Is anyone a professional/paid DM? I'm hoping to write off all my D&D/TTRPG expenses and to do so I have to run enough paid games so that I can tell the IRS I'm serious about making money off this endeavor. I'd love to pick your brains about how you do it.

“And my top game mastering tip is… Handouts! I love handouts!” - Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan. Post your cool handout experiences and ideas here!

Some players like starting their character design from the mechanical stats, while others like starting from the inner/outer conflict. What do you all do to make support both of these character writing styles, while making sure the invidivual players don't paint themselves into a corner? I struggle with helping my party align their characters in way that pulls the party in the same direction while not stepping on each other's toes.

Does anyone here do world building? I tend to want to create a world and build up from there. Placing my PC’s somewhere that we can write our own story without established history. Though I can see how established history also creates places to reference and established history makes for less work in player knowledge base when making knowledge checks and such. I guess what I’m mainly asking is whether people prefer to use established worlds or make their own.

So I've become a pretty avid con GM over the last few years and I've worked under game companies running the exact games they wanted, as well as as a free lancer picking out the exact things I want to run. I reached out to a brand new convention that's happening for the first time in a few weeks, because I noticed that they didn't yet have a formalized policy for competent in Game Masters for running games for them. I offered a pretty large amount of hours I'd be willing to work, for the standard of a pass as well as then covering my hotel (which is always the most expensive part of a trip for me). I offered to run specifically things I felt that they needed, and because they are game shop that is creating their own convention, they wanted me to run specifically things that are available for sale now, rather than some of the more obscure out of print things that I sometimes like to run . I made one little "mistake". I had given them my "games I have played list" instead of "my games I have run list". Being up to the challenge I decided I would run each of those games at least once before the con, and I did have a few I asked to change because they weren't games I particularly resonated with even that's a player. Fast forward to last week where I got to run Starfinder 2E for the first time. I've not really resonated with Pathfinder 2E or starter finder 2E as a player. I don't want to dig too deep into that because it's very much just a personal philosophy. But in running it I've realized something. Often I will gravitate towards a game that has a core design philosophy that aligns with my strength as a game master. The idea is that it could bring out the best of me by making sure that it supports me in what I am most capable of doing. But running Star Finder put me back into a tactical RPG mindset which I've largely moved away from, especially as a player. But because it's something I don't necessarily love, it's also something I don't put a lot of energy into. So I would say it's probably my biggest weakness is a GM right now.