Fantasy games of chance

[Azaul]

I'm running the World's Largest City canned campaign setting. There are about a dozen casinos in the city, which is perfect because one of the PCs has a gambling addiction. What's not perfect is that no games of chance are offered in that book. Anyone have any cool suggestions for gambling using standard D&D tools (dice, pens, and paper, pretty much)? Extra points if you can offer the odds of winning and what a good payoff would be.

[Ascension]

Have 'em bet on gladiatorial games. You can let the PCs play the NPCs they bet on and beat the crap out of each other for a while. It gives them a chance to try out unfamiliar class/race combinations and let off a little steam without actually going on a murderous rampage.

Everyone wins!

[Frosty]

Is the World's Largest City an actual campaign setting I can purchase or something?

[Grynning]

High stakes Yahtzee! j/k, it takes way to long...

If you know the rules of craps, or it's simpler street variant, often just called "Dice" you can easily do that (you just need 2d6 and gold wagers). I imagine the rules are on Wikipedia. You can use this as a basis to make up a dice game of your own, maybe have a cheating bad-guy with Luck feats or the Luck domain.

If you want to make up something more fantastical, maybe have Tiny monster fights (like ****-fighting) that they can bet on (a little cruel, perhaps, but this IS a very common practice in many cultures). Another game that is easy to simulate and really, really fun to play is something we theater folks used to call the "happy-sad game" but is also known as "The Oldest Game" in the Neil Gaiman Sandman comics. Basically, you and your opponent take turns thinking of a concept that defeats the last thing the other said - I.E. "I'm a rabbit, happily munching on a carrot." Next player "I'm a fox, and I munch on the rabbit." You lose if you can't think of anything or you repeat something already said. Read the first volume where he gets his helmet back from Hell for an example of how it's played. Have Illusionists, Sorcerers, or Dabus creating illusionary pictures of each player's turn for added spice.

Edit: sigh...the censored word is actually being used to mean a rooster/male chicken, sorry, most people do not call it "Rooster Fighting."

[senrath]

There are many forms of dice you can do, just pick some from this list:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/dice-pl...esGambling.htm

[Shatenjager]

Pick up a copy of Three Dragon Ante. It's set up to be played with D+D characters as well as being a very fun game.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

How one system I know does it:
He declares how much he wants to bet. Roll 1d6 for every rank he has in Profession: Gambling. This roll is opposed by a similar roll for the NPCs he plays against and a roll from the house. The house is generally about on the level of the NPCs if the game is fair, or 2x the NPCs if it isn't. The NPC level is set by what the GM deems reasonable. Generally, the more you bet the better the NPCs are and the more likely the game is to be rigged. This has the advantage of not slowing down play to much, and the player can roll a few times in quick succession. I'd cap it about 3 or four rolls at a time, though, and tell him that each roll represents several "hands", and how much overall success he has to justify not sitting there for 30 minutes while he rolls dice. He should win a bit of money each time he goes out, and as he bets more the opponents get harder so it scales with WBL. Also, it's a great plot hook if you give some indication the game is rigged (whether or not it actually is). If he's going to lose badly, call for a few spot checks, ask if he's sure he wants to continue, that sort of thing. He'll be insisting they cheat by the first loss.

[snoopy13a]

Craps could work. All you need is 2D6

Basic Rules:

A player rolls dice, other players can either bet for or against this player

If the player on their first roll gets a:

12: Everyone loses, all bets go to the house (this is the house's edge)
7 or 11: Roller wins, all players who bet on the roller get paid even money, players who bet against lose their money
2 or 3: Roller loses, all players who bet on the roller lose, those who bet against get paid even money

4-6, 8-10: The roller gets a point based on their first roll. For example, lets say they got a 5.

Now, the player must roll another 5 to win. However, if they roll a seven before rolling a 5, they lose. All other rolls no longer matter.

In real casinos there are many different side bets one can make and you can look them up if you want to know them. However, I'm not going to get into them.

You can also have them play 21. Overall, I think using real life games will be much easier then making up your own.

[Tsotha-lanti]

You can probably find the rules of Diamondback from Cerebus somewhere (other than the 2nd collection volume)... now there's a card-game.

[MelkorsHalo]

there was a series of articles on the WotC site a while back dealing specifically with this. Link: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/dg

[RTGoodman]

If you can find a set or two of poker dice, you can come up with all sorts of games with those. I found a few sets like these for about $1 a set, but I don't really know how easy they are to get.

[Overlord]

I remember an issue of Dragon from a year or two ago had a two or three page article about these sorts of tavern/gambling games, each played in RL with dice or poker cards. I can't remember the issue #, though....

Another suggestion: Liar's Dice, as featured in Pirates of the Caribbean 2.

I haven't played it yet, but I'm planning on incorporating tavern games into my campaign occasionally, so I'm sure I'll be playing with my players soon. Remember, poker chips are an easy way to keep track of gold coins. And they're much more fun to bet with than when you're keeping track on pieces of paper.

[Mewtarthio]

We'd also be remiss if we overlooked the game "Altruism." Popular among telepaths and enchanters, "Altruism" has simple rules: The players sit across from each other at a table and simply wait for one person to spontaneously give the other person their money.

[Keld Denar]

We'd also be remiss if we overlooked the game "Altruism." Popular among telepaths and enchanters, "Altruism" has simple rules: The players sit across from each other at a table and simply wait for one person to spontaneously give the other person their money.

And everyone stands around placing side bets on who is actually going to be given money by whom, with like, a 20:1 payoff if YOU are actually given money by one of the the players, and a 100:1 payoff if all of the people placing bets on the players give the players all their money. This can get all kinds of convoluted.

[Serpentine]

I remember an issue of Dragon from a year or two ago had a two or three page article about these sorts of tavern/gambling games, each played in RL with dice or poker cards. I can't remember the issue #, though....

I'm trying to think of the edition, too. It included one that will get you immediately slaughtered by orcs if you're caught with a set in your possession

[Squash Monster]

Deal out a pair of cards to every player and have them make bets. The player with the highest difference between cards (9 and 2 is 7, for example) wins. Face cards count as 10s. It's simple, but it's fast and I've never seen it played outside of Ong Bak, so it should feel pretty foreign.


Alternatively, or perhaps in addition, you can take pretty much any gambling game and play with a tarot deck to make it seem quirky. Tarot decks have one more face card than regular, and 22 special cards (major arcana). That's the fun part; make up a random special function for each of the major arcana. All the more fun if you don't actually tell the players all these rules.

If you don't want to do the work, here's a generic set of rules I made up for what to do with the major arcana (should work in most games). Whenever you draw one, throw it out onto the table, draw a new card to replace it, and do what the table says:
{table=header]Major Arcana | Effect
The Fool | Play with your cards visible for the rest of the hand
The Magician | Draw three cards when you replace this one; discard two of them
The High Priestess | Draw two cards when you replace this one; play the rest of the hand with an extra card
The Empress | Player to your left gives you one of their cards, then you give them a card back (it can be the same one)
The Emperor | Player to your right gives you one of their cards, then you give them a card back (it can be the same one)
The Hierophant | Pick a player, look at their hand
The Lovers | Pick another player: when this hand is over, trade the hand's winnings with them
The Chariot | Discard your hand, draw a new one
Strength | Trade hands with another player
The Hermit | You don't have to match bets for the rest of this hand
Wheel of Fortune | Flip cards off the deck until two major arcana show up, then do both of those
Justice | End this hand; divide the current pot up evenly
The Hanged Man | Don't draw a new card to replace this one: finish the hand with one less card
Death | Fold this hand
Temperance | Everybody gives one card to the person to their right
The Devil | Put your hand aside. Every other player gives you one card. Give one of these cards back to each
The Tower | You must match bets for the rest of this hand, up to a maximum of twice the bet you had when you drew the tower
The Star | Everybody plays with one card face up on the table for the rest of this hand (or one more face up, if you already have one)
The Moon | Everybody puts their hands down and must finish this hand without looking at their cards
The Sun | Everybody plays with their hands open for the rest of this hand
Judgement | Shuffle everybody's hands together and deal them back out
The World | Draw two cards and put them in the center of the table face up: everybody can make hands using these
[/table]

[Azaul]

I have Three Dragon Ante. I agree it's fun, but I wanted something that plays more quickly. Dice sounds like it will do the trick. I'll make cue cards of a fw of these suggestions, thanks everybody!

Is the World's Largest City an actual campaign setting I can purchase or something?

World's Largest City is an Open Game book. It's okay, but you have to be really good at book keeping. I got really frustrated when my players mentioned wanting to find such and such a tavern and I knew there was EXACTLY what she wanted but could not find the page it was on even with a home made database. I picked it up because I found cities in my campaigns were always ending up the same. The amount of information they provide for each local in the city is insufficient, in my opinion, and the place so far feels like one of my regular improvised cities but bigger.