The Gaming Den

Recently, for some bizarre reason, I had the idea of making low level D&D into a gambling game. Something in the vein of the "Four Swords" Zelda game.

The basic idea is thus:
You get four players, and each player buys in for around $5. They each make a character of the same level (probably level 1 to 3, somewhere low.) And you run them through a level appropriate dungeon, a module that all the players agree on preferably. As they play through the dungeon, as the players get loot, they receive money directly based on said loot. Find a stash of 25 gold? You get a quarter. Find a gem? Get a half dollar piece. Etc.
Throughout the dungeon, you could have a vendor (in the style of Creepy-Merchant-Guy from Resident Evil 4). He'd sell discount items for real money. Cure Light Wounds potions for 50c, a suit of +2 armor for dollar, etc. It doesn't need to be appropriate for a character of the players level, since real money is involved.
The fact that the dungeon is set up for PC's of their level, which in theory should mean that they have about a 50% chance to make it (more if they're good), should encourage them to work together. At least till the boss is taken down, at which point I'd expect it to devolve into an "Every humanoid for himself" clusterfuck where the players kill each other off for the final "pot".

A friend of mine pointed out that you could encourage the players to work together more if you divided the dungeon into "hands", essentially encounters where the loot gained from it gets locked in afterwords. The boss "hand" could be left open ended, allowing the biggest "pot" in the game to devolve into a hilarious clusterfuck as mentioned before.

I really like this idea, but it's bare bones right now. Any ideas/comments/suggestions/"That will never work moran"s would be appreciated.

I call wizard.

I once had a DM who accepted bribes (and said from the word go that he would), so I once paid him to increase everyone's level by 1. So this only goes to the next logical step, where, if I'm working at the time, I can just say "Ah fuck it, here's a tenner. Bump me up a few levels. Will a twenty get me a Candle of Invokation?"

Intriguing.

Play the game with just Poker Chips. The players get 100 "units" of currency each; and you treat them as if each unit of currency were a dollar each under your system.

Then play test; have everyone play the same character first; see how it goes. Then for players that get a certain amount of currency, can buy to replace their levels/character with a different character.

Or, they can trade in any character they have, and get a new one, with 75% less value in gear, and the same level as the character that they no longer wish to use. Players should be able to bring in more characters. However gear can't change between a player's multiple characters, but the players pool of 'currency' can be spent any way that they wish.

Selling gear to recuperate 'currency' is going to give the old 50% reduction in value, making people reluctant to sell their found Vorpal Sword to give their low level twink better gear.

You should think of the system as being episodic, and the player characters as people that meet up in a common area, get a mission offered, and team up to complete it. The found loot is then divided as the players wish, and players can sell 'useless' stuff to get more out-of-game/in-game "currency".

It's an interesting logistical meta-game imo.

I've done some more thinking on the concept, and on how it would be necessary for all parties involved that the game was as fair as possible between the players.

The dungeon itself (Well, or whatever adventure you put them through, but the dungeon format I think would work best) needs to be "fair". It should probably be a preconstructed one-shot module of some sort, selected in advance and approved by all the players. The DM adjusts the dungeon to contain treasure equal to the total buy in amount, but otherwise leaves the module as-is. During the course of play, all rolls need to be open and monster statistics should be in plain sight. Monster abilities that the PC's aren't aware of (ex, sp, and su abilities that is. Not stats.) should take the form of flip-cards (or something that serves the same purpose) that would be flipped up upon first use. At the end of the adventure, the module should be available for review by all parties involved to ensure no one cheats.

There are also several options for how to run the dungeon itself, I touched on "hands" briefly in my first post.

Option 1: No Hand Free-for-All
The dungeon is run as normal, with the necessary adjustments to loot and all that. Money is awarded at the end of the dungeon based on how much GP the characters have. The dungeon doesn't end until the party successfully exits the dungeon, or everyone is dead. This encourages ramapant backstabbing the closer you are to the end of the dungeon. Some players may even elect to kill their fellows and exit the dungeon with the loot before reaching the end of the dungeon.

Option 2: No Hand "Viking Funeral" Rules
The same as a Free-for-All, except that if a character dies by the hands of a fellow player the body as a whole is lifted to Valhalla. Along with all his posessions. The player is then awarded money based on how much he had when he died.

Option 3: Playing with "Hands"
Every time a "short rest" is acheived (a 4e term, I know. But the concept is the same. A 5 minute rest between fights.) a "hand" is ended. At the end of a hand, all the loot is locked in, and money is awarded based on how much gold was accquired since the last hand. Thereafter gold and loot can't be transfered from one player to another, except by consent.

The Boss Fight
All good dungeons in with a boss fight, at least in Gambling and Goblins they do. Around 30% of the gold in the dungeon should be located in the final hoard. If the players successfully beat the boss, and you are playing with hands, there are two options. End the final hand as normal or extend the final hand until the party reaches the exit. Extending it allows the PC's to freely kill each other for the biggest hand in the game leaving a clear "winner".

Playing against the house.
Sometimes the house wins, and it almost always profits. Any loot that the party doesn't find, or loot that would have been awarded after fights that the party avoided, go to the house. Additionally, the house has the option of including a merchant in the dungeon, where potions and whatnot could be excanged for gold. Though this would help the players get further into the dungeon, it allows the house to get garunteed money from the players. No, you can't kill the merchant.

"I'll play the wizard"
For the sanity of everyone involved, the players should probably be no higher than 3rd level, with a level appropriate dungeon. At low level's all classes can be potent. The fighter really can stab (well, spiked-chain) the wizard to death if he gets init.

Comments?

Edit: D'oh, I didn't see your post when I made this one JE. Also, each chip being a dollar... someone in my group would be flat broke afterwords in a real game. In fact, they're mostly broke anyway, but that's not the point. I'm envisioning it as a low stakes game with a transfer of one gold equals one cent. Of course, it could be a high stakes game, there's no reason why not. But I am a broke-ass college student.

Don't do "loot by-passed goes to the house", unless you want PCs to grind down every room.

They should get all the loot; if they can beat a room, and still get treasure, then they will exhaust more options before going for the lowest common denominator solution "kill everything, coup de grace the bleeders; Greyhawk the bodies; put the loot on mules; press on".

If you want "greyhawk the bodies" to be a party SOP; then do that; if you want players to focus on the mission, give them the full value of the reward in gold (aka 50% of the items worth).

Which means that they always get the treasure, in gold. However, they need to find the damned loot in order to not get the 50% penalty.

Giving the missions time lines, and count downs is a good idea.

I was refering to the 'value' of the chips. You don't actually play for money. At least not real money. IMO, it's not a good idea. At least not for your playtests.