Author: Toren

HOW DID IT COME TO THIS?

One day I received this message from a Facebook friend:

To which I agreed, except it wouldn’t be a campaign, it would be a ‘one-shot.’ Primarily because I don’t have time to game regularly and with a group of strangers I didn’t want to make a commitment beyond the ‘test run.’ You know, in case it goes horribly wrong (spoiler alert: it wen’t terribly right)! They would also have to supply the venue since I lack gaming space of my own. (And no, DMing for novices is not annoying.)

“I WOULD NEVER CHARGE TO PLAY D&D. I DO IT FOR FUN”

I play music for fun, I can also get paid for it. I draw for fun, I can also get paid for it. And of course when I DM for my friends and regular gaming group, I don’t charge money. But what was asked of me is a very different context. And context is king.

We decided a rate – $80 for 4 hours. They didn’t ask my bona fides, but I’ll put them here in case it makes a difference to you:

I’ve been GMing since 1985. I co-wrote an award-winning RPG (Spaceship Zero). I’ve organized game conventions. I’ve run tournaments (at my day job) for about 20 different groups – each a mix of experience and novice players.

WHAT DOES A PROFESSIONAL DM PROVIDE, EXACTLY?

The players (3 of them in total) mainly worked out the characters themselves, which I checked and tweaked. In addition to the adventure itself, I provided dice, battle maps, dungeon tiles, player handouts (clues etc), miniatures for the Player Characters and monsters and Non-Player Characters.

BUT PAID DMS ARE RUINING THE OH-SO-PURE HOBBY!

What if I told you DMs have been receiving compensation for decades? Conventions and game shops have been recruiting people to run games for years. Sometimes that compensation is free attendance to the event, or store credit, but sometimes also cold hard cash or a combination of those things.

At your home game, do your players not bring any contributions? Do they not bring snacks or beverages for you to enjoy? Do they not chip in for any new books or peripherals (dice towers, minis, your D&D Beyond subscription)? I mean sure, this probably counts as ‘gifts’ rather than ‘payment’ – but all these things have value, and to my mind the DM does a lot of work for the players. There is a – perhaps unspoken – transaction happening in many (but not all) cases.

THE PERKS OF PAID DMING

One of the banes of group games like D&D is player cancellations can really upend an otherwise perfectly planned game night. Everything I’ve heard from professional DMs is that when the players have put up money, they actually show up and are fully present, rather than showing up 45 minutes late and dicking around on their phone.

For my own experience, when the first session had to be cancelled, they offered to pay me anyway for all the prep time I did. I told them not to worry about it, we’ll just reschedule.

ISN’T BEING A PAID DM LIKE PROSTITUTION?

This is actually a take that I read someone post on a Facebook group. Come on, dude. Somebody wanted to hire me and I accepted. Also, there’s nothing inherently wrong with sex work.