Hello everyone! Shatargat here! It's been a huge while since last time I posted something here. I was checking what's going on time to time, and seeing the decrease of blogs about RPG was sad. So, I finally managed some free time, and wanted to share some new RPG moments in my life.
I'm A Paid GM
You probably forgot who I am, so basically I'm a Turkish dragon-person (dragon thing is my internet persona for years) who is trying get some profit from his hobby, by running tabletop RPG sessions. My aim was writing and publishing my own products in my native language, but lately, like others, I started to believe that's just impossible. So, I just turned my view into something new. English As A Second Language One of my audiences shared a platform to me, and I started to inspect it. Since I have some sort of English, I thought that I could give it a try. The platform is called Start Playing Games. If you sign up by the link I gave, it will give you $10 credits after you spend your first $10.
So. I wasn't confident when I first entered the platform, because I've been literally in 4 or 5 conversations in English before, and I didn't have to take in charge any of them. But now, I would have to be in charge, because the players would listen (and try to understand) every words I would say. I tried to do monologues at home.
First Two Games in My Fave To Systems
We don't have any RPG industry in our country, and most of the people even hardly know about D&D. D&D is something I was trying to get rid of, because I've seen lots of different game systems, and different concepts. But it's hard to find players for them. I thought that this English thing could give me some opportunity to take my steps into the way I want to run my games, in whatever system I want. And here's the result:
I ran my first game as a FREE one-shot, in my most favorite game called KULT. I was nervous at the beginning but I got rid of that feel easily. I was still having that struggle, to be honest, but it didn't push me back from what I was doing. I got nice feedbacks after the game. I ran my second game last saturday, and it was Mörk Borg, my second favorite game, which I never ran before. It was a paid game, and it was a part of Virtual Horror Convention, powered by Gehenna Gaming. Also, half of the payment went into charity. It felt really good. Players were really cool people, and they decided to continue and finish the game.
I would like to express this feel: In the first game, I had lots of things to say, but I could only make few sentences. I was afraid for messing it up big time, but I got nice feedback, and that built a huge confidence in me. In the second game, I did some face paint, focused on introducing the game more than running it. The players were also a good combination and they went with whatever I gave them. It was a quite fun experience. My worst fear is not to be able to understand what players say, and actually I didn't have much issue about it. And next week, we will run another session with that group. It's hard to see this positivity from people in my country. Maybe that's why I shocked.
Custom Games
The platform offers two methods to find/run games. First is GM-based games. A GM decides to run a certain game/scenario and creates an ad for it. If it suits you, you join the game. The second one is custom requests. That means, you connect with a GM to run games for you and/or your team. Custom games are generally a little more pricy, because they shape for the group. I already got my first offer. I thought they were going to ask for a Dungeons & Dragons, which I dislike, but we settled on a common point and decided to go for Symbaroum, a dark fantasy game from Free League Publishing.
So... TIL
I have to say that this little experience taught me some important life lessons, or reminded me. First of all; if you spend a big amount of time into any field of life, you can overcome the obstacles about that field. Secondly; while you keep doing what you know, you should give a chance to alternative methods. If I would keep this job with native clients, it would be only a waste of time. And a third one; if you don't take your first step, you lose. Even if you fail, you should take that step, because, the experience will turn that one step into ten, or hundred steps.
Have you ever had this kind of experience before? It could be a paid gamemastering, or paying to a gamemaster for a game. Or, have you ever heard or tried the SPG? Let me know about your thoughts! Btw, if you're interested, I'll drop some links for my RPG shares, game announcements, and RPG related stuff:
Instagram || Twitter || Twitch || GM Profile on SPG
And these are my upcoming games, more to come:
Alice is Missing - A one-shot silent roleplaying game
Sounds like a nice experience. Must have been great getting that feedback to boost your confidence. I'm gonna check out this platform. Haven't heard about it before.
It's a nice platform and its GM Discord is very helpful through the process. But still, timezones is an issue if you're in EU. But the platform is improving and they're aiming to reach more EU users.
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