But do you mean per session? The OP states "per session".
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But do you mean per session? The OP states "per session".
Any session. If money is "required" to be exchanged before play, then that pretty much sounds like "paid game" to me. The frequency and amount of payment doesn't change whether or not it is a paid game, it just means whether or not people will think that it is a fairly assessed.
Thanks for the clarification. You might want to update the OP to clearly define "paid game".
The OP is correctly worded as-is. The per session was an example of how a paid game might be, not a definition. Are you asking to be paid by players? That pretty much defines it right there.
In spoofers game players are asked to contribute towards the cost of the next adventure, one time, on joining the group.
I understand. That is a paid game. An inexpensive paid game, but still a paid game. If it is a request for funds to help out but not a hard requirement before joining, then you could probably skirt the "paid game" label if that is the concern.Quote:
Originally Posted by damned
Sounds like the difference is pretty simple:
1) Paid = Everyone is required to pay to play.
2) Unpaid = Donations are accepted but not mandatory.
As long as we are spitballing... if I may make an amendment...Quote:
Originally Posted by esmdev
1) Paid Game: Any game where anyone is required to pay anything to play.
2) Unpaid Game: Any game that is not a paid game.
Comment on 1): Anyone instead of everyone because I shouldn't be able to skirt the rule by inviting a friend along and not charging her. Also, shouldn't be able to skirt the rule by having one person pay the cost for the group.
Comment on 2): Having created the universe of games I want the rule to apply to, I can simply exclude the rest of the universe from the rule. The definition of unpaid games is, strictly speaking, unnecessary. The rule and who (in this case, what) it applies to is all that is needed. A game where donations are accepted but not required (and payment is not required) is an example of an unpaid game. A game where neither payment nor donations are accepted would also be an example.
Thank you all for the clarifications.
I will make sure to follow these rules when recruiting for a paid game.
K.
I prefer to play "paid games" because money tends to make people more willing to show up and be responsible. I have had more positive gaming experience then free games. I don't charge when I DM but I am considering it because how often players just leave.
That's a fair comment.Quote:
Originally Posted by dlaselle
I, on the other-hand, have only had 3 people drop out of my games since I started running them on FG, so I suppose I've been "lucky" - mind you, I tend to run "less popular" games (ie non-DnD, non-SW, non-PF) and I go through a reasonably rigourous recruitment/vetting process, so I suppose that cuts down on the pool of "drop-outs" to begin with.
But whatever works for people.
(FTR: As is fairly well know, I am firmly in the anti-paid-games camp.)
Dlaselle, I could not agree with you more. That is exactly why I charge a one-time fee. I only recently started this, but so far my experience has been very good. It takes longer to find a player, but the players who join seem to be very committed to the game, show up regularly, and email me when they cannot.
I am on the FG Discord server and I just had a thought... Now granted I am sure the same rules apply, are you allowed to post in the LFG/LFP channels provided you follow the rules as described for paid games??? The reason I ask is I definitely have no want to make waves as people like to troll and rage... I was just wondering if it is aloud on the discord server???
Discord should follow the same rules. Paid games are fine as long as everyone follows the same rules. They are less popular than free games, but they are preferred by a percentage of the community and GMs. On Discord, please listen to the moderators as they have final say on what you can or can't do there.
Agree.Quote:
Originally Posted by ddavison
Bye bye.Quote:
Originally Posted by malbranque
Method of payment should be listed and it should not be giving anyone your credit card number or other account information. Maybe paypal, zelle, etc. It would be real bad if someone considered this a safe space and did provide credit card information and was ripped off because of it. If you are spelling out the rules forms of payment is not a bad thing to require.
Also if the DM is planning to post the session online or stream it players should know in advance and have to give consent.
Very good, salient points.Quote:
Originally Posted by Granamere
This. This is what so many "anti-paid-game" people don't seem to understand. We pay for things we love all the time. We pay DJs and bands to play music, we pay artists for art, we pay TV channels for shows, we pay for that kind of stuff constantly every day. There is no difference between that and gaming. If someone does something very well and is willing to do it for me, then I have zero problem paying them. I view it as not only fair (given all the work involved) but a great deal for me. And the second most important point is, who cares what someone else does? If people pay to play, it does no harm whatsoever to the free-to-play community. I find the "none of your business" argument to be so obvious that I'm surprised it isn't made more in discussion on this topic. I just don't understand... when "anti pay-to-play" people start writing a post on that topic, what outcome are they hoping for? Who are they trying to help? In what way do they think they are helping the community? It seems very paternalistic to me (Sorry, Dulux-OZ, I respect you greatly, but we definitely disagree on this, and I think your extension restrictions are a little unfair.)Quote:
Originally Posted by Full Bleed
I mean, if the anti-paid-games people are so passionate about this, then I assume they are all against the existence of Patreon, too, right? Of supporting the creation of things you like? Patronage has been a part of the creation of art almost since art has existed. Without some folks paying creative people to do their thing, the world would lack most of its artistic treasures. Artists have to eat, too.
I think looking at it from - of all things! - the viewpoint of an economist explains it best. The thing to recognize is that the most important commodity in the world, the most valuable thing there is, the thing you can never buy more of, is time. None of us has enough of it. None of us want to waste it - with the exception, of course, as the old saying goes, that "time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time". So gaming is definitely not wasting time unless you don't enjoy the game you're in. Now, looking at it from the perspective of time as a valuable commodity, let's see how it affects both sides.
As a gamer, I want to play. I want the most fun game I can get. I want a great GM, I want great companions, I want a good experience. Is it possible to get that from free-to-play games? Of course. Absolutely. People do it here hundreds of times a day. But let's be honest - anyone who does much gaming knows darn well that there's a difference between joining any old game and joining a great one. We all have bad experiences from time to time - maybe as bad as a Fascist GM From Hell, or maybe as small as a game just being "meh" - not terrible but not great either. We know there are crappy players and crappy GMs out there. To say otherwise is silly. So, let's face it - while finding a free game is easy, sometimes finding a really great free game can take a long time. It can certainly be done, but after spending years with FG and these forums I can honestly say that of the maybe 15-20 games I've been in, while only a few were awful, also only a few were wonderful. Most were pretty "meh". So, what we take away is that finding really good free games is possible but can take up a lot of time. I don't want to have to spend a long time finding my great games, and I want to play them now, not a long time from now when someday I have a big enough network of GMs and friends to be in mostly great games.
Now look at it from the GM's point of view. If you're a GM, you know that running a great campaign can take a lot of work and a lot of time. Even if you're using a pre-made adventure instead of writing one yourself, the amount of prep work can be staggering, especially if you want your campaign to be really great. There's usually a ton of reading, quite a bit of writing/creation, thought, and planning that goes into it - not to mention the organizational headache of trying to wrangle players into a specific time. It's a lot of work and, frankly, can be a real PITA that outweighs the fun of actually playing. To run a great game, you have to be prepared to dedicate a huge portion of your free time to doing it.
So... players don't want to take the time to find a great game, they want a great one right away. GMs don't want to invest the time unless they are going to have committed players who show up and participate. And when you have one group of people that have something and another group of people who want it, you have a market. And there is definitely a market for paid games. There would be a much better market if people didn't look down on it so much. I personally want a big market in paid games. It would be nice for good GMs to make a little money doing what they love. It would give them incentive to spend more time making their games great. As a player, I would love that market to be huge and active so that I have a whole slew of great games to choose from.
So, in conclusion (finally!) I think everyone should take a look at this from the perspective of what they already do every day. We constantly pay people who are better than us at something to do that thing for us. We pay for entertainment all the time. We watch Hollywood movies when we could watch indy/student films for free. Does that mean there are no good indy/student films? No. It means we don't feel we have the time to watch a lot of them to find the few great ones. Same goes for music, computer games, whatever. As for price, look at what you get for your entertainment dollar. If you go to the movies these days it's hard to get away for less than $20. That's roughly $10 per hour of entertainment - and the movie could suck! If I pay a GM $20 for a 3 or 4 hour game session, I get much better value than from the movie. If the game has five players, the GM makes $100 and the players get a good game. Everyone is happy. Win/win. At that rate a good GM could run a few sessions a week and, maybe not make a living at it, but certainly have some nice extra beer money and have incentive to make their games as awesome as possible. So you might say "$20 for a game session???" I say, "$20 for a movie???" Or $7 for a cup of friggin coffee? Put things in perspective, folks.
I also applaud Smiteworks for intelligently handling this issue by being neutral other than making a few simple rules, and I also think there should be a dedicated subforum for this, with a sticky disclaimer at the top basically saying "We have nothing official to do with any of this."Quote:
Originally Posted by Full Bleed
I made a sub-form for Paid Games and moved the threads I saw that were obviously paid over to there. That should make it easier to keep the two camps separate. I will add to the first post that if you really don't like paid games, then please stay out of that forum.
Thanks!Quote:
Originally Posted by ddavison
We never thought of doing a paid game, but it might not be a bad idea. Is there a rough going rate and is there a GM rating system? Just looking at it right now to see if we might want to give it a try, maybe a one shot or something.
I like the posted rules for advertising paid games
For me a paid game should not be for trying to make a profit but for covering the cost of purchasing source material / maps / map creation software / time for prep
for example DND 5E essential bundle is ~$200
the ultimate license is ~$149
total ~$350/£250
if you charged say 25pence/50cents per player per session a 4 player game would would pay for both the license and bundle in ~175-250 sessions so roughly the length of a single 4 hour per session level 1-20 campaign
When i see paid games of roughly £15/$20+ per session im going yes thats a good minimum hourly wage for a person if they have a table of 4 for a 4 hour game and it also speaks towards the amount of prep time you would expect to be getting put in, but if im paying these rates for a game then maybe having a refund policy stated, and probably a couple free taster sessions to see if the groups personalitys work together.
When playing pick up games (adventurers league) in cafe/pub in the before times normally players would cover the GMs drinks as a courtesy.
For a regular group of friends If we ever get back to being able to play at a physical table then i might put a jar at the side into which 20p could be tossed per session and then this cash would go towards buying / painting minis first of the players characters then of npcs / monsters
Question for the team: I'm a registered GM on the Start Playing Games website (not linking it until my question is answered). They function as a discovery engine for paid games as well as payments and scheduling.
Does the scheduling conflict with the Calendar rule here? While I'm coming up on my one year anniversary of purchasing FGU for my games I have to admit that I'm not active in the forum and can't find the calendar that's referred to. I want to be sure I'm respecting all rules before I make a post. Thanks!
Working under you being on a desktop or similar, if you look at top of page you will see a bar with a number of options: Home, New Posts, Forum, Blogs, Store, etc. If you hover over "Find Games", you will get a dropdown with "Recruiting Calendar", "Manage Campaign", and Looking for Group with more stuff.
Recruiting Calendar takes you to the calendar, while Manage Campaign takes you to where you can create, and deal with campaigns you are in or running.
I had exactly the same question as Craig on posting announcements here for paid games run via StartPlaying. Thus far I've only posted here for free games on there but I am about to start running paid-for games using them as payment provider.
Is posting notifications here about paid games on their system against the fourm rules here, because they have an integrated calendar and scheduling system as well? The games will be run on Fantasy Grounds, and it is nice to be able to announce them on the LFG's here, but with the rules-as-written it is not allowed to post here because we would technically be asking players to sign up to some alternative scheduling system. But we need to do that in order to be able to use it as the payment processor.
Cheers, Hywel
Thank you for the walk through to finding the calendar and campaign managers!
In general, we don't want posts here that lead users off the site into another site where they have to register. I'm okay with doing a test run to allow linking to Start.playing games as long as they are posted in the Paid forum and it is clearly listed that you also need to sign up at start.playing. If people don't seem to complain about it, then we will continue to allow it. This doesn't mean carte-blanche approval for any and all sites -- just the Start.playing site for now.Quote:
Originally Posted by CraigTD
Thank you. I have no problem with this setup. I'm a fan of being transparent about the games I intend to run.Quote:
Originally Posted by ddavison
Is there any news on this? I started a paid PF2E FG campaign on StartPlaying and am curious if I'm allowed to advertise that on here. I already advertised the campaign in the FG discord which seems to have no rule against that and StartPlaying seems to be the go-to site for paid games in general, so I feel it should be allowed in this forum as well, as long as everything is made clear.Quote:
Originally Posted by ddavison
Edit: I've also seen that many games advertised here actually do link to StartPlaying, so I guess it's just that the rules haven't been updated yet?
Yes, you can post with clear information identifying it as a paid game that requires registration with Start Playing. It is still in a trial phase to see how it goes and to see if we get any feedback on it.
Ok, thanks for the response :)Quote:
Originally Posted by ddavison
OK, I'm confused. Admittedly I'm new to Fantasy Grounds, but what's an alternate calendar system? In fact, what's the standard FG calendar system?Quote:
Originally Posted by ddavison
That means using a calendar system other then the one linked above (under Find Games).
I can't find the settings to create the game
Have you looked at the online Reference Manual / Wiki for how to use the software yet?
https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassia...TT+User+Manual
Basically, when you Create a Campaign, you are creating a permanent session for a group of players to log into and run a session with.
Regards,
JPG
Oh you need a license
Yes, a license is required to host a game as a GM for other players.
Regards,
JPG
Hello there,
I just submitted a forum thread in which I followed all the rules, except forgoting to put the cost in the description. Can I edit that after it posts? Or do you need to refuse and I can resubmit? I want to follow any rules, I am new to this. Thanks!!
I've approved the thread. You won't be able to edit the title, but you can edit the post - please do so and clearly indicate the cost. Thanks!Quote:
Originally Posted by usstitans