Stakes and Wealth
In Gambling you need to put up a Stake. Usually this is an amount of money, but can be other things as well. However your character does it, we abstract it out to your Stake being a Wealth rating. If you win, you win the Stake+1 in Wealth. If you lose, you lose the stake.
Gambling is a bit different from haggling and purchasing things so Wealth works a bit differently here. Normally a character can buy anything worth less than his Wealth rating without a penalty. If your Stake is two or more points below your Wealth and you lose it, there's no problem. It's just pocket money after all. If your Stake is one below your Wealth and you lose it, your Wealth drops by one. If your Stake is equal to your Wealth and you lose it, your Wealth is now 0.
This means that if you gamble below your Wealth rating your overall Wealth won't really change. This is the sane and unadventurous way to gamble.
Example: Uki has Wealth 3 and joins a low limit card game (Max Stake: 1). If he loses, it's not a big deal (because the Stakes are 2 below his Wealth), but if he wins he'll only get Stake +1 or Wealth 2. His Wealth is already higher than that so he can write it down on his character sheet as Gambling Winnings 2 but it won't really change his quality of life.
To summarize:
| Stake=Wealth | Stake=Wealth-1 | Stake=Wealth-2 (or less) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Win | Wealth +1 | Stake +1 (No change in Wealth) | Stake +1 (No change in Wealth) |
| Lose | Wealth 0 | Wealth -1 | No change in Wealth |
Types of Games
Pure Luck
These are games that require no skill at all. The player rolls 2d. A match = Win, no match = lose. In more crooked gaming houses there will be a Difficulty on the roll. Often in these sorts of games there's the possibility of a big payout. In that case rolling 2x10 will garner Stake +2 as your winnings.
Pure Skill
These are games that have no luck component at all (like chess). Typically these are resolved as opposed non-timesensitive KNOWLEDGE+Strategy rolls, although some games may rely on other skills. The game takes 5-Width minutes/hours/days/units of time depending on the game.
If the game is very important to the story there's a longer variation. In this case, record each set made in the opposed rolls (which represents sequences more than individual turns of the game). Keep on doing this until one player has accumulated Xpts in Width. Then you compare the Highest sets made throughout the game.
Ken Ken is a popular Dindavaran game of skill
Mixed Luck and Skill
Games vs. the House
These are things like roulette or blackjack in which your betting strategy makes a difference but there's still a lot of luck involved. In these games a player rolls his KNOW (+ Gambling) in an opposed roll against the house's pool (typically 4d, though low stakes games may be lower and high stakes higher). This is a non-timesensitive contest that can represent one hand or a longer time playing.
Scale and Fang is an Ob-Lob game played with 8-sided dice.
Games vs. Other Players
These are games like poker. Players roll their relevant stat (+ Gambling) in an opposed roll against all other players. In these games there's a Common Pool of 1-5d (1d is for high-stakes high skill games, 5d for low stakes high luck games), which is rolled after the Stakes are set. Dice in the Common Pool can be added to the players' individual pools to make sets. These are non-timesensitive contests that represent 3hrs-Width (30 minute chunks) of play time.
Backlash is the card game of choice in Broadland and much of the Confederacy. Its Freeport variation is called Backstab
