Let's talk about Money/ What does RPGVienna cost to run

Off Topic
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Money is a weird subject

Either we talk about it all the time, or we are afraid to talk about it because we don’t want to appear greedy. I know that money was often a subject when students/other young people talked to me about V.A.L.U.E games (afraid if this was a sustainable hobby).

There are also people that said they’d want to support us with a bit of coffee money. We are not a club, so individuals typically carry the costs for things. So allow me to point out some things that are currently costing individuals money and how you can perhaps support them if you have the means to do so.

The website

@Neil runs the website for RPG Vienna, which costs him about 30€ a month. He also has set up a Patreon back in 2023 however he has not advertised it at all! I don’t have the current numbers on how many people are subscribed to the Patreon, but from my knowledge, it isn’t enough to cover costs. I personally have been subscribed ever since I found out.

The V.A.L.U.E games

WoWkeepers are super nice and offered us the “club” privilege. Aka that certain members of RPG Vienna can come in at a reduced price. However there is a personal cost for me: WoW Keeper members with a key have to pay the yearly membership of 60€ and let’s be real, not every Friday game ends at 11pm when the usual WoW keepers leave.

I used that opportunity to create an incentive for Dungeon Masters → People that regularly DM pay the reduced rate, which I’d like to believe is working pretty well.

Either way, my costs are very low compared to Neil, and they are lower than what we would pay in a Café like Zehnsiebzig. Though, some people have suggested a shared model, so let me know what you’d think of that.

Night of the rolling dice

Perhaps the most difficult thing to pin down @xaosseed will probably be able to correct me on this, but so far I think the rolling dice events have always broken even in terms of cost.

The biggest investment here is the time Dungeon masters spend organizing and DMing for completely new players in this pretty big event of around 60 people. (Though I hear they got a shirt out of it)

I think if you want to support that project, helping out with anything in terms of organization is the biggest thing here.

You don’t need to donate

Don’t feel pressured to donate if you don’t want to. Most of you are already doing a great job by being there and helping DM and or organize games. As a matter of fact, you are too many to count! Hah got you! This is an appreciation post now!

And if you do I think it is best spent on Neil

Anyway, let me know if I have missed anything. I will make liberal use of the EDIT button.

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Hey! First off, all of you are doing a great job! Keep it up :slight_smile:

Second, brings me to this quote…

I am not opposed to donating a little bit, perhaps on regular basis. But when it‘s about money, might it then not make sense to think about creating a Club (Verein)? Covering costs with membership fees, transparency of Cashflow, sharing some responsibilities… Clubs have a whole array of advantages. Also, the community is growing evermore it seems, and getting some structure into the whole thing might be a great idea :slight_smile:

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It has been a very hotly debated topic : ) we have a lot of looong threads on this forum discussing this. The conclusion is a lot of people do not feel the pros outweigh the cons (which is mostly a lot of paperwork and such)

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Ah well, wasn’t aware of that, but yeah, opening up that discussion after half a year might be a bit too early. Maybe some day :smile:

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Is it time though to have another open meeting to talk about all sorts of stuff? There was an intention after the last one that they should be more commone than once every few years.

We could talk putting on a tournament, what we want to do for Vienna Games Con, where to put the surge of new folk, that sort of stuff.

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Let’s definitely do this!

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new chance of a Neil spotting in the (semi-)wild!

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Neil has been more active ever since they released GPT4, just saying you shouldn’t get your hopes up :wink:

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Unbenannt

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My ¢2 here…

I’m new to WoW & RPGVienna. I don’t DM and don’t have a lot of time (or energy) to spend reading threads on forums/discord/etc. Sorry…

Having said that, I totally agree with @cat4laugh in that something needs to be done.

Someone (Kaiser?) mentioned about trust, cookie jars, and that perhaps an association (a Verein) can mitigate certain risk.

It doesn’t.

I’ve been a member of one Verein or another for the last 12 years and I can tell you that the rewards are not worth the time/energy/etc. that goes into it (at least not in RPGVienna case).

So what’s the solution? There isn’t any. We can just try something and see where it takes us.

Problem with Patreon is that if 3 or 4 people donate and 20 don’t, then there will be heartache & resentments. The only thing that comes to my simple mind is the cookie jar model (on a per event basis) :

. If someone DMs, they don’t pay anything because clearly they invest a lot of time into the game that others enjoy.

. Players, pay an additional (to the rent money) fee (say €1 or €2).

At €1 per Friday, assuming 15 players, we are looking at €60 per month which can easily cover the server costs + some left over for whatever.

Just some food for thought and if I got anyone upset with my post, that was not the intention. Personally I’m willing to pay €6+€2 for every Friday that I go to WoW to play.

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Totally agree, 1-2€ more wouldn´t hurt us, players! I think it´s very affordable as long as it stays under 10€/Session!

Covering costs is important to at least not to feel oneself used w/o some kind of thanks/gratefulness

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To be honest I have issue with the cookie jar approach because it opens a lot of questions:

  • Who is responsible for it?
  • What happens when the income covers the costs ?
  • How is the extra money governed?
  • Who decides what is supported from the money?

This said I’m not against building kind of support as I’m also subscriber of the patron since I got aware of it. I’m not calling for a Verein but a transparent system would be somehow nice.

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Good point - to me the cookie jar comes out when we have a specific bill to pay - then once we can pay that bill we stop - we avoid sitting on a float of cash which we have no plan for.

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  1. Simple online vote for Trusted Person->Treasury, 2nd and 3rd Trusted Person/Witnesses verifies all transactions, is posted online each month. Anonymized Invoice for HP+Server is posted online or just shown to Treasury+Witnesses.

  2. It gets rolled over into next year’s bill with the exact same previous purpose. Cookie Jar must say “this is for homepage” Separate Cookie Jars for different purposes may be created. Treasury person for the year might stop collecting at their discretion

  3. Extra money is kept, Treasury documents publicly who has it, but should never exceed 1 year worth of expenses to reduce risk for Faux-Organisation and Treasury themselves in case they lose it.

  4. Cookie Jar has express purpose so no decision/governing body needed. If RPGV stops existing you could technically refund contributions by booking off contributions First In First Out

I would avoid making general purpose tip jars without Verein Structure and generally avoid them because Vereine are a PITA when it comes to compliance and not worth it when you’re just trying to collect small sums. General Assembly vote without Verein (using GesBr) is just needless conflict waiting to happen.

This minimal structure would ensure that bills are paid and is encouraging for contributors because they can see that the money is being put to use for the singular purpose they contributed for.