D&D 5E How many players would use a service like this

[Thomas Rainsborough]

But if someone else designs an entire campaign and writes it up as a module that they sell on DMs Guild or Kickstarter, would you consider that wrong? And if not, why is it wrong for them to charge for their time and effort more directly?

If I thought my stuff was good enough to put up on DM's Guild or Kickstarter to sell, them I would do it. But to say "I am going to DM an existing piece of material, and charge for it", no. That is a different kettle of fish.

Further, as soon as a DM charges and becomes an entertainer, it becomes way way harder to control a table. I only allow a subset of PHB species into my game, and nothing from Tasha's and beyond is available to my players, plus char death is totally possible. Imagine a paid DM stating those terms and expecting to maintain a table. Either the DM's principles vanish, or the players leave. Yes, the vast vast majority of people willing to pay a DM would expect to run their Tortle Monk/ Artificer named Donatello without any pushback, because they plunked down money to play D&D.

 

[Reynard]

It is very different for me when someone crafts an addition to the lore/canon/tool with a 3rd party project, as opposed to someone opening up a module and running a game from that. The site in question seems to be 95% of DM's doing that. I homebrew my entire campaigns, but would never think to sell them as modules, let alone charge people to play in my campaign.

You seem ylto be conflating your personal moral judgement with a broader objective determination of good versus bad. That's nearly always a poor idea.

 

[MarkB]

If I thought my stuff was good enough to put up on DM's Guild or Kickstarter to sell, them I would do it. But to say "I am going to DM an existing piece of material, and charge for it", no. That is a different kettle of fish.

As a player, which would you pay more for from an unknown quantity? Their own homebrew world that you know nothing about, or an established, well-reviewed campaign that you've been itching to try out?

Further, as soon as a DM charges and becomes an entertainer, it becomes way way harder to control a table. I only allow a subset of PHB species into my game, and nothing from Tasha's and beyond is available to my players, plus char death is totally possible. Imagine a paid DM stating those terms and expecting to maintain a table. Either the DM's principles vanish, or the players leave. Yes, the vast vast majority of people willing to pay a DM would expect to run their Tortle Monk/ Artificer named Donatello without any pushback, because they plunked down money to play D&D.

That just means you set out your stall in advance, say what your limits and playstyle are. The players know what they're buying before they put down their cash.

 

[Baldurs_Underdark]

At first, the thing that bothered me about this concept is that I don't see how you can become friends with the guy you pay $ 25-40 per session. Because for me, D&D is all about having fun with friends.

Then I gave it another thought and I realized that I wouldn't mind playing a game with an expert DM. That would not be to make friends, but more like a workshop how to improve my own game. If this would be a short campaign or one-off, and the goal is to become a better player or DM, it might be a good concept and worth the money.

 

[Burnside]

I've been poisoning and blighting the D&D community as a pro GM for about two and a half years now. Wherever I run paid games, dice melt, character sheets crumble, and D&D dies a little inside. Happy to answer any questions about it; I've talked previously about it in this thread starting around this post:

D&D General - Professional DMs making $45k/year off it?

I'm not going to talk about my DM skills and why I personally do or don't deserve to be paid as a DM. But I will say in general about pro DMing:

1. I can't think of one example of a game or sport where having a professional version of it has killed the non-pro version of it. Feel free to correct me.

2. One of the main reasons players gravitate towards pro games is that they happen, on schedule, as scheduled, and the players and DMs are super invested in being there. I also run plenty of non-paid/casual games for friends and the collective commitment to making the game sessions actually happen is starkly different. Part of what people are paying for is the assurance that the game will actually happen when scheduled and people will be there and focused.

3. I think one reason that some folks have a negative reaction towards the idea of pro DMing is that they have only ever DMed for friends and family, so for them "getting paid to DM" means "charging my friends and family." That isn't what pro DMing is. I do think most folks understand that, though.

4. Pro DMing is a reality. It's in its infancy, but it's growing and I don't think it'll go away. I frankly expect WotC to lean into it big in the next few years, and probably integrate a pro DM match-making service into DNDBeyond. So I guess the game is already blighted and poisoned.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I can see $25 per person per session if the sessions are 4-5 hours isn't exactly unfair. It looks like a high pay rate for the DM, sure, but it's not a ridiculous amount for an individual to pay for gaming entertainment of a reasonable duration - and that's probably the more appropriate perspective to consider here.
Hell, if someone can pay their rent on the DMing by selling their services to people willing to pay and do a decent job of it, GOOD ON THEM.

For a point of comparison: $20 for a two-hour movie isn't considered a bad price these days.

 

[overgeeked]

Streamed play sessions were the start of commodification of D&D, and I don't think you could make a serious case for them being the death-knell of the hobby.

The publication of D&D as a box to be sold was the start of the commodification of D&D.

I said hobbies. Neither The Hobby in general nor D&D in specific.

Turning your hobbies into a gig is an amazing way to kill your interest in a hobby.

 

[Greggy C]

I was directed by another DM friend to a website and he asked me my thoughts.

I don't want to promote these clowns, so not giving the website link, but it promotes itself as: "the largest online platform for players to find tabletop roleplaying games and professional GMs for any game system and any virtual tabletop! " I scrolled through their various GM's, and found one guy who thinks he is worth 40 bucks US a session, per player. At those rates, it is almost a gig that pays the mortgage. The average rate seems to be 25 bucks per player per session.

Not asking for any poll, and I don't even know if a fan website is actually an unbiased source, but this kind of thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I have never charged for my DM'ing skills, nor ever will, and never paid, and never will. But apparently there is enough demand to justify it, or at least some think so.

What I find truly egregious, is that many of these vampires are running a module, not even their own stuff.

I find this extremely toxic. When I was a DM it was a massive amount of work. If I were doing a corporate thing, or paying for kids birthday party, or just gathering with friends, of course I would absolutely prefer to pay for a professional DM who has all the materials, content, characters, experience, etc ready to go.

No questions asked, I would find $40 per person very reasonable.

 

[el-remmen]

If I could split the cost with the other players and could afford it (or could afford to pay for it all on my own) I totally would pay for a good DM friend of mine to run games for us as a job- as a "forever DM" I know how much work and time and takes even though I love it, and assuming you have it, it is just money. If you don't have it, that's another thing entirely and obviously expectations are different.

Now, I can imagine not wanting to take money because the expectations would inevitably change - but assuming you are willing to take on those expectations along with the money. . .?

But also I am totally willing to give money to friends if I have it to give. What else is money for? Heck, back when there were two friends we wanted to play with but were living two hours away back in our college town, me and the DM who had already graduated and had full-time jobs chipped in towards paying their roundtrip Trailways bus ticket every two weeks so we could keep getting together - because they would not have been able to afford to otherwise.

 

[ninjayeti]

I care because I see it poisoning the community. There are at least two gaming cafes in my town. One has only free DM's (I am one of them_. The other appears to be allowing only DM's that charge. That is awful. Yes yes, I know...market forces. It does not change the fact this is a blight on the D&D community.

Are you also offended by the concept of restaurants? Has it destroyed people's willingness to throw dinner parties for their friends? Of course not - lots of people are happy to cook and entertain friends for free. But there is also room for people to cook meals upon request for strangers, and those people deserve to charge for their effort and talent.

If you are willing to DM for your friends and community - great! I am sure it is a service that is much appreciated. But not everyone has ready access to a DM that is going to run exactly the game they want on the exact time slot that fits their group's schedule. I don't see why those people can ask someone to run the game they want for free (probably without luck), but can't offer compensation to that person for their skill and effort.