Poll: Would you pay for space to play?

[farscapesg1]

Since I own a house and game with other adults, no.

When I gamed in high school and college, still no.

Somehow we always found somewhere to game without paying. It was either at a friends house, at a meeting room at college that we had access to, at the student union (cafeteria/shopping/studying building) at college (both as a high-school student and as a college student). Most of my gaming occurred at the college since I was generally drawn to the older gamers instead of those around my own age because they were too immature.

 

[Kanegrundar]

While I don't usually play in public areas. If I had nowhere else to go, I might pay a nominal fee to use a well-done area to game.

Kane

 

[Desdichado]

No, I actually perfer to play at people's houses in a nice relaxed setting.

So do I. And since everyone in my group has a reasonably nice house with a reasonably nice rooms to play in.

I presume that the question refers to a situation in which that isn't the case; the idea of paying for a place to play would never come up in my current group.

 

[Theocrat]

Related Poll and Idea

Hi all-
I saw a related poll about paying DM to run a game.
I'm sure that there are many of us out there that spend thousands of dollars a year on D&D related products, but as a DM I'm certain that a fair number of us spend more than our combined players do.
My "free" group has played at my house for the past 12 years. I have the minitures, the mat's, the books, the books and then a bounty-load more of books. And that is just the 3.0-3.5 stuff. There are so many books from non-WotC publishers out there, that I now limit my intake to Green Ronin's Advanced Players Guide, Game Master Manual, and AEG's Mercenaries (Good and Wild incldued). Otherwise, with WotC's (Paizo's Dragon/Dungeon incldued as WotC) new stuff coming out alone, its too much. Of course the players are more than welcome to purchase Mongoose's or another company's books to get ideas and concepts as well as tactics - I know I have them for that reason - but not to use.

Now on this, should I require the players to pay for the space? No. Becasue I do not want to carry my books somewhere, or to IHOP. The local gaming stores should welcome players there, but then you have the time limit there (when the store closes).

Now to tie the 2 topic togeather, I run a game for a company Wednesday night. I carry all my bounty to them, create and maintain their PC's (eTools helps here). We use their confrense table and it is nice. It's also nice becasue they pay me $150 a session. This is to cover the 5-6hrs of game time, the 1-3 hours of prep and whatever else. Think about it. My "Free" group - I spend about 6-8 hrs a game session preparing, 8-10 hours of gaming and thousands of dollars in books. Why shouldn't the players pay a small portion to play or to play at my house? Is $5 a game too much to ask? At $5 for 4-5 people, that's $20-25 and doesn't even pay for the latest WotC book.

From this experience, I will no longer offer a FREE game at my house or anywhere else. Each game session will be $5 per person. Just the pick up from the people playing is enough to pay for it. Before each session, I have to set up the table (which I paid for jsut for gaming), vaccumme, and clean up. Yeah, everybody else is driving home, and I'm cleaning up - so its about the same time that we all go to bed - but $5 is not going to break the bank and how many times did you drink the host's "X"?

Yeah, with the rising prices of the gaming related books (and minitures - the players have 1 or 2, while the DM has hundreds - 1 reaper mini is $5 [+the hours painting, the paint {i have 423 paints}]), we are going to enter a new era and domain with pay-for-play. I own www.GreyhawkOnline.com - which hosts other related gaming sites (CanonFire, Realms of Evil, others) - at $30/month with no help from the hosted. I'm not complaining, but I am saying that, pay-for-play will become more widespread and tolerated within the next 5-10yrs. In fact, as I'm writting this, I think that my next campaign will be $10. At 27 games for my last "Free" campaign, that would have been $270 per player x 6 = $1620 - I'm sure I spent more than that over the year in books...just ask the wifeFIEND.

Be well, and start to support your DM's better. At least, all pitch in and buy them the DMG II for gosh sake!

Theocrat Issak

 

[KB9JMQ]

You might say I already have. We finished our basement and outfitted one room with bookshelves explicitly for the purposes of gaming.

I didnt make rooms in my new basement but clearly 1/4 of it is for gaming only

I used to rent a room in the public library when I was in jr. high/high school on occasion.

 

[radferth]

I would pay only if the space were quite good and I had the money. Of course, neither has been the case in recent memory, so doen't come up.

 

[Hand of Evil]

yes and once thought about it as a side business, room, table, chairs, and frig, pricing by size, and period. Just did not think the gaming population was big enough.

 

[Jdvn1]

yes and once thought about it as a side business, room, table, chairs, and frig, pricing by size, and period. Just did not think the gaming population was big enough.

I've considered opening a gaming story with a room or two like this in the back. Make sure the table has a grid (or use the Ultimate Table, which has much more), adjustable lights, and possibly a boombox/some sort of music player.

Edit: And beanbags. Can't forget the beanbags.

 

[Umbran]

Depends, but in general, no. For tabletop gaming, I usually prefer the more relaxed feel of a home than some external public place.

 

[Arnwyn]

No. I have a rather awesome gaming set-up at home, so there's no way I'd go anywhere else.