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Six months on startplaying.games

whitebeard 1 Comment

At the beginning of this year, I started to take GMing on startplaying.games seriously, scheduling games for every weekday and trying to run all I can.

I’ve just zoomed past 50 paid games and it’s about time that I dug into the numbers and did some calculations. It has taken me 6 months to get to 50 paid games, but at my current run rate I would reach 100 paid games in another 11 weeks – which is progress!

My Profile over on SPG

All told, I’ve been paid out $1750 for those 50 games. That averages $35 a game. I’m pleased with that – I usually charge $15-$20 a seat and I do discount if players say they can’t make the full amount but want to stay in the campaign. I don’t get the full ticket price – startplaying take a cut and on top of my seat charges, there’s a booking fee charged to the players.

The past few weeks, that average has been ticking higher and that makes me feel optimistic that it’ll continue.

Now, a game is around 3 and a half hour’s game-time with perhaps another 45 minutes prep time.

So that means I’m working (if you can call it that) for something like $8-$10 an hour. Hardly a living wage. I do have one table that regularly fields 5 players and at that point, it makes much more sense. It is really a way to make pocket-money at the minute rather than a living. It’s a little bit better than I get at the Box Room Café in Cambridge – although I do get a very tasty free plate of cheesy chips for GMing there.

The prep-time is coming down as I’m getting used to the adventures I’m running but I’ve noticed recently that as I run more games in a week I need to spend a bit longer refreshing myself on what happened in the last session. Having said that, my competency as a GM has grown massively and I think I could get away with less prep work than I typically do.

I would really hate to give the impression that I’ve turned up unprepared though – I’ve been in a few games online where the GM seemed to be winging it from start to finish and it showed badly and I didn’t carry on. But, that said, I’ve got much better at winging it too though with a lot of preparation in the background – I think that’s to the players’ benefit because they really can do what they want and I’ll figure out a way to support it. There have been a couple of sessions recently where I thought “wow, I really do know what I’m doing now!”

I wrote about my initial impressions of startplaying a little while ago and my criticisms still stand – I am in the dark as to either what is making people join or not join my games. I would really welcome just a bit more analytics data from them so I can test and tweak accordingly. I also wonder if they’re really doing the best job they can marketing to players outside the US – some examples of locale blindness include defaulting to showing games at peak US times and bloody mm/dd/yyyy date input fields.

As for expenses – I have a few. I pay for an upgraded discord server, owlbear rodeo vtt and a chunk to dndbeyond.com for adventures and source books. These add up to maybe $300 over the last six months.

It’s not much more than a hobby for me and I’m lucky to be able to do it between childcare duties. I’m not sure how to make it pay better – perhaps I need to schedule at US- and insomniac-friendly times, maybe even raise my base prices. I have very little information to go on to make these decisions well.

I would love to be able to turn this into a full-time gig – I suspect I need to learn a bit more about marketing and figure out some scalable ways to do that. But, I’ve enjoyed this six months and am going to stick with it for the immediate future. You can join one of my games here: https://startplaying.games/gm/whitebeard

Campaign report: Rime of the Frostmaiden: session #4

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Arriving in Caer-Dineval, exhausted and hurt, our adventures hole up in the Uphill Climb. There they meet the paladin, Dezith, who’s kind enough to heal their wounds and let them share his room. The town is at its bleakest – boarded up shops and empty houses. The inn has little comfort to offer – a simple meal of bread and fish soup.

“I’ve been here a couple of days. There’s something not right at the castle. Perhaps you could help me check it out.”

Lucas relates the story he heard from Cora in Bremen – her son went missing in the Tundra and returned a few days later, changed, and wearing an odd crystal amulet. He began acting difficultly and eventually left with two tieflings, heading for a castle somewhere. Perhaps he’d find him, Huarwar his name, at the castle. At the very least he could report back to Cora that he’s alive.

The next morning, the party set off up the bluff to the castle. It’s closed up, but there are torches burning on the circular turrets. They stand outside the large, closed wooden doors, portcullises visible through them. Veomileana sends his owl to investigate – signs of activity, footprints in the snow, but no-one visible. They shout out.

“We’re seeking an audience with the speaker!”

“Speaker Crannoc Siever is too sick to entertain guests.” A voice from the guardhouse above the gates.

“We can help – we travel with one skilled in the art of healing.”

“Speaker Crannoc Siever has no need for your heathen rituals… er… hold on… I have received instructions that you are to be admitted and am to pass on the message that we are delighted to have such an esteemed author visit us.”

“Author?” asks Veomileana, looking around the group.

“He means me.” replies Eifira. “I’ll explain later. For now, let’s get inside”

Doors swing open and portcullis lifts. The party is free to enter the castle. They’re in a courtyard, footprints in the snow speak to recent activity, as does the sound of dogs barking and whelping from a small outhouse. Abandoned marketstalls on one side though, say something different. All is not as it should be here. Ahead of them large double doors leading inside to the keep.

Entering the keep, they meet the servant girl Merl who guides them through to see Throob, a minor functionary, who in turn arranges for them to see Kadroth. A tall, old distinguished tiefling greets them in what may have been the speaker’s old office.

“Ah, the author! I’m told to give you the run of the place. Terrific work. Please make yourselves at home and accept the hospitality of the Black Swords. Do stay away from locked doors though.”

“We’d like to speak to Huarwar.”

“Be my guest, he’s in the guard tower. There’s no compulsion here. Everyone here of their own free will”

The party head to the gate-house. Still no escort. They’re either confident or short-staffed. Eifira tells them about the book she wrote: “I discovered a group of nobles in Waterdeep were making pacts with the devil Asmodeus. When I published it, they sent people to kill me. I escaped and that’s why I’m here.”

“Interesting” Veomilea says. “There is more going on here than we thought. Did you see the amulets they were wearing. I suspect this has something to do with it.”

In the gatehouse they find Huarwar and Fel. Huarwar reacts not at all to the news of his mother’s grief. He is to stay here. “Levistus saved me from death, and now I owe him a bond.”

Dezith grabs at Fel’s amulet. “Hey. I need that back.” The party wait for a change to happen in her, some indication of a spell broken but it doesn’t come. “When Levistus saved us, gave us another chance at life, he gave us these amulets to seal the bond.” It’s not yours to take.

Veomilea examines the amulet, it’s magical but not of a type he can readily ascertain. It feels off, desecrated. He returns it to Fel. “You should speak to Hethyl, she sees the future and she’s been in the Black Swords longer than anyone. In the keep, upstairs”

As the party return in search of Hethyl, they encounter Merl the serving girl in the courtyard. She doesn’t have an amulet. She tells them that all she wants to do is get out from under Zadroth’s thumb. “Promise you’ll set me free. There is evil in this place. A wizard has taken up residence below the castle – there’s a trapdoor in the northwest tower. Just promise you’ll take me with you.”

The party decide to visit the elder. Behind a locked door upstairs, swiftly destroyed with an explosive ice freeze to the lock, they come across an old dwarf, rocking in a chair.

“I’ve been expecting you. I guess it’s nearly time. I have a message from Levistus for you before I join him in the Nine Hells.

Xardorok Sunblight is coming and will destroy Icewind Dale with his duergar horde unless you stop him. His fortress lies in the Spine of the World and he is developing a weapon powered by the heart of dragon. It is not yet time for you to face him. But we will be the ones to defeat him and save Icewind Dale.”

And with that she lets out a long breath, her last. The rocking stops.

“Let’s investigate under the castle. I’m keen to meet this wizard” The party splits, Lucas and Eifira return to Kardoth’s office to talk some more.

Veo and Dezith find the trapdoor and are lead down into an underground cistern. A rowboat tied there that takes them east. In the water there are bodies, weighed down with the chainmail they wore – the remains of the palace guards. A cold storeroom to the north, containing the bodies of four members of the Black Swords. Long dead. Killed in battle. Frozen. Kept here until the ground thaws and makes burial possible. However the Black Swords took this castle, it wasn’t by peaceful means.

A room to the south, reached by the rowboat, and in it an humanoid effigy encased in ice, surrounded by heavy chains. This is an altar, they divine. This is where the cult worships. To the west, a small office and sat at the desk, writing, an albino teifling. She doesn’t seem to notice them, but then lifts a hand without looking up: “Go away. I’ve been told to tolerate you but as you can see, I’m busy.” She wears no amulet but tells the party that she too has made a pact with Levistus and works to prepare for the Duergar threat that looms.

Finding a lever in the room to the east, Veo pulls it with his Mage Hand. A noise, loud, of scraping stone comes from the cistern. A large slab has lifted revealing a further passage east. A door to the north.

The paladin heads in first and is surprised by a scrawny man who swings a chair leg at him, narrowly missing. “We mean you no harm, who are you?”.

“Please, help us get out of here.” More faces come out of the darkness – there are five people here, malnourished, dirty, they’ve been imprisoned here for some time.

“We are the speaker’s staff. We have been locked in here with no food. Please help us escape. The speaker, does he live? And Merl, the maidservant?”

“Here, take these.” The paladin offers up his rations and water bottle. “We have not seen the speaker but Merl, she lives, she sent us down here.”

“Will you get us out.”

“Please be patient, we will help you but for now, you must stay here. We do not have the strength for a straight-up escape right now. We will return. Trust us.”

They leave, resealing the slab that kept them contained and rendez-vous with the others in their party.

“The Black Swords believe we could be allies, Zadroth says it is foretold, shall we commit to help them face the Duergar threat? Perhaps they are the lesser of two evils?”

The party face a decision.

How I use Avrae

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Avrae is a very capable D&D discord bot made by DnDBeyond. It’s complicated. In the spirit of ‘complex tools, used simply’ I want to share how I use it when I’m GMing a game.

I have a go-to set of 10 or so commands that I can remember and that I use. I’ve tried to use more of it in the past but my brain has been full for a long time and I can’t pick up these tools like I used to. As always, you may conclude differently. This is what I do, not what I think you should do.

Setting up Avrae

Most of the time, if you’re playing with me, you won’t know that I’m using Avrae. I have a separate channel in discord that I use to talk to the bot. This has a couple of useful side-effects – I can use it to look up stuff and make rolls without the players seeing and I get a convenient history in that channel of all the avrae commands I’ve used in the game.

I’ve tried introducing avrae to players by having it available out in our #gameplay channel but I’ve found that even if you’re playing with someone who can make it sing like a stradivarius, you’ll still get a lot of autogenerated noise, especially when mistakes are made. And I’ve found that at least one player will be sat there wondering what the hell is going on.

I have avrae connected to my DnDBeyond account – I’m guessing I did this by following the invite process on their site but it’s so long ago I don’t really remember.

Importing characters

Before every game, I update avrae:

!update

And then I import any new characters using the URL of their character id:

!import  https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/[character_id]

Creating character tokens

!char list

will give you a list of available characters

!char [name]

will let you switch the current character that commands in avrae run against. I usually just use a the first few letters of a character’s name to run this command. If it’s ambiguous, avrae’ll give you a list of characters to choose from.

!token -border none

will give you a nice round token for the character with no branding. I use owlbear rodeo and can usually just drag that token into the game.

!portrait
Calista Brelladora

this will give you a square portrait if you want to stamp the token in a different way.

Creating monster tokens

I have two ways that I use to make monster tokens. You can create a nice round token – but unfortunately you can’t remove the DnDBeyond branding . I guarantee one of your players will ask what that big ‘B’ is for.

!token [monster name]
Goblin

Or you can get the image for a monster:

!monimage [monster name]
Goblin

I tend to use the round tokens if I’m on a navigation map – say a map of a village or of an area. The full images I use on combat maps.

Making rolls

The dice syntax is really powerful. I don’t use it – I just use it for simple rolls. Again, my brain is full and I worry that if I learned the whole dice syntax I’d have to forsake some other knowledge that might be more useful. For simple rolls like this, it avoids having to do maths:

!roll 2d20+4

Making random names

This is really useful when you’ve invented an NPC and someone asks for their name. Do not hesitate when asked, run this and then say the name as if you had it all along.

!randname [optional race]

Getting rules and stats information

There are plenty of lookup commands that bring back 5e rules and other information. These are the ones I tend to use. Especially the condition rules for some reason.

!monster goblin
!condition grappled
!spell mage hand

Er… that’s it

And those are all the commands I use. I know it’s a much richer tool – there are more commands and the commands I’ve shown here have more options. But this is what I do. I find them very powerful on their own and also empowering. You might find the same.

One last thing, Avrae encourages you to type !help. Do not be scared if you do this – so much stuff appears and it’s really difficult to know where to start. When you’re comfortable running a few commands and using the basics in-game, then you can look into the abyss run the help command safely.