startplaying.gamesReviews of startplaying.games

Great service they’re providing and customer service is very responsive to questions.

Quality games at reasonable prices! I’ve enjoyed getting to dip my toes into systems I’m not familiar with, or have pickup games with the tried and true D&D!

I am a professional game master and run my games on Startplaying. In 30 years as a freelancer in four professions and seven countries: I NEVER found new clients as easily as I do with Startplaying. You run an amazing business that helps a whole community to thrive. Amaze, amaze, amaze!! :)

Start Playing Games Changed My Life. I never once in my wildest dreams considered a path in life where I got to play games for a living yet here I am. It was a slow burn at first, when I got into Dungeons and Dragons, a home game, then one online campaign, then another, then I got to run some games at a local shop. And the games were fantastic, but things were tough for the family. My wife and I decided in 2020 that I would stay home with the kids in the foreseeable future, so that only left a few evening hours open to try and find a way to contribute. But once I discovered Start Playing Games in 2025 I realized I was able to earn some great money at night after I got my kids to bed. I launched 3 weekly campaigns in my first few months on SPG and that along with the couple nights a week running at the shop allowed my family to thrive and not just barely survive. This year I took my family on our very first vacation and fixed up our cars, was able to get the roof fixed and I don't have to worry about the grocery bill outrunning my wife's salary now that I am able to make a few thousand a month running games. StartPlaying Games is a Platform where the Dungeonmasters that excel at their craft can be wonderfully rewarded for the Performances they are able to put on for their players and I would recommend it to anyone who is looking to start playing Dungeons and Dragons.

I've been using StartPlaying for quite a while now, both as a player and as a GM, and it's easily become my favorite way to find and run tabletop games. As a player, the platform makes it incredibly easy to discover games that fit exactly what you're looking for. Whether you want a long-term campaign, a one-shot, a specific system, or a particular playstyle, everything is organized well and joining a game is straightforward. I've met some fantastic GMs through the site and had some genuinely memorable adventures that I don't think would have happened otherwise. As a GM, StartPlaying takes a lot of the headache out of organizing games. Scheduling, recruiting players, handling payments, and managing listings are all simple and reliable. It lets me focus on what I actually want to do: run great games. The best part, though, has been the community. I've met amazing players, made friends, shared countless laughs, and watched groups of complete strangers become regular tables that genuinely look forward to seeing each other every week. Some of my favorite RPG memories over the past few years started because of a game I found on StartPlaying. If you're looking for quality games, great people, and a platform that makes tabletop gaming easy, I can't recommend it highly enough!

I heard of start playing from a lot of the DND content creators and wanted to throw my hat into the ring. A little background about myself I started playing DND 3rd edition and mostly run DND 5e now. I have catalogs of different boards on Talespire and I use Heroforge for the minis. Ive been the forever GM for 10 year and developed my own ways of deescalating situation.When I went to apply they said I answered the questions wrong on the application. I ask for a redo and still they said I did not answer again correctly. I used AI to see if they denied a professional response to these questions. this was their response: Hey there , After reviewing your application, it looks like you did not correctly answer all the questions. In the future, I would recommend that you thoroughly review any documentation that you are instructed to, and ensure that you understand each element, especially when it comes to questions on the Terms of Service for a site. This decision wasn’t easy, and is no way a reflection of your enthusiasm for tabletop games or dedication to the craft. We wish you the very best in your future adventures and hope you continue bringing great games to life for players everywhere! All I wanted to do was get more recognition for my work and have fun in the process

The concept is great. But they are so money hungry it's ridiculous. They will charge your players 10% extra AND charge you 15% for your sessions EVERY SESSION. All for essentially using their glorified calender system that requires 0 input from them once it's set up. They take 25% of what your players pay every session. Plus their refund and system is just any way to ensure they get paid, not the DM.

I have been incredibly impressed with StartPlaying ever since I started using the site over 3 years ago. There are all sorts of services that link providers to end-users, but I've never seen one that does as good a job of keeping both sides happy. The support team is respectful, professional and thorough. Their policies have protected me both as a player and then as a GM, and turnaround time on communications is fantastic! I have been playing and running tabletop roleplaying games since the early nineties, and the hobby has changed a lot since then. One thing that hasn't changed is that it can be difficult to tell what sort of person your game master will be before you show up to the table. StartPlaying takes away as much of that uncertainty as possible by vetting their game masters ahead of time, and encouraging authenticity on the platform. Players can search for a gm based on a number of different factors, and reviewers can choose tags that they feel best describe the game master's style, providing even more info than a standard review. Reviews even show the number of times a player has paid for a session with that gm, which says a lot about how enjoyable the gm will be to play with. As a gm, I have at times been nervous to welcome strangers to my table. You never know who might show up, and as a freelancer, especially in the beginning there's always the fear that a bad actor or misunderstanding will tank your business through bad reviews. SPG solves this by making sure that reviews are truthful. Any GM has the chance to dispute a review, but they must have proof that the reviewer is being untruthful to get a review taken down. The support staff is careful to look over all evidence on both sides, and the best evidence I have to offer of their impartiality is that I see both gms and players alike complain that support didn't side with their claim. The one complaint I do hear often is from new gms who don't know why the company doesn't offer us more data about customer behavior, or give us algorithmic information to try to beat. That's because there is no algorithm--games are posted in time order, not manipulated or fed to players in any special way. Data is kept from the gms so that we can't use it to spam players. But every time they make a change to the site, they explain what is changing and why, so we know what's coming ahead of time. As I said before, I've never seen a middleman company that is truly working for the best for both sides like SPG does. They work hard to build trust with both players and gms, and I'm happy to be in my third year of working with them.