Casino - "Phantom o' the Opry" - Adventure for Deadlands
Back to Adventures The Phantom o' the Opry  

A Deadlands: Hell on Earth Adventure by Genesis Whitmore

edited and illustrated by T. Jordan "Greywolf" Peacock


Casino

Just in case someone actually wants to play at the casino, a huckster by the name of Ashley Hand can try to interest someone in a game of poker, or else there are slot machines and a roulette table.

If anyone wants to play at the roulette wheel or at the slot machines, there is a booth where bullets can be traded in for one "dollar" tokens, and the same tokens can be traded back in for bullets.

For the roulette table, the player can bet tokens on one or more positions on the wheel, choosing a number between 1 and 32. For the sake of abstraction, the Marshal should secretly roll a d10 for the "ones" digit, and a d4 for the "tens" digit. Treat a "4" as a "0". So, if you roll 8 on the d10 and 2 on the d4, the result is 28. If you end up with a result higher than 32, reroll. If the player's number comes up, he gets a payback at the rate of 30 tokens for every 1 token he bet on that number.

However, there's a twist here. If one of the PCs bets on 6, secretly roll the dice ... and announce that it lands on 6. If the PC tries again, it will pay off a second time. If he tries once more, it will pay off a third time, and the lights will go out momentarily. When they come back off, if the PC wants to keep pushing his luck, this trick won't work any longer. Unless the PC manages to lose all of his tokens again either at the roulette wheel or the slot machine, the Marshal may single him out for an "accident" of some sort, just to increase the "creepiness" factor.

For the slot machines, the PC can put in one token. Get three d10s and roll them. The value on the d10 yields the following "symbol" as on this chart:

1d10SymbolImage
1LemonLemon
2PlumPlum
3BananaBanana
4GrapesGrapes
5BlueberryBlueberry
6SkullSkull
7Gold BarGold Bar
8OrangeOrange
9CherryCherry
0Fruit BowlFruit Bowl

The payoff depends upon what lines up in a row:

SymbolsConditionPayoff
Lemon??1 or 2 lemonsno payoff, regardless of wild cards or gold bars
LemonLemonLemon3 lemons2 tokens
SkullSkull?1 or 2 skullsno payoff, regardless of wild cards or gold bars
SkullSkullSkull3 skullsno payoff, machine cackles evilly
PlumPlumPlum3 plums5 tokens
BananaBananaBanana3 bananas10 tokens
GrapesGrapesGrapes3 grapes25 tokens
BlueberryBlueberryBlueberry3 blueberries50 tokens
OrangeOrangeOrange3 oranges100 tokens
CherryCherryCherry3 cherries200 tokens
BananaFruit BowlBananaany fruitbowlwildcard to complete "fruit" lineup
Fruit BowlFruit BowlFruit Bowl3 fruitbowls500 tokens
Gold Bar??1 gold bar1 token
Gold BarGold Bar?2 gold bars25 tokens
Gold BarGold BarGold Bar3 gold bars1000 tokens

The odds on this are pretty lousy, but that's what you get for gambling, eh? In the off chance someone should get the three skulls, the PC is bound to get a visit from something supernaturally evil. (The Marshal should make sure that whatever creepy occurrence happens that night is centered on this unlucky PC.)

One thing a PC can try to do is cheat. First, there's the off chance that someone might spot him doing this if he fails to beat a TN of 3 on Sneak (unless there's a good distraction). By beating a TN of 7 on Deftness, he can either reroll one of the numbers, or "bump" it (his choice).

If the PC has at least one level of Gambling, he can opt to roll on this Aptitude instead of Deftness, and without having to make a Sneak roll. This doesn't represent cheating, per se, but is just an abstract way to represent his better understanding of games of chance and how they work, and maybe a bit better timing at pulling the lever just right. The TN is exactly the same, except that he doesn't need to make a Sneak roll.

"Bumping" a number means that you roll 1d4. On 1, 2 or 3, he adds one to the roll. On a 4, he adds two to the roll. If the result is greater than 10 (Fruit Bowl), roll over at 1 (Lemon) again. (So, in other words, "bumping" the machine causes the roller to advance one or two places, hopefully to the player's advantage. This is best done when he almost has a winning line-up.)

If he tries this more than once per pull, the TN increases by 2 per try. Failure means that the result locks in, and no more attempts are possible. If a really Deft PC uses this on a regular basis, eventually the Manitous are going to catch on, and increase the TN even more. If the PC ever Botches this roll, then all three rollers start spinning, and then come up with ... three skulls!


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Deadlands, Deadlands: Hell on Earth and Deadlands: The Weird West and characters and features thereof are trademarks of Pinnacle Games, and their use here does not constitute a challenge of trademark status. This site is by no means official, and should not be considered representative of the quality of the products of Pinnacle Games. With the exception of the "Deadlands" logo, and except where otherwise noted, all artwork and all articles on this page are (c) by T. Jordan "Greywolf" Peacock, and may not be reproduced without permission. The "Phantom o' the Opry" adventure is (c) by Genesis Whitmore.