WotC WotC partners with Start Playing to connect players and DMs and form tables.

[Vaalingrade]

That's not who the PAYING players are, though. It's Millennials and older.

Joke's on you, we don't have any money!

 

[darjr]

Wait? @Burnside is this based on your sense of things or do you have a reference?

I’m ok with either but a reference would be cool.

 

[Dire Bare]

I don't understand the thinking that says this is promotion for WotC rather than Start Playing. Surely Start Playing is the little fish here, benefiting from the association, not WotC.

Why would WotC participate if there was no benefit to them? Like any business partnership, this benefits both parties. It's visibility and marketing for both companies and hopefully some directly increased revenue for StartPlaying with more folks checking out the service.

 

[Burnside]

Wait? @Burnside is this based on your sense of things or do you have a reference?

I’m ok with either but a reference would be cool.

I'm speaking for myself and the 6 other pro DMs whom I manage. So I think my take-aways aren't meaningless, but also far from a broad scientific study.

 

[Distracted DM]

@Distracted DM thanks for stopping by! This is very interesting to me. I was just talking to another local GM for hire. It’s def getting more common.

If you mean thanks for stopping by the thread you're welcome; if you mean enworld, I've been here a while . I was a little surprised when they announced the event with DDB, but it makes total sense. I'm just a GM on there! It is where most of my players found me.

To be clear, I am well aware of the site's purpose, I just think $20+ per session is a lot. Apparently there are enough people willing to pay the price.

Oh yeah, it's definitely a person-to-person value thing.

Is it for online games only?

Does location matter then?

If any of you run in person does location make a difference for you?

AFAIK it's the same as all the other TTRPG promotions: the adventure's provided for free, GMs that want to participate can put scheduled sessions up on SPG like any other session/game, except marking it as part of the event.
It doesn't have to be online, but I the vast majority of games on SPG are. SPG really just handles payment processing, lets you post your sessions, scheduling etc. and gives visibility since it's the big place for pay to play games. It's not like GMs are managed or advised or anything like that.

In-person games usually charge more than online, but as I said most SPG games are online.

Wow. So you're able to do this full time? How many games a week do you tend to run?

Do you run published adventures or homebrew?

Do you run the same adventure for multiple groups?

Yes, full-time. At my peak I run 5-6 games/week, ~4hrs each session. Most of them online.

Personally I tend to use older adventures as a framework in my own setting and go from there. I have tried running Curse of Strahd a couple times because that's always been the most attractive adventure to players, but I really had to "make it mine" to enjoy running it.

I don't run the exact same adventures for multiple groups because it's all taking place in my own setting that I've been running in for about 10yrs. Before that I ran games in various established settings, depending on the system etc.

But it doesn't really make any sense to run Red Hand of Doom or The Night Below multiple times, by the book, in the same setting. How many times are the aboleth going to try the same plan to take over the world? I can't stick to the book anyway with adventures; I'm very improvisational and reactive to what the characters do- and I riff on their ideas as well as my own... so adventures always get heavily modified and expanded upon based on who's playing and what they do.

For example, I did try running The Night Below twice:

The FIRST time the party had finished Against the Cult of the Reptile God and wanted to do TNB, so I fast-tracked Book 1 (of 3) and got them into the Underdark (book 2) in probably 4-5 sessions. After that I used most of the adventure material for book 2 and added a bunch of stuff that the players were interested in and that made sense in the context of my setting. Sort of an ongoing narrative thing that crosses through different games.
By the time they got to book 3, in 2e the characters are supposed to be ~lvl10... but our 5e party was ~lvl14 due to the 5e XP curve. They did some of the optional stuff, but then beelined for the big boss stuff and we finished the campaign at ~lvl18.

The SECOND time I had one or two players from that first group also playing in this group so I knew I'd have to change it up a little- but I didn't actually run book 1! So I figured I'd try to stick to the book and go from there... but then maybe 6 sessions in the party totally left the planned adventure track to pursue some little side thing that I put in and I ended up having to make it all up on the fly as we went, using some material from different sources as inspiration and framework. They've now made it into the Underdark and "book 2," but at this point it's not really TNB as the adventure but more TNB-inspired the players from the first TNB campaign haven't seen ANYTHING the same, in fact they've seen some things that are direct or indirect results of what they did in the first game.

And once we finished a campaign I'll write little pitches for adventures that I'm interested in running, take suggestions from players, and take a vote on what the players want to do for the next game.

...
OK jeeze that's a huge wall of text.

 

[Burnside]

Why would WotC participate if there was no benefit to them? Like any business partnership, this benefits both parties. It's visibility and marketing for both companies and hopefully some directly increased revenue for StartPlaying with more folks checking out the service.

P sure in this case StartPlaying just paid WotC for the visibility; I don't think WotC is getting a percentage of games off them. But if I was WotC, I would absolutely set that up.

 

[Distracted DM]

That's not who the PAYING players are, though. It's Millennials and older.

Yes, almost all of my players are over 30- most are probably 40 and older!
And I'm a millennial.

 

[Dire Bare]

Well, okay then. Shrug.

I mean, it's not. Mostly because so many people are chilling out over this kind of shenanigan.

Shenanigans? Please.

This is textbook gatekeeping and toxic fandom, IMO. Play the game the way I feel it should be played, or you are engaging in "shenanigans" and ruining the game!

People do need to chill. You play the game the way you want to play it and just relax when other folks choose a different way to engage with the game. Nobody is going to force you or any other player to join in on a paid game, it's a completely optional activity and far from the only way to play D&D.

Sheesh.

 

[darjr]

I'm speaking for myself and the 6 other pro DMs whom I manage. So I think my take-aways aren't meaningless, but also far from a broad scientific study.

Yes, almost all of my players are over 30- most are probably 40 and older!

Thanks!

Yea that's really cool. Nice to know. I wonder if Startplaying posts any kind of numbers or stats? Hmmmm...

 

[Distracted DM]

Thanks!

Yea that's really cool. Nice to know. I wonder if Startplaying posts any kind of numbers or stats? Hmmmm...

To be clear I think there are a lot of younger folks on the site as well- but probably at the lower costs-per-session.
And yeah the info would be really interesting!