We were lucky to catch up with Mason Belcher recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Mason thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before – I was working in a pastry kitchen that specialized in bulk orders, performing the tasks of 3 people, and still excelling in my role. My former boss was abusive to his staff, cut corners everywhere, and routinely jeopardized the production pipeline of his own company to get what he wanted. I had been working at his company for 4 years by the time I quit, and should have done so sooner, if it were not for his disbelief in my success in what I do now. He tried to guilt trip my two weeks notice into a 3 month notice. Then, 3 days later, I quit on the spot when he insulted my now fiance.
Even playing things smart, this was a big risk for me. I was leaving a consistent 50 hr. week job to play board games every night. And now I had to speed up the work I was doing to get myself ready to start playing ASAP instead. Even despite that, however, I ended up paying all of my bills by the end of the month thanks to the success I found as a professional dungeon master! I went from making just a little under my previous paychecks my first month in, to being about equal by the third month, to now exceeding what I previously was making. My investments and risks I took in myself paid off, and I can support myself with my own interests and answer only to my clients.
Mason, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I am a Professional Dungeon Master on Startplaying.games. I run D&D for people who want the whole package – Great visuals, special effects, music, a safe atmosphere and people to play with, and my own experience as a dungeon master. My goal is to bring it all together for the complete experience of playing D&D like they do on Critical Role or Dimension20.
Personally, I think I am one of the more social and friendly Dungeon Masters (or DM for short) you can find that works professionally. I specifically try to foster an enviornment of kind folks. One of the very first things that people see when they sign up with me is my Code of Conduct. Startplaying.Games has a code of conduct too, but I decided to create my own because a lot of folks don’t read lengthy documents before agreeing to their terms on sites, and I figure that if I take what they had written and paired it down to just the information relevant to players and made additions for my own comfort, it’d be easier to parse, and I was right! Because of this, everyone in my community is very tightly knit. It’s a fantastic experience.
Beyond the community, I also actually run the game with high praises from my players. My most commonly run adventure is Curse of Strahd, a horror campaign centered around surviving in the world of the vampire Strahd von Zarovich. But I’m starting to run other adventures too now! Some of my clients have been playing with me through the end of that campaign, and we’re just now starting a new story called Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus. They’ve been with me since I first started and we’re all very excited to continue on this new adventure!
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
I want to provide good D&D for people. I have my doubts, of course, but I find myself encouraged by the number of people that not only play with me but stay with me. I have some players, like I mentioned, that have been with me since the beginnning of my work as a professional DM. No matter what negative thoughts I have, I know that for people to have been playing with me for as long as they have, one thing must be true – I must be really good at what I do. So I think I’m succeeding in that role.
Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?
I couldn’t have the success that I do without the knowledge I learned from IsFriday. She’s a fantastic DM that provides a lot of resources, videos, and most of all a podcast called Dollars & Dragons that has been a huge aid for me. If anyone else is looking at getting started being a professional DM, I highly reccomend her works. Or also as a DM, she has been doing professionally for twice as long as I have been.
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