Hey guys

My EotE campaign starts on wednesday, and it'll kick off with a high stakes Sabacc game on Socorro.

Attached is a pdf outlining my homebrew rules for the tournament (using the gambling rules as written as a starting point).

Enjoy: The pdf

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How I plan to use it:

The PCs have just invested their last remaining credits to buy each of themselves a seat at Sabbo's infamous Sabacc game. Sabbo is a Toydarian who owns the "Last Chance Cube", an open planned three-story underground gambling parlour in Vakeyya. It is truly the PCs last chance to make some big credits quick. The entrance fee is 1000 creds, and with 6 tables of 4 each... that's 24,000 creds up for grabs.

Hopefully, one or more of the PCs makes it to the final table, where they'll meet their first nemesis in the campaign, the Devaronian Golu Kaho. I intend to play up his confrontational smack talk. If the PC(s) can beat him and they go on to win, he's not going to take it well.

He's going to be really upset that he is beaten and offer the winning PC one last All-or-Nothing bet. One last hand for the 24,000.

Basso, the owner will object, but Golu has enough of his men to quell the cowardly Toydarian. What Golu is putting up is his ship, a Firespray. He throws down a datapad that projects a hologram of the ship, along with the ownership certificates.

If the PCs refuse, he'll belittle them and if they still refuse, he'll threaten them. Later... he'll come after them (with help) to recover the 24,000 creds.

If the PCs agree to his demand of one last hand, he'll try to cheat at Sabacc, but as nearly everyone in the place is watching, his difficulty will be upgraded once to 2 challenge die. This competitive check will be best of three. GM note: I'm hoping he throws a despair, gets caught and loses the ship to the PCs. The despair will mean he gets a hand cut off, and he'll have a long lasting hatred to the PC that "beat" him.

The thing is... his Firespray is crash landed in the Doaba badlands and its going to be an adventure just getting out there. Golu doesn't put much hope to recover his ship, and so risking it doesn't concern him. GM note: This is the adventure for rest of the next two sessions.

If the PCs lose the entire tournament before reaching the final table, then someone out of the crowd will offer to buy them dinner and commiserate with their loss. He'll inform them he knows that Golu Kaho has cheated his way to a win in this tournament, and wants the PCs help to set the record straight.

If they lose at the final table, as above... but this time the PCs know that there is a ship. The friendly stranger will let them know that the ship is crash landed out in the desert, and suggests they steal it.

Ultimately, if all goes to plan... the PCs win at Sabacc... win the firespray... trek out to it in the desert... survive all the challenges I'll throw at them.... and then make it back to the space port with the ship. Golu will not believe his eyes; the PCs he lost to not only survived the desert but also came back with his ship, and now it's not his. He's going to have a lifelong enmity for the PCs after this. Perfect for a first nemesis.

This is really great. I've been trying to find the best way to introduce Sabacc to the game. The rules in Shadows of a Black Sun were decent and I really liked the old deck from the d6 Crisis in Cloud City module. I wanted to find an interesting way to blend the mechanics. This kind of takes me in a different direction, but I like it alot. Good ideas here.

Can someone paraphrase the rules as they appears in the "Shadows of the Black Sun"... I don't have that.

Thanks Keeop for the positive feedback. I'm hoping the PCs have the edge on the dice rolls, what with force points and with lucky "luck" rolls. I also didn't want too much rolling to the end, and as it will be their first real use of narrative dice, it'll be a nice structured narrative (playing a game of Sabacc) to describe advantage and threat in situ.

Later when the group gets ambushed and we roll combat checks for the first time, I'm hoping their narrative abilities will be warmed up by their hands of Sabacc. Interestingly, out of the characters, the most suited to this encounter is the Droid Explorer Trader who also really wants to be the groups' pilot... if he can make it to the end and win the ship, it'll be a great start to the campaign. Here's hoping the players can roll well enough.

1. Each player throws in an ante into the pot (Default: 25 Credits)
2. Each player agrees on a wager (default minimum of 10 credits)
3. Assemble the dice pool. Use Cool if playing naturally, or Deception, Skullduggery, or Computers if cheating. GM determines difficulty based on the difficulty of the game and skill of opponents. Add force die to represent the shifting nature of the cards.
4. Player rolls dice, leaving the dice on the table. For each dark side symbol, one success symbol and one advantage is converted into one failure symbol and one threat symbol respectively. Each light side symbol changes one failure symbol and one threat symbol into a success symbol and advantage symbol, respectively. If cheating a dispair means that the PC is caught cheating.
5. On a success, the PC wins back his wager, for each additional success, he wins another wagers worth from the pot. Other results are outlined below.

Results

1 advantage - Recover 1 strain as one of the cards in your hand unexpectedly flips in your favor

2 advantage - Add a boost die to your next roll as you successfully bluff

3 advantage - Figure out an opponent’s tells, and downgrade the difficulty of the next roll once

Triumph - Reveal a positive or negative 23 and win the entire sabaac pot (determined by GM)

1 Threat - Suffer 1 strain as one of the cards in your hand unexpectedly flips. Forcing you to change your strategy.

2 Threat - Add a setback die to your next roll for an opponents bluff.

3 Threat - You lose your ability to concentrate on the game, upgrading the difficulty of the next roll once.

Dispair - If you aren’t cheating, you bomb out. Run out of Chips, or otherwise ejected from the game.

Thanks for writing that up kaosoe... I was pretty close with use the force die to represent the luck of the draw, although mine adds dice instead of counting as advantages or threats. Cool. Even happier with what I came with.