The Journal of a Paid GM: 3, Attracting Players
Now that we got the elephant out of the room when it comes to the stigma of a paid GM, I want to write a little bit about what it's like starting from scratch.
First, Startplaying.games has an new GM Webinar (crash course), that teaches best practices for getting players to join your games when you are not established. Startplaying.game uses a lot of adverts on facebook (and other sites, I presume) to draw players onto their site. Ads on social media are a frustrating thing. As someone who used Facebook before it had ads on it at all, there is something deeply unsettling to me about the psychology of marketing and how ubiquitous ads are in our culture. How we digest them constantly without even thinking about it. That being said, it is nice to see ads to things you like, be them TTRPGs, sports, or--in my case--new exhibitions at the Seattle Art Museum (See you at the Remix, SAM).
The work StartPlaying does for GMs is not enough, however. I wish there was this avid customer base of players just waiting to see a spot open in a game they are desperate to play, but there isn't. Or--that is, there IS, but its as simple as tossing up a page with your name on it, time, date, and a simple premise. No. There are some pretty clear. . . not rules, exactly, but practices that, statistically, will get you more players than if you stray from the path.
First, D&D 5e is ubiquitous within the TTRPG community and so also the game people want to play the most. When a player hops on StartPlaying willing to pay for a session, it's not likely they want to pay to play a game they have never heard of.
My original idea was to run games of The One Ring 2e, the official Lord of The Rings ttrpg. I knew D&D was the most popular, but in my mind I thought Hey, lots of people love LoTR, The Rings of Power was pretty good, I won't have to compete with as many GMs, why don't I run TOR. It will be unique, give me the edge. . .
It turns out this is not true at all. There were two things wrong with my idea. First, TOR is not D&D. 30% of players on StartPlaying are new to the hobby. New players want to play the game they know about.
Second: TOR, based on The Lord of The Rings, is for LoTR fans that ALSO enjoy ttrps. It's not a TTRPG that is also for LoTR fans. A TTRPG for fans who also like LoTR is like basically any fantasy TTRPG.
So, the problem with my initial idea is this: I was trying to draw people into a game that (A) they had never heard of/played, (B) has very specific lore that you have to enjoy if you are to inhabit the world.
There are simply not enough people on StartPlaying looking for a game of TOR 2e.
After I realized this game wasn't going to take, I created another game to try and lure people in. This one is called The Isle of Ixx. It's fantastic. A really great rule-lite game with fast and fun mechanics that make learning and playing a as simple as any game I've ever played.
What was my reasoning in running this game?
I'm glad you asked. I thought, huh well--it's easy to learn. People who want to learn to play TTRPGs could learn this one way easier than learning D&D. Why not give them that opportunity to wet their toes before diving into a more rules-heavy system.
You can probably see where I went wrong here.
Isle of Ixx is not D&D. Nobody had heard of it and nobody wanted to pay to play it, because of this. Regardless, this game is so fun--so awesome and interesting, I run Isle of Ixx for 3 free players on Monday nights anyway, just for fun (it's all fun).
I've got two spots left for Isle of Ixx too! So if you're interested, check it out.
So, I mean, at least I'm getting some experience running a fun game right? Yeah.
But then it really dawned on me.
I wasn't going to get any paying players if I wasn't running D&D 5e. It's just the system everyone knows.
I bit the bullet. I'm not a HUGE fan of the 5e system. It's a good catchall for ttrpgs, but it isn't specific in the fantasy it seeks to portray. It isn't the best for Dungeon Crawls, it's not the best for Exploration or Survival, it's not the best for combat, and its not the best for roleplay. While it's not the best for any of these things. . . it is still very good at all of them--and it is interpretive enough for GMs to make it what they want it to be.
Me, I didn't want to run just another simple Forgotten Realms (Default D&D) campaign. I dug through my 5e materials and found my Eberron book.
Eberron is a fantastic, morally ambiguous, and technologically advanced setting. I like the term Magitech, but I know the creator, Keith Baker, doesn't. Anyway, I started reading.
I've read and read. I found a Podcast of Eberron fans who actually got Keith to join them in discussing Eberron lore, and have listened to 20+ episodes of that. I focused my ideas on a single region of Eberron that didn't seem to get a lot of attention: The Demon Wastes.
It just sounds fucking cool.
Like a wasteland of demons, trapped by magical means and guarded by a noble Orc sect of warriors called the Ghaash'kala. DOPE AF if you ask me.
I started writing, but had a difficult time thinking out my first arc. So, I found a module/starter set and converted it to Eberron, rewrote most of it, and then wrote out my ad-copy.
First, one of the most important things you can do to attract players to a game, is already have players in your game. These are called Seat Fillers. You invite them to play for free, for as long as they would like, absorb the cost, and hope paying players will join.
It worked. The very first day I posted my ad, a paying player joined. Now--I should ad, everyone knows who is paying for the sessions and who is a free player. Everything is transparent and open. There's not secrets here.
I still have one seat open for my Eberron campaign: Click here if you're interested!
That's how you do it! You run D&D, because its the most popular. You get Seat Fillers, you write ad copy and rewrite ad copy. You make sure your story sounds cool. My initial dagline was "Eberron: Demon Wastes Rising // A Wilderness Survival Campaign In A Land of Fire"
I mean, that sounds pretty dope.
But I had to work on it. I've been thinking about how do get players and how to run games like this for over a month. It's a bit of a compulsion, at this point. But it's something I really enjoy and I spend so much time on it, the payment I receive in kind covers a fraction of the over head. And yet, it's so so worth it!
Today I ran my first paid session. I didn't make much, but it was a ton of fun meeting my players and I hope this is the beginning of a beautiful adventure!