Poker Hands & d20 System Effects

[Stormonu]

Actually, I built a game called 54 Fantasy* that uses cards entirely and dispenses with the dice. With four players, each player has a hand of 3 cards and there is a "river" of two cards in a community deck all the players can draw from (face cards are only in the community deck).

The face cards allow you to perform increasingly better stunts, as well as having a default numeric value (Jack = 5, Queen = 7, King = 9, Ace = "11" or auto-success, Joker = card of your choice).

Since the cards essentially go up to a value of 10, you'd have to half all the values from a d20 game if you wanted to convert it from a d20 roll to using the card system.

I've been working on a Sci Fi/Modern version, but it's not finished yet...

* It's available on RPGnow/DrivethruRPG

 

[Mark Chance]

Actually, I built a game called 54 Fantasy* that uses cards entirely and dispenses with the dice.

Sounds interesting.

This weekend I'm DMing a special Man-Day Adventures game during which I shall debut Dungeons & Dragons & Dead Man's Hands. Here's my latest version:

At Start of Game Session

1. Deal two cards face up
2. Every player gets one face down card and one poker chip.

Each Combat

3. Every player gets one face down card per round at the end of his turn.
4. This continues until a player has five cards in his hand. No player may ever have more than five cards in his hand.

At the End of a Combat

5. Players trade in hands for hand effects as appropriate (see below). All cards are returned to deck and shuffled. Two new face up cards are dealt. Each player gets one new face-down card.

Poker Chips

6. Each poker chip represents one Action Die. An Action Die is 1d6 that can add to any single d20 roll. Action Dice cannot modify another player's d20 roll, but a poker hand may. A player may decide to use one or more Action Dice after rolling but before results are determined.

Order of Hands & Hand Effects

7. Once per round at most, a player may play cards from his hand for a hand effect. This does not need to be done on his turn; it can be performed as an immediate action. A hand effect may be decided upon after the die roll but before results are determined.

One Pair: +2 to any one d20 roll
Two Pair: +4 to any one d20 roll
Three of a Kind: +6 to any one d20 roll
Straight: +2 to any one d20 roll and gain 1 poker chip
Full of House: +4 to any one d20 roll and gain 2 poker chips
Four of a Kind: +6 to any one d20 roll and gain 3 poker chips
Straight Flush: Choose the result of any one d20 roll and gain 4 poker chips​

8. A player may "bank" a die roll bonus by trading cards at the end of a combat, but he cannot have more than one banked bonus at a time.

Upping the Ante

9. Elite monsters get two poker chips each. Solo monsters get two poker chips per PC faced.

10. A monster can use a poker chip to negate a player's poker chip. This is called "Upping the Ante".

At the End of the Game Session

11. All cards are collected. No trade ins allowed. A PC earns 25 XP per poker chip his player has remaining.

Thoughts?

 

[Antithetist]

Bonus XP for remaining poker chips seems to encourage hoarding. Maybe you don't mind that, but for my money it's not as much fun. Encourage the players to spend their chips (like, surplus chips are lost at an extended rest, perhaps) and you guarantee a more enthusiastic use of the system.

Monsters spending chips to negate player chips also seems no fun to me. Player actions being negated is almost always frustrating, and in this case it also gives the players an extra incentive to just hoard their chips for XP instead of chucking them down the drain thanks to enemy counter-chips.

Why not just give elite/solo monsters hands like the players', used in the same way? It seems to me that the whole poker hand shtick is given an extra level of awesome if the players are watching their adversary's hand in the same way as they would in a real poker game.

 

[Mark Chance]

Bonus XP for remaining poker chips seems to encourage hoarding.

Possibly. That is worth considering.

Monsters spending chips to negate player chips also seems no fun to me.

I can see that. A lot depends on the rarity of the monsters who have the option.

Why not just give elite/solo monsters hands like the players', used in the same way? It seems to me that the whole poker hand shtick is given an extra level of awesome if the players are watching their adversary's hand in the same way as they would in a real poker game.

I thought of that, but I also don't like extra bookkeeping as a DM.

Excellent! I have more food for thought.

 

[Umbran]

Bonus XP for remaining poker chips seems to encourage hoarding. Maybe you don't mind that, but for my money it's not as much fun.

Deadlands has a similar system. Chips are both similar to Action Points and XP, though the player gets to choose whether they hold them at the endof the session or turn them in.

They cap the number of chips the player can have at a given time. Chips also are not unlimited - there's only so many in the pot, and if the PCs are sitting on them, they cannot get more. There are three different values of chips, and if you're siting on all the high-value ones, the other players cant' get them, and are going to encourage you to spend them...

 

[innerdude]

Just remember, in the immortal words of comedian Steven Wright---

"Last week I played poker with Tarot cards.......I got a full house, and four people died."

 

[Antithetist]

Deadlands has a similar system. Chips are both similar to Action Points and XP, though the player gets to choose whether they hold them at the endof the session or turn them in.

They cap the number of chips the player can have at a given time. Chips also are not unlimited - there's only so many in the pot, and if the PCs are sitting on them, they cannot get more. There are three different values of chips, and if you're siting on all the high-value ones, the other players cant' get them, and are going to encourage you to spend them...

As, is that how it works? Cool. I knew Deadlands was the source for the idea of using poker hands, but I didn't know the details of the system.

Sounds as if the Deadlands designers saw the same danger of hoarding and put systems in place to disocurage it.