Money Ruins Everything

Every idea you see in this blog, Dear Reader, is yours to do with as you please. I am not interested in royalties, attribution, or publishing deals. Steal every single word from this blog and use it as your own. I do not care. I'd appreciate a little hat-tip, but it is not at all necessary.

I'm not interested in profiting off of role-playing games because I love them too much. I want to continue to love them. And if money starts getting placed on the table, I will stop loving them.

I must stress, because it's the Internet, that what I'm saying here might not be what you're feeling. And that's fine. But here's what I'm saying: Money Ruins Everything. I don't tell stories for money. I don't play RPGs for money. I do it because, well, that's just what I do. If I start getting paid for it, then I'm no longer doing it for that reason. I'm doing it to get paid. And if I'm not doing it solely because I want to, then the story suffers. And the story always comes first. I didn't used to feel this way. But I'm older and wiser now.

Can I have it both ways? In theory, yes. In practice, no, because if I'm getting paid, I can't quit. If a story isn't panning out how I'd like it to, or I want to do something else, "what about the money?" becomes a question that needs to be answered. And, unfortunately, "fuck the money" is not always a viable answer.

I've discovered something very important about myself: I hate working. Not the normal "is it Friday yet?" contempt for work, but an actual, legitimately-hostile disposition towards the doing of things motivated not by my own desires. If I'm doing a Thing for any reason other than "because I want to," then I automatically hate that Thing. I am neither proud nor ashamed of this. It's just who I am. I could be a professional blowjob tester, and I promise you, around day 90 or so, I'd be like "Mannnnnn...LOOK at all these goddamn blowjobs I have to receive! Is it Friday yet?"

Going back to RPGs, this is why I've never been able to fully commit to most campaigns. Because at some point, the ongoing campaign stops being something I want to do and starts being something I and my players committed to doing. At that point, the hate sets in. And I don't hate RPGs; I love them. So anything that makes me hate something I love is not worth doing. That's why I don't plan on running any long-term campaigns anymore, and that's why I'll never accept a dime for anything RPG-related I do.