Title is kinda self-explanatory, really. Do the prices proposed by paid GMs influence your choice to play a game of theirs? Would you be more willing to play in a 5$ session than a 10$ or 15$ one? I mean, the answer is probably yes, but how much does the price weigh in your choice?
There are a lot of factors. But the threshold starts with am I willing to pay you and are you charging per session or per hour. How many players are there and what benefits do I get for the amount charged. A lot of the time on other forums, like Roll20, money prevents the people who don’t commit from joining.
But money is a driving factor. Especially, since I can just GM for free.
Then I’m guessing you think one could draw more attention with a cheaper game? Because I’ve heard conflicting opinions.
The people saying that higher is more encouraging look at the $$ as a gate-keeper to clear out others who aren’t serious about showing up and playing.
In general, $ gets more eyeballs than $$$. The question is does the price-point bring you the client you want. When someone pays $$$, there is more expectation & entitlement. When someone pays 0, they just in and out whenever they want.
All I will say on this is that, as an inexperienced player/gm, I paid someone to play thinking that if I was paying for a game at $20 a session, then the GM must be very good. Sad to say, I was gravely disappointed and didn’t even play the final session. RPGs are supposed to be fun and entertaining. So, the cost of the game I think is completely irrelevant unless the GM can back up their pricing with a long line of happy PCs.
Completely understandable, those were my thoughts initially. And I must say, my first absolute games were at $5 (starting out and lack of self-confidence I guess), but seeing higher-priced GMs with a comparable skill made me realize that it’s probably mostly about marketing.
As I have not yet paid a GM I would say Yes!
I see the price as both what I get and how the GM thoughts of how the game is played.
A higher price I would expect more investment from the GM in assets and stuff.
But a high price as well tells me the GM is just doing this for money and not for wanting to GM.
Sure a good GM could have a high price tag just because they have limited time to GM and price is a way to limit demand.
But GMs who advertise a game each day at high price without filling the spots I do avoid. Special if they just GM the same adventure. Then I feel they are not invested in the players but just the money.
If I would pay a GM I would do it to get a GM who invest in the game and the players. If they could motivate why I should pay them 20$ I might do it. But to be fair even if I have a good economy and could pay 20$ each week for a game it would really need to be an outstanding game experience for me to pay that sum. So far I haven’t played with a GM who is better GM than me… Or at least they haven’t had the style I prefer even if they been good.
so i can only really speak to my own experience as a pro dm for a year now with over a decade of prof experience doing very very similar work not as a dm for rpgs but as a larp staff, escape room staff actor nd designer, etc.
when i began i charged $10 per head per game. i did this not only because i wanted more experience, but because i wanted to get more credibility and a customer base. i dm on startplayinggames and your web page keeps track of how many paid games you have ran and each review also says how many paid games that person has played with you.
i would highly suggest that until you have 100+ games run and at least 10 reviews, you should not even consider these things. charge a low amount, get those credits first, and then you can start charging more.
I quickly began to charge more and now i get about three new customers a week at $25-30 per head per game depending on the game.
for reference, an average good escape room ticket costs about $35 for a 2 hour or so session. my games are always 3 hours or slightly more.
Personally, i’m just getting into paid DMing and I am finding it very hard ti charge anyone more than 10 dollars per head per session.
My current Curse of Strahd game which I am just getting ready to play for the third time, is the first game i’m charging for. I couldn’t bring myself to charge more than six dollars per person.
This is a module that I have poured about 3 years of my life into. It’s how I learned Foundry.
But I see some of these games going for 15, 20, sometimes even 30 dollars, for ONE session, and it blows my mind. If I were to charge that much, i’d be worried about a few things,
-
Players paying once, but not being able to continue. Being paid is great, but i’d rather have consistent players.
-
Too much pressure would be put on me as a GM to provide a AAA experience. Something akin to a big time product or video game.
I paid 15 dollars just to see what a game of that quality was like, and while I had fun, and enjoyed myself…
- One scene for the whole game (a city map)
- No combat
- No battlemaps
- One music track on repeat
Like… the DM was fine and if it was a real table i’d be fine with it. But for 15 dollars I just expected more.
Maybe i’m selling myself short, I don’t know
Don’t forget to mention something that affects it’ as well, the Full time DMs. Maybe they run 20-30 games a week. They’re running them to pay the bills, not your problem BUT if someone says full time DM to me their game is expected to be a higher level of quality.
I started paying to play on a large discord server, the idea was fantastic but the quality was shit. I only stick around for the random players that I started with, the comraderie was unique and we played to have fun. There was someone from multiple US States, Australia, New Zealand. We eventually pulled out and jumped on another server together and we’re still playing 4 years later.
Don’t pay to play for the $$ amount is my suggestion, do it for the experience of the party. Make it fun, the most expensive game I’ve paid for is $25 per session, the DM makes it worth it.