* **Gary Jackson** – President and founder of **Hard Eight** , Gary Jackson designed and created Hackmaster (a parody of  Dungeons & Dragons  ). His name combines those of  Gary Gygax  and  Steve Jackson  "Steve Jackson \(US\)") , two noted RPG designers. Gary Jackson has always been two things—first and foremost a gamer, but second and not distantly behind that at all: a business man. Some of Hard 8's best and worst products were the design of Gary, including the One-Legged Dwarf Kits. Gary has a son by the name of Timmy ( **Timmy Jackson** in full), who also is involved in the family business. However, Timmy is somewhat young, and a lot of the ideas he comes up with are met with spite and disgust. Gary Jackson allegedly died in issue #53 in a plane crash. Because of controversy surrounding the new edition of Hackmaster, Brian and Bob got into a vehicle and drove up to **Hard Eight** to confirm. Despite their shock and horror at his "death," the two rubbed several of their dice on Gary (believed to endow good luck, they in fact cursed the dice). Suddenly, in issue #149, Gary emerged from hiding (after having faked his own death to avoid gambling debts), and started his own game company, purchasing several of his game lines from Hard Eight, now controlled by Heidi. Eventually, he merges his new company with Hard Eight, recombining their old intellectual properties, but must work under Heidi, who still owns it.
* **Heidi Jackson** – estranged wife of Gary Jackson and owner of a regular publishing company, Paperback Werks, and owner of Hard Eight since the (faked) death of Gary Jackson – although she rarely actually showed up at Hard Eight, instead holding telephone conferences with the staff. Heidi is a hard-nosed businesswoman who cares nothing for games or gamers, and imposed continuously harsher deadlines for Hard Eight to show greater and greater profit margins, having threatened to close down the company more than once if it fails to show sufficient growth. Many of the employees dislike Heidi, but Jo Jo (below) has accepted that her business attitude is only acknowledging and dealing with a weakness that was already there. Heidi began demanding changes in Hackmaster to the point it resembled one of the romance/adventure novels her company publishes. (Some changes suggested by Heidi appear to be not-so-subtle jabs at the then-recent, real-world alterations made to Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition.) After Heidi sold off several Hard Eight assets to have them purchased secretly by Gary, Gary found that his employees had signed  Non-compete clause  contracts with Heidi. Gary was able to "charm" Heidi into re-merging the companies.
* **Timmy Jackson** – Son of Gary and Heidi Jackson. Over the years, Timmy earned the nickname of "Table Happy," because of his munchkin ways. He was also referred to on occasion as "Timmy the Rules Mangler." Timmy was intended to one day inherit **Hard Eight** . Timmy used to participate in the creation of gaming systems, including Cattlepunk. However, Timmy was a munchkin (i.e. power gamer) and his products had poor reputations. Following the return of Gary Jackson, it has been implied that Timmy has lost interest in role-playing games and has grown into a typical teen jock, more interested in football and girls.
* **Jo Jo Zeke** – Jo Jo was (until his supposed demise) Gary Jackson's best friend and he assumed daily management of Hard Eight after Gary's "death." Jo Jo was once forced to accompany Timmy Jackson to host a Hackmaster tournament because Gary was busy. In the aftermath, Jo Jo grabbed a then-crying Timmy and retreated back to **Hard Eight** as fast as possible. Everyone found out why very quickly, for the prize of the tournament turned out to be a $1500 certificate for One-Legged Dwarf Kits and Spelljacked cards. This development enraged even those who had lost the tournament, and a riot broke out. Jo Jo was pressed by the Hard Eight staff to stand up to Heidi Jackson's more ridiculous changes to HackMaster. Jo Jo presented their case and was subsequently fired. He created his own gaming company, but was then brought back on board when Gary returned.