So I am a first time DM, at least, first in any serious sense.
I have a weekly campaign going, we have been playing for about 8 weeks. I am nearing the end of the introductary adventure, one I have been making up as I have been going, and now it is time for chapter two.
We have been mainly hacking and slashing our way through kobolds and other cave dwellers, and I now know it is time for us to get skill intensive. So, I thought all along about bringing them to a city, but what city (I figured I would be inventing it as well). Then I thought, why not have them go to the City of Games (find name later), where it is essentially a gaming and leisure economy, with some shady politics to boot (re: waterdeep)
So, I thought, why not invent a game as well, as I was finding it difficult to find a gambling game for D&D that was anything more than simply rolling dice and saying my charisma is higher than yours...
So here's what I got:
I ordered myself some prop gold coins, enough for every player and NPC to have 50. There will be a pot in the middle of the table, like a poker pot. Each player must ante atleast one gold per turn. The Ante is the first action of every turn. The last player with gold in his or her pile wins the pot.
I will print a deck of cards representing the 17 skills, this deck sits in the middle of the table. The deck will also have 2 Jesters cards, and 1 Royals card. The players draw one card from the deck on each turn, face up so that everyone can see it, this is the skill which they must utilize, and then reshuffle the card back into the deck.
The table will also have a token which has a depiction of Pelor on one side and Correleon on the other. This will be known as the Path of the Sun and the Path of the Moon.
The players will have to choose either one path or the other at the beginning of their turn, after making their ante, showing the correlating depiction face up. Here are the effects of the two paths:
The Path of the Sun:
The player draws one card and plays it face up. If it is one of the 17 skill cards, they must play an action associated with that skill. If they draw one of the 2 Jester cards, they may treat the card as a wild skill card and choose any skill they wish to utilize with an action. If they draw the Royals card, they trigger The Queen's Ransom, where every other player but yourself must pay one gold to the pot during your turn.
The Path of the Moon:
This path allows the player to draw as many cards as they wish until they reach a skill they wish to play, each facing up for the table to see as normal. The Jesters play The Gambit's Jest upon the player. The Gambit's Jest: The Jester attacks the all three of the player's non-armour defences; Fortitude, Reflex, and Wisdom at a DC of 23 + 1/2 the player's level. The player makes 3 rolls. Each failure costs the player 2 gold pieces, which are put into the pot. Success on all three rolls means that the player may take 2 coins from the pot.
The Royals card acts as The King's Taxes, which forces the player to pay the pot 1 gold piece for every player at the table, including themselves.
The players have a list of actions they may take. Each action is associated with up to 3 skills, meaning they player may use any of these skills to perform this action. This means that, generally, the skill which they drew from the deck presents multiple action choices.
The actions are versus the other players (read as targets) Fortitude, Reflex, and Will. The player names the action associated with the skill, name the target(s) and rolls the skill versus the defense targeted by the action.
Each action has an effect listed. Some actions have a negative effect for failure. Generally the more powerful the action, the more consequential failure is. Some actions have a cost, either as a cost to gold, or to a detrimental effect against the player using the action.
Effects from successful actions are generally to be: debuffs to the other player's Fort, Ref, and Will; having to lose more gold to the pot; directly losing gold to the player utilizing the action; and others...
These effects (buffs or debuffs) will be symbolized by pog-like discs (like the tokens, i'm probably going to use a printer, glue and washers) labeled from -6 to +6, color coded to Fortitude, Reflex, and Wisdom.
Each player will have their Fort, Ref, and Will displayed in front of them on a printout... or just written on paper... and the effect discs will rest in front of them, displaying the changes so that people can see what is easiest to attack.
So, here are a couple of the actions I have been able to think up:
"Buying a Round"
Targets all other players: Fortitude
Associated Skills are Diplomacy, Insight, Endurance
Cost: The player pays 1 gold per 3 players (round up) to buy a round.
Successful Effect: Each other player suffers a -1 to Fortitude, Reflex and Wisdom until the end of your next turn.
"Cheating"
Targets player to either the left or right of you (roleplaying that you are at a round table): Reflex
Associated Skills are Theivery, Stealth, and Bluff
Successful Effect: Steal up to 3 of the target's gold. This action can not relieve the target of their last gold coin.
Failure Effect: If you are caught, you must pay the target player twice the amount you stole from them, not including the sum stolen, which is roleplayed to have been intercepted.
*****New Edits*****
"Suggest New Strategy: Taking a Dive" or "Let the Wookie Win"
Targets a particular player: Will
Associated Skills are Intimidate, Bluff, Diplomacy
Success: Take 5 of the target's gold.
Effect: Regardless of if you are successful or not, all player's (not you) get a +2 to Will.
"Feat of Strength" or "I'll arm rassel you for it!" (purposely rassel, not wrestle. Need a good roughneck sound to it)
Targets another player: Fort
Associated Skills are Athleticism, Endurance, ?
Cost: You can name a wager between 1-4 coins.
Success: Your opponent must place the wager you named in the pot, and suffers -1 Fort.
Loss: You must place the named wager in the pot and you suffer -1 Fort.
Thank you 7Mirrors
"Brainless Bravado" (name may need work)
2 rolled attack
1st roll:
Test of strength (player) versus holding breath (target)
Endurance, Athletics versus Fortitude
Success: Target takes a demoralization debuff of -1 to Fortitude until end of next turn.
Failure: End action, do not take second roll.
2nd roll:
Try to psyche out target into exhaling
Intimidate, Bluff versus Will
Success: Target takes a demoralization debuff of -1 to Will until the end of your next turn, and pays you 2 gold for flinching.
Failure: Player takes a demoralization debuff of -1 to Will until the start of their next turn for looking like a jerk.
"Oh please Pelor, let me win this one and I'll never ask for another thing!"
target all players.
Skills: Religion, Arcana, Nature
Cost: Offering 1 Gold.
Effect: If you win, all other players put in 2 gold.
"Blackmail" or "I know what you did last summer, best you lay low."
Target one player.
Skills: History, Insight, Streetwise
Effect: Target pays 5 coin. If you fail, you are exposed have a -2 to all defenses.
"You are getting sleepy, very sleepy...These are not the cards that you are looking for..."
Target one player.
Skill: Arcana, Insight
Cost: 1 coin that sways back and forth slowly on the way to the pot.
Success: player has -3 to reflex and fort.
Thankyou again 7Mirrors, you are a savior to my idea factory.
That's all I got at the moment. I need more actions. So if anyone has any suggestions, I would greatly appreciate them.
"Suggest New Strategy: Taking a Dive" or "Let the Wookie Win"
Targets a particular player: Will
Associated Skills are Intimidate, Bluff, Diplomacy
Success: Take 5 of the target's gold.
Effect: Regardless of if you are successful or not, all player's (not you) get a +2 to Will.
"Feat of Strength" or "I'll arm rassel you for it!" (purposely rassel, not wrestle. Need a good roughneck sound to it)
Targets another player: Fort
Associated Skills are Athleticism, Endurance, ?
Cost: You can name a wager between 1-4 coins.
Success: Your opponent must place the wager you named in the pot, and suffers -1 Fort.
Loss: You must place the named wager in the pot and you suffer -1 Fort.
I can think of maybe a few others, but that is it for now. Please post if you get anywhere even close to finishing this project of yours, as I am very curious to see how it turns out.
So, I'll post my developments as an edit to the top post (if I can) along with any contributions.
So far I reworked the system a little bit. The deck is now 20 cards with 1 token card (or other token if I can think of one). The deck is now the 17 skills, 2 jesters, 1 royals card. The token is a depiction of Pelor on one side and Correleon on the other. This token will be known as the Path of the Sun, Path of the Moon.
How the token works is that the player must choose at the beginning of their turn whether or not to take the Path of the Sun or the Path of the Moon, displaying the associated symbol on the token face up.
The Path of the Sun:
The player draws one card and plays it face up. If it is one of the 17 skill cards, they must play an action associated with that skill. If they draw one of the 2 Jester cards, they may treat the card as a wild skill card and choose any skill they wish to utilize with an action. If they draw the Royals card, they trigger The Queen's Ransom, where every other player but yourself must pay one gold to the pot during your turn.
The Path of the Moon:
This path allows the player to draw as many cards as they wish until they reach a skill they wish to play, each facing up for the table to see as normal. The Jesters play The Gambit's Jest upon the player. The Gambit's Jest: The Jester attacks the all three of the player's non-armour defences; Fortitude, Reflex, and Wisdom at a DC of 23 + 1/2 the player's level. The player makes 3 rolls. Each failure costs the player 2 gold pieces, which are put into the pot. Success on all three rolls means that the player may take 2 coins from the pot.
The Royals card acts as The King's Taxes, which forces the player to pay the pot 1 gold piece for every player at the table, including themselves.
I also drew up this new action:
"Brainless Bravado" (name might need work)
2 rolled attack
1st roll:
Test of strength (player) versus holding breath (target)
Endurance, Athletics versus Fortitude
Success: Target takes a demoralization debuff of -1 to Fortitude until end of next turn.
Failure: End action, do not take second roll.
2nd roll:
Try to psyche out target into exhaling
Intimidate, Bluff versus Will
Success: Target takes a demoralization debuff of -1 to Will until the end of your next turn, and pays you 2 gold for flinching.
Failure: Player takes a demoralization debuff of -1 to Will until the start of their next turn for looking like a jerk.
Thank you for the ideas, please, feel free to make any comments or criticisms, and of course, please include any ideas you have!
I was thinking of something in the tradition of a name that sounds like something from the Thieve's Cant, or something like Red Rogue.
I've used Jester's Gambit for one of the reaction cards (the Jester under the Path of the Moon) and I am somewhat swayed by it, but I am looking for suggestions.
I also have photoshopped the cards together, except for a name on the back, but I don't know where I could post them. I would share them if anyone wanted them. I have them layed out in sheets of 9 for Pages, but I am sure that it would convert easily for Word. If anyone wants them, feel free to ask, or if you know where I could post them for general useage.
target all players.
Skills: Religion, Arcana, Nature
Cost: Offering 1 Gold.
Effect: If you win, all other players put in 2 gold.
"Blackmail" or "I know what you did last summer, best you lay low."
Target one player.
Skills: History, Insight, Streetwise
Effect: Target pays 5 coin. If you fail, you are exposed have a -2 to all defenses.
"You are getting sleepy, very sleepy...These are not the cards that you are looking for..."
Target one player.
Skill: Arcana, Insight
Cost: 1 coin that sways back and forth slowly on the way to the pot.
Success: player has -3 to reflex and fort.
Please change around anything that you might want.
I worked out the back story on the game for my campaign and I am excited. I realized that there are any number of ways to bring this game into a setting. Mine has the game as almost an intuitive entity unto itself, magically wrought, and drawing on the player's strengths and weaknesses. The RP to the deck will be that the cards show runes instead of what I have on them (a sometimes MTG style, sometimes background image with foreground text style pic and skill name). These runes are what are imbued with power and are what influence the player. I decided that instead of naming the game and putting that on the back that I will cook up a graphic for the runes and put that on the back, so that it will be the RP focus.
Thank you again for your ideas, please keep them comming if you think of more.
A sampling of the cards, since I figured out the picture uploader. Like I said, anyone wants the whole collection, let me know. All I have left to do is the backing.
Two. Games of chance are very fun. That being said. Is it your intention to bring your rp gaming session to a complete halt for the sake of flavor?
Three. The card designs are quite nice looking. Do you play the card game outside of your normal rp gaming session, and if you do do you allow the players who participate to transfer their winnings to their in game characters?
Four. The effort is amazing and would be really fun as a standalone game. But is the time sink really worth the flavor, and if it is will the time sink of the party playing the game in lieu of rping be balanced with the players' enjoyment and monetary gold winnings?
The only reason I ask these questions is because as a long time DM I've introduced a couple different games of chance into my sessions to pepper in flavor and variety. However the main result from the hours upon hours of work I put into to those games of chance was apathy and boredom.
Many players who come and sit around a table expecting to play a roleplaying game expect to roleplay their characters, not participate in a metagame card game of chance that uses more time than is worthwhile to a player who wants to advance the story of and around their character.
I say if it is something your players are wholeheartedly into then go for it. If you have other friends interested in the game of chance itself without it being tied to D&D then I say go for it. However if in either case you have mild reactions, I would stop. Scrap the idea, use the props for something different, and continue on with the RPGing.
As a DM I know where you are coming from; changing it up, adding variety, adding flavor! Though as a player I wouldn't want to waste my gaming time (the few hours I can spare per week) with a homemade game of chance that takes me away from the time I've devoted that week to roleplay my D&D character. If my character wants to gamble, let me throw a die and see whose Cha Mod is higher, or run a minor skill challenge to represent a night of gambling and adjust my winnings/losses accordingly, then allow me to gain my extended rest and go hack and slash furthering the story of both the campaign and my character's exploits.
You've done good work with the game, and I can imagine many people would want to play the game on its own (like Dragon Ante or Munchkin) but as far as diversion during a weekly session of RPGing I know from experience that many players (though not all) would rather skip the flavor in favor of D&D proper. Just my 2 cp. Happy gaming.
I really appreciate the advice and criticism, they are all concerns I had going into this, and continue to have.
I have had to make some adjustments to the stakes of the game, in that 50 gold is a very high sum of money. Also, I have rewritten some of the adventure to better reflect this from an RP standpoint, rather than a having-to-play-the-card-game-every-time standpoint, which of course, leads me to having spent a great deal of time creating a card game that will probably be actually played once.
No matter though, I still want to develop the game for the sake of doing so, and I still think my players will like it, if only once. They may choose to play it outside of D&D, which would be awesome from my perspective, or not, who knows. Not the first time I made a game nobody but me plays.
As an update to progress, I have the final files completed, with backing. So, I will probably print them tonight, trim them up, slip some covers on them and hold them in my pocket with anticipation for eight days.
The ace up my sleeve in terms of thier feeling robbed of their D&D time is that I happen to run my session right after an Encounters session with the exact same people. That means that they get some beat-up-nameless-minions-and-the-occasional-brute time, and some of my homebrew adventuring. The downside is that they will probably only have time enough to play the card game and have to wait until next week to find out why.
Ah well, we'll see.
Anyone with more ideas, please drop them in the bucket, because this is shaping up nicely, but we need more actions (ie. ways to screw over your buddies for their gold).