Paid Role-Playing

Faraday

In practice, though, it would raise my standards for what I expected in return to the point where I’d want a professional product, as opposed to the hobbyist arrangements we have now.

This is exactly why I would be uncomfortable making any kind of “pay to play” mechanism. It’s one thing to ask people to chip in for the collective costs of something they’re using. In RL, a club that needs to rent a venue might ask members to chip in to cover those costs. Likewise, I see nothing wrong with a MU having a tip jar or something for folks to help defray the server costs. But as soon as you start charging more than the costs, you’ve turned it from a community club into a profit-making venture, and that just feels different.

sao

I pay for D&D a couple of times a week. My brother is a professional DM and I am a sucker & I both want to support him and genuinely enjoy his GMing, so.

I agree with Pyre tho. I’m not generally averse to paying for products I enjoy but if the MU I am playing on is a product it’s going to change my expectations. Then again I’ve probably spent more money for less satisfaction by buying stupid shit on phone games over the years, so… who knows.

Gashlycrumb

Once I was supposed to get paid to TS people on a pay-to-TS-people MOO. I never did, because it never got completed, possibly because the place hosting realised that it would be difficult to be sure all users were of age. That was back when 14.4 baud dial-ups and does not seem viable today.

I used to ask players to donate to certain charities, but also made it clear that I wouldn’t know if they did.

I suppose you might monetise a MU by allowing connections only from a website with adverts.

Pavel

@Gashlycrumb said in Paid Role-Playing:

a pay-to-TS-people MOO

Like one of those sexy time chat lines that were so popular in the 90s, advertised on late-night TV?

Gashlycrumb

@Pavel I think so? I think the deal was supposed to be that a paying player couldn’t tell if another player was paid or paying to be there, but the paid ones would be paid to pounce on the payers and do stuff their finger-files asked for. The scheme really didn’t get far. I expect it was also meant to have, uh, some kind of naughty mobs so instead of running around typing ‘attack monster with sword’ like on an ordinary MUD, you’d go ‘tickle nymph with magetongue’ or somesuch and seek the treasured magical Long Strong Dong With the +8 Double Prong and stuff. Lewd Zork was also a thing then.

somasatori

Coincidentally, Lewd Zork was my runnin’ around name in my 20s!

Cobalt

I would be unlikely to join a pay for play game. If it was run by someone I know and trusted, I might if my budget allowed it.

In theory, if I did not have a job, wasn’t burnt out, and thought it might work; I’d consider running some sort of pay-me-to-GM for you scheme. But it would have to have strict rules on what the money was exchanging hands for. And that is … something I don’t even know where I’d start with the rules. I also wouldn’t be comfortable doing it while working a full time job, because I’d want to provide something professional that was worth the money I was receiving for it, and that then becomes a case of “would this even be enough to pay my bills” type of question.

All of that theory aside, I rarely ask anything of other people that I’m not willing to do myself. So, if I’m not willing to pay for someone to GM for me… It would feel bad to me to be willing to be paid to GM for someone else.

I think there are ways that it could work for the people who have the funds for it-- like people who pay for D&D. But it wouldn’t be something for me personally.

Prototart

@Gashlycrumb said in Paid Role-Playing:

Once I was supposed to get paid to TS people on a pay-to-TS-people MOO.

no one will be shocked to learn i have TSed (and done peoples descs) for pay

it isn’t really a thing that exists anymore to the best of my knowledge because the entire “MU Community” is like 30 people with worsening joint pain but it’s rampant on discord, where it’s almost exclusively kids getting paid by predators, and Roblox, where it IS exclusively kids getting paid by predators

MisterBoring

There’s part of me that wouldn’t be surprised if there were people in the hobby that paid other people to build their character’s wiki pages.

The only reason I do my own is that templates exist if you do some quick google-fu.

Deviant

Outright payment is probably a bit too volatile. Scheduling and whatnot would make it problematic, I think.

That said, I wouldn’t be opposed to games supporting themselves through some ad revenue through banner ads or whatever. It’s only going to keep getting more expensive to buy the machines you need to play, the storage space, the servers to run them on, etc.

I’ve considered a tip jar in the past, but I think that has a lot of the same problems. But some kind of mostly-passive income stream like other sites use? Probably not a terrible idea.

catzilla

@MisterBoring said in Paid Role-Playing:

There’s part of me that wouldn’t be surprised if there were people in the hobby that paid other people to build their character’s wiki pages.

I could be getting paid for this?