Regardless of what “progress” means to the team, their progress towards their ultimate goal will be tracked by the stack. The stack is a pile of chips managed by the dealer, and it will usually have a title such as Pursuit Stack, Escape Stack or Revelation Stack. Experienced players may begin the night with two stacks, such as a Pursuit Stack to represent a hostile entity and an Escape Stack to represent their search for a route back to reality. Most dungeons will have an Environment Stack and an Encounter Stack.
At the beginning of a Jackrooms game, the dealer will have a general idea of what the team’s greatest threat to their escape will be. Usually, this will be the threat of death at the hands of the Jackrooms denizens, becoming lost forever in its endless hotel hallways, or (for characters who were doomed to be trapped here from the start) making some discovery which makes the endless resort their final vacation. Jackrooms games will usually have a single stack of eight chips. Advanced players or larger teams may also include a secondary goal (such as uncovering some secret of the universe or evading a particular denizen of the Jackrooms) represented by a stack of four to six chips. When the stack reaches zero, the team has found what they were ultimately here for, hopefully a means of escape! When it does, it is time to narrate their escape and congratulate your players on a successful game of The Jackrooms. If the stack ever has twice as many chips as it started with, the team has become deceased or hopelessly lost within liminal space. When it does, it is time to narrate the last thing we see of them as the audience and congratulate your players on an unsuccessful but still fun game of the Jackrooms.
Dungeoneering games determine their stack by analyzing the dungeon before the game begins. This is detailed in its own section for preparing dungeons, but typically each room containing an environmental threat or encounter will add a single chip to the appropriate dungeon stack. If a game expands into campaign play, new stacks may be introduced which carry between sessions to portray the team's long-term plans or events taking place in the world around them. When a stack reaches zero they have successfully cleared the dungeon of that type of threat and can tread less cautiously as they venture forward. If a stack ever reaches double its starting value, some ultimate defensive measure will engage and forever prevent the team's progress into that dungeon.
Chips are removed from and added to a stack under the following circumstances:
- The players clear the stakes on a scene
- A player successfully performs the Plan downtime activity.
- The players retreat from a scene before its stakes are resolved, either voluntarily or from being felted.
- Danger Close complications occur from a failed action
- A player asks for a WILD HIT
If a scene could progress multiple stacks at the same time, it is given a single set of stakes calculated based on the sum of those stacks. It will remove a single chip from each stack if the scene is cleared, and will add a chip to each stack if the team retreats from the scene. For a scene representing multiple stacks, add a single chip to one stack of the dealer's choice for Danger Close and Wild Hits.