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Message: <blockquote data-quote="twofalls" data-source="post: 2319633" data-attributes="member: 23718">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. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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