This story is part of CNBC Make It's Millennial Money series, which details how people around the world earn, spend and save their money.

People are surprised to learn that Mari Murdock, 36, is a professional game master, a role in which she organizes and narrates tabletop roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons.

"A lot of people don't see things like hobbies or artistic endeavors as something that could generally make them money," she tells CNBC Make It.

Admittedly, she didn't expect running D&D games to turn into a paying gig, either — at least at first: "It was just a hobby I did with my friends in college."

Dungeons & Dragons is an open-ended tabletop game in which the narrative is shaped by the players' choices, whether that's through combat, puzzles or negotiation. A GM is the world-builder and narrator for the players' actions, but they also enforce and explain the rules, kind of like a mediator or referee.

Since random rolls of the dice can be the difference in whether a player's character is swallowed by a gelatinous cube or crushed by a herd of centaurs, a good GM will also be an adept improviser who can keep the story moving based on the circumstances of the game.

In other words, it's not an easy gig. But as Murdock played tabletop games through the 2010s, she grew more confident in the skills it takes to run a good game. While not obvious at the time, it's what led to her becoming a paid GM.

"I love teaching, I love writing and I love playing games — it's been an interesting career path that's an amalgamation of all the things that I want to do," she says. 

Since 2021, Murdock's main source of income has been working as a GM for Dungeon Master Direct, a Utah-based company that specializes in online and in-person tabletop roleplaying game sessions that range from $375 to $750.

She makes $24,000 as a dungeon master for the company, plus another $13,000 teaching writing at nearby Westminster University in Salt Lake City, where she lives with her husband, Scott. He makes $96,000 as a communications director at a state agency.

Here's a look at how Murdock was able to turn her hobby into a career.

Becoming a tabletop gamer

The eldest of two siblings in a Latter-day Saints family, Murdock says she was "willful" and "liked being my own boss" when she was growing up. 

Most of her childhood took place in Michigan and in Utah, where she spent her days "climbing trees, catching frogs, playing make believe." At night, she would stay up reading books, pretty much "any type of storytelling."

In 2007, Murdock's family moved to Hawaii after her father got a teaching job at Brigham Young University-Hawaii. She studied literature at the school, and while there, played her first tabletop role-playing game at a friend's house and "loved it."

In 2010, she took time off from school to become a full-time missionary. She was assigned to Japan, the country where her mother was born.

While in Japan, Murdock met her now-husband, Scott, who was also doing missionary work in another part of the country.

Mari returned to Hawaii in 2012 and graduated from BYU-H with a bachelor's degree in literature. She got a communications job on campus, and was soon joined by Scott, who moved to Hawaii to be with her and finish his degree.

They helped create a gaming club on campus, with Murdock acting as the club's faculty advisor since she worked for the university.

The club was a hit, becoming the second-largest student group on campus. Murdock got more involved with the club, running tabletop RPGs for first-time players. In 2013, she entered and won an open audition to write fiction for Legend of the Five Rings, a popular collectible card game set in feudal Japan.

"That really opened the doors to networking for other types of work, because when people were looking for a writer who could do fiction at a professional level, my name would start coming up," says Murdock.

Getting hired as a professional Dungeon Master

Even if she didn't do it for a living, Murdock says she'd still be planning D&D campaigns for friends, reading game books or writing fiction.

Since hobbies can become side hustles, "it's important to remember that creative work is work," she says.

As a friend once said to her: "You're going to be doing it anyway, you might as well find someone to pay you for it."

In 2016, Murdock moved to Salt Lake City with Scott, where she studied for a master's degree in transatlantic literature. She also continued freelance writing, mostly for Legend of the Five Rings.

"I got roped into writing anything that they needed me to," says Murdock. This included novelizations of the game, as well as text that explains game mechanics, character backstories or text that appears on game cards. She was mostly paid in free products at first, but later got paid in cash.

In 2020, Dax Levine — an old friend from Murdock's university gaming club — founded Dungeon Master Direct, a professional dungeon master service. The timing was fortuitous, as tabletop gaming became more popular during the pandemic.

The company was successful enough that in May 2021 Levine was able to hire Murdock as a game master, commonly called a dungeon master when playing Dungeons & Dragons.

"I run about three games a week on a busy week," says Murdock. Each ongoing game, including prep, takes about four to five hours a week of her time.  

She also helps run company events, like the largest game of Dungeons & Dragons ever played, according to Guinness World Records. The game was held at a mall in Provo, Utah, and culminated in all 1,227 participants defeating an evil wizard named Vecna in the final attack.

Despite the fantastical elements of Dungeons & Dragons, Murdock says her interest in gaming has not been discouraged by her church. In fact, "a lot of members of the LDS church gravitate toward fantasy games," she says.

Attitudes have change since the "satanic panic" of the 1980s, where people had "this stereotype that kids in their basements were actually summoning these demons and things like that," she says.

For Murdock, gaming allows you to immerse yourself in "a pretend situation where you are imagining that you are someone else. I think that really develops creativity. It creates problem solving and a lot of empathy."

What Mari and Scott spend in a month

Here's how Mari and Scott spent their money in February 2024:

• Debt repayment: $2,450 for student loans, credit card debt, PayPal Credit, personal loan
• Mortgage: $2,147
• Food: $1,390 on groceries and dining out
• Discretionary: $832 for home goods, a Kickstarter contribution, hair salon
• Utilities: $452 for Wi-Fi, heat, water and electricity
• Savings: $400
• Subscriptions and memberships: $235 on Hulu, Spotify, Amazon Prime, Midjourney, Patreon, Nebula, Max
• Insurance: $161 for health, dental, vision, car and home
• Phones: $140
• Gas: $71

In June 2023, Mari and Scott purchased a detached two-bedroom home in downtown Salt Lake City for $535,000, with a down payment of $40,000. To afford the home, they took on a personal loan within their family, which works out to $777 in monthly payments in addition to their mortgage.

As part of the move, they did what Murdock calls a "financial reset," with the goal of paying down the roughly $15,000 in credit card debt they accumulated during the pandemic. For that reason, debt repayment is the biggest monthly expense for the couple, with nearly $1,400 put toward credit card payments alone.

They also have student loan debt of about $25,000 each. Scott hopes to qualify for public service loan forgiveness in a couple of years, since he works for a government agency. 

Prior to the move, the couple had consistently paid a tithe to their church totaling one tenth of their income. However, they have paused their monthly contributions until they can pay down their credit card debt.

Murdock usually spends up to 10 hours a week volunteering for the Relief Society, an LDS philanthropic women's organization. She figures her current contribution to the church is "my time commitment rather than my money commitment."

They own a fully paid off 2018 Jeep Compass, so they save money on transportation costs, only paying about $200 for gas and car insurance each month.

As for investments, the couple has about $20,000 set aside through Scott's 401(k) and pension. "Once we are completely out of debt besides the mortgage, we will probably put more into our retirement accounts," says Murdock.

Looking ahead

Once their debt is paid down, "we're hoping to maybe foster children or adopt children, because that's something we've always been interested in," says Murdock.

As for her career, juggling freelance writing, GMing and teaching "can be overwhelming at times," Murdock says. But it's also "fulfilling to all of the parts of my brain that just loves doing all sorts of different things."

Murdock wants to continue these pursuits, but would like to branch out and write her own novels too.

"I went to school specifically to learn how to be a creative writer, so I love that GMing is a creative outlet that allows me to hone my storytelling, plotting and characterization skills," she says. "I feel very lucky that I'm able to do this. I'm feeling happy and blessed with it."

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