Launch HN: StartPlaying.Games (YC W20) – Tabletop RPGs run by pro game masters
My kneejerk reaction to the headline was that this might be a service to connect existing groups to vetted, high-quality GMs, like a premium service aimed at the sorts of folks who&#x27;d otherwise spend a ton of money on TTRPG tables and miniatures.<p>But this is more like a rideshare model, where you&#x27;re looking at who&#x27;s available for a given timeslot&#x2F;location, then jumping into a game that&#x27;s determined by the GM. With online games, you&#x27;re also likely playing with strangers.<p>This makes the whole thing feel more like a permanent convention&#x2F;event setup — you pay for a seat at a table and agree to work with whatever&#x27;s handed to you. Which is great, but it also has to compete with similar free game matchmaking as well as those types of (now also virtual) events.<p>I&#x27;m also confused about the age tier filters — the &quot;No Use By Minors&quot; section of the ToS is very clear about users under 18 being prohibited from using the service, but there are game filters for games that can include players ages 9-17. That seems impossible without breaking the ToS.<p>The Code of Conduct is welcome, but it&#x27;s stowed away in the bottom of the ToS. For a social product like this, it would benefit from being much more prominent and discoverable. It&#x27;s also unclear how to report issues with or violations of the CoC; there&#x27;s a contact email and URL in the ToS, but they point to a different domain of startplayinggames.com, and the Contact form URL in the ToS just plain doesn&#x27;t work.<p>More importantly, the CoC doesn&#x27;t appear to give the GM the ability to define additional conduct rules or expectations that don&#x27;t necessarily delve into content sensitivities — can players be late, show up unprepared, play intoxicated? Can a GM remove a player who is following the CoC but otherwise being disruptive? I see some who state they will in their profiles — if they do, does the player get refunded, and from where does that refund come? What potential consequences are there for players or GMs who remove a player from a game?<p>What&#x27;s the revenue split look like? I tried the &quot;Become a GM&quot; link from one of the GM profile pages, but it pulled up a blank profile, presumably because the footer links are all relative? <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;startplaying.games&#x2F;game-master&#x2F;become-gm" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;startplaying.games&#x2F;game-master&#x2F;become-gm</a>