Oofta
Legend
I don't see why that would change. Many DMs, like myself, enjoy DMing for friends but would never "go pro". Just because there's professional [insert just about any hobby or activity] doesn't mean people don't still do it just for fun.
D&D 5E How many players would use a service like this
- Thread starter Thomas Rainsborough
- Start date
I don't see why that would change. Many DMs, like myself, enjoy DMing for friends but would never "go pro". Just because there's professional [insert just about any hobby or activity] doesn't mean people don't still do it just for fun.
Going Pro is a pretty miserable experience. The biggest issue is slowly developing a healthy stable of reliable and reasonable clients who make the experience of running the game a moderately tolerable (and potentially even fun) one. But that takes time. Often a long time. Between then and now you have to handle full customer service issues, entitled crazies, and all manner of trap door spiders who seem reasonable during the initial player interview process, then transform into CR 26 monsters at the table.
That early development phase can take years, and it sucks. And especially today, $25 per player for a 4-5 hour game is barely enough to make ends meet even if you run the same campaign across multiple days with different player groups.
/rant
That early development phase can take years, and it sucks. And especially today, $25 per player for a 4-5 hour game is barely enough to make ends meet even if you run the same campaign across multiple days with different player groups.
/rant
MichaelSomething
Legend
If people are sure such a thing won't work, then they can sit back and let the free hand of the market take care of the issue...
It CAN work. I've done it. But it's a long and involved process that involves the full might of customer service burnout, combined with self employment tax, and potentially (in my case) turning a hobby you love into something unpleasant. I stopped before I was completely burned out, and regained my love of the hobby. But I have incredible respect for the amount of work it takes to go Pro, the emotional and financial consequences that entails, and facing an environment that doesn't think your efforts are worth much (because they are often available for free).
But I agree the free market will handle things as usual.
Vaalingrade
Legend
It is a game about imaginary things, after all!
Ondath
Hero
The problem is precisely that when the free hand starts reorganising things that were originally without a profit motive, good parts of that thing that are not profitable start to disappear. We've seen it with the video game industry where AAA games have become soulless samey stuff, and I'd really rather DMing didn't get the same treatment.
Paul Farquhar
Legend
It is doing, and has been since the 1970s. That's why we don't see much of it. There are very few people who are willing to pay anything approaching the rates required for a paid DM to break even, never mind make significant profits.
There are many times when it is necessary to redirect market forces (which are essentially blind), but this aint one of them. Nothing has essentially changed to make pro-DMing more viable now than it was in the 70s.
My mother used to sell her artwork. Everything she made she used to buy materials to create more art. The hobby paid for itself, but never made any kind of profit. I can't see paid DMing ever going beyond that point.
There is more creativity and diversity in the video game industry than there ever has been, simply because the barrier to entry is so low and access is so high. I don't think we have to worry about some pro DM conglomerate squeezing out the little guy running quirky campaigns or anything.
You may have heard of this thing called the internet...
Paul Farquhar
Legend
Yeah. I don't believe that it has much effect, other than making it more likely that people would actually get to hear about paid DMing. Even if you were running an online game and had significant demand, you can't DM multiple games at the same time, and a game of D&D lasts upwards of three hours. You earn more flipping burgers in McDonalds. And on-line play makes it easier to find a DM who doesn't want paying.
TaranTheWanderer
Legend
The only issue that will ever come up is if certain modules are only allowed to be sold to ‘licensed’ GMs who are forced to pay for their qualifications. This would prevent other people from accessing/paying for those resources and playing them in their home games. I’m not sure if that has happened or if it ever will. Maybe this web site could offer specific adventures to ‘tiered’ DMs who meet a certain requirement. You then create an issue with access to resources.
As it is, anyone can pay for any resource and run it wherever they want. Or just home brew their own.
The argument that nothing that is ‘play’ should cost money isn’t really a good one though. I play soccer and I have to pay a fee to play and the GM-equivalent (the ref) is paid. Nothing is stopping me from getting a group of my buddies together to play pick-up soccer(football) in a field or backyard somewhere.
As it is, anyone can pay for any resource and run it wherever they want. Or just home brew their own.
The argument that nothing that is ‘play’ should cost money isn’t really a good one though. I play soccer and I have to pay a fee to play and the GM-equivalent (the ref) is paid. Nothing is stopping me from getting a group of my buddies together to play pick-up soccer(football) in a field or backyard somewhere.
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As somebody who has been pro DMing for a couple of years now, and also acts as an agent matching players with at stable of other pro DMs, I can tell you that pro DMing is way, way more viable because of the internet. First off because of Covid of course, but just generally because your client pool is now the planet instead of your local area. There is also altogether less overhead running online than in person.
I know of nobody who has gotten rich as a pro DM, but most pro DMs do earn more by the hour than they would flipping burgers. Granted, some jobs flipping burgers might include benefits, but any freelance gig has that issue.
In terms of the hustle and self-marketing, I'm an actor and pro DMing is nowhere near as tough as that in terms of hustle required. If you're not used to gigging, I'm sure it seems like a nightmare. But if you are somebody who is already gigging, as gigging goes it's really not that bad.
It also has not ruined my enjoyment of the game as many here seem to fear it would. I will say this - my publicly advertised games open to anybody are all one-shots. I run long campaigns by invite only or by player request. So I'll only run long-term stuff with players I know well enough to see that they will not be a problem at the table. No amount of money imo is worth being stuck in a 1-2 year campaign with incompatible folks. However, internet evidence aside, 90% of players are great people.
I will also say that a good 1/3rd of clientele for pro games is kids, which I don't see a lot of people in this thread really focusing on. A group of parents will absolutely pay for a DM to run for a group of kids once a week, and in terms of activities you can pay for your kids to do, it's on the lower end in terms of cost and on the higher end in terms of being educational and fostering social skills.
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The "WotC offers a paid license" thing has occurred to me, but I think they know there would be a huge backlash. I also don't see them ever making adventures and then self-limiting the market for them - they want their stuff to be purchased by as many people as possible.
Just a note, it isn't free of income taxes. He owes tax on that money. It's just easier to commit tax evasion when you don't have an employer reporting your income to the government.
TaranTheWanderer
Legend
I agree, which is why I don’t find it a huge issue.
I’d thought about running games for money since I work part time and, living in the Eastern time zone, could run games for Europeans/ earlier time zones during my free mornings. My plan was to also run the same one-shots or short modules so that I’d be very adept at running them and be able to consolidate all my resources into a single VTT game in order to save the work but have high quality presentation. Is this what you do?
Yes on running for Europeans (I'm also Eastern time zone) and yes on having a group of short and long adventures that I'm adept at running (some official WotC stuff, some 3rd party stuff, and some of my own stuff as I also publish adventures on DMsGuild). Re: the VTT content, the top subscription on Roll20 allows you to share content across all your games without actually having to pile it all into the same game at once, which is how I do it. I also have DNDBeyond content sharing for my players, which lets you share with a very generous number of people.
I also offer free games monthly both to attract new clients and because not everybody can afford to pay. And I never run any content for the first time with a paid group - I will always run stuff I've already run at least once for free/friends.
Back when I was pro-DMing a little, I had gigs teaching kids how to play D&D more than once. I took those jobs excitedly, not because I necessarily like gaming with 13 year olds, but because I knew I was growing the hobby.
Paul Farquhar
Legend
Which is where it becomes complicated. The more you earn that way, the more likely it is that the taxman will notice you. And there may be other legal factors to take into account. For example, in the UK if you are supervising children you should have CRB enhanced disclosure. Now, if you are a teacher or something you would have this anyway, but otherwise there is paperwork and a fee to pay. If you don't have it, and something goes wrong, you could find yourself in legal trouble.
I'm wondering what the changes for things like Venmo and Paypal in the US, about what gets one someone a 1099, will affect that at all.
Ondath
Hero
The video game industry is having a boom in creativity and diversity despite the AAA industry. The low barrier for entry and high access is what makes indie games great, but AAA (or worse, hypercasual games) is mired with burnt out employees and soulless design by committee. In AAA games, everything is an open world action RPG with crafting elements and microtransactions and every game company does unethical amounts of unpaid overtime work. And this is pushed without a doubt by profit motives.
That said, I do agree that this isn't an immediate concern for pro DMing. I was simply giving an example of how professionalisation can have externalities.
