At conventions, GMs (possibly including people who explain board game rules) get benefits or freebies for doing a valuable service for the rest of the attendees. Considering we collect an excess of money each week, how would people feel about excluding GMs from having to pay subs?
dedindahed
seems like a good idea, as long as attendance remains high enough
Immortal Rites
personally
i think its unfair. as some of us never GM due to lack of experience or the relative texts, at the club. And some of us never do anything but GM. Thats just unfair, you Play you Pay. Its not like the GM's dont enjoy it. If my games where better id always GM its my favorite thing.
dedindahed
Gm's (and especially GOOD gm's) are the lifeblood of any RPG group. Some may enjoy it as much or more than playing, but at the club I've heard a few Gm's say they'd rather be playing, or that they'd like to play for a change, but they need to run games as there has not been enough going on at the time. I don't ever hear players wanting to GM but not having the opportunity.
GM'ing certainly takes more work and effort than playing as most GM's (hopefully) are putting in some preparation time outside of the club as well as providing materials, character sheets, handouts etc at personal cost.
If a small incentive is offered it may encourage more people to give it a go, which is a good thing. Also it seems the club is offering to supplement the cost of GM materials, besides which there are plenty of free rpg's out there. To truly ROLE Play you do not need lots of dice and extensive rulesets.
The object of the club is not to make money, so the lost revenue is really of no concern, as long as the room cost is being met, obviously a free GM policy would have to be revised if attendance ever dropped.
If we find that over half the club members want to GM to save the pound a week then the incentive is too high and would need to be dropped, but somehow I don't see that happening.
metagaia
I have no objection to this, the payment holiday, or the subsidising of games, but I really do not think we have the subsciption levels to sustain all 3. The one week I collected money we had a surplus of £6 (a sample of 1 is not scientific but not being treasurer I have no better figures), and there are I would estimate 3-4 GMs/week, leaving a surplus of about £3/week.
Using the proposed BSG board game as an example. we would have to pay about £15 from the club, which would be over a month's worth. Throw in things like RPG scenarios and you could easily be looking at something every month.
If I was going to propose the GM's go free, I would do so on the provision that they the scenario was not subsidised by the club (either bought or wrote by the GM). Since the subsidy provides the necessity and funding, the GM going free in that case would strike me as overkill.
paz
To clarify, I submitted these as competing proposals to give people food for thought, rather than as an over-arching plan to implement the lot.
Immortal Rites
Thats cool Paz, these are just our personal thoughts on the matter.
I still think, personally, its unfair. As like i said many of us would like to GM but lack the time or texts to be able to do it.
Shaphron
I'm hesitantly a no on this, as most people like a variety of things to do - I know Matt loves GM-ing, but he does occaisionally want to play too, and I'm sure there are people the same or the otherway round. subsidising games/scenarios etc is good, and helps everyone at the club - not just one group (who do admitidly do a lot of work). I enjoy GM-ing - I do it once a week on a sunday already - and I have been thinking about doing a short game at the club, but felt that pretty much there's always another game being run when I'm free - or that I'm always involved (doesn't help that I like playing with Matt, and he normally GMs, I know).
My main objection is that there simply isn't enough of us - and also that £1 is palty, even to us, and I'm currently unemployed and we pay £2 a week to come. If the fee were higher, it owuld be perfectly reasonably for GMS to be free, but I don't see how £1 is inconvieniencing them, and if they pay it does make it easier for the club to things like subsidings games, organising outings and such.
Just my opinion.
Death Jester
It is in no way unfair.
1) GM's have to put in their own time outside of the club, beyond that of players
2) the club wouldn't happen if it wasn't for gms
3) often when a game isn't running they players dont come, so they bring in more paying people
4) you will get to GM at some point, if people want to play your games they will, if not then maybe next time games are being offerd.
I can see absolutely no good reason for GM's not to benefit more than everyone else. They work harder and without them, we would be screwed.
Am I wrong?
Immortal Rites
no your not wrong....
But what abut the people who never get a chance to GM? Who are too busy, have no books or find themselves wanting to run a game but going up against the same GM's time in time out. You gotta admit aaron that there are several members who seem to just run game after game.
dedindahed
Immortal Rites wrote:
no your not wrong....
But what abut the people who never get a chance to GM? Who are too busy, have no books or find themselves wanting to run a game but going up against the same GM's time in time out. You gotta admit aaron that there are several members who seem to just run game after game.
Too busy to GM, sorry but very lame excuse, if paz can work full time, and look after a family and be one of the most prolific GM's there's no real excuse.
Have no books doesn't cut it as there are free rpg materials online, anyone who desperately wants to run a game can do so in one form or another, you can run fantastic ROLE playing with no books or systems.
The same old faces GM'ing all the time (from what i've heard) often feel they have to rather that them hogging all the opportunity.
Players will vote with their feet, if your idea is compelling enough you will get the players. GM'ing is open to everyone.
Gm'ing takes more time, effort and resource than playing.
As shaphron pointed out saving £1 a week is barely a reward at all so it's not like we're proposing completely unfair levels of favoritism for GM's
dead
Im not sure anyone would gm just to get around having to pay £1. And if anyone is not having chance to GM then there are several slots open from next week to run games. I will happily give up mine if everyone is in a game and I get to play, Im kinda burned out atm.
How about GM's still pay but the players buy the GM the occasional drink? Used to do that in my old club, GM's had to switch to coke halfway through the night
Ian
Death Jester
AS its stated, £1 a week is hardly a reward. I wouldn't even call it an insentive.
When the next lot of games start I have decided that I want to be a player. Even if that means paying when gm's dont. Remember that monday nights cos me alot more than most, maybe even all other members. £16 without food or drink included. Every week, I have a job now but the pay is rubbish and far between. I don't think it could be something people would object to.
HDimagination
Immortal Rites wrote:
no your not wrong....
But what abut the people who never get a chance to GM? Who are too busy, have no books or find themselves wanting to run a game but going up against the same GM's time in time out. You gotta admit aaron that there are several members who seem to just run game after game.
If you want to run a game then run a game.
Borrow the books if you need to, or aquire them online. Then let people know when you want to run a game and do as much work before hand as you think you need to. It's that simple. You've never seemed to have a problem running games in the past and I've not heard any complaints from people saying that they've never had a chance to run a game until now.
Besides, not every-one wants to be a GM and that is the nature of the hobby.
