D&D General Professional DMs making $45k/year off it?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Financial success in the 21st century often tends to boil down to "do you have a spouse, significant other or a very tight roommate who can cover what you can't?"

 

[LordEntrails]

Does Paypal or Venmo 1099 you at the end of the year?

Don't know. If they are considered a financial institution by US law and think you are a US citizen, they are required to report transfers close to 2000 USD or accounts they think may be used to try and avoid taxes.

 

[Flamestrike]

$15/session is the going rate. There is a business that operates on Roll20 that I believe provides all the campaign materials to a DM and splits the $15 fee with about $12 to the DM and $3 going to the service. I can't vouch for the service, but it would be a way to get into paid DMing without a lot of startup costs.

The first articles on paid DMing I read were geared towards corporate team building events, birthday parties, bachelor/bachelorette parties and the like. I remember one DM quoting $300 a session.

I'm not a fan of the channel linked below but it was in my YouTube recommends a few months back. I just remembered it while writing my reply:

Six campaigns with weekly 3 hour+ sessions. Presuming 5 players (at 25 bucks per session!) that's 725 USD per week.

Pretty full on schedule though putting aside the 20 or so hours of facetime gaming each week over 6 campaigns. I cant imagine the headache of prepping for 6 different campaigns each week.

 

[Zardnaar]

Converting that to NZD, it's just a few thousand less than I earn now, however the reality would probably be that I'd have to charge the same amount ($15/session that people are talking about) meaning I'd likely earn less than that. I think the only problem would be that it'd probably kill DnD for me since I'd be turning it from a hobby I enjoy into a job.

Ones here seen to charge $25 an hour.

45k usd is around 50% more than minimum wage and puts you around the average wage.

Only 30% of the country get the average wage though.

Better than busting your gut on a farm, supermarket, retail, and most jobs that the majority of the population does.

 

[Flamestrike]

The biggest issue BY FAR is getting decent people. I had to deal with some genuinely entitled, disgusting, and sometimes even abusing people.

That's my concern as well.

IRL you always arrange a meet and greet away from the game to feel the other person out; like or not our hobby attracts a lot of really weird people who are disruptive, selfish or have serious social problems that makes gaming with them a chore.

I get that I can always refund them, and sack them like any other player, but it's hard enough finding 5 Good players for a table, let alone enough to run 5-6 different campaigns per week, and then for the ones you do have in a group to mesh together properly.

 

[Flamestrike]

I DM professionally, both in person and online, and also act as an agent for a pool of 8 other pro DMs, hooking up paying players with pro DMs for a small commission, matching their scheduling needs, play style, adventure requests, etc. with the DM who will be the best fit for them. I started the "agent" side when I had more requests for games than I could take on myself. About 1/3rd of our business is running games for kids, incidentally, for which there is a big demand.

We also regularly run free games online. Our biggest source of paying players are people who played in our free games and enjoyed them, and we also want to always make at least some games available for people who can't afford to pay.

I would be happy to answer any questions about it: cast-party.com

The players and DM in your podcast (and I know you're one of the players!) seem very narratively gifted, with a very coherent and in character play style. Excellent characterizations and PC roleplaying. Kudos!

How combat mechanics focused are you?

And how much do your on staff DMs get paid to run a 4 hour session?

 

[Warpiglet-7]

Six campaigns with weekly 3 hour+ sessions. Presuming 5 players (at 25 bucks per session!) that's 725 USD per week.

Pretty full on schedule though putting aside the 20 or so hours of facetime gaming each week over 6 campaigns. I cant imagine the headache of prepping for 6 different campaigns each week.

It sounds every bit as bad many “real jobs.”

I say go for it if you want—-it’s not like you are not earning it.

 

[Burnside]

The players and DM in your podcast (and I know you're one of the players!) seem very narratively gifted, with a very coherent and in character play style. Excellent characterizations and PC roleplaying. Kudos!

How combat mechanics focused are you?

And how much do your on staff DMs get paid to run a 4 hour session?

Thank you very much! I play Renascence the tiefling paladin on that show (that is my profile pic).

We are fairly combat mechanics-focused. On the show, we make an effort to follow the rules as accurately as we can (although of course you can't help but mess up sometimes). The DM runs combats pretty aggressively (as you'll hear if you stick with the show) and tends to run the recommended 6-8 encounters between long rests so our resources get stretched very thin. Some of the players are a little more interested in strategy than others!

We allow each DM to set their own rates, so I can't speak for everyone. But my current personal rates, which are the ones I recommend to our DMs are:

2 hour game - $15 per player
3 hour game - $20 per player
4 hour game - $25 per player

Note that those are for online games. Our in-person games are more expensive, but those tend to be site-specific "events" with lots of bells & whistles including live music, live actor NPCs, custom terrain, hand-out props, etc.

Cast Party takes a 10% commission when we refer players to DMs. There is also a 5% processing fee on the payments from our e-commerce system.

We sometimes also offer a buy-4-get-1-free deal for adult games (i.e. pay for 4 sessions in advance & get an additional session for free).

 

[Burnside]

That's my concern as well.

IRL you always arrange a meet and greet away from the game to feel the other person out; like or not our hobby attracts a lot of really weird people who are disruptive, selfish or have serious social problems that makes gaming with them a chore.

I get that I can always refund them, and sack them like any other player, but it's hard enough finding 5 Good players for a table, let alone enough to run 5-6 different campaigns per week, and then for the ones you do have in a group to mesh together properly.

For open, public games I will only do one-shots (or sometimes 3-4 sessions) for this reason. I personally will not run a long pro campaign unless I have already played with the people in a one-shot first and feel confident it will be a positive experience.