Is paid GMing the only way to get reliable players

>Be ForeverGM
>Learn how to enjoy GMing since nobody would ever run a game
>Run a game for 2-4 weeks
>Players get into it but either stop showing up for (reasons) or join other games run by people in the group
>This trend continues for the GMs of those games
>No game runs past a maximum of 5 sessions because of it
>Really want to run a large scale game that would (conceivably) last over a year

Paid GMing is such a stupid concept to me but is that the only way to get players willing to show up to sessions considering they're literally paying to be there? Even if so, would the only people who would ever pay be That Guys and minmaxers who couldn't get accepted anywhere else?

I've never even heard of paid GMing. What is this?

GM's require payment for the privilege of joining their shit game

That's fucking retarded.

I do this, but it's more of a group fund than a payment. Everyone has to chip in 8$ a week for dinner. I either cook or order thematically appropriate food.

No, you just need to have friends who aren't total fuckwits.

>Have a D&D group
>Get sick of the generic shit we've been running
>One of our group's mutual friends writes fictional novels for a living
>Ask him to GM
>Says he'll do it for $150
>We agree
>One of the best campaigns we've had

it was worth it.

never done it because I play with friends, but I feel your pain OP. Longest consecutive sessions was 6 weeks, then someone went away on our normal play day and that was that...

>Hey user can we play in medieval Italy? I want pizza this week

It really is, and yet its apparently a thing. Papa /pfg/ always told me to never trust people from roll20 and I can only imagine it would be worse when they literally have to pay for it

We've been playing in fantasy medieval Baghdad essentially so I've been cooking middle eastern food lately. Except when the players stayed with the goblins for a week, then I cooked goblin food (I made fish jerky).

So I don't mean to brag, but that's a lie, and I'm going to do it anyway.

My players don't pay me, but they do buy dinner, turn up on time, buy books, fancy beer, and occasionally other stuff just to say thanks. They're nice people and I'm so happy I get to run games for them.

I'm fine with the idea of being paid for GMing. My problem is that GMing takes so many hours to do that if you charge any significant fraction of minimum wage, the cost quickly becomes massive, so you might as well not bother in my book.

Just have your players buy snacks and pizza.

I would think paid GMing is an assured way to get the shittiest players imaginable. You deserve better than this, OP

I have only joined a paid GM's game once in my life. And even then, it was only because I knew the guy really well, had played in one of his campaigns before and knew that he was really, really good, and because he was only asking for money because he was shit broke and would refuse work because he had to make shit for our games by himself.

Best fucking campaign I ever played. So what I'm telling you OP is that if you're going to charge you had better be really good.

I didn't want to mention this but The campaign I wanted to run is one I previously attempted to run. I hadn't expected it to last very long but it ended up running a couple years. I had poured everything I had into it but it ended up dying just as it was getting close to the end because a girl was introduced to the group. It was mainly for vidya but the group ended up splitting due to internal conflict pretty quick and I was left with too much unused content and blue balls on a finale.

>paid GM

Good goy, pay me to entertain you

Autists have such an awful game concept and are so unwilling to GM that they offer to pay someone to run a game.

How is this any different from any other form of entertainment?

Books, movies, video games that all have to be bought.
How can you say that people shouldn't charge money for hosting while not condemning the same practice for any other form of entertainment?

*dreidel noises*

If this is for a pathfinder game just slap a link to /pgg/. It's better than getting a party of roll20 retards

maybe you shouldn't live in a capitalist society m8.

I could understand this, as a one off, as a birthday gift for a friend if he was a fan of the specific paid GM like Chris Perkins

/pfg/ is trash though. It's just devolved into fanwanking over everyone's favorite players and if you're not one of them you don't get into a game. It's the same for GMs, if your game doesn't meet the community's standards of level 10 25 point buy gestalt and have a mandatory level of lesbian kitsune's for the players to fuck when they take breaks from each other nobody will apply.

I have a very impersonal, close to nonexistent relationship with the authors, directors and developers of other media that I buy. That's not to say I can't negotiate exchanges of services that are more personal, like seeing a doctor, getting music lessons or scheduling a fitness trainer. But notice that paying for services that are delivered personally, it's always for something that's more utilitarian and never something "just for fun".

Seriously, think about any "just for fun" service that you as an adult can pay another adult to provide. It can be for you personally or for a small group. Can you think of a single example that isn't strippers or prostitution-related that wouldn't feel incredibly abnormal or niche? The reason why it would feel abnormal is because paid entertainment that is one-to-one or for a small group always subconsciously feels like prostitution.

Even something skirting on the edge like massages can't get rid of that association. The intimacy is either intentionally obfuscated (public setting, no conversation between you and the masseuse, etc.) or used as a way to escalate the transaction into paid sexual services. When you combine money, entertainment and personal interaction between vendor and buyer, our minds will always subconsciously compare the exchange to prostitution.

There's one potential exception to this but I think the reasoning behind this exception is intuitive enough that it doesn't hurt the argument's consistency. That exception is: hiring entertainment for children's parties, such as clowns, magicians, etc. Firstly, children are inherently non-sexual, which prevents at least a well-adjusted mind from making that association. Secondly, it's the parents who are actually paying for it. Since they're not the primary consumer of the entertainment, it's impersonal enough that the association doesn't happen.

So to summarize:

Paid + Fun + Impersonal = normal consumer interaction with entertainment.

Unpaid + Fun + Personal = typical get-togethers with RPGs falling under this. Note that unpaid just means that the participants either aren't paying each other (like going to a restaurant and splitting the bill) or it's sufficiently obfuscated (one person is treating us but he's paying the restaurant, which is interacting with us in an impersonal manner).

Paid + Fun + Personal = prostitution, prostitution-related service or something that our minds will inevitably associate with prostitution, no matter how innocuous the actual transaction is.

Anyway, that's the reason why it's uncommon and intuitively weird to pay GMs to run.

>Being upset at entrepreneurs

*carves golem*

Why are you namefagging?

What makes me uneasy about the idea of paid GM'ing is it's a very subjective service. Any other paid service you know what you're getting, how it's going to be and when you should expect it. When it comes to a game where the fun is decided by chance dice rolls and player interaction, something you paid money upfront for and decided wasn't worth it you're not going to get any refunds on.

Also there's little stopping a GM from just pulling a kickstarter and vanishing with the money once they're paid.

Do those "escape the room" games that are popping all over the place count? They're a cooperative game that you play with family/friends and there is an arbiter of sorts that observes and drops hints. They run in a niche of RPGs I'd say, namely the puzzle solving one.

You're paying them by being a bro and running a game for them.
They're paying you with respect and providing concessions for the group.
This isn't even paid DMing: this is just an all around good group.

I think the arbiter is only interacting with the players when necessary, not as a given and constantly like a GM would. He's detached in the same way a bartender might be.

The really great thing about paid GMing is sniping groups away from paid GMs.

>>Tired of players leaving me
>>Become a paid GM
>>Get a group of committed players
>>They fire me

If I'm paying for GMing, I expect shit like models, good NPC voice-acting, every player getting a chance to do their character arc/weird thing their character is good at, etc.

>Expects models
>Ever paying a Local GM
>Ever expecting a Local GM

>Talk to your group about it
>Say you'd like to play a longer campaign
>If they don't, fine. Either plan for 2-4 session adventures or find a new group
>If they do, but some want to GM, just switch GMs in the same adventure.
>If they do, and are okay with you GMing, you've got buy-in

Sometimes it feels like 90% of all roleplaying problems posted online would be solved by simply talking to others in an adult way.

>people keep leaving my campaigns
>think my players will stay if I charge them money to play?

Can you find the flaw in spot the flaw in your reasoning.

This is reasonable.
Chipping in for snacks and drinks is fine too.

>stuff that never happened

>players love being railroaded in my fantasy fan-fiction campaign

This is what write-fags actually believe.

I've had an online group from the gamefinder for a year and a half, in that time we've run 2 campaigns and a single player had to be replaced for scheduling.

Feels good.

>Also there's little stopping a GM from just pulling a kickstarter and vanishing with the money once they're paid.
For most paid GMs I think the payment is an ongoing thing, like MMO subscriptions or something.
I mean sure, they could run off with whatever you paid for the first few sessions, but they're not getting any more out of you after that.

As always, the answer to Veeky Forums's problems is "Play with your friends"

this, imagine the kind of attention hworing special snowflakes you'd get who now have the justification of saying 'I PAID for this so I should get to do what I want'

>the giant rat bites your arm, you take 1d6 damage
>NO I DONT
>i'm sorry, what?
>I AM PAYING YOU FOR THIS GAME I DO NOT TAKE ANY DAMAGE, I PARRY AND EXPERTLY KILL THE RAT
>o-okay

>"...for you see, insignificant mortal, before my ascension beyond the limits of flesh, I was your brother! You were the one who drove me to this!"
>NO
>what why
>THE LICH IS NOT MY BROTHER, MY BROTHER IS DEAD, IT'S AN EVIL LICH AND I HIT IT FOR 12D6 DAMAGE

I could see it

> Players get into it but either stop showing up for (reasons) or join other games run by people in the group

Chances are you're a shitty GM and your players don't like you.

>forever GM
>join other games run by people in the group

Op, I'm going to take a shot in the dark here, but the "Other games" that people are playing are a different game system that you don't want to play, or are you not getting invited?

Otherwise, the answer is simple, play in their game. Learn how they're doing things differently and how players react to it. Players only flake out like that from a game if they don't actually like it, but don't want to cause drama by calling it/you shit.

Of course, I'm in the same boat, so I'm not talking from on high, but as an equal.

As a person who recently began paid GMing, the two players I hooked have both been on time or alerted me a day in advance. Neither have been super furry snowflakes and both of them have taken my needs and wants into account despite paying me.

It's pretty good.

Why not just run really good games?

So if i commission a piece of art or hire a photographer, i'm banging the artist.

Ok then. Brb buying some art.

No that's Impersonal. You're commissioning a product that maybe has a few emails of back and forth.

> last big group, running shadowrun, 11 people on the roster but maybe 4-6 a given week
> wrote and ran massive, 20-session game
> made dinner every week
> their only responsibility was "bring beer"
> they left extra beer, I didn't have to buy beer because I was spending $50 / wk feeding them
> usually enough beer that I didn't need more during the week
> one of them never brought beer, and drank all the beer the others bought
> one chick never drank, brought ice cream instead some weeks
> ice cream chick was cool, played well
> guy who never brings beer started showing up with two beers, drinks one, drinks other people's beer, leaves with his "extra"
> also came up with retarded plans, trying to play "clever" shadowrunner, tried to play other people's characters
> frequently shot down for dumb plans
> can't kick him out because we're all part of the same social circle (grad students together)
> at finale, did massive food spread instead of dinner (for easier snacking, to avoid interrupting the game)
> asked others to bring snacks
> go all out, get chips, homemade guac, popcorn, sliced salami, cheese cubes, bread from local bakery, the works
> lots of other people bring delicious snacks, too
> two-beer guy shows up with sausage and cheese of his own
> eats my sausage and cheese
> takes his home

He decided he was going to quit playing with us after the finale because he wanted something "more serious" (after constantly showed up stoned out of his mind) with "more planning" and "no inter-player conflict."

I'm all for getting together with fun people and playing good games, but the only way I'd ever do a whole dinner / chill thing again is if I just asked people to kick in money for food and hosting. It's sort of "paid GMing", but mostly it's to make sure there aren't free-loading fuckhats like that guy.

OP needs to find new players that aren't fuckhats.

I actually have the opposite problem.

All of my players love my games. But I get bored/burnt out on the setting.

I like GMing, but I feel like I'm letting the players down, abandoning storylines they're more invested in than I am.

I'm trying to get my playgroup to start doing one-shots, so we can occasionally return to settings they like, after i've had a chance to regain interest.

If you're good at something never do it for free.

Fuckwittery isn't something most people are born with, they apply it. If you pay to get into something and then act like a fuckwit and get kicked out, you're out the money. This tends to keep most people polite.

The fact that most people in this thread have a huge problem with paying to play an RPG when they regularly pay for every other entertainment should set off alarm bells that you would never want to DM for or play with any one of them.

Yeah, but all the things they do seem kind of foreign to Veeky Forums. Plus it's really nice beer.

If anyone else there knows how to run a system I would recommend rotating the GM duties every now and then. Not sure how it would work-out for you but long ago my current group of about 2.5 (3?) years was suffering a similar issue and once we began rotating GMs not only were our sessions more fulfilling for the original GM (likely due to being able to be a player and have more time to write out their campaign) everyone started enjoying themselves more due the larger variety of systems and stories we played.

Good luck user.

no. it is just fucking stupid.
unless you're running at a con, for people you don't know

Threads like this make happy I have a reliable group of competent players in a setting that's been ongoing for several years.

But I don't play for most other forms of entertainment

Really depends on the project. For example, if you're an ideas guy that commissions a whole series of illustrations, the artist will need to first be familiar enough with the setting to create consistent designs for creatures, cultures, jobs, etc. Then also come up with designs for specific characters that combine these designs with a personal spin on them. This stuff can take weeks or months based on volume, detail and the number of overhauls because an idea might look better in your head than on paper.

That back-and-forth is likely to get almost as personal as GMing.

Whereas a simple project might just be "Here's what I want" - "Okay here's what you get" - "thanks, sent money" - "got money, thanks".

I've done both kinds of commissions for people.