Wait, are there people paying to play?

[King of Nowhere]

In another thread, a guy asked

So, I haven't been able to find anything on the web on it, but can you get in trouble for having people pay to play in a campaign using D&D rules not set in a WotC world? I know you can get in trouble for selling modules that state the rules if you aren't in the DM's Guild, but I don't know about this.

and the thread was closed because it's against forum rules to ask legal advice.
But I'm not asking legal advice, so I assume it's all right to quote this and start a collateral discussion.

What surprised me is that "having people pay to play". As in, there are people paying to play d&d, and there are people DMing for money. It also mentions a DM guild as if it was a kind of labor union.
What is this? Are there really people who got together and pay some stranger to DM for them? Are there people making a living DMing for stranger? Is there a kind of labor union of professional DM? Seems like I stumbled on a new piece of world, and I'm curious about it

[LoneStarNorth]

DM's Guild is the officially supported way to sell homebrew D&D content using official WotC materials like settings, characters, etc.

And yes, there are professional Dungeon Masters that people can hire to run games for them. Since D&D is in the midst of a major revival, people who are interested but have never played before are looking for someone to run a game for them in much the same way that some people get paid to teach football or baseball or what have you.

In my experience people who have played D&D for a long time think this is weird or even sketchy, to accept money to play a game with someone. In my opinion, DMing is a skill, and there's nothing inherently wrong with being paid to employ it. As long as food and shelter still cost money, I'm not gonna fault anyone for trying to get paid.

[Gallowglass]

Interesting Story...

my wife DMs. A year or two ago, two old friends of her approached her about all three of them DMing three different groups in a sort of mega game, in which all three groups would be in the same world, tangentially related to each other, with sort of light crossovers, with a plot that would eventually resolve with a mega-session where all three groups would have to work together to defeat whomever the big bad was.

So far, so good. Our group made characters and started the game. We got like three or four sessions in before she told me that, during their weekly post-game wrap up meetings to coordinate, one of the two guys started asking "when do we start charging them?" It turns out he wanted to do this as a backdoor attempt to start a pay-for-play thing to make money on.

When she stated "i'm not charging my party for this" he got huffy and "kicked her out" whatever that means. The other guy also quit and that was the end of that.

We played those characters a couple more times, then moved on to the next campaign.

[King of Nowhere]

DM's Guild is the officially supported way to sell homebrew D&D content using official WotC materials like settings, characters, etc.

And yes, there are professional Dungeon Masters that people can hire to run games for them. Since D&D is in the midst of a major revival, people who are interested but have never played before are looking for someone to run a game for them in much the same way that some people get paid to teach football or baseball or what have you.

In my experience people who have played D&D for a long time think this is weird or even sketchy, to accept money to play a game with someone. In my opinion, DMing is a skill, and there's nothing inherently wrong with being paid to employ it. As long as food and shelter still cost money, I'm not gonna fault anyone for trying to get paid.

I don't think it's inherently wrong, but it is deeply weird.

I do worry a bit about what it may say about society; in the past, people performed fun activities together. nowadays we are moving more and more towards people paying professionals to perform fun activities with them. And no matter that the professional will certainly perform better than an amateur, it's rarely a worthy gain for the loss of personal connection. plus, if you have to pay people to get them to play with you, it defeats the whole purpose of the concept of "game".

But what you say actually reassures me, because it's people with no experience looking for a professional to teach them. this, I can totally understand. It would have been much more strange if old players with established groups regularly resorted to this.
Paying for a gaming partner, I cannot understand. Paying for a teacher, I totally do

Incidentally, I keep thinking of sex metaphors. and it's weird because in that field I totally understand paying a professional to perform with you when you lack a willing partner. Though I still wouldn't do it because of the personal connection thing.
probably the difference is that sex has an important physical component, so you take away the connection, you still have the physical part. but d&d is purely intellectual; if you cripple the intellectual pleasure of it, there's not much left.

[MoiMagnus]

I mean, when I go to some big RPG events, I pay and entrance ticket for the organisation. So I kind of already pay for playing, roughly once per year.

I suppose that in the same way I go with a group of friend for an escape game and pay for the session, I could go play a one-shot for a professional DM instead (though I don't know if there is any of them nearby where I live).

For a RPG campaign, I don't see myself paying for it, since it doesn't really goes into the idea of "we're a group of friend playing together for fun". I'm open to changing my mind on this subject, but I don't really feel comfortable with it.

[ChamHasNoRoom]

I do this.

People have lots of really weird objections and hang-ups about the whole thing, and they over-complicate a very simple situation out of what is apparently a strong desire for this whole thing to be weirder and sketchier than it is. I do not know why they do this, but I do know that their objections are totally unmoored from reality and often very angry in a way that suggests deep emotional investment. What's actually happening is that GMing is hard and most people don't want to do it, and even those who do tend to burn out after a couple of weeks, and the thing you do when you want someone else to do something that they don't want to do is to give them money to do it. That's how our society works, and the only reason it ever didn't apply to D&D is because D&D was too small a market to be worth bothering with.

An example of some of the weirder objections:

"I can't imagine having a GM who isn't my friend!"

The majority of D&D players cannot name their GM's spouse, any of their children, do not know what their GM does for a living, and never interact with their GM except during the game and in game-related conversations in between games, usually carried out online or in text. You are not friends with your GM. You were never friends with your GM. This was always a service provider/client relationship. People object that someone you only meet with to play D&D and know basically nothing about otherwise is still your friend because you have fun together, and sure, you could expand the definition that far, but by that definition I am friends with every single one of my clients. I kind of wonder if these people have ever had regular social interaction with anyone they worked with or paid money to. Having a friendly rapport with people you do business with is totally normal in almost every single industry. If you find yourself incapable of being friends with people you have a business relationship with even by the broad definition of "have fun talking to this person," that speaks more to your personal issues than to any broadly applicable law of human interaction.

{Scrubbed}

"This is a scam!"

Nobody is ever able to articulate why this is a scam. When they try, it's usually by insisting that you can get GMs for free. This is true in the same sense that you can get a computer for free if your roommate's father runs a computer repair shop and has tons of spare parts just lying around with no further use for them, and he's happy to dump a bunch of parts on you from which you can assemble a working computer. This isn't a hypothetical. My cousin actually had that roommate. This does not mean that buying computer parts is a scam.

[Koo Rehtorb]

Paying for a GM seems like paying people to be your friend. Deeply sad.

[Anymage]

If you can think of it and it's physically possible, it likely either exists or someone is trying hard to make it exist. (And even if it's physically impossible, you still probably have some people trying to make it exist anyways.) So yes, paid DMing is a thing. And as MoiMagnus touched on, cons and similar events will often have one-shot events that are paid for somehow, either directly or through paying an entrance fee to join a pick up game.

Paying someone to persistently run a group? While again it's sure to exist, I have to wonder how long those things last. Simply because, unless the DM goes in heavily on props (which are a heavy investment in and of themselves), players are likely to wonder if one of them can put on the hat. For the cost of a few books, the barrier to entry for trying is low.

[One Step Two]

Paying someone to persistently run a group? While again it's sure to exist, I have to wonder how long those things last. Simply because, unless the DM goes in heavily on props (which are a heavy investment in and of themselves), players are likely to wonder if one of them can put on the hat. For the cost of a few books, the barrier to entry for trying is low.

I think this is why the idea of paying a GM to run a game is why it seems so bizarre, with free resources like the SRD, introduction modules and the like, and now that D&D have their Beyond subscription model for access to new content without the physical investment of product, the ability to get into the game is pretty easy!

However, outside of modules the act of building and a game world is a time-sensitive investment, and there will always be a majority of people who want to be players instead of GMs. So the idea of paying someone to build a world, or alternatively offering monetary incentive to provide resources (maps, models and props), to enrich the gaming experience is pretty attractive as not everyone can afford to invest deeply into the hobby as someone who has been doing this for years.
As for the "buying a friend" aspect, lord knows we've all seen a batch of horror stories where a group of "friends" makes games difficult, perhaps a professional layer gives more stability to the game? The phrase "no gaming is better than bad gaming" is often used, and if you find that hiring a GM to act as an impartial referee that doesn't seem too bad.

I could continue to list pro's and con's for paying or being paid for a GM, but I think it boils down to personal preference. If someone is offering their service as a GM for hire that suits your needs for a game, and budget, more power to you! If you can find a group of like-minded people who are happy to sit down and play together for free, that is also fine.

[FaerieGodfather]

I have paid to play in convention games. I've been compensated for running them.

It's a skilled service that I perform at a higher level than most people normally do.

The only reason I do not charge for it is that it is a part of my own recreational activities, something that I enjoy doing for my friends, and introducing a contractual obligation to it would impose obligations and stressors that would diminish my enjoyment. I wouldn't be able to take a week off when I'm off my game, I'd have to be more sensitive to where my players want their personal stories to go, and so on and so forth.

It would become my job, and I don't want it to be my job.

[Zhorn]

I DM through a university club, so we all (DMs and players) pay to play, though it's just a couple of dollars for the whole year's membership and that money goes to the club to coordinate venue bookings and events planning.
We've talked a few times about switching to a true home game, but distance from each other, good sized tables, getting a space without outside people interfering, transport, etc, all these factors just make the club the clear winner in convenience.
Still, as a DM I'd love to host at home just so I didn't need to lug around all my kit each week (maps, books, tokens), but I would have to find a different group... and I like my group.

[Kraynic]

What really ticks me off about the whole paid DM thing is the tone of some of them. I really don't mind someone wanting the group to chip in for resources needed to run games, whether it is physical books/props, or digital programs, tokens, etc. But there are some that are so intent on monetizing players that they start implying or outright stating that they are a "professional" DM and anyone that doesn't charge isn't even a "real" DM, and is probably unreliable to boot. That side of the "professional" tabletop market really just needs to go away.

[False God]

DMs put in a lot of work developing a world and running a game. I don't blame them for charging for their services. Though I find it a little silly myself.

[Bohandas]

In my experience people who have played D&D for a long time think this is weird or even sketchy, to accept money to play a game with someone. In my opinion, DMing is a skill, and there's nothing inherently wrong with being paid to employ it. As long as food and shelter still cost money, I'm not gonna fault anyone for trying to get paid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iijs0iS3_ZM

[Dimers]

It's not fundamentally different from paying for movies or TV or internet access when used for entertainment. Or buying novels to read. Or watching a play at a theater, and people have been paying for that for a looooong time. Or paying to get into a stadium to watch a sport or competition. Or paying to play laser tag. It's just, we've been socialized not to think of RPGs as a paid thing, and socialized to expect to pay for those counterexamples.

How do you react to the idea of paying for radio? That's pretty weird, right? But people do pay for satellite radio, even when free radio is available. Same thing with GMing.

Given this cultural standard, it'd be very hard to make a living as a full-time GM.

[Koo Rehtorb]

It's not fundamentally different from paying for movies or TV or internet access when used for entertainment. Or buying novels to read. Or watching a play at a theater, and people have been paying for that for a looooong time. Or paying to get into a stadium to watch a sport or competition.

It is much different. You are not adding anything of value to any of those things yourself.

[KaussH]

Pay to play is, as noted, common at conventions.
At tables its rare, but i have met a few pro gms. Heck i have been bribed to run games before (less cash, more snacks. But this was whole 12 packs of soda and the like from multi players.) And ran horror games for clarity.

Pay for play is fine, as long as the gm and players are cool with it. Gming is a skill, and if you have players who need a gm, its not a bad option. And removes some issues. The gm is likly to be very fair, not favor anyone for past friendships, no gm "partner/player" issues and if they are getting payed they will be on time and ready to go. :)

Now would i pay a gm? Sure, not sure how much, but 10/20 for a good session seems ok. More if its an all day thing, or meals/props are included.

[Pauly]

I’m cool with the idea.
Especially if it means that I can get a regular game :
- without having to find friends who (a) want to play RPGs at all (b) want to play the same system/genre that I do (c) are available to play when I am available to play (d) are willing to commit to attending regularly,which paying cash will encourage.
- with a DM (a) who runs the session smoothly (b) has prepared the environment and materials (c) has prepared the story/session events.

Another advantage I see is that as a professional DM he/she is more interested in having the game work properly than trying to remain friends with people who are causing problems.

[Dimers]

It is much different. You are not adding anything of value to any of those things yourself.

I see what you're saying, yes. I intended my point to be that paying for entertainment -- active or passive, doesn't matter -- is not an uncommon thing.

I can also disagree in a kinda nitpicky way, since vast numbers of people who pay to use the internet for entertainment are simultaneously providing entertainment for other users. Almost every person in this forum is paying for the privilege of collaborating in fun. They're just not paying the other users.

[Kaptin Keen]

Paying someone for their time isn't at all unusual - whatever that time is spent on. However, it does feel like it would be hard to make money in a 'market' that's generally assumed to be free.

I have a friend who was paid by a school to GM the kids. I believe he considered it a pretty cool gig at the time, decent wages for basically throwing goblins at 12-year olds. But outside of that, I've never heard of anyone doing it succesfully. Although occasionally there's someone on the web who claims to have several groups running. Being sceptical to the point of considering everything on the internet doubtful until backed up by other sources somehow, I remain unconvinced =D

[Pelle]

It is much different. You are not adding anything of value to any of those things yourself.

That's a good point, and explain quite well why it doesn't appeal to me personally. I don't see the GM's role as a service person who is only there so that the players can be entertained. When I GM, I want the players to entertain me, contributing to the game. However, if someone else don't see it that way, they are more than welcome to pay for or sell GM services. And if players have the attitude of demanding that the GM entertains them, I wouldn't GM for them unless they were paying me!


How about a different model, similar to other hobbies I participate in: There's a club or association, to which all members pay membership fees to. And the club organize courses that people pay to join, and the people who are instructors gets compensated for their time. Not handsomly, but a token payment to give a small incentive and keep it sustainable in the long run. You can do it similarily for rpg clubs, compensate the GMs if there's a shortage. Maybe people do this already, any experiences?

[Mastikator]

It's not fundamentally different from paying for movies or TV or internet access when used for entertainment. Or buying novels to read. Or watching a play at a theater, and people have been paying for that for a looooong time. Or paying to get into a stadium to watch a sport or competition. Or paying to play laser tag. It's just, we've been socialized not to think of RPGs as a paid thing, and socialized to expect to pay for those counterexamples.

How do you react to the idea of paying for radio? That's pretty weird, right? But people do pay for satellite radio, even when free radio is available. Same thing with GMing.

Given this cultural standard, it'd be very hard to make a living as a full-time GM.

In those cases you're pure audience. In a tabletop game I wouldn't accept being pure audience as a player, actually if I played with a DM that put on a show that I can't meaningfully interact with I'd feel like that is a waste of my time.
I wouldn't mind chipping in some money for books and whatever but not for the DM's time, if the DM isn't DMing on the same terms that I'm playing then it's going to be a deeply weird experience for me.

Actually something occurred to me reading this thread, why not the other way around? Why not make the DM pay players to play the DM's homebrew game and be paid playtesters?

[Pelle]

Actually something occurred to me reading this thread, why not the other way around? Why not make the DM pay players to play the DM's homebrew game and be paid playtesters?

There's nothing wrong with that either.

[King of Nowhere]

I do this.

What's actually happening is that GMing is hard and most people don't want to do it, and even those who do tend to burn out after a couple of weeks, and the thing you do when you want someone else to do something that they don't want to do is to give them money to do it.

Great! more thought material.
Being a DM has always been more time-consuming than playing. did the problem get worse in later years? or has the problem always been the same, it's just that in the past we had no other option but to suck it up?

An example of some of the weirder objections:

"I can't imagine having a GM who isn't my friend!"

The majority of D&D players cannot name their GM's spouse, any of their children, do not know what their GM does for a living, and never interact with their GM except during the game and in game-related conversations in between games, usually carried out online or in text. You are not friends with your GM. You were never friends with your GM. This was always a service provider/client relationship.

that's something else that's new to me.
Sure, often new groups meet as strangers. When I started with my second group, I didn't knew three of the players, who were friends of a friend. And sure, there are one-shots where of course you don't have time to make personal connections (I wouldn't like to play a one-shot because I need commitment). And sometimes in the group there are one or two people with whom you don't get along much, and you never talk to them outside of the game.

But the idea of having a long-term campaign with a group and still remain strangers is so hard to understand. Sure, my gaming group may not be my closest friends, but after the first few months I definitely had enough of a connection there that it wouldn't be the same to ditch them to play with a bunch of total strangers.

If a large amount of players have kept that level of detachment, if "having fun with friends" was never in their priorities, I can totally see that paying a professional DM is the next step.

{Scrubbed}

So, this was an interesting reply. It seems my concept of rpg as an activity that requires a group of friends is less common than I assumed. And once that premise is dropped, paying for it makes sense.

In general, I sense that dicotomy in all the answers. those that see nothing strange in the thing are more or less implicitly assuming that DMing is an entertainment performance provided to the players, while those that have hang-ups are all referencing the concept of a group of friends playing a game together.

What really ticks me off about the whole paid DM thing is the tone of some of them. I really don't mind someone wanting the group to chip in for resources needed to run games, whether it is physical books/props, or digital programs, tokens, etc. But there are some that are so intent on monetizing players that they start implying or outright stating that they are a "professional" DM and anyone that doesn't charge isn't even a "real" DM, and is probably unreliable to boot. That side of the "professional" tabletop market really just needs to go away.

that's an unavoidable side effect. professionals need to make a living, so they need to increase their market. And one way to do that is to sow distrust towards providers of free service. it's dishonest, but once you have a market you will have people doing it.

You can do it similarily for rpg clubs, compensate the GMs if there's a shortage. Maybe people do this already, any experiences?

well, it is assumed among my groups that the DM has some privileges. I've been getting free dinners from my first group. In the second group, where I am a player, I regularly give the DM a car lift.
those kind of small things that say "we acknowledge that you are putting in more time for us, and we compensate by similar other little things"

[Anonymouswizard]

I suppose the best comparison would be immersive theatre.

DMs put in a lot of work developing a world and running a game. I don't blame them for charging for their services. Though I find it a little silly myself.

This. I've occasionally asked to be compensated for my work, generally by somebody else providing the drinks and snacks, and I don't see anything wrong with charging for it. I'd never do it (from either side of the screen), but I don't think it's immoral.

Like paying for sex I have more problems with the surrounding culture than the idea itself. Plus for me it's easier to spend for hours a week planning a session when it doesn’t feel like a duty.

[Pelle]

In general, I sense that dicotomy in all the answers. those that see nothing strange in the thing are more or less implicitly assuming that DMing is an entertainment performance provided to the players, while those that have hang-ups are all referencing the concept of a group of friends playing a game together.

For me personally, the concept of roleplaying games includes a group of friends playing a game together. However, I have no problem imagining that it can be something else for other people. In general, those with hang-ups are the people who can't see past their own nose and what roleplaying means to themselves

well, it is assumed among my groups that the DM has some privileges. I've been getting free dinners from my first group. In the second group, where I am a player, I regularly give the DM a car lift.
those kind of small things that say "we acknowledge that you are putting in more time for us, and we compensate by similar other little things"

I was thinking more about people who are members of actual roleplaying clubs, where there's a big pool of both players and GMs, and someone organizing it all together.

[Willie the Duck]

Paying for a GM seems like paying people to be your friend. Deeply sad.

I'd liken it more to a bunch of grown adults paying someone else to go sailing/horseback riding/paintball playing with them and showing them the ropes (because sure any one of them could have learned as a kid, but they didn't, and now it's become this big thing in their social circles and they regret not having tried it) -- a little bit embarrassing and hopefully they don't have to do so indefinitely.

That's really what this modern D&D revival/uptick seems like to me -- a bunch of 20-30-somethings suddenly realizing that this thing they ignored as a kid has become fairly popular, and they want in on the fun, but really don't want to be the adult on the bunny hill learning to snowplow-brake in front of everyone (to flagrantly mix my metaphors). I had the same thing happen in my social circles 20 years ago when everyone realized that they had enjoyed going fishing with their parents or grandparents when they were 10, but that no one had actually stuck with it and been the one to buy their own boat and really learn how to organize a fishing trip and with all the parents and grandparents getting older, one of us was actually going to have to figure this stuff out. We at least had people to ask, but if we didn't, having someone you could hire to go on a fishing trip with us and show us how to organize the next one ourselves would have been absolutely something we would spend money on.

that's something else that's new to me.
Sure, often new groups meet as strangers. When I started with my second group, I didn't knew three of the players, who were friends of a friend. And sure, there are one-shots where of course you don't have time to make personal connections (I wouldn't like to play a one-shot because I need commitment). And sometimes in the group there are one or two people with whom you don't get along much, and you never talk to them outside of the game.

I think that's also something that is also not uniquely new to modern gaming, but rising in frequency -- gaming with people you didn't know beforehand.

[Lord Torath]

There are several people on Roll20 who ask to be paid to DM. Roll20 is free, but some of the more advanced features require a membership to access. So some of the DMs ask for compensation for paying for those features in the games they run.

I've never joined a pay-to-play game, but I don't really think it's all that weird, either.

[Psyren]

I haven't had to do this, but I'm also pretty fortunate - I live in a major city, that is within decent driving distance of two other major cities, have many tabletop gamer friends, most of my gamer friends have jobs that leave our weekends free, we can find common ground on several different games, and several of us have GM experience. This just isn't the case for everyone and so the demand for a GM can exceed the supply and create a market, it's not worth judging anyone's situation over.

[zinycor]

It does seem like a valuable service, I would imagine that "professional GMs" would provide many things that would be fun for players to experience, such as painted miniatures, and a stock of painted creatures appropriate for big encounters. Also your group may want to experience a particular narrative experience, like a game on a horror setting, and having a GM specialized in such narrative would be amazing.
Even on roll20, a completely virtual space, there are expenses for advanced features and charging for these seems fair.
In my opinion that people get to earn a living by GMing is amazing and not dissimilar to earn money by being a writer or any form of entertainment.
Edit:

Actually something occurred to me reading this thread, why not the other way around? Why not make the DM pay players to play the DM's homebrew game and be paid playtesters?

Also amazing, and makes a perfect amount of sense.