I'm a little confused about the Sabacc rules on p.119 of Suns of Fortune. Step 2 says Players use Cool to establish a dice pool. Step 4 says each character rolls his check. What do NPCs use to establish their dice pool? I would think the NPC's opposition would be incorporated by the PC's dice pool established in Step 3, and they themselves wouldn't roll, but Steps 4 and 5 refer to "characters," not specifically "PCs." Also, are the rules for Step 6 the same for NPCs? Step 6 only specifies PCs.

Thanks.

I consider PC's and NPC's the same in Sabacc. They all roll their pool individually, and the one with the best outcome wins.

I changed the rules slightly, to my own taste, just to make a difference between a positive 23, negative 23 and an Idiot's Array. Also a single despair doesn't mean the game ends (unless they got caught cheating). This is what I'm using:

1. The table agrees on a wager, and each player pays this amount into the hand pot.

2. Each player pays the same amount into the sabacc pot.

3. Use Cool to establish a base dice pool.

4. The GM adds Difficulty dice to the player's dice pool based on the difficulty of the game and the skill of the opponents.

5. Each player rolls the dice pool, leaving the dice on the table. He/she then rolls a single Force die to illustrate the shifting nature of the cards' signs. For each dark side symbol, one Success and one Advantage are converted into a Failure and Threat, respectively. Conversely, each light symbol changes one Failure and one Threat into a Success and Advantage, respectively.

6. To cheat, a character instead uses his Deception, Skulduggery, or Computers skill pool for the test. Upgrade the difficulty of the skill check once. On a Despair symbol, the PC is caught cheating, and gambling immediately stops to resolve the discovery.

7. The player with the most uncancelled successes wins the entire hand pot, revealing a hand closer to 23 than the other players. When more than 1 player rolls a Triumph, the person with most uncancelled successes reveals a positive 23. When more than 1 player rolls a Triumph, the person with the least uncancelled successes reveals a negative 23. When more than 1 player rolls a Triumph, the person with the least uncancelled successes reveals a negative 23. A positive 23 trumps a negative 23, an Idiot's Array trumps both. When more than 1 player ties for biggest hand, the pot is spilt.

Advantage x1 - Recover 1 strain as one of the cards in your hands unexpectedly flips in your favor.

Advantage x2 - Add a Boost die to your next roll as you successfully bluff.

Advantage x3 - Figure out an opponent's tells and downgrade the difficulty of your next roll once.

Triumph x1 - Reveal a positive or negative 23 and win the entire hand pot and sabacc pot.

Triumph x2 - Reveal an Idiot's Array (0-2-3) and win the entire hand pot and sabacc pot. (trumps positive and negative 23's)

Threat x1 - Suffer 1 strain as one of the cars in your hand unexpectedly flips, forcing you to change your strategy.

Threat x2 - Add a Setback die to your next roll as you fail for an opponent's bluff.

Threat x3 - You lose your ability to concentrate on the game, upgrading the difficulty of your next roll once.

Despair x1 - You bomb out and are forced to pay a wager's worth of credits into the sabacc pot, or be ejected from the game.

Despair x2 - You run out of chips, or are otherwise ejected from the game.

(Note: when cheating, any Despair symbol means immediate ejection from the game... and probably worse.)

As for the difficulty, it's up to you to decide. If it's a high-stakes game or a big tournament, I might go with Diff 3... other, more lighthearted games, might be done with Diff 2. And yes, while the overall skill of the participants does come into play when considering the difficulty level, I would let everyone (PC and NPC's) start with the same difficulty. So if there's lots of skilled Sabacc players at the table, the difficulty will be higher than during your standard night out at the local cantina.