pay to play

[Draeus]

Hi,

I was wondering if there is a policy against, player 'donations' to the gm for running games? I'm talking say £1 for a 4hour session per player. I'm wanting to upgrade to the ultimate license and it is not cheap. But I enjoy gm'ing and want to run more open games outside my gaming group social network.

I'm not sure how successful this would be or even if it will work. But I would like to try.

[Trenloe]

What you do is entirely up to you. If you get players who are happy to pay for a game then I suppose the players are fine with it.

However, as you're charging for a game, I would be careful to make sure that it is clear to the players that you are no way involved with Smiteworks or Fantasy Grounds and that if the players are unhappy their only recourse is through the GM not through Smiteworks or the Fantasy Grounds community.

However, I'm not sure how Smiteworks would feel regarding you using their website to organise paid for games...

Contributing money to the GM was mentioned for the Pathfinder Society Organized Play games (https://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/fg2pfs/) but didn't really get anywhere - the GMs weren't complaining and the players didn't particularly comment. Mind you, around Colorado, for the face-to-face Pathfinder events the players pay $2 each to play to cover GM expenses so it's not an unheard of concept...

[Draeus]

Thanks for the reply,

Some great points to think about. i personally have paid to play games many conventions, but I know that the general gamer is a complicated person lol. Hmm not thought about how to advertise yet. I will look into that later me thinks.

[Trenloe]

I keep forgetting about playing (and paying) at conventions - but, I suppose you can argue that paying at conventions covers the overhead of the location, organisation, etc..

[Griogre]

Hi,

I was wondering if there is a policy against, player 'donations' to the gm for running games? I'm talking say £1 for a 4hour session per player. I'm wanting to upgrade to the ultimate license and it is not cheap. But I enjoy gm'ing and want to run more open games outside my gaming group social network.

I'm not sure how successful this would be or even if it will work. But I would like to try.
Just wanted to comment that the full license is not that expensive and that a full plus lites + bundle discount is cheaper a lot cheaper unless you have a huge group, than the ultimate license. And if you don't have a group at all then the full license might be a better deal for you personally. There is always more players than GM's and as long as you run a reasonally popular system at a standard time you won't have a problem finding players if you have a full license.

Also while I personally don't see a problem with charging, collecting over the Internet might be a problem. You can use Paypal but they take a cut and it may not be very effective for such a small fee.

[Draeus]

I already have the full licence bundle package deal. Was looking to upgrade to the ultimate license. I have 2groups so far but looking to run a few more.

[Draeus]

Also while I personally don't see a problem with charging, collecting over the Internet might be a problem. You can use Paypal but they take a cut and it may not be very effective for such a small fee.

Was looking at using PayPal and have a few ideas, but will worry about that closer to the time, if I was to follow this train of thought to fruition.

[ddavison]

We've been batting around ideas on how to allow players to "donate" or buy material for their currently connected GM. I don't think anyone wants it to feel like an obligation by any means, but I know there are a lot of players (and GMs) that would appreciate it being available if the mood struck.

[Griogre]

On the gifting or donation idea, maybe you could add giving gift certificates or store credit? On RPGNow you can sent a gift certificate to an email address.