A Deadlands: Hell on Earth Adventure by Genesis Whitmore edited and illustrated by T. Jordan "Greywolf" Peacock
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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:
1d10 | Symbol | Image |
1 | Lemon | |
2 | Plum | |
3 | Banana | |
4 | Grapes | |
5 | Blueberry | |
6 | Skull | |
7 | Gold Bar | |
8 | Orange | |
9 | Cherry | |
0 | Fruit Bowl |
The payoff depends upon what lines up in a row:
Symbols | Condition | Payoff |
1 or 2 lemons | no payoff, regardless of wild cards or gold bars | |
3 lemons | 2 tokens | |
1 or 2 skulls | no payoff, regardless of wild cards or gold bars | |
3 skulls | no payoff, machine cackles evilly | |
3 plums | 5 tokens | |
3 bananas | 10 tokens | |
3 grapes | 25 tokens | |
3 blueberries | 50 tokens | |
3 oranges | 100 tokens | |
3 cherries | 200 tokens | |
any fruitbowl | wildcard to complete "fruit" lineup | |
3 fruitbowls | 500 tokens | |
1 gold bar | 1 token | |
2 gold bars | 25 tokens | |
3 gold bars | 1000 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!