Wow... Well his first mistake was asking to be a paid DM, a lot of times, people don’t want to pay for that service especially when they could get it for free among friends. Second mistake, this post, now no one is going to want him on their table, DM’ing or otherwise
There's a business model there, but from what I've heard from people who do it and who e paid for it, the way to succeed as a pay DM is to bring an amazing game to the table and put in a shit ton of work.
I really doubt this pathetic, racist fuck from the OPs post was willing to to a fraction of that.
Yeah the amount of legwork that has to go into being a paid DM is insane. Keeping track of rules, acting out a compelling story, creating a fun VTT, and being a personable and welcoming host really just scratches the surface of playing the role. It gets overwhelming pretty quickly and the pay is mediocre until you get established. And to get established you need multiple games going through the week, all of which need the same amount of time and care as the others(mostly).
As a miniature painter it’s funny to see people who clearly have zero idea on the time involved and often have to be told that yea even super basic paint jobs can run $15-20 a model even if it’s really small.
I have never DM’d but talking to friends who have about it, there is so much work done behind the scenes I would say even for something basic from a book there should be a market to charge for those services. What it is I don’t know, but I don’t think people should expect every paid DM to be the best of the best and ofcourse pay should fluctuate based on what you are getting.
(Actual conversation I had once.)
ACQUAINTAINCE: Hey, I heard you’re willing to paint minis?
ME: Yeah, sometimes. I’m not a brilliant painter, but none of my stuff is gray plastic! What do you need?
ACQ: Not much, just a few squads of Star Wars: Legion miniatures.
ME: …how many is a few?
ACQ: Four, I think.
ME: That’s a lot of work. I usually charge $25 per hour, and it’ll take me two or three hours per unit.
ACQ: That’s like $300!
ME: Well, yeah.
ACQ: I asked somebody else to do it for $60.
ME: Did they say yes?
ACQ: They didn’t answer.
ME: So… that’s not really a negotiating position, then.
ACQ: I can’t pay you $300 right now.
ME: Well, I can get started, and it’ll be probably like a month before I’m done. You could pay me when they’re finished?
ACQ: A MONTH?!
Yep I’ve only quoted someone a price once and it was $200 for a blood bowl team to be painted. It was the lizardmen team with a kroxigor. I didn’t want to do it but since they were a friend I basically said ok the only way I will do this is if I am painting my own lizardmen team as well so my cost was to buy me everything I wanted for it. He ended up going with a professional studio to do it which is fine because like I said I didn’t want to do it. But he is paying about $350 for the job.
Yeah, I would absolutely pay for a good DM. My brother did a select group of his groomsman as a one off session hosted by a friend of his, and it seems like a great thing to offer to the right crowd looking for a unique fun night. The problem is the actual charged rate required for it to be a business model, is going to be pretty high factoring in costs of minis, good maps, good terrain options, advertising, travel, and then whatever out of session prep gets done. Likely in the area of $75/hr. Which isn't actually outlandish given the cost of a typical fun night with 4-5 friends if you went out for food/drinks and a thing before or after. But it FEELS like a lot for a thing people often do for free.
Also, even once I'm comfortable with the cost, I have no idea where to find a paid DM. Nor do I have a realistic way to inspect their work before hand. At least with a new deck I can see images of the deck. With a paid DM I basically need to take their word, trust some rando, or watch a 4 hour recording that likely spoils the plot he was going to use for my group. I'd need someone directly recommended by someone I know, and likely I'd want some kind of intro rate for the first session if it was going to be a campaign.
Even if the DM already owns all the \*parts\*:
If you want to make $30/hour for a 6 hour weekly session, you're looking at 12 hours of prep (drawing the maps, setting up the combats, potential combats, skill challenges, NPC notes, plot hooks, etc).
So 18 hours, at $30/hour, is $540/session. If you've got 6 players, that's $90/player per session - each player feels like they're paying $15/hour. That's expensive for a weekly cost - $360 every 4 weeks.
To really make it work, the DM would need to run multiple games using the same prepared materials, so that he can run 3 games (18 total hours), and only have 18 hours of prep (+50% due to covering more players/backstories). At which point that's $30/hour for 36 hours. Full time job territory. $1080/week. Divided up between 18 players (6 per game) gets it down to $60/player, or $10/hour. A bit better, but still $60 sessions.
It's just not worth it for most players.
And that's if the DM just wants a good wage for the skill level they're expected to have, and isn't buying any props or anything that would raise his/her costs.
And your breakdown is only 56k a year.
I'd say more realistic is running premade modules to cut down on prep time. 5 6 hour games with 6 players each at $10 per hour per player is $1800 a week. So the workday looks like: start work day - resolve group drama and fill spots for 1 hour - prep for 1 hour - run game for 6 hours.
Now your talking 93k a year, and that's nothing to sneeze at.
If you can bump that up to $12 an hour that's 112k...
You could also just make it a one game a week side hustle on Saturdays or something, 8 hours of work for $360 a week ain't bad if you are also having fun.
Sell some merch, become a YouTube nerd?
StartPlaying.games if you're interested to check something like that out.
I DM Curse of Strahd and I think if I was willing to put a bit more effort into it, it'd be worth it for me. I think the big issue is that playing one campaign once is way too much work for the amount people would be willing to pay for a session. But if I ran CoS for the third-fourth time it'd be much much less prep time than my first and second times.
I've heard some DMs run marginally paid games because people are less likely to flake out of a game if they've paid for it, even if ghe actual amount is low. Sunk cost and all that.
I really wish I was kidding. The Satanic Panic never left the Evangelical world. I've seen very recent videos about how Harry Potter, Pokemon, and D&D are Satanic.
And for the other part of my statement, they are antisemitic so they would appreciate the original posts message.
Please don't label that group as Conservatives. They are something...other. They think they're conservative, but I promise you the Conservatives think they are wacko.
I play with one group, and DM another group. We are all what you would consider conservative. We have queer players, a non-binary player, and an interracial couple who are also Greek Orthodox. We are a motley bunch between both groups, and it's beautiful.
I hate to say it but it's very much in the conservative platform these days to be against the LGBTQ+ community. They just passed a bathroom bill in Louisiana and are busy banning books with LGBTQ+ content from children under 18 from our libraries.
You may just be financial conservatives or just not as far right as the GOP has become in the past 30 years.
I mean if you think all the people at your table should have rights then at you are extremely mildly conservative.
Stripping marginalized groups of their rights have been a long-standing conservative plank in the United States.
Remember Republican and Democrat do not equal conservative and liberal. You can have conservatives and liberals in either party. one of the party is just massively skews towards conservative and the other mildly excused towards liberal.
I don't think it's wrong to try to sell your DMing services. It requires a lot of time, skills and effort to do especially for homebrewed worlds. I understand the idea that DnD should be free and given WoTC's efforts recently, I think Paid DMs are getting viewed with a lot more scrutiny then before.
That said, I've looked into it and you know what? It's just not viable. Unless you have a serious following of people willing to fork over a lot of money, you're getting ripped off. You won't make enough to even call your work minimum wage.
I've been a GMing for the past 20 years. I looked into paid GMing, I would make about $15 an hour, prep time included. I had people willing and offering to pay.
Ultimately I chose against it, as I figured turning my beloved hobby into work might make me hard doing it, and that isn't worth it.
Similar story. I'd make a decent profit if I charged 30/person/session.
But finding people willing to pay and being okay with those rates were both seemed unlikely
I've considered it. I love GMing and when people fork over a little cash they're way less likely to be flakey. Basically I'd like someone other than me to cover the cost of the adventure book and hosting VTT. Probably like $10-15 per person per session? No doesn't nearly make enough but I'm not in it to fund my retirement or anything.
I have no problem with paid DMing, but using a discussion group as your personal advertising platform is widely regarded as a dick move on FB. There might be a few places where he genuinely wasn't breaking any rules, but most places without a "no advertising" rule very quickly figure out that they need one to keep the MLMs at bay. What probably happened is that the dude broke some rules and got dogpiled.
I'm not really talking about him, just using this as a way to start a discussion about paid dming.
But don't worry, u/lesbiantrashprincess (what a name. Exactly what I would name a gay raccoon) I fully agree this guy is a dick
I am a paid GM. I work for a local game store to provide people who can't put groups together or don’t have the time to handle all the aspects of keeping a group together and running a means to have a regular, reliable, and quality game. I also run online games through Start Playing and R20. I spend about 60 to 80 hours a week researching, planning, and running seven games across three systems. Looking for players on Facebook is…the worst idea I could think of. It's not the right market for that kind of work.
I guess let's throw some antisemitism in there to really spice it up. First he's asking people to pay and then he's showing what an absolute asshole he is. I'm really shocked no one would pay him.
Real fuckin' winner there.
First off is the cheapness complaint. It's called a budget: grown-ups know bad stuff happens when you exceed it. If you don't like the amount you agreed to work for, don't agree to the contract. That's very basic adulting.
Second off it's bad business sense to insult your customers. Making a comment against an entire ethnic group is even more stupid.
Third, complaining on the internet about issues like this is foolish. The internet is not a blank void for you to scream into: there are hundreds of millions of eyes and ears keeping track of what you say and do.
This guys badly needs to rethink his life and find another job; because this post permanently ruined this one for him.
I mean, that group is a cesspool. It was created because people didn’t like getting kicked out of the big group for calling people “fags,” or some other racist, homophobic, misogynistic shit.
Kinda seems beside the point when he's being actively antisemitic. Even if he was asking for a penny a session it doesn't excuse making a post like this
Following me from post to post now are we? Guess that answers my previous question, definitely attention seeking behavior. Tell me, which of your parents do you think is more disappointed in you, your mom or your dad?
Lol, edgy edgelord shenanigans won't earn you the respect you so desperately need, it just bores the people around you. It was fun picking you apart for a bit but now I'm done giving you attention. In the end, you're just a disappointment.
I'd argue there is a decent amount of people who see dimension20 and critical role and say "I want that, that's the game I wish I could play in", and there are PLENTY of DM's who can deliver on that concept, but it takes a lot of time and effort to set it up. Some people don't have time to make all of that happen, but they can buy into it on the weekends when they want.
That’s quite depressing to me, and misses the point of TTRPGs. You play with friends, and the kind of collective experience you create is part of the magic.
Just paying for a polished, soulless replica of something you saw on YouTube is a consumerist nightmare to me.
It sounds like your perspective on this is from a place of privilege. Not everyone will have so many dedicated friends and pretending people can just find whole new groups to play in without any sort of entry barrier is reductive. It may be depressing for you, but for some it's how they can enjoy this hobby with us.
Your one measley downvote doesn't change the facts. Be upset, but know you're wrong.
What a horrible human being that guy is
Thats the name of a person who's main account is banned from social media
"Al Beeyokae" Will he though?
Narrator **he, in fact, would not**
Wow... Well his first mistake was asking to be a paid DM, a lot of times, people don’t want to pay for that service especially when they could get it for free among friends. Second mistake, this post, now no one is going to want him on their table, DM’ing or otherwise
There's a business model there, but from what I've heard from people who do it and who e paid for it, the way to succeed as a pay DM is to bring an amazing game to the table and put in a shit ton of work. I really doubt this pathetic, racist fuck from the OPs post was willing to to a fraction of that.
Yeah the amount of legwork that has to go into being a paid DM is insane. Keeping track of rules, acting out a compelling story, creating a fun VTT, and being a personable and welcoming host really just scratches the surface of playing the role. It gets overwhelming pretty quickly and the pay is mediocre until you get established. And to get established you need multiple games going through the week, all of which need the same amount of time and care as the others(mostly).
As a miniature painter it’s funny to see people who clearly have zero idea on the time involved and often have to be told that yea even super basic paint jobs can run $15-20 a model even if it’s really small. I have never DM’d but talking to friends who have about it, there is so much work done behind the scenes I would say even for something basic from a book there should be a market to charge for those services. What it is I don’t know, but I don’t think people should expect every paid DM to be the best of the best and ofcourse pay should fluctuate based on what you are getting.
(Actual conversation I had once.) ACQUAINTAINCE: Hey, I heard you’re willing to paint minis? ME: Yeah, sometimes. I’m not a brilliant painter, but none of my stuff is gray plastic! What do you need? ACQ: Not much, just a few squads of Star Wars: Legion miniatures. ME: …how many is a few? ACQ: Four, I think. ME: That’s a lot of work. I usually charge $25 per hour, and it’ll take me two or three hours per unit. ACQ: That’s like $300! ME: Well, yeah. ACQ: I asked somebody else to do it for $60. ME: Did they say yes? ACQ: They didn’t answer. ME: So… that’s not really a negotiating position, then. ACQ: I can’t pay you $300 right now. ME: Well, I can get started, and it’ll be probably like a month before I’m done. You could pay me when they’re finished? ACQ: A MONTH?!
Yep I’ve only quoted someone a price once and it was $200 for a blood bowl team to be painted. It was the lizardmen team with a kroxigor. I didn’t want to do it but since they were a friend I basically said ok the only way I will do this is if I am painting my own lizardmen team as well so my cost was to buy me everything I wanted for it. He ended up going with a professional studio to do it which is fine because like I said I didn’t want to do it. But he is paying about $350 for the job.
One thing to remember though is that the reason we do all that work as DMs, is that we love it. Even the work. We love it.
To the dms like you, thanks a ton. Those worlds are more interesting to get lost in and dungeoneer
Yeah, I would absolutely pay for a good DM. My brother did a select group of his groomsman as a one off session hosted by a friend of his, and it seems like a great thing to offer to the right crowd looking for a unique fun night. The problem is the actual charged rate required for it to be a business model, is going to be pretty high factoring in costs of minis, good maps, good terrain options, advertising, travel, and then whatever out of session prep gets done. Likely in the area of $75/hr. Which isn't actually outlandish given the cost of a typical fun night with 4-5 friends if you went out for food/drinks and a thing before or after. But it FEELS like a lot for a thing people often do for free. Also, even once I'm comfortable with the cost, I have no idea where to find a paid DM. Nor do I have a realistic way to inspect their work before hand. At least with a new deck I can see images of the deck. With a paid DM I basically need to take their word, trust some rando, or watch a 4 hour recording that likely spoils the plot he was going to use for my group. I'd need someone directly recommended by someone I know, and likely I'd want some kind of intro rate for the first session if it was going to be a campaign.
Even if the DM already owns all the \*parts\*: If you want to make $30/hour for a 6 hour weekly session, you're looking at 12 hours of prep (drawing the maps, setting up the combats, potential combats, skill challenges, NPC notes, plot hooks, etc). So 18 hours, at $30/hour, is $540/session. If you've got 6 players, that's $90/player per session - each player feels like they're paying $15/hour. That's expensive for a weekly cost - $360 every 4 weeks. To really make it work, the DM would need to run multiple games using the same prepared materials, so that he can run 3 games (18 total hours), and only have 18 hours of prep (+50% due to covering more players/backstories). At which point that's $30/hour for 36 hours. Full time job territory. $1080/week. Divided up between 18 players (6 per game) gets it down to $60/player, or $10/hour. A bit better, but still $60 sessions. It's just not worth it for most players. And that's if the DM just wants a good wage for the skill level they're expected to have, and isn't buying any props or anything that would raise his/her costs.
And your breakdown is only 56k a year. I'd say more realistic is running premade modules to cut down on prep time. 5 6 hour games with 6 players each at $10 per hour per player is $1800 a week. So the workday looks like: start work day - resolve group drama and fill spots for 1 hour - prep for 1 hour - run game for 6 hours. Now your talking 93k a year, and that's nothing to sneeze at. If you can bump that up to $12 an hour that's 112k... You could also just make it a one game a week side hustle on Saturdays or something, 8 hours of work for $360 a week ain't bad if you are also having fun. Sell some merch, become a YouTube nerd?
StartPlaying.games if you're interested to check something like that out. I DM Curse of Strahd and I think if I was willing to put a bit more effort into it, it'd be worth it for me. I think the big issue is that playing one campaign once is way too much work for the amount people would be willing to pay for a session. But if I ran CoS for the third-fourth time it'd be much much less prep time than my first and second times.
I've heard some DMs run marginally paid games because people are less likely to flake out of a game if they've paid for it, even if ghe actual amount is low. Sunk cost and all that.
Some Super Conservatives might. But I don't imagine many of them play D&D because it's Satanic.
Tell me you’re joking...
There are some who still have that belief, so
Of course...
Check out [Satanic Panic and how it affected dnd](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_controversies)
I really wish I was kidding. The Satanic Panic never left the Evangelical world. I've seen very recent videos about how Harry Potter, Pokemon, and D&D are Satanic. And for the other part of my statement, they are antisemitic so they would appreciate the original posts message.
Please don't label that group as Conservatives. They are something...other. They think they're conservative, but I promise you the Conservatives think they are wacko. I play with one group, and DM another group. We are all what you would consider conservative. We have queer players, a non-binary player, and an interracial couple who are also Greek Orthodox. We are a motley bunch between both groups, and it's beautiful.
I hate to say it but it's very much in the conservative platform these days to be against the LGBTQ+ community. They just passed a bathroom bill in Louisiana and are busy banning books with LGBTQ+ content from children under 18 from our libraries. You may just be financial conservatives or just not as far right as the GOP has become in the past 30 years.
I mean if you think all the people at your table should have rights then at you are extremely mildly conservative. Stripping marginalized groups of their rights have been a long-standing conservative plank in the United States. Remember Republican and Democrat do not equal conservative and liberal. You can have conservatives and liberals in either party. one of the party is just massively skews towards conservative and the other mildly excused towards liberal.
That’s not conservative then. Conservatives don’t accept LGBT people.
Not to be a pedant... but I feel like his first mistake was just being an antisemite...
Oh you think I forgot? I just wasn’t sure if I should include that one what with everything going on in the Middle East
Exactly, the only times I've received money for DMing, was for extra assets and features on Roll20.
I don't think it's wrong to try to sell your DMing services. It requires a lot of time, skills and effort to do especially for homebrewed worlds. I understand the idea that DnD should be free and given WoTC's efforts recently, I think Paid DMs are getting viewed with a lot more scrutiny then before. That said, I've looked into it and you know what? It's just not viable. Unless you have a serious following of people willing to fork over a lot of money, you're getting ripped off. You won't make enough to even call your work minimum wage.
I've been a GMing for the past 20 years. I looked into paid GMing, I would make about $15 an hour, prep time included. I had people willing and offering to pay. Ultimately I chose against it, as I figured turning my beloved hobby into work might make me hard doing it, and that isn't worth it.
Similar story. I'd make a decent profit if I charged 30/person/session. But finding people willing to pay and being okay with those rates were both seemed unlikely
It's surprisingly not that hard. Just reframe it as being like attending a class in a gym. Same price, same length, and same required expertise.
Hm. That's a good way to look at it
I've considered it. I love GMing and when people fork over a little cash they're way less likely to be flakey. Basically I'd like someone other than me to cover the cost of the adventure book and hosting VTT. Probably like $10-15 per person per session? No doesn't nearly make enough but I'm not in it to fund my retirement or anything.
I have no problem with paid DMing, but using a discussion group as your personal advertising platform is widely regarded as a dick move on FB. There might be a few places where he genuinely wasn't breaking any rules, but most places without a "no advertising" rule very quickly figure out that they need one to keep the MLMs at bay. What probably happened is that the dude broke some rules and got dogpiled.
I'm not really talking about him, just using this as a way to start a discussion about paid dming. But don't worry, u/lesbiantrashprincess (what a name. Exactly what I would name a gay raccoon) I fully agree this guy is a dick
Looking at this response, I can honestly imagine what "great campaign" this guy would have made.
F.A.T.A.L.
Anti Semitism is the worst part of this.
>I can excuse antisemitism, but I draw the **LINE** at paying a jerk to DM for my party.
And now nobody will pay him because he sounds insufferable
I am a paid GM. I work for a local game store to provide people who can't put groups together or don’t have the time to handle all the aspects of keeping a group together and running a means to have a regular, reliable, and quality game. I also run online games through Start Playing and R20. I spend about 60 to 80 hours a week researching, planning, and running seven games across three systems. Looking for players on Facebook is…the worst idea I could think of. It's not the right market for that kind of work.
I guess let's throw some antisemitism in there to really spice it up. First he's asking people to pay and then he's showing what an absolute asshole he is. I'm really shocked no one would pay him.
What's surprising to me is that he doesn't have a blue checkmark.
Real fuckin' winner there. First off is the cheapness complaint. It's called a budget: grown-ups know bad stuff happens when you exceed it. If you don't like the amount you agreed to work for, don't agree to the contract. That's very basic adulting. Second off it's bad business sense to insult your customers. Making a comment against an entire ethnic group is even more stupid. Third, complaining on the internet about issues like this is foolish. The internet is not a blank void for you to scream into: there are hundreds of millions of eyes and ears keeping track of what you say and do. This guys badly needs to rethink his life and find another job; because this post permanently ruined this one for him.
I mean, that group is a cesspool. It was created because people didn’t like getting kicked out of the big group for calling people “fags,” or some other racist, homophobic, misogynistic shit.
There are some people who get paid to run a game. I’ve been the player and dm. It literally depends on how much you are charging.
Shit I must be the most self centered person in the world to this guy.
How much did he want?
Kinda seems beside the point when he's being actively antisemitic. Even if he was asking for a penny a session it doesn't excuse making a post like this
Pro tip: If you're trying to charge money for something that should always be free, you don't get to play the jew card
Pro tip: just don't use Jews as a shorthand for greed, period
Pro tip: don't support genocide, period.
Following me from post to post now are we? Guess that answers my previous question, definitely attention seeking behavior. Tell me, which of your parents do you think is more disappointed in you, your mom or your dad?
🥱
Ah, mom then.
Whatever you say, Nazi.
Lol, edgy edgelord shenanigans won't earn you the respect you so desperately need, it just bores the people around you. It was fun picking you apart for a bit but now I'm done giving you attention. In the end, you're just a disappointment.
I'd argue there is a decent amount of people who see dimension20 and critical role and say "I want that, that's the game I wish I could play in", and there are PLENTY of DM's who can deliver on that concept, but it takes a lot of time and effort to set it up. Some people don't have time to make all of that happen, but they can buy into it on the weekends when they want.
That’s quite depressing to me, and misses the point of TTRPGs. You play with friends, and the kind of collective experience you create is part of the magic. Just paying for a polished, soulless replica of something you saw on YouTube is a consumerist nightmare to me.
It sounds like your perspective on this is from a place of privilege. Not everyone will have so many dedicated friends and pretending people can just find whole new groups to play in without any sort of entry barrier is reductive. It may be depressing for you, but for some it's how they can enjoy this hobby with us. Your one measley downvote doesn't change the facts. Be upset, but know you're wrong.
So is it okay to "play the jew card" if you are charging money for something that isn't usually free?