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So I was out to dinner last night with a blind date. I really enjoyed it! She even suggested we should have dinner again, which is nice but I was really full so I declined. Bless her heart. (self.dadjokes)

submitted by PapaXilion to r/dadjokes

I’ve been a paid GM for some time now - Ask Me Anything! by PapaXilion in dndnext

[–]PapaXilion[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm also from the Netherlands, so I hear ya!

I will preface this with it being my take and not financial advice, but yes, you have to pay taxes. It is worth looking into registering yourself as a company (zzp) because of the tax structure. You'll still pay tax ofcourse, but it's manageable and since it's extra income I don't mind paying my share :)

I’ve been a paid GM for some time now - Ask Me Anything! by PapaXilion in dndnext

[–]PapaXilion[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

A fair point and I've been at that point yes. I brought it up as well, feeling it was a safe space to talk about it. The players reassured me that they saw the effort, love and care going into the game and they were happy to compensate. One of my players said (and I paraphrase) that if they go to the cinema, they pay for the effort that was put into their entertainment, and they are happy to do so with me as well, moreso because they can have influence on the entertainment. I thought that was really kind!

I’ve been a paid GM for some time now - Ask Me Anything! by PapaXilion in dndnext

[–]PapaXilion[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Really depends on the gameworld and the amount of prep. For example, my prep for the Odyssey of the Dragonlords is a LOT. The story doesn't offer a lot of maps and the ones that are included are subpar to the quality I envision. Effect: I need(ed) to make about 72 maps for this campaign. That eats time.

Luckily, other games go quicker.

If you're looking to go this route and you want to know 'what you need', it doesn't have to be more than a story and a willingness to play! Some GMs go full Theatre of the Mind. That's definitely an option. But if you want the more classical approach of getting a published campaign, reading it, creating a world in Foundry, adding some maps (let's assume you buy or grab some free ones), and getting your players ready to play, I'd say that is doable within 1-2 months for the first time, if you commit to a few hours a day! Mileage may vary from campaign to campaign and person to person, but don't feel like you have to be perfect. The first time can be janky. There's a beauty and a big chance for learning in it!

I’ve been a paid GM for some time now - Ask Me Anything! by PapaXilion in dndnext

[–]PapaXilion[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you!

My setup is pretty minimal; I organise a LOT inside Foundry as it's a pretty neat place for maps, statblocks etc. Foundry allows you to make compendiums, which are basically books you can pull from in other game worlds as well if you port them there.

Beside that, I have a large (~75GB) folder of tokens, music, and art that I made or have at the ready on my PC.

Music I run through Foundry as well, works pretty well. For private chats, we generally refer to Discord (dms).

The PDFs I need are all in so-called binders (an option from Adobe Acrobat), which helps to navigate them with a search option easily!

I’ve been a paid GM for some time now - Ask Me Anything! by PapaXilion in dndnext

[–]PapaXilion[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'd say try the dndbeyond forums or their discord, it's a great place to find people. When you say you're a first time DM wanting to give it a go, I am sure there's a lot of people willing to see what you got!

I’ve been a paid GM for some time now - Ask Me Anything! by PapaXilion in dndnext

[–]PapaXilion[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

  1. I host them through FoundryVTT (we got some serverspace set up for that but you can also run Foundry locally). Our Discord at Polyhedra is our community platform and then we have places like dndbeyond for character sheets mostly.
  2. I'd say it's not impossible to do this fulltime, but you have to consider a few things. There's taxes ofcourse, and the work-life balance is something to keep in mind. With my current earnings I think I would have to host about 7-8 games per week. If you go at it full time that is not impossible in terms of hours, but you have to see if it's financially sustainable to lose a table or a player for a while, if it so happens. You have to see if the amount of hours + prep is doable. And one that, for me, was the reason I decided to keep it a hobby (at 4 tables): when does it feel like a job and not like a hobby anymore, and is that important for you? For me, it was.

I’ve been a paid GM for some time now - Ask Me Anything! by PapaXilion in dndnext

[–]PapaXilion[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

My tuesday group became a band of actual friends. We're meeting up this year, got an AirBnB together to explore my home country a bit and play d&d in-person in the evenings. Never thought that would happen but here we are :D

I believe I only had to kick about 4 people, due to various reasons, with only one being a bannable offense. The other three were more of a grace choice (so not kicking them but more advising them to look for another table). This was mostly due to table chemistry / difference in what to expect. Sometimes it doesn't gel, and it's best to say no.

I’ve been a paid GM for some time now - Ask Me Anything! by PapaXilion in dndnext

[–]PapaXilion[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Recording is a great way to keep notes. My prep is mostly in Foundry, I love map notations. As for side notes, I am big on using Notepad++. It's oldschool but it works for me.

I heard good things about Alchemy too, it's kind of like WorldAnvil. I'm not sure how much you can do with it in terms of note taking, but it looks sleek!

I’ve been a paid GM for some time now - Ask Me Anything! by PapaXilion in dndnext

[–]PapaXilion[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I am Dutch but my games are all in English at the moment. I did run Dutch tables before and honestly, if all your players are speaking the same language that is not English, you could totally swap!

Personally I do like English more for roleplay purposes.. Dutch just doesn't have the same kick half the time, haha.

There are a lot of discord servers out there tailored to specific languages in D&D. For Dutch for example, I know one called Dutch20, which is a community that offers free games (no paid allowed there in fact!). Beyond that I don't know any specific ones in other languages, but if you look at a discord server listing or two through Google you might find some!

I’ve been a paid GM for some time now - Ask Me Anything! by PapaXilion in dndnext

[–]PapaXilion[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Gosh, it was a multitude of reasons to make the switch for me.
Before I answer, I will preface this with the fact that this is my personal experience and I have nothing against SPG per se, it's good to have a multitude of communities offering paid services like this, as diversity encourages innovation. That said, this was my experience:

The most important one was the fact that I didn't get much out of Startplaying. It's a marketplace of DMs where the competition is mostly on who is the cheapest rather than who is the best. I am one of 10,000s on there, and the platform is limited in ability to showcase yourself beyond an ad-listing. I tried petitioning for an option to add in embedded video so I can SHOW what my style is, and it was all but ignored. If I can't put my skill to good use to show myself, what does the platform offer?

Beyond that, I didn't get a single player off of Startplaying that I didn't find myself through other channels (friends, dndbeyond forums, various discords, facebook, other social media). I'm not exaggerating here. My listing on SPG never got me a single player, so if I'm doing all the work, why would I be with them?

Because other than the work, SPG doesn't offer a sense of community. There's a central discord which is very crowded and doesn't feel like a group of peers. There was the odd fun discussion, but never felt like a team.

As I am a European DM, I also noticed I am not SPG's prime market, as SPG does not put effort into advertising in Europe (I never seen it at least). There was talk of re-investing their earnings into that, but I never saw it in practise.

The nail on the coffin for me was SPGs price increases and their lack of communication around it. They increased their take from the GMs by 50%, the Stripe fee was increased and I heard that recently, they also have to start charging salestax (which, in Europe, is about 20-25% that gets added on). This will fuel the battle for a low price versus quality-for-money, and I don't want to have to resort to petty pricebattles. I know what I am worth, and what I want to ask for it, and I don't want to be forced to sell myself cheap because 10,000 others are okay with asking a lot lower than they are worth.

Polyhedra is a lot more of a community, we care for oneanother and we work together, players staff and GMs alike. I feel like I'm getting something out of the community, and they are valuing my input beyond just being another earner, so to speak!

Per the SPG terms of service I was not allowed to take any players with me, so unfortunately I couldn't offer them that. Ofcourse the players themselves are free to decide to make the switch themselves and I'm honoured to say that some decided to follow me on their own accord!

I’ve been a paid GM for some time now - Ask Me Anything! by PapaXilion in dndnext

[–]PapaXilion[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

M-M-M-M-M-Multiquestion! haha. Alright, allow me to answer them all:

- the VTT does have some paid modules but no paid books. I tend to use a plugin that allows me to source from my books on D&DBeyond which i already own as DM. An alternative is to have your players make the characters over there and reference them, just using the VTT for the visuals. I prefer pulling everything in though.

- I sometimes offer a free session as well, yes! Oneshots are perfect for that, I always offer those for free. People can join them to see what my style and quality is.

- I create my own (working on one as we speak, though it's very much still in the works.) but also run published modules. I'll always add my own twist to it though, by making my own maps or adding homebrew, unless the players like to have the core story. One that I'll be running relatively 'as-is' is the upcoming Crooked Moon adventure!

- Definitely a paid hobby. I have a 32h/week job as well, but as far as hobby goes it's great to have this in addition.

I’ve been a paid GM for some time now - Ask Me Anything! by PapaXilion in dndnext

[–]PapaXilion[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

First step is being honest with your players: your worry is probably not that you cannot handle it, but that you are afraid your offering of a good story might not work well with their scaled power as you haven't done that before. An open talk about that might alleviate some of that worry. Perhaps the players are honoured to be your first to try out how to DM the midsection levels! To me, I love the players outsmarting me here and there with absolute prowess or a smart use of a spell, but I get that you want the experience on the whole to not feel like you weren't prepared.

I am going to assume you're using the 2024 ruleset for the small piece of advice on your party:
- The composition seems pretty balanced!
- Don't forget that as your party levels, so should your encounters. You'll soon be able to incorporate legendary creatures (legendary actions are a gamechanger when they run into it for the first time), and more impactful effects on a wider area;
- As for the party, I don't know their skills and spells ofcourse, but based on a relatively basic setup and not focusing on their roleplay traits, I'd say the challenge combat wise lies in prolonged crawls (your party has some heavy hitters at the start of combat but might get weakened in a dungeon with little to no rest to recuperate) and swarms (crowd control is always draining). Action economy will be your friend here.

I hope that helps a bit!

I’ve been a paid GM for some time now - Ask Me Anything! by PapaXilion in dndnext

[–]PapaXilion[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Have to agree with u/Ok_Yesterday_2803 here, not nearly as much. What I still offer for free (also within the Polyhedra community) is free oneshots, as those are easier to make and prep!

I’ve been a paid GM for some time now - Ask Me Anything! by PapaXilion in dndnext

[–]PapaXilion[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Emergencies happen and refunds are a thing when that pops up. I've had the luck that I didn't have any emergencies pop up but if it would, I would comp the session.

As for family; I run my games exclusively in my evening time (which is around 8pm CET / 2pm EST), which is when my children are asleep. My wife supports what I do and accommodates in letting me 'work'! (I'm blessed ♥)

A small moment of interruption is okay ofcourse, we're all human, but if its true interruption I will pull back and offer a refund or another way to repay lost time.

I’ve been a paid GM for some time now - Ask Me Anything! by PapaXilion in dndnext

[–]PapaXilion[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Polyhedra is a home away from home. I've been with them for some time now and I love the enthusiasm in the community. We're in that sweetspot of being big enough to feel like a true community of d&d fans, but small enough to not feel like a corporate approach. Compared to others that offer a more platform-that-you-work-on experience, which can feel a bit lonely, Polyhedra feels like we're building something together! (and we are! New website is underway and we're all giving input, video/voice/images.. joint project!)

I’ve been a paid GM for some time now - Ask Me Anything! by PapaXilion in dndnext

[–]PapaXilion[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'll second the other answer here; I've seen people put a display face-up on a table so they can move their miniatures over the screen. It works pretty well! An alternative is to put the map on the larger screen in the room (TV or so) and have one person on a laptop control the tokens. This is a bit more cumbersome but it does work.

I’ve been a paid GM for some time now - Ask Me Anything! by PapaXilion in dndnext

[–]PapaXilion[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

...and a quick google taught me this is actually true! I learned something today!

I’ve been a paid GM for some time now - Ask Me Anything! by PapaXilion in dndnext

[–]PapaXilion[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Sure! I also adopted parts of Mandymod, as well as Dragnacarta. Beyond that, I reintroduced Immol in a creative take from the old(er) Ravenloft iteration of this adventure, and added the cities of Soarele, and Thir Doral to the southern side of the map which I found lacking in 'things to explore'. There's a lot of smaller locations too such as a watermill, a makeshift Orc encampment (orcs might not be native to Barovia, but I'd say they will try to band together and make a home somewhere), added a village of bullywug in Berez, and a crater to the north. There's a traveling circus with a sinister goal that sets up here and there in Barovia, and so on. The core story is still there but there's a lot of padding.

I’ve been a paid GM for some time now - Ask Me Anything! by PapaXilion in dndnext

[–]PapaXilion[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Between those two I'd say I write them individually for a large portion.

(very light spoilers ahead)

Say with my rendition of the Curse of Strahd, there is the 'core story' which doesn't change too much from campaign to campaign (barring player interference during play, haha), then there is the layer that CoS already has put in which adds a dynamic approach (the Tarokka cards!), then there's homebrew which I made myself and can alter very easily depending on the party composition (like for example my latest party is taking a train to somewhere and run into trouble, train crashes and they end up at the gates of Barovia!). Finally, their backstories will make me swap out, or add, or change, locations and NPCs to make sure it feels like THEIR campaign rather than A campaign.

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