The Gaming Den

Hello, everyone. Well, I have a few things in the works, even if I'm still in the lurch for a layout/typesetter and a new editor.

Anyway, been waiting a while, but I have some plans to expand our services some, and would like to gauge interest. Here's the link, so if you could complete the survey I'd be appreciated.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JX7CQP8

Done.

Completed.

Done.

What the fucking fuck is a 'professional' game master?

You might want to make an edit- the first question about payment doesn't specify if it's per person or per game table, while the second question does specify per person. I was confused for a bit trying to decide if the question was "how much should the GM be paid" or "what would I personally shell out as my part in getting a GM."

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Voss wrote:What the fucking fuck is a 'professional' game master?

Someone that game masters as a profession, as in for money. I've seen mentions of such things on messageboards occasionally for like 10 years, so I figured I'd do some surveys on it. Word of mouth has been really positive, I've found.

Meikle641 wrote:Someone that game masters as a profession, as in for money. I've seen mentions of such things on messageboards occasionally for like 10 years, so I figured I'd do some surveys on it. Word of mouth has been really positive, I've found.

I've been told I should GM professionally, but I've never been able to figure out how to get more than minimum wage for it.

spongeknight wrote:You might want to make an edit- the first question about payment doesn't specify if it's per person or per game table, while the second question does specify per person. I was confused for a bit trying to decide if the question was "how much should the GM be paid" or "what would I personally shell out as my part in getting a GM."

Yeah, been getting some comment of confusion there, so I've tweaked it to:
"How much would you be willing to pay (for yourself only) to participate in a five hour session of a professional tabletop roleplaying game?"

Done

I couldnt find a way to make it clear, but id give someone 20$ for my portion of a 6+ hour session. Over 4-5 players thats 80-100$ for a nights work. Not amazing, but certainly worth talking about to many people.

Id go to a shop or place assuming random people couldnt interrupt. Id also host out of the house.

I had to adjust my price estimate when I realized that the payment wasn't only for the session (5 hours in the survey, IIRC) but for whatever else went into it. So, like, Krusk, you're offering $13-$17/hr, which is at least over minimum wage, but that's only if you ignore prep work and arrangements and so on.

Do any of the more experienced GMs here have rough estimates on the gaming counterpart of the classic college "3 hours of study per credit hour"?

momothefiddler wrote:I had to adjust my price estimate when I realized that the payment wasn't only for the session (5 hours in the survey, IIRC) but for whatever else went into it. So, like, Krusk, you're offering $13-$17/hr, which is at least over minimum wage, but that's only if you ignore prep work and arrangements and so on.

Do any of the more experienced GMs here have rough estimates on the gaming counterpart of the classic college "3 hours of study per credit hour"?

Depends what I'm running, but it ranges from one to one, to 2 to one, depending on level of prep. You could do it with a lot less probably, but it probably also wouldn't be worth paying for.

My GM prep is part of how I relax most of the time, so I don't even bother to keep it short.

Kaelik wrote:

momothefiddler wrote:I had to adjust my price estimate when I realized that the payment wasn't only for the session (5 hours in the survey, IIRC) but for whatever else went into it. So, like, Krusk, you're offering $13-$17/hr, which is at least over minimum wage, but that's only if you ignore prep work and arrangements and so on.

Do any of the more experienced GMs here have rough estimates on the gaming counterpart of the classic college "3 hours of study per credit hour"?

Depends what I'm running, but it ranges from one to one, to 2 to one, depending on level of prep. You could do it with a lot less probably, but it probably also wouldn't be worth paying for.

So that brings my initial $20 estimate down to $8.50/hr on the high end and, like, $4.33 on the low end - both lower than I'd want a pro GM to get paid. Hm.

Voss wrote:What the fucking fuck is a 'professional' game master?

http://www.kodtweb.com/2016/07/27/we-do ... at-part-2/
http://www.kodtweb.com/2016/07/29/we-do ... at-part-3/
http://www.kodtweb.com/2016/08/03/we-do ... at-part-5/
http://www.kodtweb.com/2016/08/01/we-do ... at-part-4/

part 5 leads into part 4, don't ask way..

momothefiddler wrote:Do any of the more experienced GMs here have rough estimates on the gaming counterpart of the classic college "3 hours of study per credit hour"?

I don't think there's a hard answer. Different games and indeed different groups require different amounts and different kinds of prep. I tend to do a lot of prep at the start of a campaign, and very little during. Also, a pro GM is probably going to rapidly acquire some campaigns that the prep is already complete for, and run them as standards.

On the other hand, I feel that going pro requires stepping up a notch. Like, I'd want to give players character sheets with some graphic design, which I definitely don't do for my regular group, maybe some other souvenir-quality feelies as well. Give 'em copies of the game soundtrack, stuff like that.

Meikle641 wrote:

Voss wrote:What the fucking fuck is a 'professional' game master?

Someone that game masters as a profession, as in for money. I've seen mentions of such things on messageboards occasionally for like 10 years, so I figured I'd do some surveys on it. Word of mouth has been really positive, I've found.

Professional requires some sort of qualifications or credentials. This sounds more akin to being a 'professional' friend or drinking buddy.

Voss wrote:

Meikle641 wrote:

Voss wrote:What the fucking fuck is a 'professional' game master?

Someone that game masters as a profession, as in for money. I've seen mentions of such things on messageboards occasionally for like 10 years, so I figured I'd do some surveys on it. Word of mouth has been really positive, I've found.

Professional requires some sort of qualifications or credentials. This sounds more akin to being a 'professional' friend or drinking buddy.

Oh, please. There are plenty of professions with plenty of professionals that require minimal or no certification of any sort. You can bitch about whether someone should get paid for GMing and I won't argue with you - I don't have an opinion figured out on that yet - but all the word means is that you get paid to do it. "Professional drinking buddy" is merely an odd idea, not a nonsensical one.

Id assume a professional gm would probably have a stable of 5-6 adventures that they prepped for once and reuse the material between the game they run for me on fridays and the game they run for voss on saturday.

It sounds like the op wants to build a stable of gms who can go work him. If so, id assume, he would have a pile of adventures 90% prepped that the rent-a-gm can just grab from.

100$/5 hours +1 prep = 16.66/hr. I dont feel super bad about paying someone that rate.

Are there any professional players?

GMing is seen by many players as a less than desirable role, and it involves a lot of work that playing doesn't. If no one in your group is feeling like running, and everyone wants to play, I can see hiring a GM if you can. I find it unlikely that a person would be in the reverse situation.

The audience for a professional GM is probably not people who already have access to a reliable, consistent, fair-minded, and flexible GM who runs the system of their preference and would like to upgrade to someone who is not only competent in all of those areas, but also spectacular in at least one of them. The audience for a professional GM is probably people who have difficulty finding a GM who will show up, won't go on mad powertrips, wants to run their favorite system and setting, knows how the system actually works, and/or can roll with the punches when players do something weird and unexpected and not explicitly covered in game rules. You aren't paying for a superior GM, you're paying for someone else to take care of the vetting process and also (potentially) to convince people to run things they might be perfectly capable of running well but not interested in running for free. I can think of both games I would be willing to pay to have run and games I would be willing to run for pay which are difficult to find decent GMs for under normal circumstances.

I completed the Survey.

Until this survey in fact, I've never even heard of the idea of hiring someone to GM a game for you. Though it makes sense honestly, getting paid means they can't be gygaxian @$$holes (unless its style offered) without the likelihood of losing out on future "clients". It also seems like it could be a solution to running fairly complex campaign, like a political game, or Sandbox experience.

Unless it ends up being like that comic with 5+ groups a week, I could see it being a component to having more good stories in the name of RPGdom being told.

As for me on DM prep, I'm the slowest as they come, and because I require at least 2-3 days where I spend least 6 hours each, I just run pre-made adventures instead nowadays.

Curious how someone like Dogbert would feel about this sort of thing, and the sessions it produces.