Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[Slugsabi]

Right then, thought I would ask for your input on a session I'm planning.

In essence the posse have been on a roller coaster ride for a wee while going from Murder on the Hellstromme Express and into The Flood (currently enrouteo Shan Fan).

Anyway, I thought I'd run a session which was pretty much a real game of poker to give the guys time to really role-play together whilst not bringing danger. They are the sort whom are happy to role play a night away so I know it will suit.

Point is, the Huckster has gambling and I want to reflect this in the game whilst not detracting/impacting from the true card game otherwise it would be a little one sided. I'm thinking that I will give all the players a stack of chips and then give the Huckster another stack based on either his die type or even a result of a skill roll. You chaps think that is a sufficient edge?

I am also thinking of making it develop into a supernatural game where it transpires the dealer (house?) is a manitou and the chips are actually part of the players soul/skill sets so that they quickly have a emotional attachment to the stakes at hand.

Any ideas welcome on how to make this slow burn session go. Some of the chaps are experienced poker players where I've never played so if I deal, how do I also play so they can lose? What happens if they lose their stack? (the posse are almost vet at the start of the flood so could cope will skill drains but I feel that could be too cheesy). If they win, what prize without imbalancing the game?

As you can tell, I have half an idea baked so am open to suggestions if you are willing.

[Marshal G]

I like the idea, and maybe I just overread it, but are you planning to put some foes/friends NPCs in there as well? (and no, not really ideas on how to balance the poker game as such, but I would recommend giving out information/assistance of the NPCs as a possible reward, on top of "just the money"...)

(i.e. - you better learn to play a little poker yourself, so your NPCs wouldn't make themselves easy victims )
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nothing's forgotten, nothing's ever forgotten...

[Wibbs]

No suggestions on the poker itself, but if you are intending on using the supernatural bit as you describe then I would strongly suggest you let the player's characters work this out as early on as possible. Otherwise it may seem extremely unfair to say half way through, "All that money you lost, well that's half your skill points".

[relativistic]

This sounds fun . Sounds like potentially a very unique and memorable session!

Not much of a poker player, so don't know if I can help balancing the gambling edge... Maybe give him an extra card in exchange for a fate chip?

Any idea what will happen if the posse looses the game? TPK from this sort fo thing would be probably viewed as unfair and unfun. If it were me, I'd make failure a real possibility, but make it such that a failure just leads to another interesting adventure.

Off the top of my head, maybe loosing would mean the demon owns their souls. Owning their souls could just mean they go to hell if they die, or maybe it'd have some other in-game effect... Either way, the posse would have to get the souls back, either through doing a deal with the devil, or by defeating him somehow. Might be a long term side-plot even.

[Cutter XXIII]

How about the Gambling rules in the Player's Guide? Might not be in-depth enough for what you've got in mind, but they do offer a way to take Gambling skills into account.
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Matthew Cutter
Deadlands Big Bug (Brand Manager)
Pinnacle Entertainment Group, Inc.

[FickleGM]

Another idea...

Have the Huckster make a Gambling check while you're playing each time he wants another player to reveal a card in his hand.

He chooses the player, makes the check. If he succeeds, the player reveals the card to the Huckster alone. If he fails, he has to reveal one of his cards to the whole table (a "tell", if you will).

If he's a skilled gambler, he should make the roll most times, but the penalty for failure is so that the Huckster's player doesn't overuse it (the inherent risk should at least make the Huckster use it wisely).

Also, I would say that the Huckster can not get any one player to reveal more than one card (I'm assuming Texas Hold 'Em, where each player is only dealt two cards).

Anyway, just a thought I had to reflect the character's gambling skill (and perhaps the added supernatural influence his powers have on said skill).

[Malcolypse]

I once used the exact idea in a game. It was a different system and gengre (a super hero game), but the players got told by this gentleman who mysteriously appeared in their base of operations that he worked for the BBEG and was here to make them an offer.

All he had to offer them was information until they could meet his stakes for more. The beginning stakes would be information of like value. If they wanted to raise the stakes higher they could, but eventually information would be too little for what they were asking. The BBEG was an incredibly powerful super being with reality warping powers who thought he was the earthly incarnation of Satan, so of course when the players started asking for anything of significance the stake would be their souls.

One of the team had a time manipulation power that let him rewind time for a few seconds at a time to try for a better result. He normally would discard his hand, draw a new one and decide if any of the new cards would help his hand, rewind time and discard and draw accordingly.

We spent a tremendously fun evening playing poker in character, and the players ended up with Area 51 (which didn't exist before, and the evil character had to create it in order to give it to them) as a base of operations.

The BBEG had sent his man in to probe the characters knowledge and give them red herrings in exchange. His instructions were to lose, but make the players work for it, and if one or two of them screwed up they were going to have to come work for him for a year and a day to earn their "souls" back. Basically, any question that the players asked was answered in the affirmative (except for questions about the BBEG or his plans, which were answered truthfully, but minimally), and reality was tweaked accordingly (I was amazed how much more evil was spawned in the world when the PCs were supplying the ideas for it).

Anyhoo, as to your situation: I would consider that a professional might not win anymore against a manitou in a rigged game, he may be able to lose less. I would whip up a chart that your huckster can roll gamblin' on when he loses a hand. The better his roll, the better percentage of his lost chips he gets to keep. This could prevent the evening from ending too quickly when overzealousness leads to a huge bet early on.

You could also incorporate something like the rule for giving other players fate chips, so that he could help out other characters who had unrealistic views of their gambling ability, but at the cost of giving a like chip to the "house."

It will be important for you to remember that you have tells that your players will be able to pick up on that should be concealed, preferably by something like a plain white mask or at least a drawn hoodie with sunglasses. I'd probably to go with the plain mask, both for it's indecipherable visage and as a clue to your players that the "house" is hiding it's identity.

[McCurmudgeon]

A way I've played with playing actual card games in deadlands has been to play 5 Card Draw with these minor changes.

Put up antes or blinds
Card are dealt
Betting Round
Draw phase

Now if anyone has gamblin' they roll and depending on how successful they are they can trade in a certain number of cards up to a max number. This was in deadlands classic so the TN may need some conversion. It went something like; TN 5 = trade 1 additional card, TN 7 = trade up to 2, TN 9 = trade 3, and so on.

Also if you want to bring in sleight of hand, set a TN and if they make it they get to have extra cards (symbolizing cards up their sleeve)

This probably needs some balancing and stuff (like if they fail a sleight of hand roll they lose cards or something), but even though I got to trade in about 2 extra cards each hand, I didn't win a single one.

[wanderingmystic]

I do this for an hour or so every 2-3 gaming sessions. The game is Texas holdem. Determine your anti and make everyone anti in. Next roll your gambling check you get one card for every check and raise.
A second round of betting occurs, then the gm lays out 3 common cards, second round of betting then comes the turn a third round of betting then finally the river, if it makes it that long.

(note you may only use 2 cards from your hand regardless of how many you have received due to gambling to make the game a bit more balanced)

This has the chance of making a lot more credits per hand and give a gambler a good edge how ever it dose make the game a lot more entertainment and makes gambler characters feel like they are actually doing something.

[Slugsabi]

Cheers chaps, appreciate the responses.

I've tweaked the concept more and am actually going to either draft in a guest player or get one of the players to enact the roll of the Manitou (through being possessed or similar) and then simply play a game of texas hold em with little game play involved (die/bennie) as this is predominately a RP session.

The group have some way to go but I intend it to be a one of the quests to win a petroglyph (The Flood) or at least the information of where one is.

Will let you know how it pans out and as said, appreciate the input.