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Good morning I'm about to do a thread on paid GMing for #ttrpgs. This will be from my experience, which is primarily drawn on my short stint as a paid GM for three separate streams. The relationship between myself and each client, and that did play a part in it. 1/?
With that out of the way, let me make it clear that I am explicitly pro-paid GMing, not just because I have been paid to do so in the past, but because it's a skill, and I can't believe I'm quoting Joker in 2021, but if you're good at something, never do it for free. 2/?
We currently live in a capitalist hellscape, so until we do not live in a capitalist hellscape that is my motto. With that said, let's get down to business. Paid GMing is a controversial subject, and it's not that big of a surprise why. 3/?
We've had 3 generations of folks doing this work for free. Why should people have to fork over money for something that they can do themselves for free? Well, there are some problems with this line of thinking. The first is that "anybody can do it." 4/?
Why is this a problem? Well, it's because yes, anybody can do it in the same way anybody can draw or write or play an instrument. But not everybody has the time or energy to do it because there is a lot of work that goes into running a game, even w/ using a module. 5/?
You have to first buy the module (if you're buying officially licensed modules that can be A LOT of money.) Then you have to read the module. This is ofc, assuming you are running the game in a system you are intimately familiar with and don't have to learn everything. 6/?
Things get even more complicated when you are doing a setting by scratch. To give you an example, here's a google doc I set up last night https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tkyP6l8WSSB-5Csz7rcYCXU7F-qEXNWZOuur2-o7skg/edit?usp=sharing for my players. This alone is 2,500 words. And it took me about 6 or 7 hours to write. 7/?
Now, I'm doing all this shit for free for my players because I fucking love them. But 2,500 words? I've submitted stories of that length to the NoSleep Podcast, which back when I submitted to them earned me $100. I think now that would get me $125. 8/?
And that is PURELY just what I consider the *bare* minimum of a world building document for my players. Last year, I had a project going on called "Phantasmagoria" which was an experiment that I failed due to a lot of things, mainly the pandemic, where I made a world anvil. 9/?
You can find it here https://www.worldanvil.com/w/phantasmagoria-irenedb there was a *lot* that went into this behind the scenes that I never fully got around to finishing but my goal is to one day have something like this set up for the setting Lichtgrad is in. But I'm getting off topic. 10/?
I bring up these points to illustrate the invisible labor that goes into each of the games that I run for. I put in a lot of time and money for this shit, and I realized there was a shortage of GMs in Looking-For-Group forums and what nots. 11/?
I myself was busy with my personal life and shit and didn't know exactly if there were actually people who offered paid GMing, until I read this article on Wired. https://www.wired.com/story/its-a-living-meet-one-of-new-yorks-best-professional-dandd-dungeon-masters/ and it quite literally changed my life. 12/?
You see, the only reason why I got into the TTRPG industry was because I started my first job as a paid GM for a streamed game. It was a lot of fun, but it was also a lot of fucking work. That's what it all comes back to. GMing is a lot of fucking work. 13/?
People have concerns about being a paid/pro GM. Which is understandable. It changes the entire dynamics of the table. Frequent talking points I see are "if I paid for something I would be worried that the GM is fudging dice." 14/?
Or my 'favorite' one, "It makes the GM feel beholden to the players, which will cause all sorts of problems both IRL and in-game." Which yes, it CAN cause problems if you're friends and this was something you started doing w/ only them. 15/?
But let me tell you a story of the only time I've accepted money for playing with people who were my friends. I didn't feel any pressures with them. It felt weird at first to take their money, but after awhile it was just another job for me. They had a blast. 16/?
In fact, the only reason why I quit running that game for them last year was a result of many factors that are deeply personal & I won't get into. The only time anybody held it against me that they had to pay for a seat was when I asked that person to leave the table. 17/?
I had their money still for the day they were requesting a refund, since they had paid in advance so it wasn't a problem to refund them. We didn't talk ever again after that though, because the reason why I asked them to leave was personal to both of us. 18/?
BUT outside of that one instance? I was just playing a game with my friends on a stream. They were paying for my skills. Just like you would if you were commissioning art from a friend. And that's the other thing about being a GM. It's work but. It's more than that. 19/?
GMing is an art form. It is beautiful and it is brilliant and I love doing it. And, unfortunately we live in a capitalist hellscape and that in order for me to survive, so I have to charge people sometimes for my skills and hobbies. 20/22
Now, remember that point I said up thread about running modules? The reason why you buy a module is to cut down on prep work, but SOMEBODY had to write that module. Somebody, like myself. Somebody who is also a GM. So in that way, paid GMing has always existed. 21/22
It's just now that some GMs are going professional themselves and realizing that there is more than one avenue to break into this industry. And I'm all for it! 22/22.
One more important caveat: Paid GMing only works if everybody agrees to a social contract about the game. So fucking make sure y'all are on the same page. It's just as important in your home games as well, but extra doubly so when money exchanges hands.
Fuck it, speaking of getting paid. If you want to pay me and get cool shit in return check out my http://linktr.ee/dmIreneDB for links where you can buy my shit or buy me a coffee bc I skipped out on my morning coffee to write this thread.
