Gambling..

[vong]

How do you work gambling into a roll with profit/loss and such. sure, i can see who is teh better gambler, but how much do they win/lose... and how do you do that?
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[PsiberDragon]

My thoughts are depends on how well they rolled, what they are playing and how much they bet...

basically... look at your poker hands or similar for sabacc... and roll accordingly... although, for something like that I'd make several rolls of both gambling and perception (to bluff and/or see if they're bluffing)...
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[Cool McCool]

You could probably work out a formula based on what the stakes are. Say the stakes are low - then the winner gets 10cr * the difference between the rolls.

Maybe, if the player wants higher stakes, set difficulties to get into those higher-stakes games. Maybe it's Very Easy to get into a low-credit game (10cr), but to get into the high-credit game (1000+cr), it's a Difficult roll.

Or you could just say that each hand is for a set number of credits.

Gambling conflicts are usually pretty boring, though. Make them interesting by having the player put up his ship! Or the reputation of the player rides on him winning the game - if he loses, people think he's a loser. I guess what I'm saying is: tie the stakes of the game into the plot.
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[scott2978]

I've tried both strategies in my games: detailed gambling rules, and just winging it with a single die roll. I think the detailed gambling formulas slow down the game and take away the mystery of "being a gambler". I also think the single die roll = how much you win/lose detracts too much from the excitement and tense atmosphere of gambling (and also detracts from the "mystery" as well). So, what I've come up with as a compromise is a list of actions that a player can attempt during a gambling session that is sort of like using the chase rules for gambling. Now keep in mind this really only applies to games of skill, not random chance games like slot machines and so forth.

The character gambling gets to use "gambling maneuvers" during the event that affect the outcome, just like in a speeder chase. Does he try to bluff? Does he put on his poker face? Does he try to read his oponents face? As for how much money is at stake, I tie it to how high the stakes are by making that the "base difficulty" as in the terrain difficulty in a chase scene. If a PC finally "outmaneuvers" all his oponents, he wins, and he gets an amount of money based on the stakes. That way a PC can never loose more money than they are willing to gamble with in one single shot. I let the PCs change the stakes during the game too, to represent taking advantage of weak oponents, and minimizing their losses in a bad situation, like a real gambler would do.

Everyone starts out at "point blank range". The object is to get so far ahead of the others that they are beyond extreme range, when that happens, you win! Each round the players choose to engage in various maneuvers that can get them ahead, or knock other players out of the game. Just look at the chase maneuvers and change the names to something logical, like "Play Dirty", "Read opponent", "Risk it all", "Play it safe", "Poker Face" or whatever. That way you can carry over the fast-pased suspenceful nature of chases into gambling as well without inventing new rules that you have to explain to everyone.


Scott

[Gry Sarth]

Wow, that's some really good creative thinking, man. Congratulations! Way to use the existing rules to your advantage. I'll have to keep that in mind and see how it works in-game.
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[beaumont sebos]

Very nice scott.

I've been looking for some gambling ideas and I think this might fit the bill in my game.

Thanks for sharing.
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Beaumont Sebos

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[vong]

Gambling (Sabacc) came up in one of my games, and I was not prepared for it, so I was forced to improvise as the players really wanted to gamble. So I made up the following set of rules on the spot:

Everyone rolls their gambling roll and a D20 The goal is to get 20, or as close to. The gambling roll represents their read on other players, and the D20 represents their hand.

The game is played in 3 stages (like poker) everyone antes and the game starts. It goes as follows Roll -> Bet -> Roll -> Bet -> Roll -> Bet -> Reveal winner. Each betting stage functions like poker (bid an amount, call or raise). Each rolling phase functions as follows: Keep your D20 roll or re-roll your D20 (your choice). I thought of half way through to roll 2D6 in the open - if the wild came up a 1, player X (value of second dice) was forced to re-roll their d20.

Since it was always 1 PC vs 3-6 NPC i would just roll a handful of dice, line them up where they fell to get the respective players hands and gambling roll. I would then give the player "information" that he can read from a high or low roll, and would play the NPCs according to the roll that they received. (getting good info, getting false reads, etc)

I ruled that 1 represented the idiots array, and that a 20 rolled on the first roll had represented pure sabacc and claimed the 15% of each pot that went into the table pot

I had an excel spreadsheet to help me do calculations and keep track of bidding.

The players loved playing this so much, we actually ended up spending the entire session doing sabacc (about 3 hours). Some people lost money, some gained money but EVERYONE had a blast.

Now in hind sight I would make the following changes:
each player rolls 4D10, each die representing a card
Bidding wold stay the same
Cards would randomly change as before, but a D4 would be rolled to determine which card was forced to be changed
Idiots array would be rolling all 1

This way the simulated game is closer to the real game, and can be varied much easier based on various sabacc rules (neutral field, no randomness, etc)

Now these rules are a bit more complicated, but I think they are a bit more realistic, and add a bit more fun to the game (and variation). this version definatly puts more strain on the GM as he has much more dice to roll in a larger game, but I think it would still be worth it (perhaps the GM always rolls 2D20 for ease or something)

These are just my 2 creds worth, and letting you know a group of gamers seemed to enjoy this method quite a bit.
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[DarthMortis]

[vong]

you are right, it is in there

Gambling roll is your "read" of other players. EG:

NPC rolls a 18 on the D20 and a 7 on his gambling
PC rolls 17 on the D20 and a 30 on her gambling

I tell the PC that they are pretty sure that the NPC is beating them. the closer the gambling rolls to eachother the less info you get, if the NPC beats them they can get no info, or false info etc. Really up to you how much and what info you give htem, but basically gambling roll gives the PC a hint to what others have.
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[Whill]

scott and vong, I really like your ideas for spicing up gambling.

But vong, using a d20 in a D6 games just seems... wrong. It's somehow... disturbing.
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[vong]

[DarthMortis]

[vong]

exactly! use what you have available to you
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[DarthMortis]

[Orpheus]

If you're not averse to using polyhedral dice then there was, at one point, a pdf available on rpgnow detailing various d20 methods for handling gambling. You might not use the docmument wholesale, but I'm sure that it would provide some great ideas.
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