I currently DM 3 fully-homebrew campaigns per week right now, unpaid, and it's a lot of work - but I've gotten very lucky with my players and have an amazing group. We also podcast one of those games (although it's been awhile since I've had the time to upload it, but there's currently already 60 hours of content available online). I ran my first ever campaign to completion (100 sessions), and the other 3 I'm running now are 20-40 sessions in each and going strong.
That said, I'm considering testing the waters on paid DMing. I have a free day (Thursdays), plenty of oneshots of my own design at varying levels (and a few I've found online that are excellent), and no shortage of campaign ideas. Additionally, through one of my players and shared content, I have access to pretty much all the official content. That said, I greatly prefer running homebrew. Worldbuilding is my jam, and I've gotten loads of feedback and rave reviews about my worldbuilding and storytelling from my existing players.
So! My question for existing paid DMs are as follows:
How much is a reasonable rate to ask per 4-hour session?
Do people who pay for games tend to prefer modules/official campaigns over homebrew? Vice-versa? Does it matter?
Would too many people be turned off by having rules? I have a zero-tolerance policy for bigotry and hate in my games as well as a requirement to respect each other. I expect people to be on time, give or take a couple minutes.
If I do this, should I make a separate Discord server for those who pay apart from those who don't?
What are some pitfalls of paid DMing, especially things that paying players have a tendency for that non-paying players might not?
What are some of the expectations that paying players have of their paid DMs?
What would be your best piece of advice?
Anything else?
Thank you very much for your time and answers, I really appreciate it!
I only have limited experience as a paid DM, but I did run a few one-shots that I charged for.
That very much depends on your target audience, and on how much effort you bring to the table. If you build terrain, add painted minis, host the event at your home, or rent a venue, you need to add all this into your calculation and charge accordingly. At the minimum, you should charge 35 % over cost.
Also depends on your players. I guess that no-one really cares where the content is coming from when it is engaging and fun for everyone at the table. You also may have players asking for a particular module that they always wanted to play.
Rules are a big one. You need to create a welcoming game environment, that is making all your players feel safe. When you play with friends, you don't necessarily have to take on the role of arbiter of conflict, but as a paid DM, that is your role. Be courteous, respectful, fair, and enforce the social contract ruthlessly.
I'm not sure what you mean. Do you have a mix of paying and non-paying players? That sounds like a recipe for disaster. Your paying players are customers. You need to keep them separate from your friends, and 'isolate' each table from another. I suggest hosting a different server per campaign/group.
You have to balance expectations, entitlements, and perceptions. Have a thorough session zero to set ground rules, focus of the campaign, and describe anything your players can expect. Make sure that they know they are entitled to having fun, but not specific magic items. They are not paying for feats, levels, items, etc, they are paying for rich and immersive content. Managing perceptions is maybe the trickiest part. You never want to be perceived as unfair, or favoring specific players.
Select your players carefully. It makes sense to start with introductory one-shots, which you host for little money. Only 'allow' the players you think will work well with you, and the other players.
Collect the money up front. Occasionally check in with your players about how they feel. Have a communications channel for them where they can chat with you and each other between sessions. Encourage teamwork in-game and among the players. Don't forget to have fun, yourself.
As for #4, I DM exclusively online at present through Discord and have a sever for all my other players in my other 3 campaigns I currently run - which are not pay to play. I figured it'd make the most sense to keep them separate but I wanted to hear what others thought about that.
I answered some questions over in the other thread (because I wanted players to get to see that perspective as well), but thought I'd weigh in here with some more specificity! I'm a full-time professional DM. Getting to where I am took several years of running games visible on stream or YouTube so that I had a body of work to point to. At the same time, I began working freelance for various game publishers to hone by skills as a designer and provide more examples of my work. I treat it like a small business that I own, and like any small business, you can expect the first couple of years to provide not a lot in returns. If you think you're ready for that, excited for it, then I really believe running games for people to be an incredibly rewarding job.
How much is a reasonable rate to ask per 4-hour session?
You deserve to earn at least $15/hour for your time, even starting out. There will be processing fees and upkeep costs for new books, applications, etc. I recommend figuring out how much time it takes you to prep and run a session on average, how much time you're willing to spend scheduling/communicating between sessions, and include the upfront time it takes to prep the start of a campaign. You might find that means charging somewhere between $100-150 per table per session starting out, depending on the time you put in.
A lot of DMs charge less and base their fees off of the costs to play at a convention (usually like $7-10). Conventions don't make their money on tables, though, they make it on badges and vendors. And a convention game is rarely going to be as good as a lovingly crafted homegame-style campaign. I think a lot of professional DMs just starting out could charge more and not struggle to find players.
For transparency's sake, I charge $275 per four-hour session, which works out to be about $30/hour for me. I didn't start off at that rate, though.
Do people who pay for games tend to prefer modules/official campaigns over homebrew? Vice-versa? Does it matter?
For me, it's original content that draws the most people who are willing to pay a rate that allows you to make a living wage.
Would too many people be turned off by having rules? I have a zero-tolerance policy for bigotry and hate in my games as well as a requirement to respect each other. I expect people to be on time, give or take a couple minutes.
If they are turned off by having rules and using safety tools, they are much more likely to make other players at your table uncomfortable. You don't want that. You want to foster a fun atmosphere and encourage players to get to know each other and trust each other. Having boundaries is very important!
If I do this, should I make a separate Discord server for those who pay apart from those who don't?
Absolutely! My Discord server and its different channels for various campaigns is a lifesaver.
What are some pitfalls of paid DMing, especially things that paying players have a tendency for that non-paying players might not?
Some, not most, paying players may expect you to be more giving when it comes to magic items -- or be more forgiving when it comes to whether or not their character dies or lives an encounter that overwhelmed them. Make sure you are being fair to all of your players, but I generally try to let my players lean into the superheroic fantasy if that's what the group wants. I can always design tougher encounters to match them. As far as character death goes, if one of my players isn't comfortable with their character dying, I don't shame them for that. Talking about expectations and character death before and throughout a campaign (like before a very deadly encounter session) is really helpful.
What are some of the expectations that paying players have of their paid DMs?
I answered this in my other thread and won't repeat it all here, but if you want to be able to charge a good rate and make people feel like they are getting a great experience for their money, then you want to offer a lot and make the campaign feel special. There are many ways you can approach this. As a minimum, the more books and resources you can offer the players so that they don't have to buy them, the better.
What would be your best piece of advice?
Start small and think about where you might find players. How can you show them that you are worth taking a chance on? There are a ton of great communities out there for you to make yourself known and it's all about finding the communities that you'll be happiest spending time in -- and most able to make an impact on. For me, streaming helped a lot, and leaned into my previous career in theater. That's how many of my first paid players found me.
After getting started, word of mouth is everything. Don't be afraid to ask your players to tell folks about you if they are enjoying themselves.
Anything else?
If you make this your job (even a part-time job), just remember it's not always going to be fun and can be quite hard work. You know this from your description of the effort you put into your home games! But if folks are paying you for an experience, they deserve you to at least always give it your all.
Best of luck to you and I hope you're able to create something really exciting. :)
While it doesn't work as well for online games, one of the things I was toying with was creating well-rounded D&D "experiences".
These experience would include self-contained custom one-shots with a thematically appropriate meal for 4 to 6 players. For example, a "High Forest" adventure would have Elven/wood themed dishes, while an "Underdark" adventure could have mushrooms and insects. (More adventurous eaters could travel to more unfamiliar locations)
Some sessions could be more educational, showing off real exotic locations, plants, and animals.
"Normal" session would have the value-added option of buying "Snack Packs" that would include prepackaged "Potions of Healing", "Trail Rations", and other fantasy themed low effort edibles.
People can be a bit weird about paying to play D&D, but there is much less resistance to paying for upgrades that they wouldn't normally expect to get for free. The main hurdle here, of course, is that you would need to live somewhere with a sufficiently large, affluent population.
If you can find value-added options for your online games, you might be able to bump up your income in unexpected ways.
I'm not a DM but a player so I thought it might be interesting to have a different perspective. I am currently in a pay to play game on Roll20 and I pay $10 a week for a 4 hour session which works at around $40-$50 a month depending on whether it is a 4 week or 5 week month. The absolute maximum I would ever pay would be around $13 a session (UK here so £10) as I could not justify spending more than £50 a month on D&D.
As for the type of game I would want to play. Original content in a sand box enviroment where player agency is prioritised is key. Things like modules and premade content are convient for DMs but you might find your paying players have already played them.
As for expectations. There is a massive difference between what people expect from an experienced free DM to a pay to play DM. For VTT players such as myself that means good quality maps and tokens, immersive music and sound effects, good orinal content and stories on top of competent DMing etc.
Thank you so much for all this advice (a few days later, but still!). It's very helpful, and really gratifying to know that others out there can make it work. I'm not looking to make this a full time job at present, just make a few bucks on the side (I'm disabled and still fighting for my disability SSI to go through, so I have plenty of time to devote but not much in the financial-resources department).
One thing you pointed out that gives me much hope: the prospect of offering books. I have a player who owns pretty much all the official content, and I'm capable of upping my subscription to the fancy one that enables content sharing, so if they put a character in that campaign I can easily give access to all the content to my players as available options. Plus, I'd allow it anyway even without, based on tools such as *******, etc. So that's great to know!
Definitely an interesting idea. 100% of my games are online at present so I couldn't do anything like this, but interesting to hear what others are doing out there for sure, thank you!
Thank you for the reply! I know I posted a question in the General board somewhere for potential/paid players to chime in on, so I definitely appreciate both perspectives!
I'm glad to know that a player values original content, since that's what I'll feel most comfortable offering! That's what everyone seems to be saying, that most people actually value that, so I'm really relieved to hear it. Sound-effects wise, I might not be a pro at sound design but I always have music at my games to help me focus, let alone to set the mood.
I currently DM 3 fully-homebrew campaigns per week right now, unpaid, and it's a lot of work - but I've gotten very lucky with my players and have an amazing group. We also podcast one of those games (although it's been awhile since I've had the time to upload it, but there's currently already 60 hours of content available online). I ran my first ever campaign to completion (100 sessions), and the other 3 I'm running now are 20-40 sessions in each and going strong.
That said, I'm considering testing the waters on paid DMing. I have a free day (Thursdays), plenty of oneshots of my own design at varying levels (and a few I've found online that are excellent), and no shortage of campaign ideas. Additionally, through one of my players and shared content, I have access to pretty much all the official content. That said, I greatly prefer running homebrew. Worldbuilding is my jam, and I've gotten loads of feedback and rave reviews about my worldbuilding and storytelling from my existing players.
So! My question for existing paid DMs are as follows:
Thank you very much for your time and answers, I really appreciate it!
I only have limited experience as a paid DM, but I did run a few one-shots that I charged for.
More Interesting Lock Picking Rules
That's very helpful advice, thank you!
As for #4, I DM exclusively online at present through Discord and have a sever for all my other players in my other 3 campaigns I currently run - which are not pay to play. I figured it'd make the most sense to keep them separate but I wanted to hear what others thought about that.
As far as Discord goes, I run 1 server with different voice chans, all of which are members only. Saves me some time and trouble.
I answered some questions over in the other thread (because I wanted players to get to see that perspective as well), but thought I'd weigh in here with some more specificity! I'm a full-time professional DM. Getting to where I am took several years of running games visible on stream or YouTube so that I had a body of work to point to. At the same time, I began working freelance for various game publishers to hone by skills as a designer and provide more examples of my work. I treat it like a small business that I own, and like any small business, you can expect the first couple of years to provide not a lot in returns. If you think you're ready for that, excited for it, then I really believe running games for people to be an incredibly rewarding job.
How much is a reasonable rate to ask per 4-hour session?
You deserve to earn at least $15/hour for your time, even starting out. There will be processing fees and upkeep costs for new books, applications, etc. I recommend figuring out how much time it takes you to prep and run a session on average, how much time you're willing to spend scheduling/communicating between sessions, and include the upfront time it takes to prep the start of a campaign. You might find that means charging somewhere between $100-150 per table per session starting out, depending on the time you put in.
A lot of DMs charge less and base their fees off of the costs to play at a convention (usually like $7-10). Conventions don't make their money on tables, though, they make it on badges and vendors. And a convention game is rarely going to be as good as a lovingly crafted homegame-style campaign. I think a lot of professional DMs just starting out could charge more and not struggle to find players.
For transparency's sake, I charge $275 per four-hour session, which works out to be about $30/hour for me. I didn't start off at that rate, though.
Do people who pay for games tend to prefer modules/official campaigns over homebrew? Vice-versa? Does it matter?
For me, it's original content that draws the most people who are willing to pay a rate that allows you to make a living wage.
Would too many people be turned off by having rules? I have a zero-tolerance policy for bigotry and hate in my games as well as a requirement to respect each other. I expect people to be on time, give or take a couple minutes.
If they are turned off by having rules and using safety tools, they are much more likely to make other players at your table uncomfortable. You don't want that. You want to foster a fun atmosphere and encourage players to get to know each other and trust each other. Having boundaries is very important!
If I do this, should I make a separate Discord server for those who pay apart from those who don't?
Absolutely! My Discord server and its different channels for various campaigns is a lifesaver.
What are some pitfalls of paid DMing, especially things that paying players have a tendency for that non-paying players might not?
Some, not most, paying players may expect you to be more giving when it comes to magic items -- or be more forgiving when it comes to whether or not their character dies or lives an encounter that overwhelmed them. Make sure you are being fair to all of your players, but I generally try to let my players lean into the superheroic fantasy if that's what the group wants. I can always design tougher encounters to match them. As far as character death goes, if one of my players isn't comfortable with their character dying, I don't shame them for that. Talking about expectations and character death before and throughout a campaign (like before a very deadly encounter session) is really helpful.
What are some of the expectations that paying players have of their paid DMs?
I answered this in my other thread and won't repeat it all here, but if you want to be able to charge a good rate and make people feel like they are getting a great experience for their money, then you want to offer a lot and make the campaign feel special. There are many ways you can approach this. As a minimum, the more books and resources you can offer the players so that they don't have to buy them, the better.
What would be your best piece of advice?
Start small and think about where you might find players. How can you show them that you are worth taking a chance on? There are a ton of great communities out there for you to make yourself known and it's all about finding the communities that you'll be happiest spending time in -- and most able to make an impact on. For me, streaming helped a lot, and leaned into my previous career in theater. That's how many of my first paid players found me.
After getting started, word of mouth is everything. Don't be afraid to ask your players to tell folks about you if they are enjoying themselves.
Anything else?
If you make this your job (even a part-time job), just remember it's not always going to be fun and can be quite hard work. You know this from your description of the effort you put into your home games! But if folks are paying you for an experience, they deserve you to at least always give it your all.
Best of luck to you and I hope you're able to create something really exciting. :)
While it doesn't work as well for online games, one of the things I was toying with was creating well-rounded D&D "experiences".
These experience would include self-contained custom one-shots with a thematically appropriate meal for 4 to 6 players. For example, a "High Forest" adventure would have Elven/wood themed dishes, while an "Underdark" adventure could have mushrooms and insects. (More adventurous eaters could travel to more unfamiliar locations)
Some sessions could be more educational, showing off real exotic locations, plants, and animals.
"Normal" session would have the value-added option of buying "Snack Packs" that would include prepackaged "Potions of Healing", "Trail Rations", and other fantasy themed low effort edibles.
People can be a bit weird about paying to play D&D, but there is much less resistance to paying for upgrades that they wouldn't normally expect to get for free. The main hurdle here, of course, is that you would need to live somewhere with a sufficiently large, affluent population.
If you can find value-added options for your online games, you might be able to bump up your income in unexpected ways.
I'm not a DM but a player so I thought it might be interesting to have a different perspective. I am currently in a pay to play game on Roll20 and I pay $10 a week for a 4 hour session which works at around $40-$50 a month depending on whether it is a 4 week or 5 week month. The absolute maximum I would ever pay would be around $13 a session (UK here so £10) as I could not justify spending more than £50 a month on D&D.
As for the type of game I would want to play. Original content in a sand box enviroment where player agency is prioritised is key. Things like modules and premade content are convient for DMs but you might find your paying players have already played them.
As for expectations. There is a massive difference between what people expect from an experienced free DM to a pay to play DM. For VTT players such as myself that means good quality maps and tokens, immersive music and sound effects, good orinal content and stories on top of competent DMing etc.
Thank you so much for all this advice (a few days later, but still!). It's very helpful, and really gratifying to know that others out there can make it work. I'm not looking to make this a full time job at present, just make a few bucks on the side (I'm disabled and still fighting for my disability SSI to go through, so I have plenty of time to devote but not much in the financial-resources department).
One thing you pointed out that gives me much hope: the prospect of offering books. I have a player who owns pretty much all the official content, and I'm capable of upping my subscription to the fancy one that enables content sharing, so if they put a character in that campaign I can easily give access to all the content to my players as available options. Plus, I'd allow it anyway even without, based on tools such as *******, etc. So that's great to know!
Thank you!
Definitely an interesting idea. 100% of my games are online at present so I couldn't do anything like this, but interesting to hear what others are doing out there for sure, thank you!
Thank you for the reply! I know I posted a question in the General board somewhere for potential/paid players to chime in on, so I definitely appreciate both perspectives!
I'm glad to know that a player values original content, since that's what I'll feel most comfortable offering! That's what everyone seems to be saying, that most people actually value that, so I'm really relieved to hear it. Sound-effects wise, I might not be a pro at sound design but I always have music at my games to help me focus, let alone to set the mood.
Thank you!
Take a look at https://tabletopaudio.com/ for anbience music and the like.