Pay for this, pay for that? ...

[Man in the Funny Hat]

In other words, if someone said to me, "you get $100 a month (or whatever) to spend on movies or playing in a really good game with great development and a fantastic DM and group, but you can't have both," I'd choose gaming.

Not a good example because if someone is giving you $100 for either D&D or other entertainments it's being GIVEN to you so it's irrelevant if the DM is paid or the money simply goes for books, minis, munchies, game accessories and other RPG-related stuff. It doesn't address the question of the DM as a paid position versus the DM as a voluntary position among friends/aquaintences. Running the game for pay is very different than those who play for social reasons. It's a matter of BUSINESS versus hobby.

I can't conceive of being a paid DM at this point - but if I did it would a vastly different game than I would otherwise run. A paid DM, a professional, has much stricter social and game management requirements than a DM who simply runs the game for his friends. Indeed, a paid DM has OBLIGATIONS that would otherwise simply never be a consideration.

If someone can accept those responsibilities and find players willing to pay for the understandably altered gaming experience who am I to tell them they're wrong? But D&D to me is too much of a group-participation hobby for me to accept that it can or should be a professionally controlled event.

Nope, I don't care much for the idea of D&D as a "tournament" exercise either.

 

[Driddle]

... people will happily pay strangers for the priviledge of borrowing the use of computer games in a very impersonal arrangement, but think the idea of paying a person they know to devote personalized attention to just them for essentially the same thing but with much more human interaction is a "bad thing(TM)".

I'm also surprised that no one has brought up that people are perfectly willing to pay to watch other people play a game (football, hockey, baseball, etc) and think that there's nothing wrong with the players receiving salaries to play...

I agree with Monte. If we were used to paying, then we'd think nothing of paying. We're used to not paying, thus we don't want to consider giving up our free hobby. ...

Interesting point that the idea is abhorrent mainly because we're used to a free system.

We could probably change that expectation within just a few years ... if we introduced GM-fees first to the younger generation instead of the grumpy ol' farts. New users of any product/service are far more accepting of the funding structure as introduced. A culture shift of sorts.

So instead of fighting the grumpy ol' farts -- "I aint never paid, and I aint never gonna!" -- we introduce newbies with a very clear understanding that, "The guy at the head of the table is spending a lot of time, energy and money prepping the game (and possibly the environment itself) so that you can enjoy yourself. It's appropriate to provide something tangible in return."

 

[Zappo]

And I refuse to pay-to-play games. I've already forked out for a game, I'm not going to pay even more money to actually play it.

I think you should consider this position more carefully. I mostly play MMORPGs nowadays because they work out cheaper than traditional games. A MMORPG client is often free, you only pay the monthly fee, and it takes four months or so before that exceeds the cost of a new traditional game. IME, virtually no traditional game has four months of game in it.

 

[Kanegrundar]

I think you should consider this position more carefully. I mostly play MMORPGs nowadays because they work out cheaper than traditional games. A MMORPG client is often free, you only pay the monthly fee, and it takes four months or so before that exceeds the cost of a new traditional game. IME, virtually no traditional game has four months of game in it.

I agree totally. I spend less on video games now than I did before I started playing MMORPG's. The online games have a much longer lifespan than your average single-player game, so I end up buying fewer titles to fill my gametime.

Kane

 

[Altalazar]

The more correct response for me is that I have, in the past, paid for an online game (Ultima Online when it first came out) but wouldn't pay for a regular DM - for me, that is a hobby between friends, not a business, and I don't think the business model is similar, as others have said.

 

[Abraxas]

But I'm looking at the question as, "if the only way you could play was to pay, would you?"

Even looking at it this way it would be a big no for me. I only play the game with my friends, when my gaming friends were off to the far corners of the world for a while I didn't game. I joined the dart league that my non-gaming friends were in and did that instead.

As for paying for online games - thats also a big no. My friends and I get games that have multiplayer elements and can be played on free servers where we can exclude the general public (tribes was really big for us for a number of years) or at LAN parties. I'm not going to pay to play with the jerks that always seem to be inhabiting the public servers.

 

[Vartan]

"The guy at the head of the table is spending a lot of time, energy and money prepping the game (and possibly the environment itself) so that you can enjoy yourself.

I am the guy at the head of the table, and I enjoy myself immensely. I don't need to be paid: I have a job, and role-playing is strictly a hobby for me. It's something fun that I do with my friends to relax and have a good time. I put a lot of work into my campaign because I enjoy the work myself: I like writing and being creative, and I like the end result of my hard work.

I have spent a lot of money on books, but I did that because I wanted the books, not because a player put a gun to my head and made me buy them; therefore, I'm not entitled to financial compensation for those purchases. If buying books were a hardship for me then I would play with the books I already own.

I prefer to host my games at my apartment because I'm more comfortable there, I don't have to haul around my book collection, and I can easily hop on my computer if I forgot a game document (no laptop here). My players usually bring extra card tables, folding chairs, and their own snacks/beverages. They're always very polite about helping me clean up after the game. Hosting games isn't a hardship for me and, even if it were, we could always go somewhere else.

If I turned to my group halfway through a campaign and said "You need to pay now" then I would be a jerk, and they probably wouldn't pay. If I let them know at the outset of a campaign that I would charge per session then they would probably opt to not pay. Then, I would be left with no game, which would suck because I actually DM for (gasp) my own enjoyment. So no, I don't think I'll be implementing fees any time soon.

Now, my perspective is based on the fact that I play with my friends, and I know that I can always get a game together with them any time our schedules click. I can understand that some people don't have the luxury of a regular group and, for them, the ability to show up at their FLGS on any given Saturday and play is probably worth paying for. However, if the DM wants to keep something like this going then he'd better be really good at what he does: sooner or later those people who always show up and pay to play will look around the table and say "We've got a group right here. We can do this ourselves. Let's go home and start our own campaign."

Any DM who wants to get paid for running a game will be held to a much higher standard than other DMs. Some people on this thread have compared RPGs to movies, video games and professional sporting events. Be careful what you wish for--nobody pays to watch little league baseball, and if a widespread competitive market developed for dungeon mastering then you would realize very quickly that you probably aren't the Barry Bonds of D&D. That being said, I would pay to play in an RPGA event at a con because I know that the DMs are certified, knowledgeable, experienced, organized and intimately familiar with the professionally-designed material that they're running. I would pay to play with Gary Gygax, or any other number of talented RPG writers, because they are seasoned professionals who know role-playing better than anyone else out there.

 

[Driddle]

Obviously, there are several DMs here who are stubborn enough to never-ever, not even if heck freezes over, consider accepting pay for playing a game. With friends. Because it's so gosh darn fun for them. And to do otherwise is unthinkable.

Gawd bless ya. Aint no one gonna try to change your minds or take away your freebie-support niche in the market. The world needs people like you.

For others, though, it's just a matter of time ...

 

[haiiro]

I used to play Ultima Online, and (briefly) Everquest, and I considered my monthly fee money well spent. I agree with those who've said that the fee goes towards the maintenance of servers, etc.

In all the years I've been gaming, I've either been the GM or had friends who were happy to run a game -- I've never needed to pay for it, or be paid for it, and I don't really see the point. Sure, GMing is more work than playing (at least typically), but it's not as though the GM doesn't get quite a bit out of the experience as well.

That said, I wouldn't be offended by the idea of a paid pro GM -- I just can't see myself ponying up.

 

[Zerovoid]

I DM most of the time for my group because its hard to get other people to do it. I like playing RPG's enough that this is better than not playing, but I would rather be a player. If I could play 5$ for an evening of gaming with a good DM, I definatly would. 5$ is cheap for 4 hours of quality entertainment.

I pay to play for WoW and have no objections. Servers and ongoing support for a game are not free, so I don't mind paying for them. Otherwise the game probably couldn't be kept running. But then I think of how Blizzard always ran the Realm's for Diablo 2 on Battlenet for free, and wonder if the overhead from WoW is really that much greater.... They must be making a killing on this game.