D&D 5E How many players would use a service like this

[CleverNickName]

Since I'm the DM for my gaming group, I obviously won't be hiring a DM. But that said: if a DM is willing to run games for a fee, and players are willing to pay that fee, I applaud them. It sounds like everyone is getting what they want, and nobody else is getting harmed.

I just find the whole concept of paying a DM wrong. . . I simply cannot believe that many people are so desperate for a DM that they will pay for one instead of the group having someone step up and do it.

It might not have anything to do with desperation. As you probably know, being a DM is a lot of work and can require a tremendous time commitment. Being a player can mean a time commitment of 3-5 hours, every couple of weeks...but being a DM can easily be 4, even 5 times as much. Not everyone has enough spare time to just "step up" to the DM chair. For gaming groups who can't spend that kind of time, but can spend that kind of money, hiring a professional DM sounds like a valid solution.

EDIT: woops, didn't notice that the OP had been banned. It's a bit pointless to respond, knowing they won't see it.

 

[CleverNickName]

Turning your hobbies into a gig is an amazing way to kill your interest in a hobby.

It's also an amazing way to find success. Work can be enjoyable and fulfilling, after all.

I don't think the cast of Critical Role feels bummed out because they have turned their Thursday-night game into a multimillion-dollar gaming company enjoyed by tens of thousands of people every week. I could be wrong, I don't know them personally and they are talented actors, but they seem pretty interested.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The main issue with "monetizing" or "commodifying" DMing is the same issue with companies creating so-called "play-to-earn" games.

By introducing money into the equation, you radically change the incentives and the purpose of the act. It does, in fact, become labor. That's a risky thing, particularly with something as difficult to evaluate as DMing. It's not, IMO, that there's strictly any kind of "moral" failing involved in doing it. It's that if you do this thing, you're changing the nature of the acts involved, in a way that can do some bad things to both you and the product of your effort.

"Play-to-earn" very, very quickly turns from "cool, I get rewarded for doing things I enjoy" into "oh god, I need to log in for another six hours today and I just do not want to do that right now." Money and transactions create obligations (whether to yourself, e.g. "I need more money for food this month," or to others, e.g. "people paid me for this service, I need to deliver no matter how I feel about it.") They can lock you into stuff you no longer enjoy.

Again, that doesn't mean no one should do this. I think it's cool if there are folks out there who find a way to make that work. But, in general, I think that it is at best unwise for most people and at worst actively harmful, to yourself, to try to get into this. As with any type of modified relationship from the norm, a lot of people who consider it will not be really prepared to do it in a healthy and functional manner, and there are very likely to be negative consequences as a result. That doesn't mean nobody should be allowed. It means people should always be very cautious about considering it.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Pre-capitalist societies did not commodify everything.

There is no such thing as a "pre-capitalist society". Capitalism was invited the first time someone swapped an axe head for some food.

don't think the creator of chess or any other pre-modern board game designed those games with monetisation in mind.

It was used for gambling. The same as dice, cards and Backgammon. Whatever the reason it was fist invented, it was popularised because people could make money with it. Just like D&D. Without monetarisation we would never have heard of chess or D&D.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It's a bit pointless to respond, knowing they won't see it.

They could still read it. And it's a relevant topic for discussion whatever happened to the OP.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Work can be enjoyable and fulfilling

I have heard rumours of this.

 

[Ondath]

There is no such thing as a "pre-capitalist society". Capitalism was invited the first time someone swapped an axe head for some food.

You're simply historically wrong. Capitalism as a mode of production developed in the pre-modern period, and there were millennia of human history before that. We might have had markets and trade before, but the way those concepts worked in pre-modern societies is completely different from what they came to mean in Europe from 16th century onwards. Thinking that capitalism is a natural facet of our existence that did not come about historically is basically capitalist ideology making its tenets invisible. Or as Zizek put it:

(and just to make sure what I'm saying isn't ignored as some left-wing unconfirmed thinkpiece, here's the Wikipedia article for the history of capitalism, for which there would be no need if capitalism was prehistoric)

It was used for gambling. The same as dice, cards and Backgammon. Whatever the reason it was fist invented, it was popularised because people could make money with it. Just like D&D. Without monetarisation we would never have heard of chess or D&D.

There were games use for gambling, yes. But I highly, highly doubt chess was one of them. In fact, historical records say that chess was used for courtly education and not gambling. It was a game used for pastime in the upper classes. Once again, I can see an argument being made for chesspieces and other materials being commodities back then, but the game itself was not.

 

[Reynard]

$25 is comparable to what I typically pay for a movie, popcorn, and soda. So I could probably justify paying it if I thought the DM ran sessions well and I was enjoying the campaign.

But I wouldn’t want to have to round up 3-4 friends and convince them to pony up, as well. At that point, I’d just offer to run the game myself and warn everybody in advance to expect some mediocre DM-img.

I think it is less common for groups to pay for a DM (although I am sure it happens). It is probably more common for someone without a stable group to join a pro game.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

You're simply historically wrong. Capitalism as a mode of production developed in the pre-modern period, and there were millennia of human history before that. We might have had markets and trade before, but the way those concepts worked in pre-modern societies is completely different from what they came to mean in Europe from 16th century onwards. Thinking that capitalism is a natural facet of our existence that did not come about historically is basically capitalist ideology making its tenets invisible. Or as Zizek put it:

(and just to make sure what I'm saying isn't ignored as some left-wing unconfirmed thinkpiece, here's the Wikipedia article for the history of capitalism, for which there would be no need if capitalism was prehistoric)


There were games use for gambling, yes. But I highly, highly doubt chess was one of them. In fact, historical records say that chess was used for courtly education and not gambling. It was a game used for pastime in the upper classes. Once again, I can see an argument being made for chesspieces and other materials being commodities back then, but the game itself was not.

If you want to talk about the ideology of capitalism, sure. But that's very different from commodification - the idea that something I have is of value to someone else, and something they have is of value to me. Ergo an exchange is of benefit to both parties. You can see elements of that in primates, and therefore is probably older than humanity.

This is a very simple fact: if some people had not decided to try and make some money out of their pastime you would not be playing D&D now.

 

[Ondath]

This is a very simple fact: if some people had not decided to try and make some money out of their pastime you would not be playing D&D now.

This is true for D&D as it was developed in the USA in the 70s, in a squarely capitalist society for squarely capitalist needs. What I'm saying is that games like chess and Go were not designed with the goal of making money, and they still work as enjoyable games. By your logic, freeware games should never have reached any popularity. But what usually happens is that a freeware game achieves popularity simply due to the fact that it is good, and then a company buys it or commodifies it, after which the product usually doesn't get that better. Minecraft is a good example of this, I think, and even D&D fits this bill somewhat. TSR actually lost a lot of money trying to defend its product from 3rd party books because they thought it hurt their IP (i.e., they saw D&D as a commodity), but when WotC released OGL D&D gained even more notoriety because people could engage with the ruleset not as a commodity but as a freely usable game. The OSR movement as a whole, for all its good products, relies on the core tenet that there is a game beyond the commodities that everyone can play thanks to OGL. You couldn't have something like that if everyone saw D&D as a commodity and nothing else.