Introduction

What is Jack of Trades?
Jack of Trades is a role playing system designed with the versatility needed to handle most settings. This wiki's primary goal is to establish a lightweight set of mechanics for facilitating action focused roleplaying. It is in a character's Actions that Jack of Trades comes to life, and these mechanics are intended to maximize the options every Actor has. In that spirit, JoT is an expandable system - each setting is going to have its own relevant Skills, Advantages, Techniques, and Equipment. Every Dealer is encouraged to write custom content when the rules contained within are insufficient for what they want out of their game. Ultimately, we want JoT to be a community effort - a free set of rules we can all use to tell engaging interactive stories.

Why use playing cards instead of dice?
Truthfully, most of the system as it exists would work with d10s, if you really wanted. We chose to use playing cards to enhance the feel of the game, and add an element of uncertainty not unlike what one experiences in Poker. Using playing cards allows JoT some unique mechanic expressions - a Hand of cards representing opportunities and serving as a persistent resource, cards being played face down allowing a psychological element to enter into opposed Draws