DM For Hire - Rates?

[twofalls]

Gamers, when rpging was young, had more time than money. We were young too, and so the idea of paying someone to GM seemed absurd. Since GMing was established as a free service back then, and maintained for all these years, there’s a social expectation that it be free. If a GM were to start charging for his services, he'd find a vacuum of players and essentially wouldn't have a game. Paper and Pencil role-players are relatively rare. There isn't a demand for the services of a good GM outside of our smallish ranks, and since within our ranks we have already resolved the social position of the GM, getting paid for it is just not going to happen except under the most unusual of circumstances.

I've been GMing for 25 years. I've spent tens of thousands on game products and in the past five to eight years that spending has increased along with my income. My friends (some of whom I've been running through games for as long as I've been GMing) pay $5 a month in dues which is given to a treasurer. Those funds are spent entirely at my discretion on books for the various games that we play. Do I keep them? Yes. But they are available for everyone to check out of the library, and we have spent the fund in the recent past on buying books for the individual players (copies of Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed as well as the Gamma World PHB for everyone). That’s the closest I think getting paid to GM is going to come for most anyone. I didn't read the thread about the Professional GM, but I'll bet he's not making a living wage at it.

To answer the poll question, I wouldn’t pay for it, but that’s partly because I don’t ever actually play as a player, I always GM. Were I a player, I’d only want to play with friends, and when you start mixing money and friends things can get weird fast. This raises another issue, getting paid and the expectations that come along with that. If you are being paid, and a paying player is being disruptive… your options to deal with it become more limited. Your authority as a whole becomes more confused because you are an employee of the people who are at your table… nah, no thanks.

 

[Driddle]

To make a career out of it, you'd need the following:
Assuming a base salary of $30,000 ...

Not bad figures in your off-the-cuff calculations. But it would more likely be a supplemental income source rather than the main revenue flow, similar to private coaching or lessons. I know several people who have taken their personal hobby skills and turned them into professional instruction money-makers on evenings and weekends -- musician, fencer, seamstress, stained-glass craftsman, etc.

One-on-one attention usually costs $30 per session, which can last 30-90 minutes depending on the activity (and the entrepreneur's value of himself). Group rates tend to be cheaper and/or longer, the idea being that you don't get as much focus -- but the volume works out for the instructor just the same.

 

[Driddle]

Then, of course, there's the potential to train others to become professional GMs, who in turn train others and pay you a small fee, etc. A "triangle" of cash flow, so to speak...

 

[Starglim]

No vote here. It's very difficult for me to picture a group both with enough ready cash to pay a DM, and with nobody in the group capable of running a game, nor a reason why I'd be in that situation personally. The amount I might be prepared to pay would vary according to circumstances that I'm unable to define.

 

[Odhanan]

If there isn't a DM available, I am the DM and I propose a game to my friends (being gamers or not. If not, I introduce them to the game, which I've done this year: that's the only way the hobby can live on).

I play with friends. I don't play to make friends, and I don't play with people that wouldn't become friends. So I wouldn't PAY someone to play. Period.

 

[shaylon]

I chose Zero! There was a time when I wanted to play desperately but had trouble finding enough people to play but I still wouldn't pay. I see people have mentioned what you pay for a movie and such but what you might not be considering is that to play D&D you should at least have the PHB at 40 bucks and I would venture people who play with more than passing interest have at least 300 bucks worth of books in their collection. I never had to pay 300 bucks before I could understand the movie I wanted to go see.

If I was hard up I might pay, but I doubt it.
-Shay

 

[Janx]

I play with friends. I don't play to make friends, and I don't play with people that wouldn't become friends. So I wouldn't PAY someone to play. Period.

Yet how many people here play EverQuest, Ultima Online, FFVI, etc? You're paying somebody to be a DM, in effect (and getting LESS personal attention and more automated GMing).

Plus, consider the PBM (mail, not e-mail) business. Flying Buffalo has been doing this for years. There has been a PBM business for decades that most of y'all don't seem aware of.

Fact is, people ARE paying for DMs in some avenues. Others, they expect work for free.

Put it another way, a GM can charge what the market will bear. If all the good DMs woke up and decided to charge $5 a player, you'd pay, because the GMs that are left are the crappy ones.

Janx

 

[delericho]

If all the good DMs woke up and decided to charge $5 a player, you'd pay, because the GMs that are left are the crappy ones.

I suspect the majority of players would quit instead.

Besides, what would be the point of charging $5 per session per player? That's not enough to attempt to make a living at it, or even to bring in any significant amount of extra money. It's hardly enough to justify the hassle of selling it to the group, and dealing with the backlash. If you're going to charge, might as well do it properly.

Of course, in the example above of a fully-equipped gameroom being used for multiple games (and with a significant price-tag attached, in the form of rent), it is eminently sensible that the players pay to absorb the costs of the game, the same as if the group as a whole had to rent a table in a store. And in that case, it makes sense to charge just enough to cover the costs.)

 

[Zappo]

I don't think it would work. I DM for free, but if I wanted to be paid, I wouldn't want to be paid less than, say, 100$ per session total (about 20$ per player). The reason is, that people that pay for something begin having expectations. They'd want something better. If I have to put in more effort than what I'm putting now, I need to be paid adequate money (especially if I also have to put up with people that aren't my friends and that I potentially don't like). 20$ or so ain't enough.

OTOH, there's no way in the Abyss that I'd pay 20$ for a D&D game, unless it was something like a one-shot with a famous designer at a con. And everyone else I know wouldn't pay that much even for that. For a regular game, we wouldn't pay period.

So, it can't work. Being a DM is too hard work for a small pay, so you've got to do it for free.

 

[Ace]

SNIP COOL SET UP

So I'll be moving, saving the $300+ a month to put toward student loans and the new Suzuki Bandit 1200S I've been eyeing. It's very odd how some people prioritze their entertainment dollar.

Not really odd at all-- D&D is a hang out with the buds casual kind of thing for a lot of people (me included) . There is no reason to be expected to be paid for it. If I called my gaming buddies up and went to the city park and sat around and told stories I wouldn't expect to be paid for it. Thats all D&D really is

If you feel overwhelmed by the stuff you bought or like you aren't getting value for your $ than stop buying the stuff -- you buy D&D stuff for YOU not them anyway

As a side note -- I think some of this paid DM stuff comes from the sheer prep time involved in running D&D -- It takes roughly 1 hour per hour of play to prepare a 3x session IME. That may not seem like a good time investment

if stuff like the SRD and the DMG2 aren't working to keep the fun up than play a rules lighter game. I liek Savage Worlds, Iron Gauntlets or the like. There is a ot less prep time and just as much fun