Gambling questions


Rules Questions


Hi All,

A few of my players want to try their hand at gambling. I have a couple of questions that I'm hoping you can help answer.

Specifically:
Regular play: The Profession (Gambler) skill allows you to earn 1/2 your check result in gold pieces per week of dedicated play. What if you're playing with marked cards or loaded dice, or regularly using things like Sleight of Hand, the Secret Stash deed, Mage Hand, etc.? How do these affect your result? How do you factor in the chance of getting caught?

Individual games: The Gamemastry Guide says that "luck should rule the day." It goes on to say that "cheating is the only way to change your luck in a game of chance. If someone at the table wants to cheat, Sleight of Hand is the most useful skill, but Disable Device might also be allowed. In addition, magic can be quite useful for cheating. Spells like mage hand, silent image, and modify memory can turn bad results into good results. Getting caught, however, can turn these good results into much, much worse outcomes." Again, how would cheating affect the result, and how do you factor in the chance of getting caught?

Thanks,
Chernobyl


Hi,
Off the top of my head, I would add their bluff/slight of hand modifier to their profession check to come up with what is earned per week. I would make a separate roll bluff/sense motive or slight of hand/perception check to see if they are caught. In addition if the players are dedicated to cheating, i would give the people who are cheated often a bonus on their roll.
-KZ


Kahn Zordlon wrote:

Hi,

Off the top of my head, I would add their bluff/slight of hand modifier to their profession check to come up with what is earned per week. I would make a separate roll bluff/sense motive or slight of hand/perception check to see if they are caught. In addition if the players are dedicated to cheating, i would give the people who are cheated often a bonus on their roll.
-KZ

For the weekly scenario, I'm assuming the player specifically says that he/she is going to spend 6 or more hours a day for the entire week on gambling, and that he/she is going to consistently cheat (e.g. using Sleight of Hand and aces hidden up the sleeve).

So let's assume the gambler's Profession bonus is +3 and his Sleight of Hand is +2. So according to your recommendation, I would have him/her roll d20+5, divide by 2, and that's how many gp he/she earns.
Then, to determine whether he/she is caught, I would have him/her roll a Bluff check, opposed by... what? Whose Sense Motive check am I using? Do I create a generic character to represent all of the folks that he/she gambled with during the week? And if he/she fails, then what? I would think that the person being cheated would call the local authorities, or maybe attack the character. This sounds like a great combat opportunity that I'd hate to pass up.
Any thoughts?


There are a few options here.
1 A "high stakes game" that represents the 6th hour of cheating gambling, this 6'th hour would be played out between player and CR appropriate GM created people for the weeks earnings (and guards maybe). Depending on the town the encounter would change.
-High class city - lawful - call guards - bluff out.
-High class city - chaotic - shake hands with player (arcane mark!) hire assassin/thief later - combat.
-Scum city - lawful - shake hands and part ways (better cheater wins) (guards are a bad idea) - maybe Diplomacy or Intimidate vs.
-Scum city - chaotic - knives, spells, summons, brutes, etc - even if the game was fair this might happen, (guards not likely to hurry in) - combat, pay guards, finish fight before 2x(call guards) roll arrives.

2 Use modified bargaining rules: Max possible value per week, bluff/sleight of hand vs intimidate/sense motive - counter bluff and "negotiate" the final weekly earnings. It would take some work and a scaling "CR gambler" to represent all the characters being cheated, but it would be pretty representative and use all appropriate skills, could net greater income.

3 Profession + Sleight of hand +1-2 for appropriate tools, +D20/2. then D100 +Bluff, above 50% cheat, below 50% caught. Caught = 1/2 gold amount earned (to represent them playing many games with many people over time), if players says it is against 1 person all week, change it to D100 +Bluff +tools +Slight of hand, above 50% cheat, below 50% No earnings at all, roll again for a fight/guards. Higher that max possible rewards, chance of nothing.

Any profession that has the appropriate tools and circumstances should get a bonus to earnings in my opinion, gambling more so, but with bigger risk as well.


Personally, I would have your player add half his sleight of hand skill modifier to the profession check, and maybe give a +2 to +4 bonus on his check as well due to loaded dice/cards.

Initially, he/she is going to do very well in making money. However, I would use a chance of 5% per week of getting caught cheating (5% the first week, 10% the second week). If you keep taking the house and winning, people are going to wonder. However, I would also allow him/her to lower the chance of getting caught by taking a week off. So, say said character is up to a 30% chance of getting caught this week, so he decided to let the cards and dice cool and not play. For every week he doesn't play, he lowers his chance of getting caught by 2%.

It is a bit abstract, but I think it would work well enough. Its involved enough he/she could develop a strategy to it, but not complicated enough to slow down the game.


I have a character with Profession (Gambler). While I understand the rules for wages under most professions, I think Gambler would have an exception.

If you did it like most professions you couldn't lose money. Of Course this has a built in cap. What if you are willing to risk it and can find a higher level (society) game. Where the stakes are much higher? How would you handle your player playing poker in higher stakes game?


How's this for the Profession check: The gambler who ops to cheat makes a Sleight of Hand or Disable Device check; if he/she rolls 10 or higher, he/she gets a +2 to the Profession (gambling) check (like using Aid Another). Using marked cards or loaded dice give him/her a +2 circumstance bonus to the Profession (gambling) check (like using a toolkit). However, if the player rolls a natural 1, he/she is caught cheating and must face some consequence that is roleplayed out sometime during the week (either the guards arrive to haul the character off to jail, or an opponent gets angry and demands his money back).

So the likelihood of getting caught is low, but on the flipside the character can't get more than 2 gp extra per week from cheating.

What do you think?


Slacker2010 wrote:

I have a character with Profession (Gambler). While I understand the rules for wages under most professions, I think Gambler would have an exception.

If you did it like most professions you couldn't lose money. Of Course this has a built in cap. What if you are willing to risk it and can find a higher level (society) game. Where the stakes are much higher? How would you handle your player playing poker in higher stakes game?

Good point. What if instead of halving the result of your Profession (gambling) roll, you subtract 5 from it? So if you roll a 1, you lose 4 gp that week, but if you roll a 20, you gain 15 gp that week. On average, you'll make 5 gp a week.


Ch3rnobyl wrote:
Slacker2010 wrote:

I have a character with Profession (Gambler). While I understand the rules for wages under most professions, I think Gambler would have an exception.

If you did it like most professions you couldn't lose money. Of Course this has a built in cap. What if you are willing to risk it and can find a higher level (society) game. Where the stakes are much higher? How would you handle your player playing poker in higher stakes game?

Good point. What if instead of halving the result of your Profession (gambling) roll, you subtract 5 from it? So if you roll a 1, you lose 4 gp that week, but if you roll a 20, you gain 15 gp that week. On average, you'll make 5 gp a week.

One of my own players (Gambler) profession made a good point about this. If a player (Jeweler) profession can walk in and be an expert, trusted by his short term employer to do good, and not make off with the inventory, why can't a (Gambler) be just as trustworthy and successful? Both are professionals with at least some notoriety in their field to get the job/find the table. So reasonably a gambler should make the same as any other profession (risk means less when he knows the odds, and plays the system). On average his wins and losses should equal that of an equal profession check.

At the same time a Jeweler isn't buying materials or tools, haggling the sales, attracting customers, paying rent on a place. A Gambler might have to buy into a table (-gp), create losses to set up bigger gains (-gp, ++gp), bring his own tools (marked cards, dice, cups, etc), and is constantly haggling (bluff, diplomacy, intimidate, slight of hand, perception, magic, etc) to get his "job" done.
So gambler is the one profession that really doesn't fit fairly into "profession", anything you can do to make it feel different without wildly out profiting other (profession)s on average is something I would love to find.

Would -5 result in, say over a 12 month stint, the same average mount as other (profession)s checks?


Ch3rnobyl wrote:
The gambler who ops to cheat makes a Sleight of Hand or Disable Device check; if he/she rolls 10 or higher, he/she gets a +2 to the Profession (gambling) check (like using Aid Another).

And if he/she rolls below 10, he/she gets busted trying to cheat.


Ch3rnobyl wrote:
Ch3rnobyl wrote:
The gambler who ops to cheat makes a Sleight of Hand or Disable Device check; if he/she rolls 10 or higher, he/she gets a +2 to the Profession (gambling) check (like using Aid Another).
And if he/she rolls below 10, he/she gets busted trying to cheat.

The Sleight of hand should be vs 10+ the opponent's Perception adding +1 or +2 per other person at the table.

On the side note of high stakes play: How would you handle it? It should be an opposed roll also.


Frankly I'd consider any profession skill the same. If you use the skill profession (gambler), And you use the skill checks to generate income, it simulates you going to the local gambling ring/establishment and gambling, your skill will allow you to at least break even, and your roll simulates how successful you are.

If you want simulate cheating of any kind, I'd advice just using individual games. As rules about cheating for that exist and simply assume that if you cheat while generating cash with the profession skill, no cheating will be either possible or profitable (much like a normal casino, even if they cannot prove you've cheated, if its likely, you'll be asked to leave anyway).


Diekssus wrote:
Frankly I'd consider any profession skill the same. If you use the skill profession (gambler), And you use the skill checks to generate income, it simulates you going to the local gambling ring/establishment and gambling, your skill will allow you to at least break even, and your roll simulates how successful you are.

So what benefit would you get from using tools like marked cards or loaded dice, skills like Sleight of Hand or Disable Device, or spells like Mage Hand? The rules say nothing about these things.

Diekssus wrote:
If you want simulate cheating of any kind, I'd advice just using individual games. As rules about cheating for that exist and simply assume that if you cheat while generating cash with the profession skill, no cheating will be either possible or profitable (much like a normal casino, even if they cannot prove you've cheated, if its likely, you'll be asked to leave anyway).

So what benefit you get from things like marked cards and loaded dice in a one-off game? The rules are vague on this issue.


Ch3rnobyl wrote:
Diekssus wrote:
Frankly I'd consider any profession skill the same. If you use the skill profession (gambler), And you use the skill checks to generate income, it simulates you going to the local gambling ring/establishment and gambling, your skill will allow you to at least break even, and your roll simulates how successful you are.
So what benefit would you get from using tools like marked cards or loaded dice, skills like Sleight of Hand or Disable Device, or spells like Mage Hand? The rules say nothing about these things.

To reiterate if your using the skill to generate income as per the profession skill you can assume that the places that you gamble at either don't let you cheat or that they would not allow you to benefit from it by banning you and not paying out your winnings. I separated them from individual games explicitly for that reason, as mentioned before

Ch3rnobyl wrote:
Diekssus wrote:
If you want simulate cheating of any kind, I'd advice just using individual games. As rules about cheating for that exist and simply assume that if you cheat while generating cash with the profession skill, no cheating will be either possible or profitable (much like a normal casino, even if they cannot prove you've cheated, if its likely, you'll be asked to leave anyway).
So what benefit you get from things like marked cards and loaded dice in a one-off game? The rules are vague on this issue.

I'll have to look it up, I'll edit it in when I have the time.


Diekssus wrote:

I'll have to look it up, I'll edit it in when I have the time.

Cheating, either using sleight of hand or marked cards etc. Gives you +4 to whatever score would determine your success. The DC for sleight of hand is 20, Failing means detection (in addition to opposed perception checks for any form of cheating).

Skill checks with a dc 15 can improve your game, this includes sense motive, bluff and Prof(gamb) (assuming that these scores don't directly affect success) the bonus is +1, failing gives -1, Both increase by an additional +1 or -1 respectively for every 5 you succeed of or fail the check.

This was used for a particular game. However I don't see a reason why it wouldn't work in other gambling.

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