I might be late to notice but since when did Roll20 get games you have to pay for?

I might be late to notice but since when did Roll20 get games you have to pay for?
That seems incredibly scummy.

Also just general Roll20 thread.

Pay dm because not everyone wants to dm.

I can understand the logic of getting paid to DM, but it's definitely not something I'm ever going to do. I don't have any grand delusions about my ability, nor do I think capitalising on a hobby is in any way a good idea.

Power to the people that pay for games, though, I really hope they're getting their money's worth.

More or less you can click to not see it.

Since DMs were a super rare thing. An entry fee is a good way to filter out hordes of requests.

Pay to play was already a topic a few years back, but it pops up so rarely, that it just isn't a big factor to the community at large.
Especially on roll20 it makes sense. Some people just end up in places where there's no local scene or they had to leave their friends behind. Regular games on roll20 are known to be filled with flakes. If a paid game would increase my chances to actually play, I'd probably do it, too, given the right circumstances

Are there ERP in roll20? Just asking if there any degenerate using it.

I can understand the idea behind it, but looking over some of the pay to play games.

This seems way out of hand.

Why do you care? It's not like you're forced to pay it, right? You have the wonderful opportunity to find a good group that you don't need to bribe to have a good time.

At least I do, as I attempt -and fail- to be a reasonable human being.

Some people are so bad thats the only way they can find game.
And some GMs have low enough standards to sell their time to such people.

The idea of monetizing a hobby activity just feels wrong to me. DM'ing is supposed to be a thing you do out of passion for the game, but because you can get fat stacks.

Sure I can just not pay, but I still feel for the poor suckers who end up spending money for what might be a subpar campaign.

Kind of reminds me of the paid mods thing videogames are struggling with.

I got into a game that was incredibly short-lived and used exclusively to broadcast amateur porn. There's plenty of degeneracy on Roll20.

If the GM puts serious (read: serious) work into his game, then he should probably be compensated. Especially if the people he's providing the game for are randoms, and the GM uses said money to purchase the Roll20 membership or tokens or whatever.

>The idea of monetizing a hobby activity just feels wrong to me.
Well, it is. I think so aswell but I'm not going to be a bitch about it: I'll just keep playing like I always have, with my buddies. Fuck everything else, I'm having my fun one way or another.

How do i become the jew GM

Start by being a good GM.

Why is it okay to pay moviemakers, writers, musicians, gamedevs etc for your entertainment, but paying GMs is suddenly "scummy"?

I think i'm decent, my players also don't shit on me and i think we're having fun when playing

How do i proceed

Movies, books, music and games aren't free.

Roleplaying is a hobby, to have money get involved with an activity that is free is opening the gates for people who do it for money, not because they're passionate.

Sure you can just not pay them, but it's still something that going to affect the hobby on a whole if left unchecked.

Once again, just look towards paid mods for videogames, give them a foot and they take a mile.

In my opinion, you are worrying too much. The best way to deal with GMs who want to be paid is ignoring them altogether.

Besides, having people who express interest in being paid to GM is a clear indication that they are scum and shit: a surefire way to avoid a shitty person. I think it's a good thing, because it helps me look for someone who is not garbage.

Roll20. Make a free game, get some good randoms for a one shot and impress. You have to think of it as a business, nobody that don't know you is going to pay for you to GM, you gotta show the goods first.

Or porn-forum dive until you get a few players make a degenerate, fetish fueled campaign. Degenerate people always have too much money.

I probably am, it just doesn't sit right with me that some people out there might be using a hobby I enjoy for things like that and possibly cheating people out of money with it.

Let me tell you a secret that most artists and hobbyists learn late in life.

If you can get paid for your art, or for GMing, you can buy more art supplies and Gm tools.

Sellign out is what unsuccessful egotists call it. But it's much, much better to sell out and be able to continue the good work than it is to starve for your principles, when your principles are basically...hobby.

They added the pay to play tab a few months ago because several would be DMs would make a post about starting a game but mention near the bottom of their posts that players would need to pay to play in their game. A lot of people hated that they couldn't filter that shit out, so clicking to exclude them from search is easier now. Scummy DMs have been around for a while, it used to suck that you'd start reading the opening premise for the campaign only to see you need to pay to join the game after it initially caught your interest. For a while roll20 banned pay to play games but for some reason they allowed it back. I wish they didn't but at least there is a way to filter them out of your game searches now.

These are also shitty principles to start out with.

We don't live in a beautiful world where everyone has plenty of money.

Art is different because it's often times their daytime work. If you GM for a living and it's all you do, then sure there is merit to it.

But why should other people pay you to do your own hobby better? Surely you'd do that yourself because it's your hobby.

If I wasn't a poorfag, I'd definitely consider paying to be in certain games. Quite frankly, all of my friends are interested almost exclusively in Warhammer Fantasy 2e or Pathfinder, and I've been burned out on those systems for a year at this point. The systems I want to try out are either things they have 0 interest in (Shadowrun) or something no one wants to GM (Green Ronin's Dragon Age system). Every Shadowrun game I've been in on roll20 has been absolute garbage, soulless number crunches with no real roleplay. After reading 2D's story time on here, I can't accept that all Shadowrun games are like that.

If some GM that was super good at juggling mechanics and incorporating backstories/music/deep character interaction/lore authenticity into their game, I would be SORELY tempted to pay for his or her services. I assume most people that pay for sessions are in similar situations for one reason or another.

Absolutly no one wants to play the Dragon Age RPG.

Found one game on Roll20 and it ended up being really horrible as there was no consistent tone and the DM changed from Text-only to Voice in the middle of the session and was even ignoring people's backstory.

I managed to luck out and get in a game that seems decent, but I'm not holding my breath. I'm the only guy out of 5 players, and all the other players are the sort of far left biodrones that talk about their headcanons and how Solas is a smug white elf. You don't know how hard it is for me to keep my head down, stay quiet, and only talk in-character. The fact that it's bi-weekly leaves me jonesing for sessions in between, too.

I don't get mad at people paying for sex. Wouldn't make sense to get mad about paying for a GM.

>people who do it for money, not because they're passionate
This is bad....why?

That sounds similar to what I was apart of.

Do one of them by chance use a character portrait that is a real life cosplay? And do they freak out about Hallas?

>But why should other people pay you to do your own hobby better? Surely you'd do that yourself because it's your hobby.
Why SHOULDN'T you get paid for it?
You might do better and take some responsibility as a GM if you are actually getting paid hard cash to do this stuff, and not flake out because you have a headache or don't feel like it or something.

This same argument could be used against commission artists.

Normally you'd have the responsibility thing with the fact that you've made a promise with a few people and they've taken time out of their day for you.

And honestly i'd rather the DM didn't show up instead of half-assing it because they didn't feel like it. Don't think money is gonna change that.

No, thankfully. Granted, three of them play elves and they all talk about being in other games. I'm definitely going to ask about Halla now to see if any of them freak out about them.

Vaguely related, you don't know how tempted I am to start an AGE general. I really want to discuss this system somewhere.

>And honestly i'd rather the DM didn't show up instead of half-assing it because they didn't feel like it. Don't think money is gonna change that.
I suspect it would actually help a fair bit with depressed GMs. A lot of people want to do something, but simply lack the motivation to do things. Anything that can add on to that, even if it is guilting them into getting things done because the other people are spending money as well as time on something they're creating, is a bonus because if they can get something done that's a step towards them not feeling like they're useless people and the world would be better off without them. It also gets them money and money can really help with depression.

I once saw an ad of a Guy volunteering to get paid to GM like it is a job. What's more, he said he would make"roleplaying evaluation sheets" for each player like he was some kind of teacher.

All in all, asking to be paid to GM is a scummy thing to do because GMing is not a science but an interpretation. There is no such thing as a good GM, only a GM that is good for the group he plays with.
Getting on a fictional high horse and caliming to be a "professional" GM is wrong and pathetic.
On the other hand, if i pay you to GM, it means you do what i say. If you want these money you better give me a pet dragon at lvl 1, i don't give a shit about your story

Are they playing Dalish elves? For some reason no one ever wants to be a city elf in all the games i've played.

Why be a concentration camp jew when you can be a badass nazi hunter jew?

Two of them are. The third is playing a city elf from Kirkwall. I was sorely tempted to play a city elf myself, but stuck with the orlesian knight-errant idea I'd sold the GM on. Most people like the idea of being a badass outsider, I guess. Both of the Dalish are mages, too.

>On the other hand, if i pay you to GM, it means you do what i say. If you want these money you better give me a pet dragon at lvl 1, i don't give a shit about your story
There are restaurants who will kick your ass out if you don't wear proper attire. A GM who's getting paying folks wouldn't take someone like you because you'd be disruptive to the group and act like a spoiled tard, interfering with everyone else's paid for fun.

Because when you're a camp jew you get to be the underdog and when you start hunting the nazi you get to have the motivation of ''It's personal!''.

Pretty much this. I think that this is also the reason why so many DMs balk at the idea of taking money for their work.

They give up power and vision because the motivation for the game shifts to not just be something entirely from their own inner mind but something that tangible in the outside word that they need to pay attention to. Money and material things that are outside of fantasy.

I used to think this about people that pay to have their minis painted.
As I get older and the amount of time I get to devote to my hobbies seems to be reducing I care less.
I used to be into archery and made a bow, and thought why doesn't everyone make their own bows, then there was a woman at the same range as me who made her own arrows and I definitely didn't have time for that shit.

If people want to pay to skip the parts of hobbies they don't enjoy and focus on the bits they do - more power to them.

I DM one ttrpg session a week for free because I enjoy it. I play one session a week too. If I didn't work full time I'd play and gm twice as much.

Well too bad because as I said being a GM is not a professional role and nowhere near the level of exclusiveness a fine restaurant may have. I pay for a service that is not a novel or a pre-established videogame, it's a story i have actual power over and that is supposed to react to my own efforts. Everything else is railroading. So give me that dragon, fuckboy

>Wanting someone to put their time and effort into providing you weekly entertainment for free.

What are you a communist?

>playing with a newbie on roll20
>hes asked to roll a d20
>types in /roll 20 which just displays a 20 result and gets excited about his first "natural 20"
>gets disappointed when we tell him he didnt really roll
>tell him how to roll properly
>he gets a natural 20
Not like we were using a system where a nat 20 is an autosuccess or anything ridiculous but still

In the context of Dragon Age, most people seem to think that the right way to tell a city elf story has already been done, that being the city elf origin. That's not true, there's lots of different ways one might have been abused by humans, but that's the excuse they give.

People usually like the underdog only as long as it isn't them

Just thought it could be fun to make a city elf character who hasn't been abused by humans at all and has only ever had good interactions with them.

They'd most likely be perma confused by other elves hatred of humans but it would make for fun party banter, being the human loving elf.

>GM is not a professional role

If you're being paid for it it's a professional role

>nowhere near the level of exclusiveness a fine restaurant

Within the context of the RPG community where there's a disgusting glut of players to very few DM's, many less of those that are any good, I'd say it is.

>I pay for a service

You pay for the GM to run a game for you and your group. Unless the game is one where everyone gets a pet dragon you don't get any special treatment relative to anybody else.

>So give me that dragon, fuckboy

No, you're utterly replaceable with the legion of other players who'd happily pay to play and I'm not about to imbalance the entire game because you think giving me $10 lets you be a special entitled snowflake.

I greatly hope you can play this in an all-girl, all-dalish group so you can make them REEE and call you an Uncle Tom, user. I like the idea though, that's a character I'd love to see at my table.

>All in all, asking to be paid to GM is a scummy thing to do because GMing is not a science but an interpretation.
So artists shouldn't be paid either?

>Degenerate people always have too much money.
Not neccesarily, they just disproportionally spend their money on porn

Source: am furry

>Drawing should be a thing you do out of a passion for the art, not because you can get fat stacks
>Music should be a thing you do out of a passion for the art, not because you can get fat stacks
>You sucking cocks should be a thing you do out of a passion for how much of a faggot you are, not because you can get fat stacks

Okay, I kinda lost my train of thought there, but you get the point.

Nobody is going to pay you to DM unless you offer something special. The market has decided that that the work of an average DM costs 0$ and it is very likely that you are an average DM. With that in mind you actually need to offer something extraordinary to convince people to bother with you.

All fine and dandy until you remember that every single player is also a potential GM because a GMing is something that requires absolutely no skill or learning other that the willingness to pick up the rulebook and do some superficial research using google. So you as a "professional" GM are already outnumbered by am astounding amount of people that can do exactly what you can do without being a twat about it.
So give me my dragon, fuckboy, because you too are not so irreplaceable as you think and this team is willing to play with you only because of the chance of derailing or because they don't know what internet is

Ask yourself honestly, if someone was blowing you, wouldn't it be way more enjoyable if you knew they were there because they wanted to, not because you paid them?

As someone who has used an escort before, not really. If you have the cash to pay for someone high class, they're good enough at faking the enthusiasm that you stop caring. Hell, they're certainly better than some of the free blowjobs I've gotten in my life.

You seriously have reading comprehension problems. An artist offers a completed product on the marked, i.e. their work of art, whichcan be a painting, a music album or a statue, but it's a finished product they put time and effort in. Purchasers don't have the power to alter the artist's work nor have any decision power over the process. A campaign is a collective effort, not a novel
Also, a lot of people would say that yes, artists should not be paid. They're called pirates

>Purchasers don't have the power to alter the artist's work nor have any decision power over the process.
So artists shouldn't do commissions, then?

Then why are there so many open listings online begging for GMs?

Not him but commissions usually suck. If you have an eye for it, you can see where the artists half-ass the commission just to get the picture done. If you look at most galleries on deviantart, the commissions are never as good. As someone once told me, you're paying someone else for their vision of your character, and they're never going to be passionate about it like you are.

Commissions are somebody paying for something they can't do on their own, or something extremely specific that is not the main interest of the artist. I pay for someone to fix my sink if it breaks, but i don't if i can fix my sink on my own.
Also, there is an entire thread in this very board dedicated to people who draw for passion or to kill time and ask no compensation for commissions

Yeah and anybody with a typewriter is a potential author.

The difference is skill , experience and desire which I have and most GM's do not possess. Which is why I can charge while others cannot.

But please play with some scrub who just picked up the PHB if you want. They'll ironically be far more easily bullied by you into ERPing your dragon fetish anyway.

Most good commission artists don't work on DeviantArt. There's plenty out there who do really good work.

Hell, most RPG sourcebooks have the majority of their art done on a commission basis. Not many RPG developers have in-house art teams anymore.

>Also, there is an entire thread in this very board dedicated to people who draw for passion or to kill time and ask no compensation for commissions
And does their existence mean people shouldn't pay for art? Or do you have the (completely sensible) opinion that the two can co-exist just fine?

Because people are lazy, but all those listings are either by undesireable players or will soon be replaced because in that specific group will stop being a beta and step up as a GM.
There is a reason for people not to play with folks from Veeky Forums for example.
Asking to be paid to GM is essentially preying on the non-commitment and self consciousness of weaker people, and that is unacceptable

Can you please point me to where you can find these people? I suck at doing research on such things.

There's no tried and true method. You can look for artists who do work in RPG books, but they can often be on the expensive end of things.

Personally I've had nothing but good experiences with Will Nunes (pic related, it's the piece he did of my group), but I discovered him through word of mouth.

>The difference is skill , experience and desire which I have and most GM's do not possess. Which is why I can charge while others cannot.
All self-awarded qualities that does't make you any bettet than the next guy. An affirmed novelist is different from a potential one based on a real, assessable set of skillsand knowledges about writing and editing.
Your skills as a GM are not comparable to anything because there is no official school of GMing.
Come back to me when one of your adventures gets published by wizard of the coast, until then you're an amateur scrub just like everyone else

Well at least you've stopped begging for your dragon. I knew I'd break you eventually.

>Your skills as a GM are not comparable to anything because there is no official school of GMing.
Ah yes because all the best novelists study writing.

Being a payed GM/DM makes you a faggot who doesn't give a shit about the hobby you are just in it to make money.
Therefore you campaign will be only good enough to make money, it will not be interesting and creative it will be just something to appeal to the idiots who want to essentially jerk off.
Then you have the players, if you are a paid GM/DM you need to basically be their whore.
If you kill their character they are going to get pissed and you are going to lose a paid customer so you can't kill their character so then there are no stakes.
With no stakes at all they are literally paying for that GM/DM to jerk them off (Their egos that is) for as long as they want to pay.
It is fucking pathetic and basically like paying to win in a shit video game.

Everyone deserves a dragon.

>Being a payed GM/DM makes you a faggot who doesn't give a shit about the hobby you are just in it to make money.

Because no craftsman has ever put effort and pride in his own products, right?

>Projecting so hard you have to compare a game that was made so that faggot would make friends and play make believe together
>Compared to someone making something tangable that will probably last 5 years
The amount of projecting in this thread by people who obvious think they are so amazing that they have to charge people money to run a game just shows how fucking up your own ass most people are on Veeky Forums

I've been DMing for 10 years. I don't see why asking for payment for my skills and experience somehow means I only care about money. I just want to be able to earn a relatively small amount doing something I love too. Aint that the american dream?

I actually tailor design my campaign to suit the players , while making sure it's still a game I'd enjoy running and playing in myself and put just as much passion as I do into any of my games because I just love D&D.

I likewise have a series of rules I strictly keep to and if players die well they die that's on them and they're happy to take part none the less. You don't become someones bitch just because they pay you for something. If you hire a builder to build a wall for you is that builder your bitch now? Can you command him to dance for you inbetween laying bricks. That's absurd.

How much do you charge? Do you do it by the hour? Per person? Per session? Honestly I don't see a problem with what you're doing if your rate isn't absurd.

Forgot about it
Give me my dragon, fuckboy

I've been DM/GMing for 14 years so fucking what how long you've been running games man.
The fact you think you should be payed for your vast experience is fucking ludacris since there are people out there that would dwarf your ass in skill.
Also Mah American Dream, by exploiting people who just want to play a game so you can line your pockets and turn your hobby into a job so you can keep sitting on your ass and not get a real job.
Also much like the other user you compare a bricklayer to yourself when you are running a game.
Why do you really play?, do you do it to make friends?, do you do it to have fun?, because if you turn it into a job it will lose all its fun and be nothing more than a job to you.
But really you probably don't care about that you just money for playing make believe since its easy fucking money and anyone that would pay you for that is a fucking idiot.

All the best novelists did

After running a bunch of online games I have noticed a bunch of flakes. And it just kills it for me. Once one person can't come I start to lose passion because I plan out each session with the players in mind.

I know people enjoy my games and have been thinking about charging for a while. Problem for me is that I run other systems (marvel tsr, opend6 ,pokemon) and people just want to play 5th

>I've been a GM for 10 years
And i have been reading comics for 20. Now pay me to read this issue of spiderman to you

GMing is no more of a craft than it is wiping your ass after taking a shit

If you're that good and experienced at reading comics, you could try getting paid for reviewing them.

Can you dissect the story telling aspects of it and analyze the art style and how it is used to convey the story?
I'll gladly add you to the other such YT channels that make a living by doing this that I already follow.

False equivalence.

But people make music, writing, and games for free as a hobby too. Why asking money for those is less scummy than for GMing?

>people don't pay to watch live performances
>people don't pay to play sports
I'm sorry sweaty but things do in fact cost money

Because he can pirate all those things.

Because people as a whole, even within the community, don't respect GM'sas artists or GMing as an art form. They claim that paying for a game makes the GM your bitch but ironically this is how they treat their GM anyway because there entitled and petulent, hence why they think they should get someone's time, effort, skill and experience for free.

This is fortunately slowly changing but we're a long way off.

>Not him but commissions usually suck
I could be a pedantic cunt and name off plenty of shit like the Sistine Chapel and St. George and the Dragon, but the list would be several thousands pieces long. Pretty much every famous artist in history did commissions, often times they are their most famous works because most artists don't have the capital sitting around to just make huge or elaborate pieces of art, even if they are famous. Hell, the entire job of architecture is commissioned art. Go fuck yourself you retarded shitposter

The other player tipped me $50 to have your dragon be eaten, you going to up the ante?

Watching a live performance is not a collective effort. The performes don't take your input on what to do. Or are you one of those that throws stuff on the stage for the heck of it?
>people pay money to play sports
What kind of economic nightmare do you live in? You don't pay to play, you pay for the use of the sport infrastructures

Not even, Roger Ebert got payed to watch movies

What's your beef with that user getting paid for his skillset? If you're as good as you say then you shouldn't be worried about him being your competitor, so it's no skin off your back.

I was talking about character commissions done by modern day artists and you know it, you aggressive user.

>Watching a live performance is not a collective effort.
T. Never been to a concert

And yes you need to pay to play sports, have you never payed to rent a skating rink? Or payed to rent equipment? Are you really gonna double down on being completely fucking clueless?