Rules for Paid Games and hiring a Games Master

Quote:

Originally Posted by dlaselle

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.

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.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ddavison

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 check this out there.

Agree.

Quote:

Originally Posted by malbranque

Agree.

Bye bye.

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.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Granamere

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 Full Bleed

People pay for things they "Love" all the time. In fact, it's a time-honored tradition to support the things you love and respect with financial compensation.

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.)

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.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Full Bleed

I applaud Smiteworks for instituting some guidelines to try to herd this particular cat (since it appears one scratched some people the wrong way)... but I hope they can mange the niche with the neutrality it deserves If anything, Smiteworks should consider opening up a dedicated subforum for paid games where players and GM's can publicly solicit and discuss their experiences without having unwanted aspersions cast at them. Nothing protects a consumer, or exposes a fraud, more than transparency.

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."

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.