Poker with the Deck of Many Things

[Forevernade]

So I was thinking of spicing up an encounter that starts the campaign with a prophet that is a Null. A Null is simply a creature that cannot be effected or interact with anything Divine, for plot reasons.

Anyways, I was wondering how to use the Deck in other ways other than the suggested use... and so I come to Texas Hold-em Poker.

Each player draws two cards, which they do not have to reveal.
5 cards are placed face down in the center.
Each round a card is turned face up, and when it does, it comes into play. When a card is in play at the end of the 5 rounds the card's effect will be used on everyone playing the game.

Each round, a player may do these things:

1. Fold their hand, what is In Play, and their own hand is activated, and they leave the game.

2. Stay.

3. Swap a card from their hand with the center.

This will force team-play, or it will reveal the sneaky selfish characters in the party. If someone gets a bad card they can dish their fate onto everyone else, or they can take one for the team if they haven't been dealt bad cards.

If you win at the end of the 5 rounds, you win the right to keep the deck.

So how much do you trust your friends to play in a game like this?

PEACH me, mo'fo's!

[Sir_Elderberry]

Well, why would a character do this? It doesn't sound like a good idea.

[Forevernade]

Also, is there an expanded rule set for the Deck of Many Things, so that a full deck of 52 cards can be played? Homebrew or official I dot mind.

[Forevernade]

Well, why would a character do this? It doesn't sound like a good idea.

Why, then, would a character play with a Deck at all?

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Why, then, would a character play with a Deck at all?

Some people think they can beat the odds. I recommend calling those people suckers and building casinos near them.

[Forevernade]

Some people think they can beat the odds. I recommend calling those people suckers and building casinos near them.

My group of players are all avid but amateur poker players, so I thought this would intrigue them.

[FMArthur]

My group of players are all avid but amateur poker players, so I thought this would intrigue them.

Then it will. They'll just be upset after it starts to look like this was all just an elaborate trap you set for them.

[evil-frosty]

It's a game and doing stupid things like playing with a Deck of Many Things usually leads to fun.

And for a full 52 deck the easiest thing probably would be to take a regular deck of cards and assign the effects of the Deck of many things to different cards as well as homebrewing a few effects.

[penbed400]

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x...WEEKLY20060825

EDIT: Thought I would've been ninja'd for sure, but there you go PHBII web enhancement for a whole deck of cards

[Myrmex]

Some people think they can beat the odds. I recommend calling those people suckers and building casinos near them.

Poker's about knowing the odds and beating your opponents.

[Forevernade]

Poker's about knowing the odds and beating your opponents.

Yeah, and they are competing for the Deck itself. Two games going at once, the Many Things for their character's development, and the Texas Hold'em for the deck.

I will lay out the odds for them, the benefit vs detriment ratio, and the power ratio.

[sonofzeal]

Optimal strategy is pretty easy - funnel all good cards to the centre and/or one character, and have them fold. With a high number of players, this becomes an extremely profitable game.

[Milskidasith]

The full deck of many things is all negatives, though; all of it's abilities involve retraining your character with *insert completely new race, a new character level, different attributes, or random skills.*

Then again, the other deck of many things has about 10 "you die" cards.

[Tyndmyr]

The DoMT just has too many nasty, nasty things. More importantly, nasty, unfixable things.

I've thought about doing this myself, but haven't been able to come up with a solution that wouldn't either be exploited for power, or have a high chance of ending a perfectly good campaign.

The odds of getting a hand of five cards that doesn't screw your character over in some way is...unlikely. The odds that this will be true for the entire party is essentially nil.

[Milskidasith]

Using the full deck you can have the fun of having a five card middle that, say, forces everybody to retrain as a gnome, human, halfling, dwarf, and elf at the same time, with the half-celestial and half-fiendish templates in one players hand.

*after a few hands*

Why yes, I am a half-gnome, half-human, quarter-ling, half-dwarf, half-elf, half-celestial, half-fiendish sorcerer/wizard/cleric (with domains from a deity that is not mine)/monk/barbarian with 4 ranks in listen, search, and a bunch of other things. A wizard did it, OK? A really screwed up epic level wizard decided that, well, fusing a crapload of innocent extraplanar creatures with a crapload of low level heroes would be fun.

[Temotei]

Using the full deck you can have the fun of having a five card middle that, say, forces everybody to retrain as a gnome, human, halfling, dwarf, and elf at the same time, with the half-celestial and half-fiendish templates in one players hand.

*after a few hands*

Why yes, I am a half-gnome, half-human, quarter-ling, half-dwarf, half-elf, half-celestial, half-fiendish sorcerer/wizard/cleric (with domains from a deity that is not mine)/monk/barbarian with 4 ranks in listen, search, and a bunch of other things. A wizard did it, OK? A really screwed up epic level wizard decided that, well, fusing a crapload of innocent extraplanar creatures with a crapload of low level heroes would be fun.

Quarterling. Heh. So...that's like...six halves and a quarterling race. So you're four people in one?

[Krazddndfreek]

Someone on these boards was trying to construct a different, larger, deck of many things. Lemme see if I can't find it.

[Zaydos]

Okay I like the original deck of many things, I've had fun as a little kid with one in 1e and B/E/M/I or whatever the higher boxes are (we only got to blue)*, but the 52 card one... Why would anybody knowingly ever use it? None of it can be good.

*I will also readily admit that the Deck of Many Things can often be game breaking or else counter productive in that you get a "Get out of jail free card" followed immediately by Donjon, etc. Even when you do not get screwed over by drawing a bad card, then you get a skewed power curve as somebody just got 50000 XP or some such. It's a bad idea, except for the fact that it is so much fun.

[Krazddndfreek]

Behold! I return bearing good news!

[Gralamin]

So I was thinking of spicing up an encounter that starts the campaign with a prophet that is a Null. A Null is simply a creature that cannot be effected or interact with anything Divine, for plot reasons.

Anyways, I was wondering how to use the Deck in other ways other than the suggested use... and so I come to Texas Hold-em Poker.

Each player draws two cards, which they do not have to reveal.
5 cards are placed face down in the center.
Each round a card is turned face up, and when it does, it comes into play. When a card is in play at the end of the 5 rounds the card's effect will be used on everyone playing the game.

Each round, a player may do these things:

1. Fold their hand, what is In Play, and their own hand is activated, and they leave the game.

2. Stay.

3. Swap a card from their hand with the center.

This will force team-play, or it will reveal the sneaky selfish characters in the party. If someone gets a bad card they can dish their fate onto everyone else, or they can take one for the team if they haven't been dealt bad cards.

If you win at the end of the 5 rounds, you win the right to keep the deck.

So how much do you trust your friends to play in a game like this?

PEACH me, mo'fo's!

Interesting. I assume they can do #3 once per round.

Since you will not end up with actual "hands" the probabilities become simple.

A Standard Deck of Many things is 22 cards. 5 Cards are table cards, 2 cards per player. Let us assume 4 players, so at any time 13 cards are in play, and 9 are not.

Since Pocket cards only effect you, and community cards effect everyone, you essentially have a 7 card hand.

I will assume, for now, that no card's effect causes you to draw more cards - it would make me have to account for them as pocket cards and as community cards and those cases are not something I want to deal with.

First, figure out the Good to bad ratio of cards:
{table=head]Good|Bad|Other
Comet|Donjon|Balance
Fates|Euryale|
Gem|Flames|
Jester|Fool|
Key|Idiot|
Knight|Rogue|
Moon|Ruin|
Star|Skull|
Sun|Talons|
Throne|Void|
Vizier||[/table]
Lets assume balance is bad: Then we have an exact 50/50 ratio.

There are 170544 hands of 7 cards available. (22C7). On average 3.5 cards per hand will be bad cards.
Let n = number of "Bad" cards in your hand. Then we get the following probabilities:
{table=head]n|p
0|0.00193498452
1|0.0297987616
2|0.148993808
3|0.319272446
4|0.319272446
5|0.148993808
6|0.0297987616
7|0.00193498452[/table]
This suggests that this is a very bad game to play: Fully 94% of the time you will have 2-5 bad cards.

What this basically translates to:
Unless players all make martyrs out of themselves, probability wise, they are screwed. And if they did martyr themselves, chances are most of them will walk away punished.

I suggest against this course of action.

[Forevernade]

Interesting. I assume they can do #3 once per round.

Since you will not end up with actual "hands" the probabilities become simple.

A Standard Deck of Many things is 22 cards. 5 Cards are table cards, 2 cards per player. Let us assume 4 players, so at any time 13 cards are in play, and 9 are not.

Since Pocket cards only effect you, and community cards effect everyone, you essentially have a 7 card hand.

I will assume, for now, that no card's effect causes you to draw more cards - it would make me have to account for them as pocket cards and as community cards and those cases are not something I want to deal with.

First, figure out the Good to bad ratio of cards:
{table=head]Good|Bad|Other
Comet|Donjon|Balance
Fates|Euryale|
Gem|Flames|
Jester|Fool|
Key|Idiot|
Knight|Rogue|
Moon|Ruin|
Star|Skull|
Sun|Talons|
Throne|Void|
Vizier||[/table]
Lets assume balance is bad: Then we have an exact 50/50 ratio.

There are 170544 hands of 7 cards available. (22C7). On average 3.5 cards per hand will be bad cards.
Let n = number of "Bad" cards in your hand. Then we get the following probabilities:
{table=head]n|p
0|0.00193498452
1|0.0297987616
2|0.148993808
3|0.319272446
4|0.319272446
5|0.148993808
6|0.0297987616
7|0.00193498452[/table]
This suggests that this is a very bad game to play: Fully 94% of the time you will have 2-5 bad cards.

What this basically translates to:
Unless players all make martyrs out of themselves, probability wise, they are screwed. And if they did martyr themselves, chances are most of them will walk away punished.

I suggest against this course of action.

So really all you are saying is that the good draws dont make up for the bad draws, even if you get equal number of good and bad draws? That is subjective.

[Forevernade]

http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfile...andfuture.html

this looks pretty good, I will probably use it over any of the other variations.

[Reaper_Monkey]

Five card stud is probably a better mechanic than Texas hold 'em, as you're goal is the better your own hand for what you want rather than to purposely screw over your fellow players.

Although ultimately the goals of poker and your intended use of the Dead of Many Things are hardly compatible with one another, you will either have to change the game or the deck for this to work. You are already doing both things which makes it neither poker or the deck of many things, therefore I'd redesign the mechanics from scratch to make much more interesting play.

Perhaps a more chicken approach. Each player gets dealt two cards at the start of the game. Then any player may discard a card and draw a new card (discard phase) then every player passes one of their cards to their left and either draws an additional card (swap phase). Every player then draws a new card (draw phase). At this point any player may choose to leave the game (bail phase) if anyone does, all cards are shown and every player has the effects of the cards in their hands. If no-one leaves then the rounds loop around another time.

So its:

• Start Phase: All players are dealt two cards.
• Discard Phase: Optional discarding of any card in your hand which is replaced with a new card drawn from the deck (discarded cards are removed from play).
• Swap Phase: All players must pass one card from their hand to the person on the left who takes it into their hand.
• Draw Phase: All players draw an additional card.
• Bail Phase: Any player may opt to stop play, if they do all cards in each players hands now affect their characters.
• Repeat: If no player bailed then play continues with the Discard Phase.

It's very simple play, but ultimately you can never remove all the bad cards from play (assuming 50/50 divide of good and bad cards), but you *can* remove them from your own personal hand. As such this would likely be played with NPC's who look to profit from your loss ingame, or with understanding players out of game as you're likely to get some bad hands which will cripple some players. It would be advised to water down the Deck of Many Things however or even one bad card can mean instant death to a player (although the discard phase should weed these out somewhat, so it depends on how risk seeking your players are).

EDIT: Oh, and just incase it isn't obvious, you're not allowed to say what is in your hand or discuss how many "bad" cards you have etc.