When you join the other players to start exploring the Jackrooms, you will each create the character you will be portraying. The following section will outline how to do so. As you follow each step, record your decisions on your copy of the Jackrealms Character Playbook.
The Jackrooms is an endless expanse of casino floors and hotel hallways accessed by becoming lost in a resort space, and it is ordinary people who end up trapped here. Because of its inherent connection to resort spaces, the most common type of person to become trapped in the Jackrooms is either a vacationer or someone who was employed at a vacation destination. The following questions will help guide you through the character creation process, and will give you a good idea of how to narrate the character’s behavior. Record your answer for each on your playbook.
- What is something you’re really good at because of your occupation?
- What is something you’re really good at because of your pastimes?
- What is something you used to be good at, but which has gotten rusty?
- How do you respond to danger and failure?
- How do you respond to relief and success?
- What were you doing when you got lost in the Jackrooms?
Each new character has six ranks to spend among their nine action ratings. You may spend these freely, but no action may have a final rating of more than three ranks. When spending your action ranks, refer to the answers you gave to characterize your character. What generic action would the duties of their occupation require? What actions would they perform during their pastimes? Maybe your rusty skill reflects a higher action rating than the occupation-related actions, as muscle memory and a familiar process are waiting to be useful again. The actions, sorted into their associated saves, are:
- Acuity Actions
- Create
- Investigate
- Treat
- Grit Actions
- Fight
- Move
- Operate
- Influence Actions
- Command
- Deceive
- Negotiate
Once you have distributed your action ranks, calculate your saves. Each of the three saves (acuity, grit, and influence) increase their rating from the first rank spent in each of their associated actions. Thus spending a point each in create, investigate and treat would result in an acuity save of three, while spending three ranks in fight without investing in operate or move would result in a grit save rating of one.
Your character was trapped in the Jackrooms while they were going about their daily life, so hopefully some of the things they had on them were useful! Consider your role at the resort you just left behind, how you respond to various situations, and what you were up to when you got lost as you fill out the following items:
- Ensemble: You were wearing an outfit of some kind. What clothes does it include? Does it include some job-related PPE? Are you wearing other bits like makeup, earbuds, or sunscreen? Do you have a backpack or purse? Give a brief rundown of what you were wearing when you became lost here. Though your ensemble is a collection of items, it is spent as if it were a single piece of equipment.
- Personal Effects: You had three very useful items among your personal effects when you got lost. All three of these must be the appropriate size to fit in a pocket or bag you have as part of your ensemble. One of them may be a bit larger than a pocket as long as it is able to be clipped or holstered on a belt, such as a large flashlight or hammer in a leather loop. Use a few words to describe each since these details could inform unforeseen uses for it during the game.
- A small object may be spent to narrate the use of a different item to negate a complication. For example, one might have a box of screws to spend, narrating using your hauled Carpenter’s Toolbox to spike a door shut with screws. One could bring a spare magazine to spend, narrating how you dumped shots down a hallway from your security sidearm to make a pursuer take cover. Carrying dog treats would let you spend them to have your service dog do something it was explicitly trained to never do, such as snag onto an attacker's arm. This can allow a single item to narratively avoid multiple complications while spending other items.
- Hauled: You may have been carrying a single large object when you got lost. This hauled item may be carried in one or more hands, may be strapped to you, or may be something you are pushing or leading along. Like your ensemble this piece of equipment may be a collection of objects which serve a single purpose and are spent to avoid complications as a single item. An AC maintenance toolbox, a pepperball rifle with a chest-carry rig, or a janitorial cart you were pushing are all examples of such combined items. A pet or work animal (such as your service dog, a clever hamster in your pocket, or the resort’s horse you were riding on the beach) are also appropriate selections for a hauled item.
- Instead of a hauled item you may choose to take a fourth personal effect, which may be belt-sized instead of pocket-sized.
- Trash: Anything else you may have on you, such as your cellphone or keyring not mentioned among your personal effects, is considered trash. Yes, you might have it, but you cannot spend it as part of gameplay and shouldn't use it to perform actions. If you absolutely MUST avoid a complication with a trash item which would be easily expected to be on your person, such as your bank card, doing so spends your Ensemble.
In the Jackrealms System, gambits are special abilities possessed by a character which offer narrative or mechanical special abilities. Gambits allow you to specialize a character to fill a particular role in your team. Characters lost in the Jackrooms may choose from one of the three following gambits:
- Expertise (x): Humans are unique among most creatures in that they are able to obsess over the refining of skills which do not impact their ability to survive. In your case, a combination of natural knack and practice has given you a blanket familiarity within an area of your choice. Select one action rating. Whenever you are performing that action, you may treat either of the following hand arrangements as if it were a two-card blackjack (and thus a critical hit if you beat the dealer).
- A hand containing five cards of any total hand value which did not bust.
- A hand containing two and only two cards which have the same face value.
- Adaptation (x): Earth is a hostile world, regardless of its capacity to bring forth life. While not all parts of it are habitable to humans, the skills, tools, and sheer willpower they bring along with them can allow them to persist there as long as they need. You have developed a particular hardiness against certain kinds of threat, and can push through those kinds of situations with more confidence than your peers. Select one save rating. Whenever you make that type of save, you receive a one-point bonus to its rating. Point-for-point bonuses to save ratings from multiple sources can stack.
- Pack Rat: Though the behavior is named after an animal, no beast is dependent upon their possessions like humans are. Human ancestors left their thick hides and claws behind to build fires and take up spears, and you carry on the tradition of packing to be prepared. You may add three Personal Effects items to your equipment, one of which may be larger than a pocket if it can be attached to a belt.
- Alternatively, you may select a single Hauled item which can be strapped to you. Like other large items, it can be a collection of items which all serve (and are spent while performing) a single purpose.
Before the dealer begins the first scene, narrate how your team found each other. Your character may have wandered the same infinite hallways until they heard calls, finally guiding them in a non-random direction towards the others. You may have finally left the reflection of the place you got lost only to find the reflection of one of your teammates' vacation spots. You may all have been lost in the same place, now finally convinced that this isn't the waterpark any more. All of the team may have coincidentally found the same nodal location at the same time, and the first scene could include their introductions to each other.
However you introduce yourselves, being a member of a cooperative team is more fun than being part of a fractured group of loners. Take a moment to analyze each others' strengths. If everyone is Influence heavy, for example, you might want to use your attempts to gather info to keep you around the rare populated areas of the Jackrooms. If your talents are diverse, make a note of which team member would be best to take the charge in combat, investigation, or diplomacy.
Once you have recorded your action ratings, saves, equipment, and gambit you have a functioning Jackrooms character and are ready to begin making your escape! Once the rest of your team has made their character you will each receive your initial stack of six effort chips, and the dealer will begin to narrate your initial surroundings.