I was thinking about running a high stakes card game (poker) in an upcoming D&D session and wanted to find a way to actually have the players play poker but augment it with their characters' abilities. Essentially this meant finding a way of providing advantages/disadvantages to players based on a few key poker-related skills. I also wanted rolling to be minimal so generally, unless there's a lot of cheating going on, there's only one roll at the start of every hand.
Int (Playing Cards) is very powerful as it shows knowledge and experience with playing cards. It determines how potentially powerful a hand will be and to a smaller degree a potential reduction in financial risk. This roll is straight up against standard DCs.
Cha (Deception) and Wis (Insight) are used as their Passive scores to show the use of bluffs and seeing through bluffs throughout the game. Because bluffing is a social skill I did not want it to overshadow the players' actual attempts at bluffing during card play so the results are more about getting other players to commit more money to a pot than influencing the hand.
Finally we have the cheats. This is a very risky but potentially rewarding move. It involves players using Dex (Sleight of Hand) to control the deal or palming a card to win the hand and is more difficult to do if the cheat is not the dealer. This is opposed by the other players observing with Wisdom (Perception). Of course, cheats that are caught are likely to pay a stiff price.
5e D&D Poker
- Based on standard 5-card Draw poker rules.
- Establish Ante, which forms the basis of betting increments and Bluff penalties. This means that a 1gp ante bet increments in 1gp multiples, a 5gp ante bets increments in 5gp multiples, etc.
Example: A player opens for 5gp in a 5gp ante game. The next player raises the minimum, or 5 more gp, making the total bet 10gp.
Prior to Deal
- All players roll an Int (Playing Cards) Ability Check.
* < DC 10: Player receives 4 cards at deal
* DC 10: Player receives 5 cards at deal
* DC 15: Player receives 6 cards at deal
* DC 20: Player receives 6 cards at deal and does not need to Ante for the hand.
* DC 25: Player receives 7 cards at deal and does not need to Ante for the hand.
* DC 30: Player receives 7 cards at deal, does not need to Ante for the hand and may draw to 6 cards during the Draw round.
Ante
- All players place an Ante in the pot unless exempt by their Int (Playing Cards) Ability Check.
Example: Three players (A, B & C) in a 5gp Ante game have rolled an Int (Playing Cards) check with A getting a 21, B getting a 12 and C getting an 8. Players B and C both Ante 5gp but Player A does not.
Deal
- The dealer deals cards to players based on the result of their Int (Playing Cards) Ability Check.
Example: With the Int (Playing Cards) rolls from the above example we find that Player A gets 6 cards, Player B gets 5 and Player C gets 4 from the deal.
First Betting Round
- Players may review their hand, remembering that only 5 cards will count in the Showdown.
- Before any player bets or folds and starting with the player with the highest Passive Deception score, players may declare a Bluff. Only one Bluff per betting round is allowed. All players with a Passive Insight less than the Bluffing player's Passive Deception must place an additional Ante into the Pot. The Bluffing player must also always place an additional Ante, regardless of their Passive Insight.
Example: In a 5gp Ante game, Player A has a Passive Deception of 12 and a Passive Insight of 15, Player B has a Passive Deception of 18 and a Passive Insight of 11 while Player C has a Passive Deception of 10 and a Passive Insight of 14. The decision to Bluff begins with Player B (Passive Deception of 18) who decides not to, then to Player A (Passive Deception of 12) who decides to Bluff. As the Bluffer, Player A must place 5gp in the pot as must Player B (Passive Insight of 11) but not Player C (Passive Insight of 14).
Draw Round
- Players may discard up to all their cards and must discard to have at most 5 cards in their hand.
- Players are then dealt a number of cards to get them back to a 5 card hand. Exception - Players rolling a DC 30 Int (Playing Cards) Ability Check at the start of the hand are dealt cards to get them to a 6 card hand.
Second Betting Round
- Bluffs (see First Betting Round) may occur again.
Showdown
- Prior to laying down cards at the Showdown one or more players may declare they are
Cheating. Once this is done all players then declare if they will be using their Passive Perception or rolling a Wisdom (Perception) check to detect the cheat. Then all Cheats roll a Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) check, at Disadvantage if they are not the dealer. Each roll that exceeds the other players' declared Perception checks are considered successful, while failures are detected. The highest successful Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) check automatically wins the pot. Detected cheaters are dealt with severely, at the least their entire table stakes are taken and distributed evenly among the other players.
Example: Player A, B and C are ready for the showdown. However prior to laying cards down Player C says she will try to cheat. Player A declares they will roll a Wisdom (Perception) check, rolling a 17) while Player B will default to Passive Perception (18). Player C is not the dealer so she rolls her Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) check at Disadvantage but lucks out and scores a 20, thus stealing the pot!
- Unless the pot is stolen by Cheating, players present the best five-card hand from their cards and the winner determined by the standard rules for 5-card Draw Poker.
