Simulating a gambling encounter

[Thasmodious]

Savage Worlds has a decent method to simulate a half-hour of gambling, using the gambling skill. Those involved in the game agree on the stakes and make a gambling roll. The lowest roll pays the highest roll the difference x the stake. The next lowest pays the next highest, and so on, with an odd man in the middle breaking even. Cheating comes into play as a modifier to the roll, but a 1 on the skill die means you were caught cheating and suffer the consequences.

It's a good basic system and it's seen a lot of use in my game, but the gambling has been a minor aside, a filler for a gambler PC to be a gambler, a lead up to other action.

This Friday, the session will feature a big game with two of the PCs playing and the others attending an illegal high stakes poker game in the back room of an illegal casino in the heart of a criminal gangs territory that the PCs are trying to bring down.

I need something more this time around. Anyone have a good system, skill challenge setup, or method for simulating an evening of gambling as a centerpiece rather than just a die roll and some math? Something with some flash to it, some dramatic tension.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

You could play a few hands of five card draw--it's quick enough to set up and play. And add to each round a mini-skill challenge where each success lets the players draw and discard an additional card and each failure lets the NPCs draw and discard an additional card. And if you do this I'd let successes from PCs who are not playing card contribute to the skill challenge.

I wouldn't play too many hands because that'll drag out the card playing so it overshadows the story. And I would have the players whose characters are not in the game play the hands for some NPCs' cards so they get involved too.

 

[AeroDm]

The SW system sounds solid and so I'd try and build off of it. Maybe a simple skill challenge with five rounds, each impacting the overall modifier. Make a check each phase and the ultimate winner is the person with the highest points at the end of the challenge.

For example:

Ante bellum. Players take their seats and eye each other. Opposed intimidate checks with the results providing a modifier to subsequent checks normally distributed around +0. That is, if there were 5 players, lowest gets -4, then -2, +0, +2, and the highest gets +4. Make the first Gambling check with the modifier added and stake of 1.

The Flop. Play begins. A straight Gambling check (with the modifier from before) at a stake of 2.

The tell. Players begin to learn each other's tells. Opposed Perception checks (or equivalent) with a modifier normally distributed about +0 as above. Make a gambling check (with all modifiers) at a stake of 3.

The turn. Straight gambling check (with all modifiers) at a stake of 4.

The push. Players apply the tells they learned against opponents. Opposed Insight checks (or equivalent) with a modifier normally distributed about +0 as above. Make a gambling check (with all modifiers) at a stake of 5.

The river. Straight gambling check (with all modifiers) at a stake of 7.

This should weight the game so that each round remain relevant and the game has a chance to come down to the final roll, but being better will enable you to put a buffer between you and your opponents each round.

 

[Lancelot]

Gambling tends to come up a fair bit in my games, and we've generally settled on three ways of dealing with it, depending on how much time is available:

1) Short Method. Single roll using Bluff or Streetwise. Pick a DC level based on the difficulty of the opposition (e.g. typical players might be a skill check of equal level, while playing against experienced pros might be 4+ levels higher than the PC). If the PC fails to get even an Easy success, they lose their stakes. If the PC gets an Easy success, they break even. If they get a Medium success, they win back +50% of their stake. If they get a Hard success, they double their money. Given the simplicity of the method, the single roll represents the entire session of gambling, and the stakes are typically low.

2) Long Method. We break out the Three Dragon Ante card game from WotC. We've found this is tremendously fun and thematic for representing a longer gaming session. There are specific rules in the game to represent PC abilities (e.g. Trained in Bluff, or Intuition, or Streetwise, etc), and the cards really bring home the fantasy theme (rather than just playing regular poker). Here's how we generally play it:

• Every player gets a value of 50 chits (2x 10 chits, 4x 5 chits, 10x 1 chits).
• The game ends as soon as any one player (including the DM) runs out of chits.
• Count the chits for each remaining player.
• Whoever has the most chits wins 2/3 of the total money put into the pool (e.g. if 3 PCs and 3 NPCs are playing, and each pushes in 200gp, the winner gains 900gp).
• The second-place-getter wins their money back. All other players lose their stakes.
• Why not just give out winnings based on the chits that each player has remaining? Because it works against dramatic tension, and either leads to small winnings or player boredom. We've usually found that at least one player will lose all their chits long before any other one player has achieved a dominant position. In real poker games, you'll usually have weaker (or unluckier) players get knocked out long before it comes down to the high-stakes bids that make decide a single winner. That's a pain at the gaming table - you have one or more players sitting around bored while the lucky few players play out multiple hands to finish off the game. So, once any single player is knocked out, we prefer to abstract the rest based on chit count at the time.
• Due to the length of this kind of thing, it's also important to award XP (win or lose). A typical Three Dragon Ante game, or even poker, may last as long or longer than a typical 4e combat. Hence, I always award XP as if the party fought an equal level combat.

3) Skill Challenge Method. And, if we don't have time for Three Dragon Ante but would still prefer something with more tension than a single roll, we go with a Skill Challenge. Here's what we use...

• Typically, the Skill Challenge is of equal level to the PCs. However, the number of successes required depends on the competition. Typical opponents would be level 3 (8 successes), while pros might be level 5 (12 successes).
• The optimal skills are:
  • Bluff - usable any number of times; represents exactly what the skill implies
  • Intimidate - usable once only; unsettle opponents through either physical or mental intimidation
  • Intuition - usable twice only; read the other players "tells"
  • Perception - usable twice only; used for card-counting (Hard DCs only)
  • Streetwise - usable any number of times; represents raw skill at playing the game (as opposed to bluffs, etc)
  • Thievery - usable any number of times, but risky; any failure with this skill results in an automatic failure for the entire skill challenge and probable consequences for cheating
• Given the stakes involved, I always work with Medium DCs at a minimum. Roughly half the checks (the latter half) should be Hard DCs.
• You can either run the challenge for the party as a whole (if they intend to split the winnings), or run it for each individual PC.
• A PC who beats the challenge typically doubles their money; a PC who fails the challenge loses their stake. You might have different results based on number of successes or failures (e.g. a PC who succeeds with 0 failures might triple their money, and a PC who failed after getting 6 successes might break even rather than losing it all).
• As with the other methods above, it's important to limit the possible winnings (i.e. have a limit to table stakes). It should never be possible to win more than a typical treasure packet for the level in any session of gambling. Otherwise, you'll get munchkins throwing down their entire accumulated wealth and riding their buffed skills to huge rewards.

 

[Thasmodious]

Thanks for the suggestions, folks. Good stuff.

I really like both the idea of a phased skill challenge and lancelots structure/skills list. I think I'll combine them, structuring it like AeroDM suggests with some of the frame and conditions from lancelots.

I also like lancelots short method. The thing I don't like about SWs is the bookkeeping, tracking the NPC results, too. I like that this method could be used to just determine the results for a single PC who sits down at a table in an easy roll.