Welcome to the second episode of Sustaining Craft! Give a listen here or keep scrolling to read the article!
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Joshua Kurtz makes a majority of his monthly income playing Dungeons and Dragons.
And it all started over 15 years ago with pokémon.
As kids, Joshua Kurtz and his older brother and sister loved the television show so much that they created a game around it they called Unpause. His siblings would explain an imaginary action that they did, such as catching a pokémon, and Kurtz would tell them what happened as a result in that world. They would “pause” and “unpause” when they needed to stop or start playing the game.
Then, when he was around 10 years old, Kurtz was at the local library with his mother and saw an original, first edition of Dungeons and Dragons. “I just lit up,” Kurtz explained. “I fell in love with this immediately. I got it. I learned it, and I invited friends over to a birthday party to play it with me because no one else seemed to want to otherwise. And we had a blast. We were kids and we had no idea what we were doing, but we were rolling dice and having a good time about it.”
Photo courtesy of Joshua Kurtz
Homeschooled until high school, Kurtz attended the Gloucester County Institute of Technology in southern New Jersey, a block scheduling high school that included two hours of theater every day. Immersed in theater, Josh found that he wanted to be a director instead of an actor when he wrote and directed his first musical at the age of 17.
Then he joined the Young Americans, a college performing arts group that travels around the world teaching kids how to sing and dance. “I dropped every other acceptance letter that I had,” Kurtz shared. “I just knew that’s what I had to do.”
After six seasons on tour, he returned to southern New Jersey and started teaching a theater class to homeschoolers. When the semester ended, there wasn’t enough interest to continue the classes. Then a parent asked him about a hybrid activity that might involve improv and hangout time, so they could run errands while their children were having fun learning and being supervised. “I emailed her back and gently pitched the idea of what about if I did some tabletop role-playing, which is the formal term for D&D,” Kurtz explained.
The gig brought in some money and Kurtz marketed the concept to other homeschool groups. After just a few months, Kurtz had five groups with twenty-two students total.
Photo courtesy of Joshua Kurtz
Kurtz formalized his efforts into D&D For Hire this summer. “The idea of D&D For Hire is to bring Dungeons and Dragons to people who don’t otherwise have the opportunity,” Kurtz explained. “And usually that winds up being children who would want to play but don’t know how or even some adults who just don’t have people to play with. The idea is you can bring them a game and it could be a one-time off, once a week recurring thing. It’s a fun experience for anyone and if you’re a kid and you want to this extracurricular thing, it can be fun and educational at the same time.”
As for what a Dungeon Master does, well–Kurtz guides the journey. “I set the questions that they have to answer,” said Kurtz.
He knows the rules of the world, the enemies, the setbacks, and the allies. “All I know is how the world is going to respond to them, and all the problems they’re going to face is something that they have to have to deal with,” Kurtz shared. “Everyone handles that in a different way. Some groups of people will just attack every problem head-on and that works for them, and some people want to sit back and think about it first. It’s a world without limits that we are creating together.”
Photo courtesy of Joshua Kurtz
The game might not have limits, but the real world has some difficulties. “The challenge is the stigma around it,” explained Kurtz. “That’s the biggest thing. There’s two sides of things because 20 years ago, this wouldn’t have been possible, and maybe 20 years from now, it would be much easier. I’m kind of in a weird middle ground because if you go way, way far back, there’s this stigma of oh it’s devil worshippers and it’s satan’s game, and it’s all this bad stuff and nowadays people don’t believe that anymore, but also people don’t really know what it is.”
Shows like Stranger Things have helped Dungeons and Dragons get a little more attention in recent years. “A couple of kids would literally come in and they came to my group because they were excited about D&D from Stranger Things,” Kurtz said. “It’s doing a lot to help that. But the challenge is getting not only kids interested but getting parents to realize that this is a good thing for their kids. This isn’t just a game. It’s something that’s going to benefit them and be something that’s educational and helpful and positive for them. And it really is because it builds social skills and it lets you interact face to face, which I think is the easiest sell I have because your kids will get off their phones, off their computers and they will play with other kids in person.”
As for others looking to make it with an unusual, creative career, Kurtz says just go for it. “If I can find a way to make Dungeons and Dragons a living,” Kurtz said, “I’m pretty sure you can find a way do like — what are you, a basket weaver? Make it work. I guarantee you there is some desire or need. You’re not the only one. You’re not alone in what you like. And if you have a thing you love to do or a special skill that you think is useless, I guarantee that there’s a use for it. Just don’t give up on trying to find it because someone is gonna love it. Talk about it all the time. Talk to people. You’ll be amazed to find what people like.”
Photo courtesy of Joshua Kurtz
Along with earning money as a professional dungeon master, Kurtz continues his theater work as the executive director of Aftershock Entertainment, a nonprofit theater organization, and has fun as an axe-throwing coach. Aftershock Entertainment will be at the NJ Fringe Festival in Hammonton, NJ, showcasing Kurtz’s original play, Wildest Fantasy (which is not appropriate for children).
Always busy juggling multiple jobs, Kurtz has one rule when it comes to work: do what brings him joy. “I realized I’m not going to be happy doing something I don’t like,” Kurtz said. “The jobs I would get, the odd jobs here and there, were all jobs that would make me really excited to go to them. If I wasn’t excited to go to work every day, I knew I wasn’t going be happy. I’d rather be skirting along, making the bare minimum doing something I love than being comfortable financially in a situation I’m not happy with. As long as I have these doors, as long as there are ways for me to do this, I’ll always pick something I love over something that will make me money. And this does both.”
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Episode 2 of Sustaining Craft the podcast is now up! There’s so much more in the episode. Give a listen:
Learn more about what Kurtz does or hire him by checking out D&D For Hire on Facebook. Find Aftershock Entertainment on Facebook, on Instagram @aftershockentertainment, or at their website. You can also buy tickets for Wildest Fantasy here (not suitable for children), or get more information about the NJ Fringe Festival in Hammonton, NJ here.