Running games for pay as another income stream for TTRPG companies

Distracted DM

Distracted DM
Supporter
Curious, now that you've been running games as a job/side job for some time, do you still play TTRPGs for fun on a regular basis or do find yourself now wanting to do something else with friends other than TTRPGs?

I've never had a job that involved what others would considered "fun", much less a hobby. The best analogous example I can think of is friends who are musicians. Most musicians I know DO like to hang out and play with other musicians, jamming with other musicians or just hanging out and playing at a party is different than performing for an audience. The main thing I've seen that annoys musicians is people who expect them to perform for free. Like, inviting a musician to a party and asking them to play for people.

But I don't think that translates well to paid GMing. I guess the closest would be if I were running games all week and some friends inviting me to a game night and asked me to GM, I expect my attitude would be "I run games all week, I would love to have an opportunity to join as a players, but I'm not interested in running another game, especially for free."

It's been my main source of income for 2 years, my seats are $39, about double the average SPG cost.

I do still run and play TTRPGs with friends- the biggest impact that running games has had is that most of my nights are unavailable, since I run 3-5 nights/week and Sunday mornings.

Like I said earlier, the nice thing is that because I primarily run D&D, and some of my old friend-players are now a couple of my paying-players, everyone's pretty cool playing NOT D&D. Whether I'm running, or someone else is, we do some kind of ttrpg like DCC or OSE or WHF- or occasionally we do a paint night for minis etc.

For me I think that musician analogy you gave is pretty accurate- I'd be happy to run something off the cuff, not serious for friends; but the heavy mental load stuff that year(s)-long campaigns require, that's not something I'm eager to add to my plate now that I run multiple campaigns every week for a living.
I can't speak for others obviously :)
 

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