Tay_Behemoth, are you still in South Korea? As a Korean-American I've always wondered what board gaming and rpg gaming was like in SK. I knew nothing was going on with PnP but wondered about board gaming. In an earlier post you said board gaming was just catching on in these "game rooms"? Are these game rooms part of the PC Bangs (rooms), or are they just for board games?
Professional GM: Possible Return
Captain Commando, please listen to me for your own sake and for the sake of the people close to you. I understand I am an internet nobody, but it seems you are at least reading the threads, if not taking the advice given. I read up to about page 6, if I missed anything but felt I must post, if nothing more than to assist a fellow gamer. I understand you are in a stressful situation due to your father passing away, but business decisions are not made when stressed.
I believe you are making an unwise financial risk that could mean you lose everything.
As a futures trader, I never risk more than 10% of my income and rarely more than 2%. This allows me to take financial risks regularly. Some pay off, others do not. Assuming I risk 10% of my capital for each trade, there is a low statistical chance that I will lose 10 trades in a row.
This is a risk I am willing and able to take, because I am in a financial position where these options are available to me. Even if I lose the trading capital, I am in no danger of starving; my work and other financial interests will eventually replenish my ability to trade again.
You, on the other hand, are living in rooms rented by your mother and are assisted (financially I assume) by your brother. You effectively have little to no income in a city I assume to be very expensive. I'm not sure what food stamps are but basically I assume you are close to destitute.
I believe you are not in a position to take financial risks. Starting ANY new business is a financial risk, ask anyone - I'm sure there's a few on this board who have done so. You are outlaying capital that you simply won't be guaranteed to get back when you have limited abilities to spend money on food!
If you start your GMing position, its in its early stages you must expect that unseen errors or assumptions in your business plan will cause your first earnings to (at least) be less than your full earning potential. I've never opened a new business but you can be certain that new things are shaky.
You are operating under the assumption that you will have some clients. This is a risk you are taking. And if you get none? Then your original financial plan will have failed. You will have no profit and will have spent a lot. At this time, you are still struggling to bring food to the table.
Even if you do continue with your plan, your monthly profit seemed to be $19 dollars. Is that right, or did I misread the column? So in one year, assuming no unforeseen emergencies(!?), you make what, $227?
Assume, for the sake of your financial future, that your brothers assistance dries up and you can no longer live with your mother. Can you support your own lifestyle? I take it the answer is no.
This requires that you shelve this project until a later time when your finances can reasonably absorb the loss. Many of the posters in this thread have been needlessly sarcastic or deliberately hurtful, but they were attempting to assist you. Even the posters who supported you did so conditionally. Be wary!
As I know, you are also looking for jobs. Please practice restraint in interviews. There are many ways to tell people what they want to hear. You may work at Burger King, but if it lets you and your mother eat and save, then at a later, more financially wise point, you could begin to approach game stores.
If you are worried about qualifications, think of your skills. Talk to game stores! I'm certain they need knowledgable staff. You could definately sell yourself as someone who knows a lot about 4e, and can introduce others to the hobby for instance, if you don't want to work the deep fryer.
I believe you are making an unwise financial risk that could mean you lose everything.
As a futures trader, I never risk more than 10% of my income and rarely more than 2%. This allows me to take financial risks regularly. Some pay off, others do not. Assuming I risk 10% of my capital for each trade, there is a low statistical chance that I will lose 10 trades in a row.
This is a risk I am willing and able to take, because I am in a financial position where these options are available to me. Even if I lose the trading capital, I am in no danger of starving; my work and other financial interests will eventually replenish my ability to trade again.
You, on the other hand, are living in rooms rented by your mother and are assisted (financially I assume) by your brother. You effectively have little to no income in a city I assume to be very expensive. I'm not sure what food stamps are but basically I assume you are close to destitute.
I believe you are not in a position to take financial risks. Starting ANY new business is a financial risk, ask anyone - I'm sure there's a few on this board who have done so. You are outlaying capital that you simply won't be guaranteed to get back when you have limited abilities to spend money on food!
If you start your GMing position, its in its early stages you must expect that unseen errors or assumptions in your business plan will cause your first earnings to (at least) be less than your full earning potential. I've never opened a new business but you can be certain that new things are shaky.
You are operating under the assumption that you will have some clients. This is a risk you are taking. And if you get none? Then your original financial plan will have failed. You will have no profit and will have spent a lot. At this time, you are still struggling to bring food to the table.
Even if you do continue with your plan, your monthly profit seemed to be $19 dollars. Is that right, or did I misread the column? So in one year, assuming no unforeseen emergencies(!?), you make what, $227?
Assume, for the sake of your financial future, that your brothers assistance dries up and you can no longer live with your mother. Can you support your own lifestyle? I take it the answer is no.
This requires that you shelve this project until a later time when your finances can reasonably absorb the loss. Many of the posters in this thread have been needlessly sarcastic or deliberately hurtful, but they were attempting to assist you. Even the posters who supported you did so conditionally. Be wary!
As I know, you are also looking for jobs. Please practice restraint in interviews. There are many ways to tell people what they want to hear. You may work at Burger King, but if it lets you and your mother eat and save, then at a later, more financially wise point, you could begin to approach game stores.
If you are worried about qualifications, think of your skills. Talk to game stores! I'm certain they need knowledgable staff. You could definately sell yourself as someone who knows a lot about 4e, and can introduce others to the hobby for instance, if you don't want to work the deep fryer.
Captain_Commando
First Post
Before prepping the RPGA session, it had been a while since I last drew. I'm going to recalibrate myself the next couple of days before I post art up. My art for the Saturday meetup should look good enough for show.
My original estimate for time consumption making original art for sessions was a bit off. The prep and execution for the game I ran for today's RPGA meetup was a very educational experience for me. It was a good practice run. I made some mistakes but managed to get through it okay. I'm going to be participating every week if possible to keep myself practiced and sharpen my skills.
The drawings I did were okay I think but a little rushed. I could do them better but I also have to balance the time consumption so that I'm not over-stretched. I'm going to try to keep them at no more than 12 pics for a standard 4-5 hour session or 25 pics for an extended 8-10 hour session.
I posted an ad in the EN Marketplace with a photo of myself. It's got the address for the business site. The full range of initial services should be complete sometime next week.
I'm considering special discount offers. I'm still open to suggestions on that.
Tav_Behemoth
First Post
That's a good start, but the site link should still be in your .sig file. A Google search for a professional GM (assuming there are people out there searching for one, which isn't likely to be the case; part of why this business plan is difficult is that you have to create a demand, not just tap an existing one) is much more likely to turn up this thread than that ad.
I live in NYC - I visited South Korea in '04 when Behemoth3 was invited to an international game development conference, free airfare & all. This was weird enough that I checked with the State Department to make sure it wasn't a scam! In all probability, they'd mistaken us for a publisher of computer RPGs; certainly every other company we met there was in the video game sector. As part of the trip I tried to learn as much as I could about the Korean hobby gaming scene. At the time, pen and paper RPGs had very little presence despite the huge popularity of MMORPGs. I talked to a publisher who'd done a licensed translation of GURPS, who said they were trying to create a market for Korean-language RPGs where basically none had existed before; there might have been a translation of 2nd ed. D&D IIRC but nothing since then. Certainly none of the Korean MMORPG developers I met with had any understanding that RPGs had ever or could exist without computers, except for my translator who'd played D&D (maybe even OD&D) at a US military base! This was in sharp contrast to the Germans, who definitely had roleplaying backgrounds and were interested in developing a new pen and paper ruleset to be the backbone for a prehistoric cRPG they were working on, and even to the American developers (Cryptic Studios) that were being published by Korean giant NCSoft & hiring PnP talent like Zeb Cook and Shane Hensley to write for City of Heroes.
Board games, on the other hand, had recently undergone a craze similar to the original karaoke bar craze; the first game store had been extremely successful selling eurogames like Settlers of Cataan near Seoul University, to the point where it was staying open 24 hours so fans could play games. The game cafes are like PC bangs in that having a space to play is part of what you pay for, but they're a separate thing - much more like a Barnes & Noble Starbucks cafe than like an internet cafe. There were some native Korean board game developers - one company had produced a licensed Lineage board game, and the owner of the game cafe I met with was also working on self-publishing a family game he'd invented.
The trick is to have good work. Bad art will hurt you more than no art.
One trick I've used is to get a light table (or box), and sketch over a piece that has elements you need. It'll improve your skills, and you can quickly transform a mundane piece into something fantasy.
For my Babylon5 as D&D fantasy game, I re-drew Londo a G'kar as a gnome and dwarf. Took about an hour for each with the light box. Basically I traced their general features and added modifications (eliminating the alien aspects, as well). It worked out well enough, and by redrawing the whole thing, it looked better than "markering in a beard on G'Kar.
Vyvyan Basterd
Adventurer
I checked out your site CC and I think it looks pretty good.
I still question whether anyone would pay your fee. I can't imagine any circumstance where I ever would. Your price-per-person for a group of five could buy a copy of any of the published adventures on Amazon with some change left over. And the adventure would provide at least 4 4-5 hour sessions. For a group of five it places the cost at roughly $1 per person per session to run an adventure like that for themselves (free now that WotC has put up KotS for free). I understand the value of not have to prepare and run the adventure yourself, but the cost difference between $1 and your $25.20 per session would place some big perspective on the value of having you run it instead of me. Especially considering now that most opinions (even those who dislike 4E) center on the fact that 4E is easier to run and more fun for the DM.
I wish you luck, but I'm still not seeing the market for this type of service. Too many people provide this service for free.
I still question whether anyone would pay your fee. I can't imagine any circumstance where I ever would. Your price-per-person for a group of five could buy a copy of any of the published adventures on Amazon with some change left over. And the adventure would provide at least 4 4-5 hour sessions. For a group of five it places the cost at roughly $1 per person per session to run an adventure like that for themselves (free now that WotC has put up KotS for free). I understand the value of not have to prepare and run the adventure yourself, but the cost difference between $1 and your $25.20 per session would place some big perspective on the value of having you run it instead of me. Especially considering now that most opinions (even those who dislike 4E) center on the fact that 4E is easier to run and more fun for the DM.
I wish you luck, but I'm still not seeing the market for this type of service. Too many people provide this service for free.
Agreed.
Your website looks good...professional and well done, if a bit of a menu nightmare on the left-hand side.
Your marketing content's not bad either, though you stress family-friendly an awful lot, which I HIGHLY doubt is the way to go. Are you marketing to gamers, gamers' parents, both, or something more general? I think you're failing in this regard, but you obviously have the tools to improve this area. Work on that.
But your pricing...is...atrocious. I would not pay you this rate for what you do. None of my friends would. Many of my friends LOVE to game, but hate DMing. I'm moving to Cali, so they will be without a regular DM. Guess what? ...they would still never pay your rate. Ever. I can't think of a single gamer of all the ones I've met and played with (and believe me, I'm talking of well over 100 people that I know personally [in varying degrees, of course! I'm not that popular]).
I'm not trying to be mean...you've seen my other posts, and I obviously WANT to like what you're doing, and WANT to respect what you do. But there's no way you'll get this rate, certainly not regularly enough to make it worthwhile.
And the person who posted about your overall profits has the right of it. Unless you're fully booked with clients at the rate you're asking for, you are screwed. And frankly, your rate is ridiculous, so you will never have that much of a client base to even approach fully booked.
If you need interview help, head on over to your local bookstore and look in the self-help section. Honestly. Lots of people immediately think self help = bullsh*%, but you're not working right now, so what have you got to lose if you go to the bookstore and just skim a few books on interview processes, negotiations, etc.?
And there are definitely tons of jobs where you work...as I mentioned, I have a friend out there, and he sees stuff all the time. You might have to dig around a little, but it's there. And it's a lot more lucrative than your business model.
PM if you want interview advice. I've worked for over 35 companies, several of them very big national and international companies. When I go on an interview, I find that I am almost ALWAYS hired on the spot, or by the second interview (even at places that regularly require 3 interviews).
I, on the other hand, think it's a great idea to ignore gamers.
Gamers are cheap. Gamers are cynical. Gamers without fail believe they are smarter than you and can one-up you at any and every turn (as if anybody who reads these or the WotC boards ever needed any of this to be spelled out).
But guess what. There are many people in the world who AREN'T gamers. In fact, I've heard rumors that there are actually MORE people in the world who aren't gamers, than those who are! (I can't confirm this myself though).
You wanna market gaming to gamers who already game on their own terms? You're gonna have a hard time. But, you wanna bring a one-time gaming experience to non-gamers who are curious about it but could never do it by themselves? A novelty experience for the bored couple with nothing to do this Thursday night, whom would think nothing of dropping $30 on an evening's entertainment, even if just to try it for the sake of trying it and later saying it sucked? The world is stuffed with people like that. Go there and you might have a shot. A very long shot, but a shot.
(Edit -> This is not to say I don't endorse also continuing to look for a real job with everything you've got at the same time. That goes without saying I should think)
Last edited:
Captain_Commando
First Post
My target is about $900 a month so I don't need to be fully booked at my rates, just 2-3 sessions a week to meet my needs and turn a profit. Also, my rates are based on actual local entertainment costs. It's between broadway shows and movies in NYC, and it's not for everyone. There are those in NYC who can easily afford this luxury, especially if splitting the cost in a group. The real profit however will probably come from publishing my adventures a little bit later on, whether it's through a game company or through my site as pdf downloads.
The big problem may have been my resumé, which I've been getting help with recently. There were things that I didn't put on it which I probably should have in the beginning. Things like MS word, photoshop, and volunteer work I've done for a church.
Tav's post about his adventures in S. Korea reminded me that someone suggested that I try marketing to military people with this. Ranking officers might be into games that test their teamwork and strategy skills. The war games service I'm going to put up might be a big sell in that case.
A couple of good points on pricing have come up.
If you charge a group rate, that implies a group is trying to book you. If there's a group in existance already, they would be HIGHLY motivated to just do it themselves, rather than pay you.
This means your better target audience is individuals who want to game, but have no group (don't know anybody). What you'd be selling is your ability to GM and put together a group of people.
Since size of group is your problem, not theirs, and the larger the group, the harder it is, stick to charging individuals. If I play in your game, charge me $X. It's not my business that there were 3 or 5 players at the table.
I'd also recommend developing a simple pricing scheme, say a flat rate of $X for a session, and then make sure your adventure was written to take 4 hours. That may mean speed GMing, it may mean giving them a bit of extra (you spend 5 hours with the group, but only charge them for 4 hours).
This would be kind of like how a band might charge $100 a man to play 3 sets in 3 hours, but they spend an hour setting up before the gig, a half-hour tearing down, and travel time. Basically, you deliver a product that an approximate amount of time, but you get paid a flat rate.
For the actual price you charge, you factor in expenses, time spent prepping and working, and compare the time spent versus how much you'd make at your other job (say minimum wage of $6 an hour).
Let's use these numbers:
5 hours adventure writing
5 hours materials making (props, NPCs, hand-outs, etc)
5 hours running a game (4 hour planned, 1 hour of stretch)
That's 15 hours, which working at minimum wage would be: $90
Ideally, you'd want to make $90 minimum to run this a session.
From there, you need to figure out what to charge, you could hit the whole group for 90, but frankly, I'd be mad if I had to pay more, just because YOU couldn't fill all the seats. This is why group pay sucks.
If you optimistically assume the D&D 4 PC party standard (basically, no game if you can't get 4 people), then you'd just divide the $90 by four, and charge each player $22.50. If less show up, you'll have to run some helper NPCs to fill the party and take the pay hit. If more show up, you will be rewarded for your work with a bonus.
I encourage you to take the math I used, and plug in your own values. How much time does it take to prep a game? How long will it take to run a session. Add them, and multiply by the Hourly pay you could reasonably have been making. Then divide by the number of players you realistically expect to have (low-ball it)
The result is the MINIMUM you should charge. You also need to be careful of charging too much, otherwise folks will simply decide its not worth it. Folks can be spendy or tight, it depends on how much they value your product.
Also be aware, that if the minimum $ you calculate sounds too high, that's a warning sign that this is not a viable product to make money on.
The above exercise gets you a minimum price, compared to alternative income sources (basically, a different job). It's the minimum price you're REQUIRED to charge per good economic sense, otherwise, you should be doing something else.
The other math to do is the optimistic math, of how much do I need to charge per your DESIRED, for your target income. After completing the first exercise, you now know how much time each session will take.
You'll want to know the maximum number of sessions you can run (per week), as well as practical levels. In my example, it takes 15 hours per session. Across a 40 hour work week, that's basically 2 sessions a week, maybe 3. Let's pretend 3, and multiple that by 50 weeks (2 weeks off for holidays, because while you may want to work your customers aren't around), I get 150 sessions per year.
Now let's figure out how much money I want to make from this venture. Federal poverty level is $12,000, let's pretend that's my goal.
That means, each session needs to bring in at least $80 (12000/150)
That's actually close to what the other method gave.
However, $12,000 for a full time job is pretty lousy. If we up that to what some starting teachers get (one of the lowest paid "educated" jobs), that's 30-40 thousand. Let's pretend $30,000 because we're not greedy.
You'd need to charge $200 a session. And that's assuming you are FULL time running sessions.
The fact of the matter is, anybody in a self-employed service business (say computer repair, plumbing, etc) is never working full time. There's dead time, driving time where there's no billable work time (which for you, just like a plumber, is time on site, doing the job). This is why they charge a lot of money. Because the customer is not only paying for the time onsite, but also the dry-spell between jobs. Otherwise, you'd go hungry.
This means, you've can't assume a full time load of 3 sessions per week. You've got to assume a slower stream of jobs, and that's just to get realistic estimates. Let's scale back to 1 session a week (because you've assembled a regular group who meets every saturday).
That's 50 sessions for $30,000, which in turn means charging $600 per session, or an assumption of $150 per player in a four player group.
Using my base math of 15 hours of work per session, to make $30,000 a year, assuming a decent level of business, you'd need to charge a minimum of $22.50 just to break even, and $150 per player just to ensure that you met a salary goal.
Just so you know, using the minimum wage comparison of $90 per session times 50 sessions per year is $4,500 which is NOT a lot of money when spread over a year.
Whereas $6 an hour times a 40 hour work week times 50 weeks = $12,000
Also, assume that taxes will be 40% of your income. It'll be less than that, but it's the safe way to make sure you don't get surprised by all the kinds of taxes you'll need to report (federal, medicare, SS, state, local, etc).
I would be curious for you to use my math, with your numbers, and post them here.
That'll tell us what your estimates are and show product viability
If you charge a group rate, that implies a group is trying to book you. If there's a group in existance already, they would be HIGHLY motivated to just do it themselves, rather than pay you.
This means your better target audience is individuals who want to game, but have no group (don't know anybody). What you'd be selling is your ability to GM and put together a group of people.
Since size of group is your problem, not theirs, and the larger the group, the harder it is, stick to charging individuals. If I play in your game, charge me $X. It's not my business that there were 3 or 5 players at the table.
I'd also recommend developing a simple pricing scheme, say a flat rate of $X for a session, and then make sure your adventure was written to take 4 hours. That may mean speed GMing, it may mean giving them a bit of extra (you spend 5 hours with the group, but only charge them for 4 hours).
This would be kind of like how a band might charge $100 a man to play 3 sets in 3 hours, but they spend an hour setting up before the gig, a half-hour tearing down, and travel time. Basically, you deliver a product that an approximate amount of time, but you get paid a flat rate.
For the actual price you charge, you factor in expenses, time spent prepping and working, and compare the time spent versus how much you'd make at your other job (say minimum wage of $6 an hour).
Let's use these numbers:
5 hours adventure writing
5 hours materials making (props, NPCs, hand-outs, etc)
5 hours running a game (4 hour planned, 1 hour of stretch)
That's 15 hours, which working at minimum wage would be: $90
Ideally, you'd want to make $90 minimum to run this a session.
From there, you need to figure out what to charge, you could hit the whole group for 90, but frankly, I'd be mad if I had to pay more, just because YOU couldn't fill all the seats. This is why group pay sucks.
If you optimistically assume the D&D 4 PC party standard (basically, no game if you can't get 4 people), then you'd just divide the $90 by four, and charge each player $22.50. If less show up, you'll have to run some helper NPCs to fill the party and take the pay hit. If more show up, you will be rewarded for your work with a bonus.
I encourage you to take the math I used, and plug in your own values. How much time does it take to prep a game? How long will it take to run a session. Add them, and multiply by the Hourly pay you could reasonably have been making. Then divide by the number of players you realistically expect to have (low-ball it)
The result is the MINIMUM you should charge. You also need to be careful of charging too much, otherwise folks will simply decide its not worth it. Folks can be spendy or tight, it depends on how much they value your product.
Also be aware, that if the minimum $ you calculate sounds too high, that's a warning sign that this is not a viable product to make money on.
The above exercise gets you a minimum price, compared to alternative income sources (basically, a different job). It's the minimum price you're REQUIRED to charge per good economic sense, otherwise, you should be doing something else.
The other math to do is the optimistic math, of how much do I need to charge per your DESIRED, for your target income. After completing the first exercise, you now know how much time each session will take.
You'll want to know the maximum number of sessions you can run (per week), as well as practical levels. In my example, it takes 15 hours per session. Across a 40 hour work week, that's basically 2 sessions a week, maybe 3. Let's pretend 3, and multiple that by 50 weeks (2 weeks off for holidays, because while you may want to work your customers aren't around), I get 150 sessions per year.
Now let's figure out how much money I want to make from this venture. Federal poverty level is $12,000, let's pretend that's my goal.
That means, each session needs to bring in at least $80 (12000/150)
That's actually close to what the other method gave.
However, $12,000 for a full time job is pretty lousy. If we up that to what some starting teachers get (one of the lowest paid "educated" jobs), that's 30-40 thousand. Let's pretend $30,000 because we're not greedy.
You'd need to charge $200 a session. And that's assuming you are FULL time running sessions.
The fact of the matter is, anybody in a self-employed service business (say computer repair, plumbing, etc) is never working full time. There's dead time, driving time where there's no billable work time (which for you, just like a plumber, is time on site, doing the job). This is why they charge a lot of money. Because the customer is not only paying for the time onsite, but also the dry-spell between jobs. Otherwise, you'd go hungry.
This means, you've can't assume a full time load of 3 sessions per week. You've got to assume a slower stream of jobs, and that's just to get realistic estimates. Let's scale back to 1 session a week (because you've assembled a regular group who meets every saturday).
That's 50 sessions for $30,000, which in turn means charging $600 per session, or an assumption of $150 per player in a four player group.
Using my base math of 15 hours of work per session, to make $30,000 a year, assuming a decent level of business, you'd need to charge a minimum of $22.50 just to break even, and $150 per player just to ensure that you met a salary goal.
Just so you know, using the minimum wage comparison of $90 per session times 50 sessions per year is $4,500 which is NOT a lot of money when spread over a year.
Whereas $6 an hour times a 40 hour work week times 50 weeks = $12,000
Also, assume that taxes will be 40% of your income. It'll be less than that, but it's the safe way to make sure you don't get surprised by all the kinds of taxes you'll need to report (federal, medicare, SS, state, local, etc).
I would be curious for you to use my math, with your numbers, and post them here.
That'll tell us what your estimates are and show product viability
Last edited:
Similar Threads
