Woman Makes $37,000 a Year Leading Dungeons & Dragons Games
hubie writes:
If 'you're doing it anyway, you might as well' get paid:
People are surprised to learn that Mari Murdock, 36, is a professional game master, a role in which she organizes and narrates tabletop roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons.
"A lot of people don't see things like hobbies or artistic endeavors as something that could generally make them money," she tells CNBC Make It.
Admittedly, she didn't expect running D&D games to turn into a paying gig, either - at least at first: "It was just a hobby I did with my friends in college."
[...] Since 2021, Murdock's main source of income has been working as a GM for Dungeon Master Direct, a Utah-based company that specializes in online and in-person tabletop roleplaying game sessions that range from $375 to $750.
[...] Even if she didn't do it for a living, Murdock says she'd still be planning D&D campaigns for friends, reading game books or writing fiction.
Since hobbies can become side hustles, "it's important to remember that creative work is work," she says.
[...] "I run about three games a week on a busy week," says Murdock. Each ongoing game, including prep, takes about four to five hours a week of her time.
She also helps run company events, like the largest game of Dungeons & Dragons ever played, according to Guinness World Records. The game was held at a mall in Provo, Utah, and culminated in all 1,227 participants defeating an evil wizard named Vecna in the final attack.
[...] Despite the fantastical elements of Dungeons & Dragons, Murdock says her interest in gaming has not been discouraged by her church. In fact, "a lot of members of the LDS church gravitate toward fantasy games," she says.
Attitudes have change since the "satanic panic" of the 1980s, where people had "this stereotype that kids in their basements were actually summoning these demons and things like that," she says.
For Murdock, gaming allows you to immerse yourself in "a pretend situation where you are imagining that you are someone else. I think that really develops creativity. It creates problem solving and a lot of empathy."
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