Welcome to Jack Dup Dungeons

       Affordable       Pricing

We believe that high-quality TTRPG sessions should be accessible to everyone. That's why we offer our services at the lowest cost we can, ensuring you can enjoy epic adventures without breaking the bank. You get double the hours of entertainment for the price of a movie ticket!

Consistency and Comfort

At Jack Dup Dungeons, we prioritize consistency and comfort in every session. Our experienced game masters ensure that each adventure is well-prepared and tailored to the preferences of our players. We create a welcoming and inclusive environment where everyone can feel comfortable and have fun.

Unforgettable Experiences

We strive to create unforgettable experiences that will leave you wanting more. Whether you're exploring a custom campaign or joining a one-shot adventure, our goal is to immerse you in thrilling storylines, challenging encounters, and memorable moments that will stay with you long after the game ends.

Online GMing For Strangers Is a Service

"A service is an intangible offering where no physical product is transferred, but value is created through experiences, processes, or expertise." This is the definition of a service as pulled from here, and one that matches playing TTRPGs online quite well! It's an awesome, entertaining service that provides a dynamically changing game to play with friends. It exists in the same genre as paying a monthly subscription for playing games online with a console, or maintaining an MMO subscription, or going to see a movie every week with friends. 

But is it worth it? Let's look at how costs and experience line up with something like seeing a movie.

Seeing a Movie:

• Price: $8.50-$10/hour
• Ads: 30 minutes of ads.
• Snacks: Expensive, No Outside Food Allowed
• Friends: Only present if you worked to get people there.

Playing a Tabletop Roleplaying Game:

• Price: $8.50-$11.50/hour
• Ads: No ads.
• Snacks: Whatever You Bring, Outside Food Allowed.
• Friends: Present every time thanks to the GM!
  
  

Jobs Should Be Paid At Least Minimum Wage

A Professional GM is someone for whom running games is their occupation. This could be anyone from an escape room worker, to a referee at a sports league, to someone running TTRPGs for people! If you think a job should exist, it should be paid a fair wage! If you are team "I want coffee shops but don't think baristas should be paid a living wage," we likely would not be a good fit, and you are welcome to stop reading here!

If you're a fan of any popular TTRPG content creator that does actual plays, and you like their Game Master and want the game to continue, you believe in Paid GM as a job! Bam, good starting point. But this could be reduced to "Those shows exist for the consumption of outside viewers, and are feasible because the players also get paid." That's fair! Saying "Professional GMs and Professional Players should play together," is a comprehensive enough take. However, if you like the idea of people booking a GM for birthday parties, for events, for anything, then we're on the same page that other options should be available!

To pay myself the minimum wage where I live requires a bit over $16 an hour! Taxes take 30% of any session funds I receive before I've taken a salary, leaving 70% ($11.20) to divvy up between everything else. GMing is my full-time job, and I work about 40 hours a week between all my sessions, session prep, player locating, and more, which would demand $640 a week at minimum wage! I aim to run 7 games a week with 6 players each. If everyone shows up, I've got a take-home amount of $735 a week, which works as a buffer for absences, allows me to pay Patreons, services, and artists, and take home minimum wage where I live!

 

If you think this is too much, please leave. I don't really want to hang out with someone who thinks I should be paid sub-minimum wage. I went with the minimum wage rate, not because I think it's the most ideal pay, but because it enables me to find players that aren't mega-rich folks. Let's be real, I'm building groups that I'm hanging out with every week, and I want to hang out with people who know how much their utilities cost.

Paid Games Filter Out Bad Actors and Flakes

Adding a price point that encourages people to acknowledge the value of everyone's time at the table enhances the game so much. I would make a graph of the rate at which people flake on $0, $12, and $25 games, but you can probably draw it in your head and save me the time. This is also why I don't often run for the uber-wealthy; if you're capable of lighting $25 on fire regularly without a thought, it's harder to ensure attendance! If it's something you've attached value to, you show up! If it's not, you're more likely to make it a tertiary part of your week.

As someone who has run games at all three of the listed price points above, I am relieved to be able to do so much less filtering at my current price points. At the cheaper prices, I encountered people who attempted to play while driving, who tried playing while at work and on the clock, and who tried to derail the game by arguing over loot for far too long, all of which had to be removed. Since I bumped my prices to pay myself minimum wage, those issues have all but vanished.

Paying isn't enough to be considered on its own; I do a lot of work interviewing people and filtering out bad actors. In this calendar year, during my interview process, I've filtered out 800+ people whose Reddit accounts showed them to be hyper-argumentative, unfun to be around, gross (stay off of r/teenagers, non-teens), and just not good fits.  If you're curious what these people might be like, search up RPG Horror Stories, read through some of the nightmares out there, and sigh a sigh of relief knowing that the games I run shut all that down immediately. Payment does not entitle a person to be The Worst, and since I promise phenomenal vibes, I will remove people who are being The Worst to maintain those vibes! 

Your GM Sucks

Sometimes your GM sucks! It happens. Game masters are human, and some humans are the worst. If your GM is late all the time, or constantly cancels, or boxes you out of the story, or makes a story where your characters are set pieces instead of movers and shakers, that's not your GM, that's your ex-GM. If you read through posts online, so many people stay in abhorrent situations just to play this phenomenal game. DON'T DO THAT. Go find someone better. And if you're paying that person money, STOP DOING THAT.

Sometimes, your GM sucks because they're new! For most GMs, the first game they run is rarely the best game they run. Sometimes, your GM sucks because they're filling in for your current burnt-out GM! These are both totally okay reasons for a GM to suck, and ones you should be patient with. You know what you shouldn't do, though? Pay them money! While maybe you don't pay that person, you still can and should fulfill the social contract if they're your friend, buy 'em pizza, host, and give the game your all.

 

 

The Table Is a Poor Fit

If you've been invited to a table before being asked more than three questions, you're in for an exciting ride. One of the essential parts of putting together a table for a TTRPG is expectation setting and ensuring the fit is good. You can have a phenomenal GM and a phenomenal player who fit poorly together based on preference.

You Aren't Having Fun

Sometimes, despite everything, you aren't having fun! You shouldn't pay for something that's supposed to be fun, that isn't fun for you. While I think there's a pretty solid case for chucking a few bucks towards your GM for all they do (as described above), some people disagree, and cannot or will not change their mind. And that's okay! What's not okay is that some of those people try to play at paid tables anyway. Some people get so invested in the idea of playing a TTRPG that they become desperate and play something that they know they won't like just for the sake of being able to fulfill their goal of playing.

Your goal when playing any game should be to have fun that coexists with the fun of everyone else present. And if you're not having fun, it shows, and doesn't help the vibes! I've removed a few players in my day for just not having fun, and while it was hard because those players really pleaded to stay, they went on to have better experiences elsewhere, and the tables they were at prior flourished without their poor attitudes. All that to say, if you don't actually want to join, please don't join!

Comment 1: "I'm Just Looking For Something Casual to Make Friends."

• Dealbreaker: If, when you say this, you mean to say "I want something that's commitment-light, something where I can be consistently absent, and that's okay," you're probably right to look elsewhere!
• Not a Dealbreaker: If, when you say this, you mean to say "I want something fun where I can make friends, and where people won't get upset if I don't know something or need a little bit of time and space to learn something," that is something that is a core part of any TTRPG, and will be still present in a paid table. Paying a GM doesn't remove friendship with players as a possibility in the same way that a caddy being paid doesn't prevent you from having golf friends.

Comment 2: "I'm Looking For Something Different In A Table."

Comment 3: "I can't swing the amount."

• Dealbreaker: If, when you say this, you mean to say "I have a budget and know I can't consistently afford this," you're probably right to look elsewhere! I know some other great GMs who I'd be glad to recommend if they are looking for players at the time.
• Not a Dealbreaker: If, when you say this, you mean to say "I generally can afford this, but every once in a while things get tight and I don't want to have to step back from a game when things get hard financially," I get that! I try to work with long-time players to always ensure they can attend, and I've never had a player who needed a brief financial reprieve who had been there for a while get turned away for finances. If you've got a seat at the table, I will work with you to help you keep it, which is part of why a dollar of each payment goes into a pool to help cover those who need a bit of a breather.