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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7688013" data-attributes="member: 4937">I've always thought the economic cost of being a DM was the biggest barrier to the success of traditional PnP RPGs.Simply put, there are far more players who want to play in RPGs than there are good DMs capable of entertaining them.&nbsp; Most players eventually give up in frustration that the DM isn't capable of giving them what they want.&nbsp; And I'll let you in on my secret.&nbsp; I work on it.&nbsp; That's it.&nbsp; You want to be a great DM that your players praise, put in the sweat.&nbsp; That's almost all there is to it.&nbsp; Everything else is just finesse.&nbsp;&nbsp; If you think you can GM a good game without sweat and blood, you are kidding yourselfThe biggest part of the problem is that for most DMs capable of doing the job, at some point its just no longer worth it.&nbsp;&nbsp; You've got a form of entertainment that often has a low reward to effort ratio as it is, plus you are putting into it 10-20 hours of prep for every 4 hours of session unless you go to some low prep to content model like a megadungeon crawl or a published AP.&nbsp;&nbsp; And frankly, there is no doubt in my mind that more work on my part would yield even better results, but that 10 hours or so is all I can force myself to do most of the time.&nbsp; If you think about what your time as a DM is worth, even subtracting out the value you have that you enjoy what you do, it just staggers the mind.&nbsp; If you charged the players, a 4 hour session for 6 players ought to cost each player about $70 - roughly the cost of something like good tickets to a professional sporting event.&nbsp; More than double that for 8 hour weekend sessions.&nbsp; It becomes understandable after a while why so few people are willing to GM.&nbsp; Even if they don't think of it in monetary terms, what they are giving away in time that could be spent doing something else is ridiculous.&nbsp;&nbsp; And the thing is, even if there was a bunch of players out there with the money and the willingness to shell out that kind of money for a GM, even with that sort of ridiculous sounding money most of the GMs that could do the job could still make more money doing something else with there time.&nbsp; Just like making video games or publishing a PnP game, ultimately its mostly a labor of love for most people.&nbsp; I think that at best, there might be room in the market for a handful of celebrity full time DMs.&nbsp; But IME most people who play PnP games do so because they have an abundance of time and shortage of money.&nbsp;&nbsp; People with an abundance of money and a shortage of time rarely find the reward ratio worth it.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7688013, member: 4937"] I've always thought the economic cost of being a DM was the biggest barrier to the success of traditional PnP RPGs. Simply put, there are far more players who want to play in RPGs than there are good DMs capable of entertaining them. Most players eventually give up in frustration that the DM isn't capable of giving them what they want. And I'll let you in on my secret. I work on it. That's it. You want to be a great DM that your players praise, put in the sweat. That's almost all there is to it. Everything else is just finesse. If you think you can GM a good game without sweat and blood, you are kidding yourself The biggest part of the problem is that for most DMs capable of doing the job, at some point its just no longer worth it. You've got a form of entertainment that often has a low reward to effort ratio as it is, plus you are putting into it 10-20 hours of prep for every 4 hours of session unless you go to some low prep to content model like a megadungeon crawl or a published AP. And frankly, there is no doubt in my mind that more work on my part would yield even better results, but that 10 hours or so is all I can force myself to do most of the time. If you think about what your time as a DM is worth, even subtracting out the value you have that you enjoy what you do, it just staggers the mind. If you charged the players, a 4 hour session for 6 players ought to cost each player about $70 - roughly the cost of something like good tickets to a professional sporting event. More than double that for 8 hour weekend sessions. It becomes understandable after a while why so few people are willing to GM. Even if they don't think of it in monetary terms, what they are giving away in time that could be spent doing something else is ridiculous. And the thing is, even if there was a bunch of players out there with the money and the willingness to shell out that kind of money for a GM, even with that sort of ridiculous sounding money most of the GMs that could do the job could still make more money doing something else with there time. Just like making video games or publishing a PnP game, ultimately its mostly a labor of love for most people. I think that at best, there might be room in the market for a handful of celebrity full time DMs. But IME most people who play PnP games do so because they have an abundance of time and shortage of money. People with an abundance of money and a shortage of time rarely find the reward ratio worth it. [/QUOTE]

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