Gambling for fun and profit in 5e

[Silver Sonome]

Hello, everyone! I'm thinking about starting a campaign soon, if time and scheduling allows me to dedicate a while to it; Adventurers from various regions of time and space, realities parallel from each other, join together in the fabled plane of Sigil to compete in a competition of 99 percent luck and 1 percent impulse: a poker tournament. It's a pretty wacky idea that doesn't require too much plot or planning, but it does require a lot of gambling minigames. Please let me explain:

 

A while ago, I got into this game with a couple of people with pretty cool characters; a Goliath Artificer who just wanted to make friends, a Dragonborn scholar who had to survive in the wilderness for his Wizard exams (and hasn't returned to the school to this day), and a military general from a distant past who was wished into this timeline by my character, a genie whose magic power was drained by the summoning and now was trying to recover her power. Unfortunately, the DM disappeared, and the group had to disband, but before we split our ways we tried to throw in some ideas on how to play a game with these characters while we waited for the DM. That's when I got this idea: how about a non canon, lighthearted game where we spend time in a minor activity? Thus I started crafting the Planar Poker Night 'campaign'...
Firstly, have you heard of a game series called Poker Night at the Inventory? It's a pair of games where you play a series of poker tournaments with characters from various corners of media; The Heavy from TF2, Sam and Max, Brock Samson from Ace Ventura, GLaDOS from Portal... It's not quite explained why are they all together, but they talk and joke with each other as if they existed within the same universe; they have a certain degree of meta awareness (they know they come from videogames/series, but their lives are still real to them). It's a really fun experience, not necessarily because of the poker itself, but because of the interactions between the characters and the way their personalities and stories are explored and played with. A dynamic like that seemed to me like the perfect idea to have our characters meet and interact, while not affecting whatever plot the DM had in mind, and maybe we could even show off some of our characters that we haven't been able to use. Then, I remembered the existence of Sigil.
The very first set of D&D manuals I got were some 4e spanish copies, which I still have to this day, but that I havent used, like... at all. While I did have an interest on playing, I didn't have a reliable group of friends that I could share the game with, that happened a lot later in my life. The one thing that I always adored about my 4e books was the one and only Guide to the Planes, where a lot of the D&D multiverse is detailed and explained. Of note to this post is the famous demiplane at the center of the multiverse, Sigil, the City of Doors. Sigil exists within the inner layer of a torus-shaped dimension that defies the laws of nature, and it is a center of travel and reade among dimensions, because of its extensive network of portals. I chose this as the setting because it would provide an actual reasoning for the players coming from different realities and meeting in this one, and also because the shifting, magic architecture of the city works perfectly for an aspect of Poker Night that I forgot to mention. You see, from time to time, instead of playing in a regular bar, Poker Night decorates the place with props and details from the games or series of origin of each character, as well as giving you a prize with a similar theme. So for example, the Portal tournament turns the bar into a test chamber, with turrets and companion cubes laying around; portals are used to fling the losing players away from the table, and the prize for winning is a paranoid personality core. I would like to do something similar; making certain events or sessions themed around a character from the party (likely the winner of the last tournament).

And so, my campaign idea would be basically an open room for characters to join and play with each other. However, I'm not exactly sure how to implement the actual mecanics of poker in this site, if it's even possible to begin with. Thus, I was wondering if you knew any interesting chance games to give the party, based around all kinds of skills from D&D; I plan to add challenges and games for every niche a D&D character could have, like some sort of colosseum for Strength-based characters, or maybe some actually strategic games for Wizards and other smart people. In any case, I'd be thankful to learn about any gambling or tavern minigames you've played in your own games, to add to my roster! Thanks a lot for your help!

[Admin Dirk]

the easiest would be some variation of Craps... simple dice rolling. You can change rules, goals, etc., but rolling dice is built into the system.

A step up is roulette... fairly simple, bet and roll. One die for number, a second for color.


PLaying a card game (poker) gets more complex, due to the fact that although you could assign numbers for cards, programming the roller to not repeat a number already thrown is... impossible? Difficult? You could overcome this by simply having a deck of cards at your desk, and dealing out the hands needed, telling everyone (in secret) what they have, and then using some amount of bluff/feint/intimidate skill sets to determine betting/winners.

[silveroak]

There are rules in Xanathars for gambling in the abstract, presumably with a bunch of NPCs participating.

[Lazer]

I did something like this once because my group spontaneously decided to go gambling during an IRL session, prompting me to have to quickly come up with a way to run a game of chance on the spot. They ended up playing some poker and I came up with some abstract rules on how to run the game. Now my players ended up winning big, so I don’t think these rules are balanced but it might be a jumping-off point. If anyone can help to balance it better, have at it!

• I got the player to roll a series of checks to get bonuses to the final roll to determine if they win the hand.
  
• Roll a d20 to see how good your hand is. The bonus is worked out the same way that the Ability Bonuses are, so a 20 is +5, 18 or 19 is +4, etc.
  
• If the character is proficient in cards, add proficiency bonus here.
  
• Depending on how good your hand is you can choose to roll a Deception check. So if you have a good hand you can try to make the NPCs think it’s bad or vice versa. This is the stage at which the player can choose to bluff to win the pot by default if they have a bad hand. It is contested by an Insight check, I just rolled once no matter how many other players there were and how well/badly they rolled determined how many fell for the charade.
  
• The player rolls an Insight check against an NPC Deception check. As above but reversed.
  
• The player can choose to cheat if they wish (this should provide a big reward but be very risky). For example I allowed one player to use Prestidigitation to make the cards in their hand seem better (looking back I should probably not have, as casting a spell in the middle of a game should be very iffy). For a more mundane method of cheating, they roll a Sleight-of-Hand check contested by a Perception roll for the NPCs. If they succeed they get a +5 (replaces the original roll for the hand). Failure should mean that they are banned from the game, minimum, unless they can somehow talk their way out of it.
  
• Then there was a bit of RP to see if the player could get the other players to match any raises the player chose to make. The previous Deception/Insight rolls were used to influence this. This determines how much is in the pot to be won.
  
• Finally the moment of truth, the player rolls a D20 and adds any bonuses, if they roll a 20 or more they win the hand.

The maximum bonus the player can have on their final roll would be 5 (plus proficiency), so their chance of winning any given hand is fairly low. On the other hand, if their Insight and Deception checks work well they can bluff hands and can get a good read on when to fold early.

So important skills for this game are Insight, Deception, Sleight of Hand and Perception (plus certain spells, especially for Subtle Spell’d Sorcerers).

In regards to balance, I suppose the best thing to do is determine how much money an opponent is willing to bet by how good of a gambler they are, and better gamblers get better bonuses to things like Insight, Deception, etc., although another option would be to adjust the DC from 20 depending on how skilled the opponents are.

[TADHG]

A recent gameplay session included a dinosaur race. And had odds for each participant winning.

I didn't do too well on that one.

[psuedenim]

I have a problem with roulette so let's go. PayPal OK?

[Admin Dirk]

Originally Posted by psuedenim

I have a problem with roulette so let's go. PayPal OK?

So says the bold gamer with a Natural 1 on their avatar.

[psuedenim]

Roulette let's me pick zeroes, guaranteed win for me... right... right?