First foray into paid DMing - 16 session in.

[TheSword]

Hey. So as some will know back in August I took my first steps into paid DMing. It wasn’t something I did lightly but I’ve been DMing for 30+ years, have a theatrical character and believe that if you’re good at something you shouldn’t do it for free. I thought a side hustle might not be a bad thing in this day and age, though I absolutely am not trying to do it for a living or to support myself.

I started off by playing 5 paid sessions myself to see what things were like and I saw a real mixed bag. Some awesome story telling but poor session management, variable attendance and some really weird and wonderful stuff on VTT. Some of which I loved, some seemed awful.

I used Start Playing as a base, and wanted to run WFRP 4e - a system I’m very familiar with both in rules and with the Foundry System and decided to run a set of pre-written adventures from the Ubersreik series. I set my price at $15 a session and wanted to aim for 6 players. Maybe the price is a bit lower than some but it was middle of the range for a niche game like WFRP that took relatively little extra investment beyond what I had already bought. We play for 3 hours at 8pm UK time.

When I came to run it was very different to what I expected. It only took me about two weeks to find five players to start. I advertised on Start Playing, the WFRP discord and on this site. Our first two sessions saw one player drop out and one who was considering playing change their mind. Though by session 4 I reached 6 players and have had the same six for 18 sessions in total. I was really pleased with this. It is about $75 a session after charges which feels like a nice place to start from scratch. I had started with a fortnightly game but after a few sessions did a secret ballot and they unanimously voted to switch to weekly and it’s been that way since session 4.

A little about the players:

• They’re brilliant role players. They get into character and really think about how to interact with the scenes and NPCs
• They all know the WFRP ruleset proficiently.
• they’re polite and respectful to each other and really communicate welll.
• They’re consistent: my average attendance over the 18 weeks is 5.5 players.
• They don’t try rules exploits or come in to be distuptive
• four out of the six are DMs in their own games.
• Three out of the six know the adventurers I’m running familiarly and it doesn’t seem to have spoiled anybody’s enjoyment.

There are some down sides:

• I am always on during a session. I feel the need to be on my game and in manager mode from start to finish. I still have a great deal of fun but I know I’m working.
• Sometimes I really don’t want to game but I’ve made a commitment and people are paying so I feel like I have to show up. That’s a certain amount of pressure. Not overwhelming but it exists nonetheless.
• I spend about 2 hours prep a week to get ready for each session.
• The discord for my group takes a bit of extra time.

Overall though. It has been a fantastic experience. I’m already planning another WFRP campaign for the summer when this one finishes and I would definitely see it as something I’m happy with and proud of.

I just thought I would share these thoughts. See if anyone has had similar experiences or done things differently.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Hey this is cool to read about. I bet when people pony up to play a game they (tend) also tend to be 'on'. Thanks for sharing.

 

[aco175]

Hey this is cool to read about. I bet when people pony up to play a game they (tend) also tend to be 'on'. Thanks for sharing.

This is what I was thinking as well. It is nice to see everyone is showing up and being good players. Maybe paying for it means you are more invested and want to be with others like this.

Is it similar to a convention? I'm not sure. People pay cash for a 4 hour slot and the DM is expected to be on his game, but I expect it is not quite the same.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I was a paid DM for (I think about) 35 sessions of 5e D&D a couple years back, and am looking into getting back into it (I had to wind down my DMing business when I got hired for a more than full time teaching job in rural Alaska which was an amazing experience but which I have since burned out on).

In my experience the players you tend to get for paid games are often just choosing paid games because the particular game works out with their schedule. I do think based on my experience that players with some sort of special need for accommodation are a little more likely to reach out to a "professional DM" they don't know vs. an unpaid DM they don't know, either because they feel less uncomfortable making special requests of a stranger they are paying, or because of the vague veneer of professionalism (though I also mentioned being a public school teacher in my gm bio, so they may have also just correctly picked me out as someone ready to roll with accomodations).

The DM is expected to be "professional" in the sense of not flaky, prepared, knowledgeable of rules, placing player experience ahead of their own, and, as OP alluded to, ready to play even when they don't feel like it, but there is no expectation by most players that they be some sort of "master DM" or even particularly above average in terms of actually handling the game (of course I was charging below the market rate of about $20 a session; if I was charging people $40 a session or something the expectations might be different). I think a lot of people choose to go to paid games because they've had frustrating experiences of free campaigns that keep getting cancelled until they eventually fizzle, and figure (somewhat accurately) that if there's money on the line the DM will show up and other people playing will be serious about playing.

There are some huge downsides of professional DMing. Prep time lowers your hourly "wage" real quick (and people are presumably less likely to see the value in hiring someone if the game doesn't require extensive prep). You have to carve out a time in your week that is even harder to move than a regular game time. The onus to promptly answer Discord messages and the like is higher, and generally there is a lot of overhead to juggling your various groups scheduling that you have to be extra on the ball about. The Startplaying website, at least for newby paid GMs, is very much geared towards the DM picking a game, assembling a campaign, and guessing a time when people will be looking to play, and many games languish with no players or not enough to start, whereas in normal life the order of operations seems to more typically be get a group together and decide collectively on a time, and often also the game or campaign. The easiest D&D campaigns to "sell" seem to be the big published WotC adventures, which naturally have been the beneficiaries of a lot of promotion, but which are more often than not frustrating and byzantine nightmares to try to craft actual prepped campaigns from. Self-promotion is generally obnoxious for many of us, but necessary to get far in paid DMing.

And, of course, there is also the issue of burnout if you're really trying to run enough games to have even a substantial side-hustle. I never really burned out, and to some degree you can just switch the games you run up to avoid this, but I will say that being a professional 2014 5e D&D DM really lowered my patience with 2024 D&D, because it was something that I worried I would have to learn or switch to if I wanted to keep my DMing income stream going. I was mostly out of the hobby by time the edition actually dropped, but I still came to it with some underlying resentment.

In any case, I'm currently planning to try to make another go of it come January (I assume trying to start in December will just result in a lot of extra scheduling headaches). It's got it's problems, but the alternative for me is teaching high school, and if I'm going to spend half my time prepping some sort of content for people to interact with I prefer to do it for an engaged and appreciative audience rather than a bored and resentful one.

 

[Distracted DM]

I've been getting by with it as my primary income for a few years now, 3.5-4hr sessions for $40/seat. If you think you run a good game, don't be afraid to set a higher price. The quality of games out there is really mixed.
When I started I was doing $35/seat, and I tried lowering to $25 as a "summer special" sort of thing, but that didn't really get me long-term players. People that value quality are going to be willing to pay higher prices. Of course you'll be reducing the number of folks that'll apply by going higher, in the end I guess it depends on whether you're trying to just make some extra side cash and have a relaxed experience as a GM, or if you're trying to make money worth your time.. 'cuz as others have side, prep time eats into your hourly income.

All that said, a lot of it's luck. I'm lucky that I have great players that enjoy how I run, some of them play 2-4 sessions/week 'cuz they're in multiple games or 'cuz a game might get multiple sessions/week.

 

[TheSword]

This is what I was thinking as well. It is nice to see everyone is showing up and being good players. Maybe paying for it means you are more invested and want to be with others like this.

Is it similar to a convention? I'm not sure. People pay cash for a 4 hour slot and the DM is expected to be on his game, but I expect it is not quite the same.

Imagine a convention but it’s every week. I’ve learnt that I have to do a lot of the core admin after the session or before my main job on the morning of the session. Something will always come up that gets in the way.

I have a full time job and when I first started the elation of it working make me want to set up a second session right away. I’m glad I held off. I think I’m really enjoying it now as a hobby and the balance is right.

 

[TheSword]

I've been getting by with it as my primary income for a few years now, 3.5-4hr sessions for $40/seat. If you think you run a good game, don't be afraid to set a higher price. The quality of games out there is really mixed.
When I started I was doing $35/seat, and I tried lowering to $25 as a "summer special" sort of thing, but that didn't really get me long-term players. People that value quality are going to be willing to pay higher prices. Of course you'll be reducing the number of folks that'll apply by going higher, in the end I guess it depends on whether you're trying to just make some extra side cash and have a relaxed experience as a GM, or if you're trying to make money worth your time.. 'cuz as others have side, prep time eats into your hourly income.

All that said, a lot of it's luck. I'm lucky that I have great players that enjoy how I run, some of them play 2-4 sessions/week 'cuz they're in multiple games or 'cuz a game might get multiple sessions/week.

Honestly I’m in awe. For you juggling all that, and making it work. For an extended period too. I did check out your profile and it’s clear the players love what you do too.

I am really interested in the sociology of the process. I can definitely see players cross pollinating different sessions, as there are clearly some really enthusiastic folks that just love gaming. It will be really interesting to see if when this campaign closes after about 40 Sessions how many people want to continue on.

One thing I have thoroughly enjoyed is the mix of players. Two Appalachians, two Brit’s, a German and a Pole. It feels like a very Warhammer group. There are tons of different influences coming out and there is a lot of comments in the discord that are great.

Another thing that really surprised me is that the DM players who have read these adventures still seem to really enjoy the sessions and don’t detail things. I basically said if you know the mystery let the players that don’t take the lead and only step in if it feels right. They have said that it’s fun seeing how they play out completely differently. It helps that WFRP can vary wildly in outcomes because of the play style and the high roleplay:combat ratio.

 

[TheSword]

I was a paid DM for (I think about) 35 sessions of 5e D&D a couple years back, and am looking into getting back into it (I had to wind down my DMing business when I got hired for a more than full time teaching job in rural Alaska which was an amazing experience but which I have since burned out on).

In my experience the players you tend to get for paid games are often just choosing paid games because the particular game works out with their schedule. I do think based on my experience that players with some sort of special need for accommodation are a little more likely to reach out to a "professional DM" they don't know vs. an unpaid DM they don't know, either because they feel less uncomfortable making special requests of a stranger they are paying, or because of the vague veneer of professionalism (though I also mentioned being a public school teacher in my gm bio, so they may have also just correctly picked me out as someone ready to roll with accomodations).

The DM is expected to be "professional" in the sense of not flaky, prepared, knowledgeable of rules, placing player experience ahead of their own, and, as OP alluded to, ready to play even when they don't feel like it, but there is no expectation by most players that they be some sort of "master DM" or even particularly above average in terms of actually handling the game (of course I was charging below the market rate of about $20 a session; if I was charging people $40 a session or something the expectations might be different). I think a lot of people choose to go to paid games because they've had frustrating experiences of free campaigns that keep getting cancelled until they eventually fizzle, and figure (somewhat accurately) that if there's money on the line the DM will show up and other people playing will be serious about playing.

There are some huge downsides of professional DMing. Prep time lowers your hourly "wage" real quick (and people are presumably less likely to see the value in hiring someone if the game doesn't require extensive prep). You have to carve out a time in your week that is even harder to move than a regular game time. The onus to promptly answer Discord messages and the like is higher, and generally there is a lot of overhead to juggling your various groups scheduling that you have to be extra on the ball about. The Startplaying website, at least for newby paid GMs, is very much geared towards the DM picking a game, assembling a campaign, and guessing a time when people will be looking to play, and many games languish with no players or not enough to start, whereas in normal life the order of operations seems to more typically be get a group together and decide collectively on a time, and often also the game or campaign. The easiest D&D campaigns to "sell" seem to be the big published WotC adventures, which naturally have been the beneficiaries of a lot of promotion, but which are more often than not frustrating and byzantine nightmares to try to craft actual prepped campaigns from. Self-promotion is generally obnoxious for many of us, but necessary to get far in paid DMing.

And, of course, there is also the issue of burnout if you're really trying to run enough games to have even a substantial side-hustle. I never really burned out, and to some degree you can just switch the games you run up to avoid this, but I will say that being a professional 2014 5e D&D DM really lowered my patience with 2024 D&D, because it was something that I worried I would have to learn or switch to if I wanted to keep my DMing income stream going. I was mostly out of the hobby by time the edition actually dropped, but I still came to it with some underlying resentment.

In any case, I'm currently planning to try to make another go of it come January (I assume trying to start in December will just result in a lot of extra scheduling headaches). It's got it's problems, but the alternative for me is teaching high school, and if I'm going to spend half my time prepping some sort of content for people to interact with I prefer to do it for an engaged and appreciative audience rather than a bored and resentful one.

This all really rings true.

I opted for 8pm UK time. My worry was pleasing nobody and excluding both Brit’s and Eastern Europeans but it seems to be ok. I’d be interested if other groups are similarly international.

 

[Retros_x]

First of all, I really enjoy reading these posts. Before I become an active member of enworld I was a lot in D&D subreddits, and whenever this topic came, so many comments were just "wtf, why are taking money" "you are ruining the hobby" and whatever other nonsense.

• I am always on during a session. I feel the need to be on my game and in manager mode from start to finish. I still have a great deal of fun but I know I’m working.
• Sometimes I really don’t want to game but I’ve made a commitment and people are paying so I feel like I have to show up. That’s a certain amount of pressure. Not overwhelming but it exists nonetheless.

I also thought about paid DMing, but these two points are the main reason I don't do it. Right now TTRPG is a relaxing hobby for me to have some relaxing creative output and some nice social gathering with friends besides my fulltime job. Paid DMing would probably ruin that at least a bit. Also I DM in German and the market is probably much smaller for that.

 

[TheSword]

First of all, I really enjoy reading these posts. Before I become an active member of enworld I was a lot in D&D subreddits, and whenever this topic came, so many comments were just "wtf, why are taking money" "you are ruining the hobby" and whatever other nonsense.


I also thought about paid DMing, but these two points are the main reason I don't do it. Right now TTRPG is a relaxing hobby for me to have some relaxing creative output and some nice social gathering with friends besides my fulltime job. Paid DMing would probably ruin that at least a bit. Also I DM in German and the market is probably much smaller for that.

I think the German would probably be fine. Maybe the market is smaller but it’s still tens of thousands of potential players. There are likely German, Austrian, Swiss players that would prefer to game in German.