently). My encounter design for combat was likened to the "Legend of Zelda". I was a bit nervous but I managed to tell a good story and I even sang as the story's ghost bard for a particular scene. The diddy I made up was well-received.

I'm feeling more confident about running paid games. I may be able to add new adventures faster than before with the shorter length and the experience I've gained.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

So it's been a couple of weeks now. Have you had a paid session yet, or at the very least an inquiry from someone willing to pay to run a session?

Olaf the Stout