Gaming at the Gold Goblin

Monday, July 14, 2008

"Shadow in the Sky" begins with a grand gambling tournament at a Riddleport gaming hall called the Gold Goblin. The PCs can take time during this opening scene to meet each other, get to know some of the adventure's key NPCs, and maybe make a little money. Of course, no gambling tournament in Riddleport would be complete without some quirky local games—and in Pathfinder #13, we give you four new games with which to separate your players from their cash! One of these games is a dice game called Bounder, excerpted below.

Bounder

"Bounder, bounder, bounder! No doubles, no doubles!"

What You'll Need: 3d6 for the dealer and 2d20 for each player, plus coins to track bets.

How to Play: Bounder is unique among gambling games in that both the players and dealer use dice. The dealer gets three 6-sided dice, and each player gets two 20-siders.

To start, each player bets a stake (minimum 1 sp). Each player rolls his first d20, making his "point." After all players have rolled their points, each player may double his stake if desired.

Then the dealer rolls 3d6. Anyone whose point the dealer matches loses his stake.

Then each player rolls his second d20. If the player's two dice results are on either side of the dealer's result—one greater than and one less than the dealer's number—he "bounds" the dealer and wins an amount equal to the amount he bet. Otherwise, he loses his stake.

If a player rolls a 1 and a 20 (or a 20 and a 1), he wins double his bet.

Odds: The house edge in this game is 18% without any doubling. A player over time will get about 7/17 of his money back. Extreme points (1, 2, 19 and 20) are as good as 47.5%, so doubling is wiser there (but still not wise).

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief