Astro Artificer- Essential Insights
- The GM who never thought like one.
- Chapter 1: The Incorporated 19 Year Old
- Chapter 2: The Nightclub Promoter
- Chapter 3: The Corporate Climb
- Chapter 4: The Rise of the CorporateDM
- Do you really want to be a Pro-GM?
- Wisdom from the Corporate DM
- Epilogue
Essential Insights
1. Business Infrastructure Before Business Ideas John incorporated his first business at 19 for a merchandising gig. Most GMs wait until they're already making money to think about structure. By then, they've already left money on the table and exposed themselves to risk they didn't need to take.
2. Your "Unrelated" Career is Your Competitive Advantage A cybersecurity exec turned nightclub promoter turned Big 4 consultant sounds nothing like a GM. That's exactly why CorporateDM works. The skills you build outside of TTRPGs are what let you stand out in a crowded market.
3. The Platform is a Storefront, Not a Foundation StartPlaying, Roll20, DND Beyond, these are discovery tools, not businesses. If the platform disappeared tomorrow, would your revenue? John's wouldn't. That's the difference between a brand and a listing.
4. Your Prep Work is an Unlicensed Asset Every adventure you've run and shelved is money you left on the table. Polish it. License it. Sell it. Your creative output has a life beyond the session it was built for.
5. The Game is the Front Door, Not the House Running games is how you find your best customers. It's not the end product. The GMs who build sustainable businesses treat the table as a funnel into something larger, which includes coaching, publishing, licensing, and events.
6. Build for the Right Customer, Not Every Customer One deeply aligned player is worth ten mismatched ones. The whole point of building a brand is earning the right to choose who sits at your table and designing everything to attract exactly that person.
7. If Revenue Stops When You Stop Working, You Built a Job This is the one. Most pro-GMs are glorified freelancers. John's goal from the start was to build something that made money without him running every session. That's not a hobby. That's a business.
The GM who never thought like one.
Most gamemasters are terrific at running games. They’re terrible at running businesses. It’s not their fault; most GMs who go pro don’t take a class to earn their MBA (Medieval Business Administration). But by neglecting to learn these skills, their professional GMing business goes from a business to a better paying job with no health insurance.
This is what John, the Corporate DM, learned from his professional GMing business, or journey beyond the table. His brutal take?
If revenue stops when you stop working, you built a job
He didn’t get this idea from running scores of D&D campaigns (although his players do love it). He actually got this wisdom from a completely different career path than many other GMs would never guess.
Take a look at his website. Different, right? Completely different. Instead of medieval fantasy themes, he opts for a clean, sleek aesthetic. Black. White. Professional. It’s a very different vibe from professional TTRPG creators like Pointy Hat, or Ginny Di. And that’s done on purpose.
Why does his website look closer to a CPA’s, rather than a GM’s? It’s the reason why he is so successful as a GM, as he has built a brand and business beyond the table. It all started when he was 19.
Chapter 1: The Incorporated 19 Year Old
John’s story begins in luxurious circumstances: rearranging displays, changing prices, and working in retail stores as a gig worker. This was during junior college, and he landed a contract for a merchandising job. The moment that changed his destiny was when his mentor gave him a life-changing suggestion. Incorporate… Incorporate? Why? Well, the reason most people do so. Lawsuits. When a store would do a new build out, it meant a crew of people switching out merchandise all over the store, which could potentially cause an injury. What’s worse than hurting a customer? Having to deal with their lawyer taking your personal belongings.
Incorporating himself gave John a crash course on governance, liability protection, insurance, and much, much more. It was a good turn of fortune for John. Most people aren’t setting up a business at 19. They’re collecting paychecks. John was setting himself up with one of the best educations he could get.
Lesson: Every serious pro-GM should set up business infrastructure sooner rather than later. It’s your foundation, your protection, and yes, your tax-saving measure. Just an LLC does wonders.
Chapter 2: The Nightclub Promoter
Have you ever had any of your friends text you something like this? ”There’ll be a crazy party tonight with a famous DJ. You’ve gotta go there, dude.”
Then they drop you a link. You just got promoted to. If you’re not from a place with a crazy party scene, a nightclub promoter’s job is to get warm bodies in and have those bodies consuming lots of alcohol.
That’s what John ended up doing to build his resume.
Initially, he wanted to volunteer and provide a benefit to the world. However, his HR rep let him know that being a good person doesn’t matter on your resume as much as a paid gig. So he was racking his brain for things to do, and landed himself at a rave. The venue was packed. The music was bumping. The alcohol was flowing. After a great night out, John asked the promoters an innocent question. ”Do you have a website?” ”Website, what’s that?”
For context, the internet had really just been born, so most people didn’t know what it was. John was a software engineer who knew how to program well. He joined forces with an attorney and a marketer, and took over the promoting world. The world was not ready for the power of the internet, and John managed to take it nationwide.
This was the first time John really built a business with multiple team members, which would go on to help him form CorporateDM decades later. You wouldn’t expect it for GMing, but every little thing compounds. And, it also taught him to always keep your attorney and accountant in the loop.
Lesson: Problems exist everywhere. Learn how to solve them for people, and you will learn one of the best skills that education can’t buy. That’s spotting an opportunity and capitalizing on it.
Chapter 3: The Corporate Climb
A bet-rigging scandal rocked the wagering world, and John became part of the casino gaming industry as a cybersecurity exec to clean it up. Turns out, the house doesn’t always win.
After the employees rigging bets went to jail (as they should!), the casino supplier had a controlling portion of their stock acquired by a hedge fund. The atmosphere was heavy. Layoffs were in the air.
John didn’t want to get fired (can’t blame him). So, when his new bosses from the hedge fund asked him what he actually did there, he was sweating a bit. They asked him how his department affected the EBITDA. If you are a normal person, you’re probably wondering what dwarvish word you just read. John had that same instinct. EBITDA is “Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization”. Rolls right off the tongue. In plain English, it’s a common way to figure out the profitability and health of a business. That gap in knowledge led John to learning finance and accounting, which ended up helping his side hustle as a consultant.
After that scary conversation with the hedge fund reps, he started building a consulting business on the side (which was the beginning of CorporateDM). He didn’t get laid off, and this experience led him to getting promoted higher up the corporate ladder. It was at this time that D&D came back into the picture.
Lesson: Invest in the S&Me 500. What that means is that you invest in yourself like a portfolio. Every new skill, finance, accounting, law, tech, graphic design, etc., compounds over time. John didn't learn these things because they were fun. He learned them because each one closed a blind spot.
Chapter 4: The Rise of the CorporateDM
John had climbed to high peaks in the casino industry, but decided to move on from that life and find even higher mountains to climb. He swapped out casino executive for an executive role at one of the Big Four accounting firms. The job had changed, but the consulting was still there. He decided to add D&D into the mix.
He had been running corporate training for a while, licensing course materials and bringing in instructors. It was good business, but it was conventional. Then a different idea started forming. What if education didn't have to feel like education? Instead of putting accountants in a conference room with a whiteboard, you put them in a fantasy kingdom investigating irregularities in the royal treasury. Instead of a dry seminar on medical diagnostics, your surgeons become traveling clerics trying to cure a village of dysentery without access to expensive magic. The learning was real. The accounting ledgers had actual problems to solve. But the wrapper made people lean in instead of checking out. That was the seed of CorporateDM's edutainment division. Not a hobby bleeding into work, but a deliberate product decision to make education something people actually wanted to show up for.
As the edutainment side grew, John noticed something. Every scenario he built was collecting dust. The research, writing, and world-building shouldn’t just disappear after the game ended. It was just sitting there. In his own words, he began thinking about it the way a manufacturer thinks about scrap. A zero-waste factory doesn’t throw out anything. It reuses it. A scenario that took hours to build could be polished, licensed, and sold to game shops, home GMs, or other pros who wanted quality material without building it from scratch. That shifted his thinking from “I run a game” to “I created an asset”. That moment was when Corporate DM stopped being a consulting gig and began becoming its own business.
The last piece was figuring out who he was actually building this for. Not every player who shows up is the right player. He broke his audience into three groups: Gamers who wanted mechanics, IP Fans who had read every novel and wanted to live inside the fiction, and fellow GMs who were quietly looking for ideas to borrow.”
Each group wants something different, and each group needs a different pitch. When John realized his ideal customer was the person who had read all 200 Dragonlance novels and wanted to be immersed in that world, everything sharpened. The product, the pricing, the branding, it all started pointing in the same direction. He wasn't trying to serve everyone. He was building something specific for someone specific. And that specificity is exactly what made it work.
CorporateDM began to blossom into what it is today. John runs sessions for his players, yes, but that isn’t the entire business. He runs teambuilding events for business clients from overseas. He creates modules and scenarios for purchase and reuse. John doesn’t just run games; he also runs the enterprise of CorporateDM.
If you’re looking for a GM to take you on a journey along the Sword Coast in Faerûn, Corporate DM has got you covered. On top of that, he handles special events, corporate team building, D&D coaching, as well as license DM resources. Don’t take my word for it, though; you can see what his players say about him here.
Do you really want to be a Pro-GM?
John's path to CorporateDM wasn't accidental. It was the result of decades of asking the right business questions. Before you follow in his footsteps, he'd want you to ask yourself the most important question first.
Do you want your Pro-GMing to be more like a job, or more like a business? Why did you even get started in the first place? John himself says that being a pro-GM isn’t for everybody, and he pointed out the following.
If you started Pro-GMing because:
- You wanted the flexibility to set your own hours
- Pursue your passions for TTRPGs
- Be your own boss
You’re probably better off sticking with a day job.
If you just want to run campaigns, you have essentially built yourself another job, except you don’t get insurance. You’ll probably be dependent on services like StartPlaying Games, Roll20, etc. who now become your new bosses. But, at least that is reliable, and less difficult than starting a Pro-GMing business.
If you’re not scared off at this point and still want to pursue building a business that uses your skills for TTRPGs as its building block, you should prepare to build a brand. It’s a way for your work and income to grow without you having to GM all the time. That’s what John recommends.
“If you’re ready to take the next step understand that you’re going to be building a brand, not a job.”
In his own words, don’t try to be the next Matt Mercer. You don’t need to be a celebrity DM to be successful. Here are some hard truths about running a successful brand.
Gordon Ramsay doesn’t spend all of his time cooking. He’s around for filming, grand openings, and other special occasions. Most of the stuff you will build doesn’t require you to be there with customers. At some point, you may hire other DMs (who could be paid more than you) to run games, while you manage the rest of the brand.
It’s really hard to make it as just a GM who’s running a game. You’re turning yourself into a commodity. But, when you can sell your homebrew campaigns, create an immersive experience through special effects and actors, or help other GMs, you become something greater than just a GM. You go beyond the table.
Is it worth it? Not for everyone. But for John, The CorporateDM, it has been a journey of a lifetime. His business is a much of a reflection of his life, as it has become a part of who he is.
Wisdom from the Corporate DM
John has so many other great lessons, and I would recommend you read the full transcripts here. But I’d like to present his greatest hits here.
If revenue stops when you stop working, you built a job
"If the revenue stops when you stop working, you built a job and not a business.”
This is the fundamental problem with gig work like Uber/DoorDash. This is especially true if you rely on just Startplaying games. The only way for services like SPG to make money is to squeeze everybody (including players and GMs). If your revenue is that dependent on the gig, you might as well stick with your day job.
Measure the business, not just the game
"Some mentors in my life have said you can't manage what you don't measure. Without knowing what to measure you have a blind spot.”
Take time to measure player satisfaction, the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, player churn rate, etc. If you run the business on vibes alone, you will quickly run it off track. Know what to measure, and you’ll know where to go.
The platform is a storefront, not a business
"StartPlaying is a store front like Amazon, eBay, or Door Dash... I use StartPlaying as one of many channels." "[My business] 100% would remain intact since StartPlaying is only a product catalog and a turnkey credit card processor."
StartPlaying is great as a platform, and not a foundation. SPG, Roll20, and DND Beyond are great ways to get discovered, but they’re bad for building an audience of fans who love you. Use it as a storefront, but make sure that you still control your own store.
Your prep work is unlicensed revenue sitting on a shelf
"Think of it as a factory with scrap. Zero waste factories sell their scrap for recycling or it may be repurposed into other goods. That money was always there but nobody thought to look for it.”
John had realized that you can double dip, so that your work doesn’t become wasted. Each adventure becomes a module or scenario that can help a different GM out. This goes for NPCs, magic items, artwork, and so much more. Get creative. Your creative work is so much more valuable than you realize.
The game is a funnel, not the product
"I see providing GM services as a way of bringing customers into multiple sales funnels to see if we can qualify them for something else that is more product than service oriented.”
Running a game is how you discover loyal fans. Running games isn’t the only thing you can do for them. Helping them build characters, running birthday party sessions, or even providing fellow GMs with materials. All of these can be special services that you can use to help out those who played with you. The game is the front door, but your brand is the rest of the house.
Build for the right customer, not any customer
"That is a result of cultivating the 'right' customers for whatever product you are selling.”
Not every player belongs at your table ( I talk about this a lot in my series about player archetypes). But overall, one right player is worth 10 wrong ones. The benefit of building a brand is getting to choose the players who would choose you back. It means that you can give them a much better experience than if you had to accept everybody and everyone.
You're building a brand, not a seat at the table
"Don't plan on being a Matt Mercer celebrity GM. Gordon Ramsay doesn't cook in his restaurants as a regular activity... You are going to be building something that doesn't require you to be there with customers.”
Arguably, one of the most important lessons that we covered in the previous section. To expand on what I said, building a brand means building the business that exists when you’re not there. Ranchers allowed their cows to roam freely because they had placed a brand on them. Other ranchers knew that the brand came associated with a person. If you are just running campaigns like a job, you aren’t building a brand. Lucky for you, there aren’t a lot of other people out there building one.
Epilogue
Going beyond the table is not for everyone. Sure, not everybody can have over 40 years of business experience from shuffling merchandise around to being a Big Four Executive. That’s why I’ve distilled the life and lessons of John, the Corporate DM, into something digestible. Take these lessons, and use them to build the Pro-GMing business that only you can.
If you want to read more of John’s specific insights on Pro-GMing business, you’ll want to sign up for his new blog series here!
John didn't build CorporateDM out of passion. He built it by treating every job, every side hustle, every awkward conversation about EBITDA as a brick in something larger. The table was never the point. The business behind it was. That's the lesson most Pro GMs never learn, and the one that separates the ones who last from the ones who burn out. The window is open. The question is whether you're building a door or just walking through someone else's.
— Astro