Was I wrong asking my players to pay?
Money, get away.
I resisted this idea for a very long time.
To me, part of the appeal of most TTRPGs is how inexpensive it can be to get started. Many games offer free rules or quick start guides, if you play online most platforms offer a basic, free membership, if you play in person you can create whole worlds with just pencil and paper.
In fact I suspect the comments section of this article will have at least a few suggestions on how to keep your game cheap or free.
Of course if you have deeper pockets, there's lots of ways to burn your pay check as a table top fan. Beautifully sculpted minis, terrain and battle maps, and as ever, those tantalisingly shiny dice.
You can go without these things of course, but here’s what most people don't realise: you can also buy convenience.
Let's take a simple example: Battle maps.
If I want to keep things free, I can spend my time and effort on a website like Dungeonscrawl, crafting the exact dimensions of the map I had in mind. If I'm willing to part with a little cash, I can make a one off purchase for a slightly higher end product like Dungeondraft and build a more beautiful version of my vision.
I used both of these options for years - in fact, I regularly still do. But now, more often than not, I just pay the patreon to a service like Cze Peku and pick a map that is close enough to my vision and use that instead.
Those maps are beautiful, and they often inspire me to take my encounters in new directions, but what I'm really buying is convenience. My $5 patreon fee bought me a few hours of my life back to prepare something else for my game, or even time enjoying another hobby.
Which is great, if you can afford to shell out the money. Because things quickly add up if you take this path and suddenly you are in the hole for hundreds of pounds/dollars/euros just to keep your hobby going. This is especially true for DMs.
What changed for me was a suggestion from two of my players, perhaps unsurprisingly my brothers: charging subs for our D&D game.
I think it was imposter syndrome that made me push back on this for quite a while. Would my players still want to take part if we attached a cost to their “free” hobby. Was our game worth playing for?
Eventually I relented (I think it was suggested on my behalf) and I was very surprised to discover that not only did all my players agree it was a good idea, many were happy to pay more than the £5 a month we suggested. Before I knew it, I had set up a D&D bank account, the subs were rolling in and I was upgrading my Roll20 and using dynamic lighting in our game.
Seriously, that £30 a month goes a long way. It covers my various subscriptions, random map packs and other other one-off expenses for our regular game. When my group gets to play in person, it pays for our minis, maps and any other props. Last year, it paid for nearly half the accommodation fees when we went on our D&D weekend. I’m struggling to remember why I ever pushed back on the idea.
Ironically, I now run sessions at my local gamestore where every player pays £6 for a night of D&D. This week was fully booked with four tables running. Clearly people are willing to part with a few coins for a quality game.
Still, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on this:
🤔 Is it okay to collect subs for a home game?
💡 Is there a better way to cover your costs?
💸 How does your group keep your finances fair?
I have thought about this as a bit of a gate to make sure your players are serious. Sounds like your groups are already full of committed players, but have you seen any changes like this since you started charging the sub?
>Is it okay to collect subs for a home game?
My gut says yes, but I think my reception as a player to the idea would be based on their experience as a DM and level of effort that was being put into the campaign. I don't like to put stipulations because I go into this type of stuff with an open mind. But me running short campaigns or oneshots would likely never result in me taking subs of any kind. I would only personally accept subs if it was a long campaign that I was familiar running and could provide an experience for players that felt close to the upper tier of campaign experience.
>Is there a better way to cover your costs?
I think there is some value in players having agency in the world created and it will be different for every ttrpg. For DnD, maybe a player wants a Beholder on the table and brings their own mini for it; maybe its helping build the locations involved in the story to some extent. Maybe in Mothership or Lancer, a player has a map pack they bought out of curiosity thats relevant and they could bring those materials; maybe the players build their starship together on first table session.
I think material crowdsourcing has a lot of opportunity for creative solutions. Collaborating as a group, on the costs as well as other details of worldbuilding, can bring players together closer than an entire mystery campaign can. I believe that strongly.
>How does your group keep your finances fair?
The DM of the game is someone who has a vested interest in playing and running that game. The costs of getting things rolling falls to them. For DnD, its one friend. For Mothership/Lancer, its me. For a YuGiOh DnD, its another. Etc etc.