“Until a few years ago, the idea of engaging a professional dungeon master … would have seemed absurd,” she wrote. High-end DMs charge up to $500 per session, according to Mary Pilon, who wrote about professional dungeon masters for Bloomberg Businessweek. Some voice actors and playwrights are turning to D&D as a source of income.

That person is responsible for coming up with the story, acting out nonplayer characters and running behind-the-scenes mechanics.Īnd with 40 million D&D players, there’s a growing need for dungeon masters, or DMs.

It lets players create their own adventurers and solve quests created by another player - the dungeon master. Instead of a fixed set of objectives, D&D is modular. Role-playing games like D&D are different from traditional board games. The game, which kicked off the role-playing genre in the 1970s, is actually popular. And not just because rule updates have made the game less fussy and easier to play. Dungeons & Dragons is not the same game it was 40 years ago.