DM For Hire - Rates?

[Ace]

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

MMORPGH and PBM are not face to face D&D games at all. They aren't even close in fact

As for "If all DM's started to charge" Shrug I would quit playing -- no biggy -- its not that fun. Or I'd GM for free

 

[Ace]

Aren't you basically paying for DM's when you play at a con? I know the DM's aren't pocketing the money but you're still paying to play.

You are actually paying for con space and insurance and the like

 

[Ace]

A last though on pay for play GMing. One serious drawback to the whole idea is that"customers demand value" . If a player is paying money for a session he or she is going to feel like they have the right to demand certain things --

A pay GM may be in a situation where he has to follow the RAW slavishly, allow unwanted PC types, give out unwanted (in his eyes) loot, set adventures at the behest of players and more. Under the current system a DM has a great deal of latitude as players are kind of guests -- if they were customers a lot of that lattitude would go away. That would (IME) suck a lot of fun out of GMing

 

[Baron Opal]

I used to work part time at a game store. I got this job mainly to learn about the business and to see if I wanted to run one of my own. The owner had me run a game Monday nights. I built it up to about 12 players a week. Then, the owner had someone else take over the game, and he sent everyone into Ravenloft and pretty much destroyed the campaign. The owner and I had a chat about that, after.

Anyway, some of the other players wanted me to continue that game, but the owner wasn't going to pay me to come out to the store anymore. I proposed that if the players covered my wage, ~$5/hr, I would keep running. They did. I ran a D&D game for a while, then switched to Cyberpunk for a couple of months, and then HERO. On the days that I didn't have anything prepared I ran some boardgames and refunded their money.

So, for about 6 months, I made $20 for about 3.5 hrs of DMing once a week.

Baron Opal

 

[Falkus]

Obviously, they do not have to. But they're no longer going to have a dedicated gaming room. (And I'm no longer going to be paying $300+ a month to play D&D.) I am, BTW, only the DM for one of three, sometimes four, weekly sessions that use my game room.

Fine, you've got something fancy. So what? You don't need that sort of thing to play DnD, and damned if I'm going to pay for an unnecessary luxury. A table, dice and the rulebooks are all you need, and I can't see how having a special sort of room would make the experience any more enjoyable.

 

[Gorrstagg]

I have been a DM now for the last 23 years. And I know there are people out there who want to play with a very experienced DM. I know there are people out there who have expendable wealth, and want to game with someone who knows the rules inside and out. AND to also have a great time.

And some day I may just run a session for pay. But that would be for strangers. My friends, and I game because we love the hobby. They love my stories, and adventures. And I'm the groups primary DM.

Myself, I wouldn't pay to play in a campaign. But I know there are people out there who would.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

At the very least, charging a small fee makes players consider what they are often otherwise taking for granted: use of someone else's time and/or place.

Personally, I wouldn't consider charging unless I had a huge lineup of players beating down my door, or if I was the only DM in town, or if I was running a game world I didn't really enjoy playing, or if someone was foolish enough to pay me so much money that I wouldn't have to work!