OUR STORY
Built by lifelong nerds.
Summon is being built by a small crew who've spent their whole lives around a table rolling dice — and who got tired of watching the people who make the magic get squeezed. This is why we're drawing the circle.
WHO WE ARE
Josh, Chris
& Wes.
— Builders & a storyteller
Josh and Chris started Summon — builders who make tools and platforms for the niches they actually care about, and who've been playing tabletop games their entire lives: D&D, Call of Cthulhu, whatever weird indie system somebody brought to game night. Wes Franks joined the crew soon after — a queer, nonbinary, ENNIE Award-winning writer and designer with over six years in the tabletop industry and an eye for the weird, wonderful stories these games are made of.
Between us, we know exactly who makes a session sing. It's the Game Master — the one who preps for hours, voices the tavern keeper, and turns a Tuesday into a story people remember for years. They're the craftsperson. The whole thing runs on them.
But when we looked at how pro GMing works online, the math was backwards. The dominant platform takes 15% of a GM's rate, and takes a cut out of their tips — a cut of the prep, the maps, the voice you do for the tavern keeper, and of the thank-you a player pressed into your hand afterward. Meanwhile players told us the opposite story: they still couldn't find a game, or a group to actually play it with.
One side under-paid, the other side unable to get to the table. We're the kind of people who can't leave that alone.
So we started building the fix. That's Summon.
Meet the crew
The team building Summon.
Josh
One of Summon's two founders. A lifelong tabletop player who builds tools for the niches worth caring about, and believes the person who preps your dungeon should keep every dollar you pay them.
Chris
Summon's other founder. Rolling dice since forever and building software for the niches that matter — now aimed squarely at giving Game Masters a fairer deal and getting more players to the table.
Wes Franks
Wes Franks (they/them) is a queer, nonbinary writer, designer, and ENNIE Award winning Program Lead who has been working in the Tabletop industry for over six years. They are the founder and creative director of Carrion Comfort, developing weird Tabletop games and shows such as COME ON IN, DEAD-PILLED, This Old House, and more! Wes currently resides in Washington DC with their partner, Bran, and their two adorable pets, Jigsaw and Rustin. Wes loves mythology, professional wrestling, and reminding folks they used to be a chef.
THE MISSION
We only win when
the circle turns.
Summon takes 0% from Game Masters. You keep 100% of your listed price and 100% of your tips. Players add one flat 7.77% on top — and it never comes out of your pocket. That fee is the entire business model. Not an introductory rate, not a promo that quietly climbs later. Flat, and it stays flat.
Here's the whole idea, and it's a simple loop. When a GM can earn a real living doing what they love, they run more games — and better ones. More tables mean more players find a seat. More seats mean more good nights, more first-timers who fall for the hobby, more feet through the door of your friendly local game store, more people telling a friend they finally found a group.
The hobby grows. And a bigger, healthier hobby means more games for the GMs to run. Round and round — that's the flywheel.
Every part of that circle is on the GM's side, because that's the only way it turns. We take as little as we can and still keep the lights on, and that's a choice, not a phase — the point was never the size of our cut, it's a bigger hobby with more good tables in it. We don't make a dime unless a game gets booked, so our entire job is to fill tables and pay pros like the pros they are. We grow on volume, never on squeezing the people who do the work.
A WORD ON THE PLATFORMS BEFORE US
Grateful — and headed somewhere different.
We want to be clear about something: we're genuinely grateful to the platforms that opened this category. They proved that people will happily pay to game together, and they put professional GMing on the map. That took guts, and it made room for what we're doing now.
We just have a different vision of who the money should serve.
No mud, no takedown. Different bet, that's all — that a marketplace built to put the maker first is a better place to spend a Friday night.
WHERE WE ACTUALLY ARE
New, honest, and
nationwide.
We won't oversell it. We're new and we're bootstrapped — no venture-backed war chest, no glass tower in San Francisco. Just a small crew funding this ourselves because we think it should exist.
That means we're building it the honest way: hand-onboarding our first Game Masters ourselves, wherever they are, and growing from there. We're not going to promise a crowd that isn't there yet, or games you can book tonight. We're going to promise the part that's in our control: a fair deal, in writing, and founders who answer their own email.
We're building it in the open, and we'd love for you to get in early — before the doors open.
THE CIRCLE IS BEING DRAWN
Come help us turn it.
Players, Game Masters, and game stores — gather your party and get in before the beta opens.