Shropshire’s self-styled ‘Dungeon Master’ visited Telford College to give a talk to students about how he turned his hobby into a business.

Joel Smith, from Shrewsbury, has been running games of Dungeons & Dragons for the past 16 years – the last six of those as a profession.

He visited the college’s Wellington campus to explain to a group of creative students what it is like to be combining his hobby with his job.

He says: “I’d realised that my services were in high demand but dismissed the notion of charging because it was just a hobby – thinking enough people run games for free that I wouldn’t stand a chance.

“Then I learned someone in Toronto was doing exactly that a year later, and that was all the push I needed.”

Since then, Joel’s job has seen him deliver small parties and public sessions at Oswestry Library, contribute to best-selling works, and work at big national events like Insomnia and UK Games Expo.

He has also taught tabletop roleplay-related skills to performing arts students, and more besides.

A number of Telford College students are huge fans of the fantasy tabletop role-playing game, and a Dungeons & Dragons group is part of the college’s enrichment programme.

Joel advised students to keep their options open when it came to a career, and not to fixate on an image of what their ideal job might look like.

And for anyone considering trying to monetise a hobby, he had this piece of advice: “Remember that once your hobby has become your job it then becomes your life.

“Try as hard as you like, it is hard to separate your work and private lives when you attempt to monetise something from your private life. Make time for yourself – even if you have to force it.”

You can follow The Shropshire Dungeon Master on facebook at ShropshireDM. He also hosts regular chats on the video streaming service Twitch.