The Real

Deal
A Texas Hold’em Tabletop

from
Ted “Right-Twice-A-Day” Tinker
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Introduction
I like Tabletop Role-Playing Games. To me, the best Tabletop RPGs are the ones that emulate
the game we all played as kids, ‘Let’s Pretend.’ There were few, if any, rules, and what rules there
were only made the game more adaptable, more free-form, more intuitive. I feel like we’d hit the
Holy Grail of role-playing back then, and RPGs should strive to capture that magic again.

I also like Poker. It’s fun.

As I read through game manuals, I started thinking about an RPG that would use Poker rules
instead of dice or charts; I couldn’t find anything like that, so... I made one. And here we are.

Welcome to The Real Deal, a Tabletop RPG where actions are resolved through Texas
Hold’em. It’s best played with 4-6 people: one is the Dealer, crafting a game-world and everything
in it, while the rest are Gamblers, each creating a character in the game-world. Together, they
create a collaborative story and generally have a good time. The only materials you need: a deck
of playing cards, the character mats at the end of this book, some pencils, and a nice set of poker
chips (or lots of other tokens). It also helps to have post-it notes on hand.

Here are just a few reasons The Real Deal might appeal to you:

• It’s easy to learn. Most people know how to play Poker already, and the rest of the system
just extends those rules into a role-playing game. The rules are simple; this booklet is around
40 pages, with about a third of the space dedicated to frequent examples.

• It can be adapted to any genre and any tone. The rules for fighting a war are the same as
the rules for investigating a murder, meeting eldritch creatures, or baking a cake. A game of
Poker can be fun and relaxed, or it can be serious and tense. The rules are simple, but they
also allow for infinite variation and creativity.
• Poker is a game of luck, but it’s also a game of skill; experienced players can cut their losses
or even bluff their way to victory against impossible odds. In the same way, the players in
The Real Deal can make their own luck through clever play.
• Every round becomes a team effort. Instead of waiting for their own turn, a Gambler can
jump into their friend’s turn to help. On their enemy’s turn, they can stand up and defend
themselves and their friends.

Throughout this manual, we’ll watch Jim, Amy, Bob, and their Dealer as they play through
an epic fantasy campaign. Their stories will be in boxes like this.
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Table of Contents

Basic Character Creation ... 4

The System ... 8
A Note on Side Pots . . . 12
Items and Effects . . . 14
Advanced Character Creation . . . 20
Earning Points . . . 23
Making Challenges . . . 24
Changing the Tone . . . 30
Using Mats . . . 32
Suggestions . . . 39
Mats . . . 40
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Basic Character
Creation
Everything in The Real Deal is represented with Stats and Skills. Every Skill is related
to a Stat. The Dealer chooses Stats for Gamblers based on the kind of game he wants to run,
while Gamblers can create their own Skills.

Stats can represent any kind of attribute, and act like batteries powering the Skills related to
them. We measure Stats in Chips; characters with more Chips in a Stat can use that Stat for
longer before getting tired, and they can put more effort into their actions. A character who loses
all his Chips is dead (or some in-universe equivalent).

Dealers might say you can’t have more than 10, 15, or 25 Chips in any one Stat. For a sense
of scale:

Chips in a Stat Description

0 or less Hopeless. You can’t do anything using this Stat.
1 Weak. You need rest constantly.
2-3 Easily tired, but you can keep up.
4-6 Average for a normal person.
7-10 Longer-lasting than the average Joe.
11-15 The limit of typical human endurance.
16-25 Heroically gifted.
26 or more Nigh unlimited reserves of power.

Skills are actions, powers, techniques, areas of study, etc, and each is related to one Stat.
They are measured in Ranks representing training or natural ability; characters with more Ranks
in a Skill can do more damage, protect themselves better, or help others more than characters
with fewer Ranks. If they’re not careful, though, they can become fatigued easily by operating at
full power. Dealers might say you can’t have more than 8, 12, or 17 Ranks in any one Skill.

Every Skill is either Simple or Complex. Simple Skills are easy enough that anyone could
do them; every character starts with every Simple Skill at Rank 1. Complex Skills are harder,
and only people with prior experience can attempt them; every character starts with every Complex
Skill at Rank 0. For scale:
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Ranks in a Skill Description

0 or less Inept. You can’t even try to use this Skill.
1 Amateurish. You can try, but you won’t help much.
2-4 It’s your day job.
5-8 Experienced professional.
9-12 A true master of the craft.
13-17 Heroic or supernatural skill level.
18 or more Near perfection.

First, when planning out the kind of game he wants to run, the Dealer chooses 3 or 4 Stats
for the Gamblers to use. In a combat-oriented game, he might choose 3 Stats relating to fighting
and 1 Stat for everything else. In a game based around political intrigue, he might lump all combat
into 1 Stat and have 3 Stats regarding diplomacy, negotiation, etc. The Dealer also decides
what happens when a character runs out of Stat Chips for any Stat, and how Gamblers can
regain lost Chips.

The Dealer has run all kinds of games; a few months ago, they played a slap-
stick sci-fi restaurant game with the Stats Cooking, Cleaning, and Presentation.
Lately he’s wanted to run a fantasy game. He knows Jim likes to make strong war-
riors, Amy likes to make clever rogues, and Bob likes making wizards. To cater
to the genre and the tastes of his players, he chooses the Stats Strength, Aim,
Intelligence, and Magic.

He declares that running out of Strength Chips knocks you out, Aim Chips makes you too
clumsy to hold anything, Intelligence Chips makes you too flustered to communicate or
understand anything, and Magic Chips means you cannot sense magical power. If a character
runs out of all their Chips, they die. Gamblers can regain their Chips by resting for a few
hours, except that Strength Chips lost to injury require medical attention.

Then the Dealer makes a list of Skills. He doesn’t have to list every possible Skill the
Gamblers could take; he just gives them ideas and a jumping-off point to create their own.

The Dealer suggests putting Skills with melee weapons into Strength, along with things
like Jump, Climb, Lift, etc. Ranged weapon Skills can go under Aim, the Magic Stat can
have Skills for the different schools of magic, and other miscellaneous Skills can go under
Intelligence.

Gamblers make characters on a point-buy system; the Dealer gives them some number of
Points to make their character. Generally around 40-120 Points is enough for 4 Stat characters,
or 30-90 Points for 3 Stat characters. In games with a lower power-level, like standard police
procedural, realistic historical, or gritty fantasy, use a smaller number of Points; in games with
higher power-levels, like superhero, anime, or epic fantasy, you can start with higher numbers of
Points. You can use more or fewer than the suggested limits, but having too many Points might
be unwieldy, and having too few makes characters brittle.
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The Gamblers spend these Points to buy Chips and Ranks in Stats and Skills. 1 Point
is equal to 1 Chip or 1 Rank. Generally, it’s best to spend half your Points on Chips and the
other half on Ranks. The Dealer gets to arbitrate which Skills are too broad to balance with
the rest of the game.

In the sci-fi-restaurant game, the Dealer wanted to give the Gamblers enough Points to
make hilarious characters, and he wasn’t too concerned with balance; he just gave them all 90
Points to use.

For the fantasy game, however, the Dealer wants the characters to start low-powered and
work their way to greatness; he gives everyone just 40 Points to make their characters. He
tells them they’re not allowed to start with more than 15 Chips in any Stat or 12 Ranks in
any Skill.

Jim wants to make a knight. He figures that Strength is going to be his most important
Stat, so he spends 15 Points to get 15 Strength Chips. Then he buys 3 Chips in Aim
and 2 Chips in Intelligence; he’s clumsy and not very bright, but he’s probably one of the
fittest people on the planet. Jim doesn’t buy any Magic Chips, since he doesn’t like spells.

He wants to buy Ranks in the Skill ‘Fighting,’ but the Dealer says that’s too broad for
this setting. He needs to narrow it down or his character will be too overpowered.

Instead, he spends 6 Points to buy 6 Ranks in Mace; he’s very good with maces or other
clubs. He also buys 3 in Horse Riding, 2 in Jump, 3 in Intimidate, 2 in Crossbow, 2 in
History, and 2 in Nobility. To make sure he did this right, he adds up all his Chips and
Ranks: 15+3+2+6+3+2+3+2+2+2=40, so he used all the Points the Dealer gave him.
Perfect.

The Dealer tells Jim that the Skills Mace, Jump, and Intimidate are Simple Skills;
they start with 1 Rank for free. His total Ranks with these Skills are 7, 3, and 4.

Next, the Gamblers sort these Skills into their related Stats. As long as they can explain
their reasoning, they can sort any Skill into any Stat.

Jim sorts Mace, Horse Riding, Jump, and Intimidate into Strength. The Dealer asks
him why Intimidate goes under Strength; Jim explains that his character can use his
bulging muscles and shouted threats to scare people.

When Jim uses any of these Skills, he’ll be drawing from his Strength reserves. It physically
tires him to use these Skills; it would be possible for him to use his Intimidate Skill so
much that his character runs out of Strength Chips and passes out.
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Meanwhile, Amy put Ranks into Horse Riding as well. She decides to put that Skill under
Intelligence, claiming that to her character, riding horses is more of an art than a sport.
Riding a horse mentally fatigues her.
Remember, characters with 0 Chips in a Stat are impaired in some way. If the Dealer says
that characters with 0 Strength Chips are knocked out, building a character with no Strength
Chips is like building a vegetable.

Bob wants to make a wizard, but realizes that he needs a Chip in Strength to be viable. He
only buys a few Chips and doesn’t bother buying any Ranks for Skills. Now he can pool
the rest of his Points into his favorite Stat, Magic.

Characters can use any Simple Skill if they have a Chip in the related Stat. Even if they
don’t write them down, they have all these Simple Skills at Rank 1.

Jim finds a nice sword and wants to use it in the upcoming battle. The Dealer says Sword
is a Simple Skill, so he has Rank 1; he can’t do much damage with it, but with all his
Strength Chips, he can certainly try.

Later, he finds a bow and some arrows. He wants to fire them, but the Dealer says that Bow
is a Complex Skill; Jim has Rank 0 in Bow, so he can’t use the Skill.

Finally, Jim wants to cast a healing spell. The Dealer says that healing magic is relatively
simple, and anyone who knows magic can try it; Jim has 1 Rank in the Healing Skill.
However, with no Magic Chips, he can’t use this Skill anyway.

Amy sorted her 5 Rank Fencing Skill into Intelligence, claiming that she uses superior
tactics to gain the advantage. In a battle, she loses all her Intelligence chips, and can no
longer use this Skill.

She points out that Fencing could reasonably be sorted into Strength. Since it’s a Simple
Skill, she has 1 Rank in the Fencing Skill under Strength. The Dealer lets her
continue fencing, but she has to use her 1 Rank Strength Skill rather than her 5 Rank
Intelligence Skill.

After the Items and Effects section, we’ll add some more options to character creation.
8

The System
Sometimes, when the players’ actions are simple or unrelated to the story, merely role-playing
is enough. Gamblers describe what their characters do and give their Rank in the relevant
Skill, and the Dealer tells them the consequences. Characters with high Ranks can usually just
accomplish simple tasks automatically.

But when someone tries to do something non-trivial, something challenging that might affect the
game, all the Gamblers pick out Chips representing their Stats. The Dealer picks out Chips
representing the enemies and obstacles they face (collectively called the Challenges) and defines
how long each Turn takes in-game; a tense battle might have Turns of just a few seconds, but
other situations might have Turns of minutes, hours, or even months.

Every Turn consists of these steps:

1. Find the Starting Player. This starts with the player who initiated the challenge (or the
player to the right of the Dealer, if it’s ambiguous) and travels clockwise after each Turn.

Jim, Amy, and Bob decide to fight a group of orcs. They gather their Stat Chips and
the Dealer gathers Chips representing the orc war-party; he says that each Turn is
ten seconds of in-game time. They decide Jim should be the first Starting Player.

2. The Starting Player explains any trivial actions they want to perform before the rest of
the Turn, like walk around, draw a weapon, open a door, talk, or use a Skill for an easy
task.

Jim says his character walks to up an orc and draws his mace.

3. The Starting Player chooses who or what he wants to fight, called the Targets, and
which Skill he’s using to attack. He also chooses which Stat he wants to damage, called the
Target Stat; as long has he can explain himself he can target any Stat with any Skill. The
Targets can choose one Skill each to defend themselves with (letting them shift potential
damage to the Stat of their choice).

Jim says he wants to fight the orc; the orc is the Target. Jim uses his Mace Skill to
whack him in the head, and explains this lets him target the orc’s Intelligence Stat.

The orc doesn’t want to lose Intelligence, but has Strength to spare; he uses his
Jump Skill to protect himself, leaping away from the blow.

4. The other players can decide to join in. They can either help the Starting Player, becom-
ing Attackers, or protect the Targets, becoming Defenders. All the Attackers and
Defenders choose one Skill each to represent their actions.
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Amy doesn’t want to get involved because she’s running low on Chips. Bob wants to
help Jim, though, so he says he’s going to use his Destruction Magic Skill to make
a pillar of flame, herding the orc towards Jim. He’s an Attacker. The Dealer says
that a nearby orc uses his Shield Skill to protect his friend with a shield. This orc is a
Defender.

5. Everyone involved counts their Ranks in the Skill they’re using. They move that many
Chips (or fewer, if they want to save energy) from the relevant Stat forward; these are
their Stakes. The Targets also move all their chips of the Target Stat to their Stakes.
Everyone involved draws their hole cards.

Jim has 7 Ranks in his Mace Skill, which is related to his Strength Stat. He could
play it safe, only risking a few Chips, but he wants to do as much damage as possible, so
he takes 7 Strength Chips and moves them to his Stakes.

Bob has 6 Ranks in Destruction, but doesn’t want to risk too much energy. He moves
just 4 Magic Chips. In the same way, the protecting orc and the Target orc each move
3 Strength Chips to their Stakes. Then the Target orc moves all his Intelligence
Chips to his Stakes, because that’s the Target Stat. They all draw their hole cards.

6. Beginning with the Starting Player, they play through a game of Texas Hold’em. These
rules apply:

• There are no antes and no blinds.

• Players bet only Chips from their Stakes; bet Chips go to the Pot.
• One Chip is equal in value to one Chip of any Stat.
• In the first round, the Starting Player bets at least 1 Chip.
• The Targets can’t fold.
• Attackers and Defenders can’t raise.
• If the Starting Player folds, all the Attackers fold with him.

Jim thinks his hole cards have a good chance of winning. He starts the game with a bet
of 2 Strength Chips. Bob calls with 2 Magic Chips. The protecting orc calls with 2
Strength Chips. The Target orc calls with 2 Strength Chips.

When the Dealer puts out the flop, Jim likes his hand and goes all-in, pushing the
remaining 5 Chips from his Stakes into the Pot. Bob is willing to call, but he only has
2 more Magic Chips in his Stakes, so he goes all-in, too. The protecting orc doesn’t
want to lose that many Chips, so he folds. The Target orc calls with 1 more Strength
Chip and 4 Intelligence Chips.

They all check until the game is over.

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7. When the game is over, find the winner. If there are Side Pots, put the Targets’ Chips of
the Target Stat into the outermost Pots, then find the winner of each Pot.

• If the Starting Player or an Attacker wins the Pot, the Starting Player and the
Attackers take their Chips back. The rest of the Chips are discarded. The Starting
Player’s action succeeds.
• If a Target or a Defender wins the Pot, the Targets and the Defenders take
their Chips back. The rest of the Chips are discarded. The Starting Player’s action
fails.
• If the Pot is split between the two sides, discard all the Chips in the Pot.

With these results, the Dealer or the Starting Player can narrate what happened, giving
meaning to the lost Chips.

The Dealer finds that there is a Side Pot. The Main Pot has 4 Strength Chips
from Jim, 4 Magic Chips from Bob, 2 Strength Chips from the protecting orc, and
3 Strength Chips and 1 Intelligence Chip from the Target orc. The Side Pot
has 3 Strength Chips from Jim and 3 Intelligence Chips from the Target orc.

The Target orc’s hand beats Jim, so he takes back his Intelligence Chips from the
Side Pot and Jim’s Strength Chips are discarded. However, Bob’s hand beats the
Target orc’s hand, so he and Jim both take their Chips from the Main Pot and the
rest of the Chips are discarded.

The Dealer explains that the Target orc was able to jump away, wasting Jim’s efforts,
but was distracted by Bob and still took some of the blow; now he’s slightly dizzy and
fatigued. The protecting orc entered the battle but flinched away, wasting his energy.

8. Everyone takes back any Chips left over in their Stakes. The title of Starting Player
passes clockwise.

The two orcs take back their Chips from their Stakes. The orc war-party is still there,
so Amy becomes the new Starting Player.

We call that one Turn. Once the title of Starting Player has gone all the way around the
table, that’s one Round. You can play as many Turns or Rounds as you need to resolve the
conflict.
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Because of this system, there are a few details it might help to note:

If your Skill Rank is higher than the number of Chips you have in the Stat, you won’t be
able to use this Skill to its full potential.

After a few Rounds, Jim’s character is down to 5 Strength Chips. When he uses his Mace
Skill, but he can’t use all 7 Ranks, since he only has 5 Chips to bet.

If a Target uses a Skill with more Ranks than the Starting Player’s Skill, they can
evade all damage to their Target Stat.

When the Dealer becomes Starting Player, he says that one of the orcs attacks Amy with
a 3 Rank Sword Skill, saying that he attacks her Strength Stat because a hearty blow
will weaken her. Amy uses her 6 Rank Evade Skill, sorted under Intelligence, to evade
the blow.

When the orc is all-in, Amy can just put 3 of her Intelligence Chips into the pot; if she
wins, she evades effortlessly; if she loses, she’s still skilled enough to evade away, but doing so
mentally fatigues her. Either way, no Strength Chips are lost.

Targets are allowed to raise, meaning that they can potentially chase the Starting Player
off the pot.

Jim attacks the orc chieftain, but the orc chieftain bets extremely heavily. Jim thinks the orc
has a very good hand, and to save his own Chips, he folds rather than call the large bet.

It is pointless for a Target to try to protect themselves using a Skill sorted under the Target
Stat.

An orc attacks Jim’s Strength Stat with his sword. Jim says he whacks the blow out of the
air with his mace, using his Mace Skill to protect himself. Using this Skill, he manages to
shift the damage... back to his Strength Stat.
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A Note on Side Pots

Even if you know the rules of Texas Hold’em, you might still be unclear on the purpose of a
Side Pot; since they can crop up quite often, I felt that it was worth describing them. A Side Pot
is generated when a player wants to stay in the hand, but does not have enough money or Chips to
match the current bet.

When Bob acted as an Attacker for Jim, he pushed 4 Chips to his Stakes. When Jim went
all-in, the bet was 7 Chips. Bob wanted to stay in the hand, so he had to go all-in.

If a player cannot match the bet, then they can’t win the entire Pot. After all, in a real game
of Poker, someone who goes all-in with just a dollar shouldn’t be able to claim thousands of dollars
from everyone else. Instead, that player is only allowed to win a dollar from each person.

Since Bob only put in 4 Chips, he could only actually win 4 Chips from anyone else. In game
terms, he could still help Jim, but he could only help 4 Chips-worth.

Break up the Pot into a Main Pot and a Side Pot. The Main Pot is the Pot that all the
players are allowed to compete for. The Side Pot consists of all the extra Chips, and the player
that couldn’t match the bet is excluded.

The Dealer split the Pot into a Main Pot and a Side Pot. The Main Pot had 4 Chips
from everyone; Bob could win this Pot. The Side Pot was made from the remaining 3 Chips
from everyone else; Bob couldn’t win this Pot because he didn’t have any Chips in it.

Only Jim and the Target orc could compete for the Side Pot. The Target orc won.

However, Bob was allowed to compete for the Main Pot. He had the winning hand, so he
won the Pot. He was able to help Jim, but because he only bet 4 Chips, his victory was only
able to help Jim 4 Chips-worth.

There can be any number of Side Pots. Start by making an all-inclusive Main Pot that
anyone can win, and then make each Side Pot less and less inclusive.

Amy tries to shoot an orc. Jim and Bob both help her. Amy goes all-in with 10 Chips; Jim
goes all-in with 5 Chips; Bob goes all-in with 3 Chips.

The Dealer splits this into three Pots. Bob can only win 3 Chips, so the first is the Main
Pot that anyone can win, with 3 Chips from everyone. Jim can win 2 more Chips, so the next
is a Side Pot with 2 Chips from everyone except for Bob, who doesn’t have enough Chips to
compete. Finally, everyone else matched the bet, so the last Side Pot has the remaining 5
Chips from everyone else. Jim and Bob can’t compete.

Luckily, it’s a moot point; Amy’s hand beats everyone at the table. This means she wins the
outermost Side Pot, the other Side Pot, and the Main Pot.
13
14

Items and Effects

Characters don’t exist in a vacuum; they might have all kinds of advantages or disadvantages
based on the situation or the objects around them. These outside influences can take the form of
items or effects. Items are physical objects; they have a Durability Stat that people can attack.
Effects are intangible, and usually can’t be attacked or removed. There are 6 different things an
item or effect can do:

1. Let a character use a Skill, or make a Complex Skill into a Simple Skill
Some Skills require items; these items let you use those Skills. Items that are especially
easy to use make Complex Skills into Simple Skills.

On the other hand, some items or effects restrain a character and make them unable to use a
Skill. They could also be so unfamiliar they make a Simple Skill into a Complex Skill.

Jim has a mace. The mace lets him use his Mace Skill.

Jim finds a bow and arrow. The bow lets him use his Bow Skill. Since Bow is a
Complex Skill, he still has 0 Ranks and can’t use the item.

Later, Jim finds a strange orcish tribal mace; it’s heavy, it’s got strange chains and
doodads attached, and he can barely tell where to hold it. It lets him use his Mace
Skill, but it’s no longer a Simple Skill. He loses the free Rank that came with it.

Amy finds a pair of magic boots that let people fly. When she puts them on, the Dealer
says that the boots make Flight a Simple Skill, sorted under her Magic Stat. The
boots let her use this Skill.

Bob is in an anti-magic field; it keeps him from using any of the Skills under his Magic
Stat.

If a character has items or effects that seem to ‘cancel,’ use your better judgement.

Jim has a mace, letting him use his Mace Skill. He’s also handcuffed, which prevents
him from using his Mace Skill. The Dealer says that the handcuffs take precedence.

Later, Jim wants to swim, a Simple Skill. The armor he’s wearing makes Swim a
Complex Skill. Bob casts a spell on him that makes Swim a Simple Skill. The
Dealer says that the the spell cancels out the armor, and Jim can swim.
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2. Give a Skill a Bonus Rank or Penalty Rank

Some items are so well-made they give Bonus Ranks to a Skill. Some are so defective
they give Penalty Ranks to a Skill. When using this Skill, the player finds their normal
Ranks, adds their Bonus Ranks, and subtracts their Penalty Ranks. Some items only
give a Bonus or Penalty Rank under certain conditions.

A character can only get a Bonus to a Skill if they have at least 1 Rank in that Skill.

Jim loses his mace and has to use a tree branch as a weapon. The Dealer says he can
use his Mace Skill with the tree branch, but it will give him 3 Penalty Ranks. He’s
still Rank 7 in Mace, but when he uses the Skill, he acts as though he had Rank 4.

Later, Jim finds an ancient dwarven mace. It’s of such fine craftsmanship that it gives
him 2 Bonus Ranks. He’s still Rank 7, but when he uses the mace, he acts as though
he was Rank 9.

Finally, the elves give Jim a magical sword that gives him 4 Bonus Ranks to his Sword
Skill. He didn’t buy any Ranks in that Skill, but it’s Simple, so Jim has one Rank
for free. He can use the Bonus Ranks.

Amy’s character lies to a city guard; she role-plays the situation so well that the Dealer
gives her a one-Turn effect giving her 2 Bonus Ranks to her Lie Skill.

In a battle against a group of evil gnomes, the Gamblers have the high-ground. The
Dealer tells Amy that her ranged attacks are more effective; he gives her 2 Bonus
Ranks to her Bow Skill. Jim wants to use his own bow, but the Dealer reminds him
that he has 0 Ranks in Bow; he doesn’t get the Bonus because he couldn’t use a bow
anyway.

3. Give a Stat a Bonus Chip or Penalty Chip

Some items or effects give characters more willpower or endurance, giving Bonus Chips to a
Stat. Some make characters shaky or frail, giving them Penalty Chips. When the character
receives this item or effect, they add the Bonus Chips to their maximum number of Chips,
and subtract the Penalty Chips (generally, receiving Bonus or Penalty Chips raises or
lowers your current number of Chips accordingly). Some items or effects only give a Bonus
or Penalty Chip under certain circumstances.

A character can only get Bonus Chips in a Stat if they have at least 1 Chip in that Stat.
16

A wizard casts a spell on Jim, giving him superhuman Strength; it gives him 5 Bonus
Chips until the spell wears off.

In another session, he’s poisoned by an evil duke; he feels weak and dizzy, and he takes 5
Penalty Chips to Strength until the poison leaves his system.

Finally, he finds a headband that increases people’s magical acuity. He has no Magic
Chips, though, so the headband is useless for him. He gives it to Bob, who gets 3 Bonus
Chips as long as he’s wearing it.

4. Change the number of hole cards players receive

Incredibly powerful items or effects might give a player Bonus cards, letting him play with
more than 2 hole cards in a game. Incredibly terrible items or effects might give them Penalty
Cards. When receiving hole cards, a player gets 2 by default, plus the Bonus cards and
minus the Penalty cards, to a minimum of 1 hole card. The usual Texas Hold’em rules apply;
any number of hole cards can be used to make a 5-card hand. Some items or effects might
only change the number of hole cards a player uses under certain conditions.

Again, a character can only get more hole cards when he’s using a Skill with at least 1 Rank.

Bob’s character has been put under a terrible curse that upsets his magical prowess.
Whenever he tries to use a Skill sorted under Magic, he gets a Penalty card; he has
to play with one hole card instead of two.

Luckily, he removes the curse and finds a powerful magical staff. This staff not only
gives him 2 extra Magic Chips, it also gives him a Bonus card when he uses his
Destruction Magic Skill.

Jim wants to attack three people in one Turn with his mace. The Dealer thinks this
is fairly ludicrous, so he gives Jim a Penalty Card for the Turn.

Later, the group is fighting a horde of zombies; the Dealer doesn’t want to play a
different hand for each of the zombies, so he combines them into one hand. He gives
them a “mob effect,” giving them 2 Bonus cards, but only when they attack.
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5. Give the character a Buffer

Recall that items have a Durability Stat; if a character so chooses, they can defend
themselves from an attack by letting the item take the brunt of the blow. When a character is
made a Target, they can use one Durability Stat to protect themselves; they put Chips
representing this Stat to the Buffer section of their Stakes, and they can bet them to
protect their more important Chips. If they lose these Durability Chips, the item becomes
damaged; at 0 Chips, it completely breaks.

Jim finds a shield with 10 Durability Chips. When a troll grabs him and tries to attack
his Aim by hurting his hands, he says he has his horse jump away to avoid the attack;
he pushes Strength Chips to his Stakes to represent his Horse Riding Skill, and
then pushes all his Aim Chips forward as well.

He says that his shield might take some of the damage, too; he decides to put 4 Chips
into his Buffer Stakes. By betting these Chips, he manages to protect his more vital
Stats. His shield has taken a beating, though.

Bob has a magic hat with a Durability of 4. The Dealer says he can use the hat to
block intangible magic effects; when a sorcerer casts an illusion on Bob, Bob blocks it
with his hat. He also uses his hat to block physical attacks, drawing from the same reserve
of Durability Chips. Once the hat loses all its Durability Chips, it’s completely
non-magical, just an ordinary ragged hat with no protective properties.

The Durability Stat can also double as a measure of duration or charges.

Amy finds 20 arrows with special properties. They don’t have a Durability per se, but
she writes down ‘20’ under Durability so she can track how many she has left. Every
time she fires an arrow, she lowers this Stat by 1.

If she were to decide to block a blow with her quiver, the number of Durability Chips
she loses represents the number of arrows that are broken beyond use.

Bob casts a spell on Jim that gives him some extra Strength Chips; it only lasts for
3 Rounds, though, so Jim writes a ‘3’ under Durability to keep track of how long it
lasts. Every Round, he lowers the Durability by 1.
18

6. Give a character a Resistance or Weakness.

Some items or effects let a character shrug off damage from some sources. Others make the
character more vulnerable. These are Resistances or Weaknesses, measured in Ranks.

When someone attacks a character with Resistance, they take that many Penalty Ranks
to the Skill they’re using; they can’t use the Skill to its full potential. Similarly, when
someone attacks a character with a Weakness, they get that many Bonus Ranks to the
Skill they’re using; they have the potential to do even more damage.

Jim uses his Mace Skill against a werewolf. The werewolf has 3 Ranks of Resistance
to non-silver weapons; although Jim has 7 Ranks in Mace, he has 3 Penalty Ranks
during this attack.

Bob has a magic amulet that gives him special powers; the downside is that it’s a magnet
for ranged attacks. It gives him 2 Ranks in Weakness to anything using the Aim Stat.
When an enemy fires an arrow at him, they get 2 Bonus Ranks to their Bow Skill.
19
20

Advanced Character
Creation
Gamblers might want their characters to have a default effect representing their innate qualities.
They can use the Points the Dealer gives them to buy Bonuses, or, if the Dealer allows, buy
Penalties to earn more Points.

On the next page, there’s a table listing all the Bonuses Gamblers can buy and a price in
Points for each one. Remember that you can only use a Bonus for Stats or Skills in which you
have at least 1 Rank or Chip.

‘Rare Conditions’ means that the Bonus only applies about a fourth of the time or less, like
Bonus Ranks that only apply on the weekend. ‘Common Conditions’ means that the Bonus isn’t
constant, but applies more than a fourth of the time, like an extra hole card that only applies when
the character is a Target. ‘Constant’ means the Bonus is always in effect.

You can use the same table to buy Penalties for your character. Replace each Bonus with
the corresponding Penalty, ie ‘Bonus Rank’ turns into ‘Penalty Rank,’ and ‘Resistance’
turns into ‘Weakness.’ Similarly, the inverse of ‘Bonus Card’ is ‘Penalty Card’ and that of
‘Simplify’ makes Simple Skills into Complex Skills. Instead of spending Points, players earn
them.

When buying Penalties for a character, divide the prices by 2; players can only earn half as
many Points by buying a Penalty as they would spend buying the Bonus. For example, buying
a Bonus Card costs 8 Points, but buying a Penalty Card for the same circumstances only
gives you 4 Points. Taking a Penalty Rank for a Skill that only acts up under rare conditions
only earns 1/8 of a Point.

In the next section, we describe how characters can use this table to craft items or effects. When
making an item or effect, you need to spend Points for Penalties; in fact, Penalties cost just as
much as Bonuses. This allows players to make cursed items or harmful effects. Items and effects
ignore the prerequisites for buying Penalties.

Don’t buy starting items for characters this way; the Dealer should decide what items people
have in the beginning. Generally they should have items that let them use the Skills they put
Ranks into. If they feel that it’s important enough, the Dealer can give Gamblers some Points
just to make items; about half as many Points as they used to make the character itself should be
enough.
 21

Buying For Price

†
1 Rank* 1 Skill 1
†
1 Chip* 1 Stat 1
Use of a Skill† 1 Skill 2
Use of a Skill All Skills in a Stat 8
¶
Simplify 1 Complex Skill 1
Simplify All Complex Skills in a Stat 16
Bonus Rank‡ 1 Skill, Rare Conditions 1/4
Bonus Rank‡ 1 Skill, Common Conditions 1/2
‡¶
Bonus Rank 1 Skill, Constant 1
Bonus Rank All Skills in a Stat, Rare Conditions 2
Bonus Rank All Skills in a Stat, Common Conditions 4
Bonus Rank All Skills in a Stat, Constant 8
Bonus Chip 1 Stat, Rare Conditions 1/4
Bonus Chip 1 Stat, Common Conditions 1/2
¶
Bonus Chip 1 Stat, Constant 1
Bonus Card‡ 1 Skill, Rare Conditions 2
‡
Bonus Card 1 Skill, Common Conditions 4
‡
Bonus Card 1 Skill, Constant 8
Bonus Card All Skills in a Stat, Rare Conditions 8
Bonus Card All Skills in a Stat, Common Conditions 16
Bonus Card All Skills in a Stat, Constant 32
+1 Resistance Rare Conditions 4
+1 Resistance Common Conditions 8
+1 Resistance Nearly All Conditions 16
*As described in Character Creation. You cannot buy these for an item or effect.
† You can’t buy these as a Penalty to earn more Points.
‡ If you buy these as Penalties, you may only earn up to as many Points as you’ve spent in Ranks
for that Skill.
¶ Only items or effects can use these options. For characters, buy Ranks or Chips.
22

The Dealer tells Bob that he needs some kind of wand or staff to use Skills under Magic.
Bob wants his wizard to be able to cast spells without an item. He spends 8 Points to buy
the use of all of the Skills under Magic; he writes down this effect as ‘Wand-less Casting.’ It
cost him a lot, but now he can use his Skills with that effect, rather than some item.

Amy wants to be a sneaky thief who specializes in night-time espionage. She buys 6 Bonus
Ranks with the condition ‘darkness.’ The Dealer says this is a common condition, so this
costs 3 Points. She writes this down with the name ‘night-owl.’

Bob wants more Points to spend in Magic, and decides to make his character physically
inept. He proclaims that if he ever tries to use a Skill in Strength, he gets a Penalty card.
If he were buying this as a Bonus, it would cost 32 Points; he earns 16 Points to spend.

You can use the same ideas to make templates for races, classes, archetypes, or whatever you’d
like to call them.

The Dealer says that in his world, elves are great with ranged weapons, especially in the
forest. However, they’re weak and frail. He represents this by giving them an ‘elf’ effect that
gives them a bonus Rank to all their Skills in Aim (8 Points) and another bonus Rank
to all their Skills in Aim when they’re in a forest (2 Points), but 8 Penalty Chips in
Strength if they wear heavy armor (1 Point), and 2 Ranks of Weakness to melee attacks
(8 Points).

Amy says she’s interested in playing as an elf. The Dealer looks over the template and
calculates that it costs 1 Point to be an elf (8+2-1-8=1).
 23

Earning Points
Whenever a Gambler wins a game of Texas Hold’em, he can earn Points based on the quality
of his hand; these Points go into a shared pool for all the Gamblers. This chart suggests how
many Points different hands should be worth:

Hand Points
High Card 0
One Pair 1/2
Two Pair 1
Three of a Kind 2
Straight 5
Flush 10
Full House 20
Four of a Kind 40
Straight Flush 60
Royal Flush 100

As it is, in a group of four Gamblers, it should take around 10 winning hands for them to gain
1 Point apiece. If the Dealer wants the characters to progress faster, they can double, quadruple,
or even octuple these Point values.

Once the characters can all rest, the Gamblers divide the pool of Points evenly and round
down. They can save their Points for later or spend them in any way they want, using the table in
the Advanced Character Creation section.

During a game, Amy acts as a Defender for Jim and wins with a Three of a Kind. The group
adds 1 Point to their shared pool.

After a long, hard battle, the group sits down to lick their wounds. There are 6 1/2 Points
in the shared pool; they divide them evenly and round down to 2 Points apiece. Jim buys
a Rank in Mace and a Chip in Strength, while Bob buys other Bonuses and Amy saves
her Points for later.

If the Dealer believes that giving players too many Points too quickly would unbalance their
game, they can say that all hands higher than a Flush are worth 10 Points, but give the Gamblers
some other in-game benefit, like discovering clues or defeating an enemy automatically.
24

Making Challenges
In The Real Deal, the Dealer gets to make the Challenges that the Gamblers have to
overcome. Like everything else, these Challenges are made of Stats and Skills.

Some Challenges are just like other players; they attack, they defend, and they can react.
Those are easy to make: just write them up as if they were a character, using the same Stats. When
the Dealer becomes the Starting Player, he controls these Challenges; he could have each
Challenge play Starting Player individually, as if they were regular players at the table (though
he should probably just choose one to act as Starting Player and let the rest be Attackers to
speed up play).

But then, Challenges come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. Some of them require new Stats
to represent; some of them need some deliberation to play properly. For example:

The Gamblers want to trek over a mountain. The Dealer hadn’t really thought about the
mountain beforehand, but realizes that it poses a definite challenge. The usual Stats won’t
work for it, so he makes a new Stat called Difficulty; the mountain has 20 Difficulty
Chips, and the players will need to reduce that to 0 to reach the top of the mountain. Obviously
the mountain won’t attack back, so it can only act as a Target, never raises, and never uses
a Skill to defend itself.

Amy sneaks up on an unsuspecting troll and stabs him in the back. The Dealer says that
there’s no way the troll could react to Amy’s attack, so he doesn’t let him raise or protect
himself with a Skill. He’s wearing armor, though, so the Dealer lets him use his Buffer.

Of course, that’s just the beginning. The next few pages will be examples of what you can do
with this system. We can’t give you every possible scenario, but we hope these scenes will help you
understand how to craft Challenges quickly and intuitively.

Playing Like the Challenge

Often, enemies will have different attitudes and tactics. You can represent their behavior with
their betting.

The group is fighting a giant troll. When it becomes Starting Player, it bets extremely
heavily. When it’s the Target, he stands up to the attack, raising and chasing the party off
the pot.

Later, they fight a skilled and dexterous fencer. She always bets low, and folds if she can when
someone raises. She only bets heavily when she has a near-unbeatable hand, waiting for the
perfect chance to strike.
 25

Timed Challenges
Sometimes players only have a limited amount of time to complete some task. There are a few
ways to represent this, but the simplest is to give the challenge a Time Stat with a few Chips in it.
No one can target this Stat, but every Round, remove a Chip from it. When there are 0 Chips,
the players have failed.

The evil necromancer has prepared a spell that will destroy Amy’s village. If the group can’t
kill the necromancer, the spell will go off. Ordinarily, the group would be able to take their
time and bet conservatively, but the Dealer says that the spell is on a timer: it will go off in
three Rounds if they haven’t killed the necromancer by then.

He makes a Time Stat with 3 Chips. Every time the Dealer becomes the Starting
Player, he removes 1 Time Chip and plays the necromancer’s turn. Suddenly, they’re on a
tight schedule. The group needs to make bigger bets, playing fast and loose.

This isn’t always the best way to represent the passage of time. As always, intuition and
inventiveness are key.

The necromancer is back; they don’t tend to stay down. He traps the group in an airtight
room and is slowly draining the oxygen. Amy has Ranks in Lock-picking, so she might be
able to get them out; the lock has 10 Difficulty Chips she’ll need to beat to unlock it.

To represent the dwindling air supply, whenever the Dealer becomes Starting Player, he
fines everyone a Strength Chip. Jim and Amy are okay, but Bob is in serious trouble; Amy
needs to bet bigger and looser with that Lock-picking Skill.

Skill Contests/Only One Chance

Sometimes players choose actions that shouldn’t really have a Target Stat; they just want
to compete with someone in a test of skill. Sometimes they attempt actions where they should
reasonably only get one chance to succeed. We represent both of these the same way: set up the
Challenge and say that you only get one Turn to win.

Amy is taking a shot with her bow and arrow, trying to kill the kobold chieftain from afar. If
she succeeds, they can defeat the rest of the tribe easily; if not, the chief will alert his men and
they’ll be in a frenzy.

She says she uses her Bow Skill against the chief’s Strength Stat; the Dealer says that
there’s no reasonable way for the kobold to defend himself from an attack he’s not expecting,
so he doesn’t get to defend himself with a Skill. Luckily, she has 10 Ranks in Bow, and the
kobold only has 6 Strength Chips. If she bets 6 Chips and wins the hand, she succeeds;
otherwise, she wastes her one chance to kill the chieftain without being noticed.
26

Jim has an arm-wrestling contest with Little Dan. Jim bought 6 Ranks in Unarmed Combat,
but Little Dan only has 2; they both move that many Chips to their Stakes. Jim loses the first
Turn; he hasn’t lost the arm-wrestling match, though, because Little Dan isn’t the Starting
Player.

On the Dealer’s Turn as Starting Player, Little Dan continues the contest, moving 2
Chips to his Stakes. He bets just 1 Chip and wins; he hasn’t won the arm-wrestling contest
yet, because he was only able to take 1 of Jim’s 6 Chips.

Finally, Jim becomes Starting Player. He moves 6 Chips to his Stakes, bets 2 Chips, and
wins. Little Dan loses 2 Chips at once and Jim wins the contest.

If the Starting Player doesn’t have enough Ranks to win in one Turn, the Dealer might
say that they can earn themselves another hand if they go all-in and win; they diminish the
Challenge’s Stakes one hand at a time. If they have Attackers on their side, the Starting
Player can earn the extra hand by going all-in if his Attacking friend wins.

Jim has an arm-wrestling contest with Big Dan, whose Bonus Ranks give him a massive
18 Ranks in Unarmed Combat. Jim bets all 6 of his Strength Chips in his Stakes and
wins, but it’s not enough to defeat the 18 Chip Challenge; Big Dan still has 12 Chips in his
Stakes. The Dealer says that since Jim went all-in and won, he can play again; to defeat
Big Dan, Jim will need to win another 2 games in a row.

Sometimes it doesn’t make sense for the Target in a Skill Contest to lose their Chips, even
if they lose the contest. Instead of discarding their Chips, just give them back.

Amy wants to sneak past a guard; it’s an Only-One-Chance contest between her Stealth
Skill and his Perception Skill. She wins and sneaks by, but the Dealer realizes the guard
shouldn’t lose any Chips. After all, Amy didn’t actually do anything to him. He gives the
guard his Chips back.

Individual Challenges
Sometimes it just doesn’t make sense to let the Gamblers act as a group against a Challenge;
their actions should be separated. You can represent this by breaking up the Challenge into a
different Challenge for each player.

The Dealer didn’t like the way that he ran the mountain last time; Bob was hardly able to
contribute, so how did he get up? Shouldn’t the others have had to help him?

The next time they try to climb the mountain, he presents them with 3 different Challenges:
Jim’s Difficulty, Amy’s Difficulty, and Bob’s Difficulty, each with 20 Difficulty
Chips.
 27

Bob just has the Simple Skill Climb at Rank 1, and very few
Strength Chips, so he can’t do much on his own turn; the Dealer says his other
Skills won’t help him actually climb the mountain. Jim and Amy have to attack his
Challenge alongside their own to help him up. Luckily, Bob has some Ranks in Geography;
it won’t let him climb the mountain on his own, but he can certainly use it to act as an
Attacker when Jim and Amy try to help him.

Modifying Difficulty
Sometimes Challenges can become more or less difficult as they progress. You can represent
this just by adding or removing Chips on the fly.

The group is trying to put out a brush fire. The Dealer represents the fire as a Challenge
with 15 Difficulty Chips, but fines the players 1 Intelligence Chip every turn the fire
remains, saying that the horrendous smoke clouds their minds.

The group is doing well, but after a Round, the Dealer reveals that the fire is spreading as
they work; every Round, he adds 3 Difficulty Chips.

Thankfully, after another few Rounds, it starts to rain. Every Round, he takes off 2
Difficulty Chips for the rain.

Disembodied Challenges
Sometimes Gamblers want to create something, either items or effects or challenges that their
opponents have to defeat. Sometimes they want to heal someone or repair something. Sometimes
they attack a Stat that isn’t attached to something that can fight back. We can represent these
with Disembodied Challenges; they’re just a pile of Chips with 1 hole card.

When making an item or effect, you can call this a Quality stat; they could technically win
any number of Chips, so just add more Chips to the pile as they’re needed. The Chips that players
win are converted into Points, which the player can spend via the table in Advanced Character
Creation; items need at least 1 Durability Chip, while most effects need at least 1 Durability
Chip to represent their duration in Rounds. Generally Disembodied Challenges to make items
or effects should be Only-One-Chance.

When healing or repairing something, the Dealer makes the Challenge out of the lost Chips;
the Chips the players win are given back to the person being healed or the item being repaired. If
the characters are safe and aren’t in a hurry, the Dealer can just declare that the healing/repairing
is a success and give back Chips to their owner without playing a game.
28

A giant wolf chomps on Jim’s mace, trying to split it in two; he’s aiming at its 5-Chip
Durability Stat. The Dealer makes this a Disembodied Challenge with 5 Chips. Jim
acts as a Defender, using his Mace Skill to pull his mace out of harm’s way.

In the end, the wolf wins; Jim loses his Strength Chips he spent trying to save the mace,
and the mace loses 4 Durability Chips. It’s nearly cracked in half.

During the battle, Jim takes a massive hit and loses 8 Strength Chips. Bob wants to heal
him with his Heal Skill; the Dealer makes a Disembodied Challenge with 8 Chips.
When Bob wins 5 of those Chips, instead of discarding them, they give them to Jim.

After the battle, Jim goes to a forge. First, he wants to repair his armor; it used to have 10
Durability Chips, but now it has just 2. Since they’re not in the middle of a battle, the
Dealer says he can just repair it completely without playing a game.

Next, he wants to make a new mace; he feels like he could make it better than his old one. He
has 4 Ranks in Smithing, and the Dealer says this is an Only-One-Chance Disembodied
Challenge against a pile of Quality Chips. Jim goes all-in and wins, and the Dealer lets
him go again; he eventually wins 10 Chips, giving him 10 Points to spend on his new mace.

He says this mace lets him use his Mace Skill (2 Points) and has 6 Durability Chips (6
Points); it also gives him 2 Bonus Ranks to his Mace Skill (2 Points). It’s beautiful!

While they’re in town, they hear that an army of goblins is two day’s march away and advancing.
Bob decides he wants to make a giant wall to block them; the Dealer sets up a pile of Quality
Chips as an Only-One-Chance Disembodied Challenge. Bob ends up winning 7 Chips
with his Creation Magic Skill.

The Dealer lets him use these Chips to make a Challenge. Bob makes a wall with 7
Height Chips. When the goblins want to get into the town, they each need to scale the wall.

Be very wary of Gamblers trying to make items or effects that give them a Bonus to the
Skill they’re using to make items or effects.
 29

Condensing Challenges
As much as possible, the Dealer should combine Challenges together to move the Turns
along more quickly. He could in theory play Starting Player for every single enemy, but it would
be much faster and more satisfying to condense those enemies into a single Challenge.

You can do this by making one bigger Challenge, with higher Stats and Skills. To enhance
the illusion, reduce its Skills every few attacks to represent the defeat of one enemy; this gives the
impression of a group of distinct individuals, rather than an unsatisfying mass.

The Dealer doesn’t want to let the game drag on too long; when the players are supposed to
fight three angry ogres, he just mushes them into one Challenge with very high Stats and
good Skills. When Jim attacks one of them with a mighty blow, he removes a few Skills,
saying that the ogre he hit collapses to the ground.
30

Changing the Tone

We mentioned that this game can be modded to fit any kind of game, or provide any kind of
atmosphere. Here are a few suggestions to give you ideas:

In relaxed situations, you can let the Gamblers look at each others’ hole cards and advise each
other on what to do.

The king’s jester is stuck riding a rogue griffin. Amy tries to knock out the jester by throwing
a rock at his head. She doesn’t like her hole cards, but Bob is helping her as an Attacker
and shows her that his hole cards are quite good. Comforted, Amy raises.

In tense situations, you could force them to keep their hole cards a secret from each other, or
even say that they’re not allowed to speak.

In a fight against an evil giant, Jim tries to hit him with his mace. Amy says she helps as an
Attacker. After the flop, Jim realizes that his hand is awful. Amy has a great hand, but
she’s not allowed to tell him; Jim folds and they both lose a lot of Chips they might have
saved.

In more familiar or less fearsome situations, you might let the Gamblers see the Stats and
Skills of their opponents.

When Jim fights the minotaur, he sees that the minotaur doesn’t have many Aim Chips. He
attacks the Aim Stat to get the minotaur to drop his weapon.

...But in situations that are new or mysterious, you might hide their Stats and Skills to keep
players in the dark.

The group is fighting a mysterious sorcerer on a foggy night. They can’t tell how strong he is,
how smart he is, or anything; the Dealer keeps his Chips behind a sheet. Jim, Amy, and
Bob can only guess at his Stats and Skills based on his actions.

Hiding Time Chips during a Timed Challenge can dramatically increase the tension.

Bob’s character is struggling to throw up a magical wall before the group is crushed by a
landslide. The Dealer says this is a Challenge with 10 Difficulty Chips; however many
Chips are left over at the end of some time limit, they’ll all lose in Strength Chips. Bob
doesn’t know how many Turns he has before they’re all crushed.
31
32

Using Mats
At the end of this booklet, there is a character mat for you to print out; it’s part character sheet,
with spaces to write information, and part play mat, with different compartments to help keep track
of Chips in play. Here, we’ll go over the 4 zones of the character mat in detail:

The top left section has an area to write your own name and the name of your fictional character.
It also has two spaces for Points: Used Points is for the Points already spent, while Unused
Points is for the Points you still have available to spend.

This area is where you place your Stakes when starting a game of Texas Hold’em. When
someone declares that they’re using a Skill, they move the Chips they’re using to the Skill marker.
The Targets move their Chips of the Target Chips to the Target marker, and if they want to
use an item or effect to block, they move the Durability Chips to the Buffer marker.
 33

This compartment has spaces to write down items or effects and their powers. It has 7 different
little compartments so that even items with incredibly complicated effects can be written out
completely and easily.

1. The name of your item or effect.

2. The Skills that it lets you use or simplifies; put a little plus sign in the ‘Use’ section if the
item lets you use that Skill, and a plus sign in the ‘Sim’ section if the item turns the Skill
from a Complex Skill into a Simple one. Put a minus sign if it prevents you from using a
Skill or makes a Skill Complex.
3. The Bonus or Penalty Ranks it gives you. Write the name of the affected Skill on the
left, or the name of the Stat if it affects all Skills under a Stat. In the center section, write
a positive number for Bonus Ranks or a negative number for Penalty Ranks. After that,
you can write the conditions under which you get these Ranks.

4. The Bonus or Penalty Chips it gives you. Write the name of the affected Stat on the left.
In the center, write a positive number for Bonus Chips or a negative number for Penalty
Chips. After that, you can write the conditions under which you get these Chips.
5. The Bonus or Penalty cards it gives you. Write the name of the affected Skill on the left,
or the name of the Stat if it affects all Skills under a Stat. In the center section, write a
positive number for Bonus cards or a negative number for Penalty cards. After that, you
can write the conditions under which you get these cards.
6. The Resistances or Weaknesses it gives you. Write the kind of Resistance or Weakness
on the left. On the right, write a positive number for a Resistance or a negative number for
a Weakness.

7. The Durability of the item. You can use this for charges or duration as well.

If necessary, an item or effect can take up multiple lines.

34

These compartments help you keep track of your Stats and Skills. On the top line, write the
name of the Stat; underneath that, write the names of the related Skills you need to remember,
along with their Rank, not including Bonus or Penalty Ranks. Below, there’s a marker on
which you may place your current Chips in that Stat. Finally, there is a space for writing the
maximum number of Chips you can have in that Stat, not including Bonus or Penalty Chips.

Next, let’s take a look at Jim’s character mat; it’s been a few sessions, and he’s shaping up to be
quite a heroic warrior.
 35

After playing for a while, he’s racked up 80 Points; he used the extra points to buy more
Chips and Ranks, along with an effect he calls ‘Knight,’ representing the powers he gets as a noble
hero of justice. This effect does a few different things, so it takes up two lines. It doesn’t have a
Durability, since he can’t really use it to block and people can’t attack the concept of knighthood.

The other items and effects he found on his adventures or bought with in-game money. His armor,
for instance, he bought from a blacksmith in Jimston. The Dealer says that while he’s wearing it,
he can’t swim at all and Climb is no longer a Simple Skill; he didn’t buy any Ranks in Climb,
so without the Simple Rank, he can’t climb anything at all. It also gives him 4 Penalty Ranks
to Jump, and makes him vulnerable to fire. Luckily, it gives him 15 Durability Chips; he can
block all kinds of damage with it before it needs to be repaired.
36

This is Jim’s character from the sci-fi restaurant game; after the first few games, the Dealer
said that they could have however many Points they wanted to make their characters, since the
game was more about silliness than challenge. Jim made a robot chef with a heart of gold.

He decided that his robot’s left arm was a multi-tool that could give him any kind of cooking
utensil he needed, and that the internet could tell him how to cook anything; he made a ‘robot man’
effect that allows him to use all Skills in Cooking, and makes all Complex Cooking Skills
into Simple Skills. This would have cost him 24 Points if they were keeping track, but it’s well
worth it: he can attempt any kind of cooking task, no matter how obscure or complicated.

The same effect gives him a few Bonus Ranks to some Skills, but Penalty Ranks in
Presentation: he explains that since he’s a robot, he can’t interact with people very well. It also
gives him a weakness to water. Jim also gives him an extension cord that gives him lots of Bonus
Chips when he’s close enough to a wall socket to plug it in.
 37

The Dealer’s Challenges rarely need this kind of detail; enemies don’t usually need complete
character mats, and Challenges with just one Stat barely need any kind of sheet at all.

Instead, they can use sticky-notes with the name of a Stat at the top, placing Chips on them.
If this is the kind of Challenge that can attack players, under the Stat write the word Skill and
assign it some number of Ranks; this is how many Chips they can move to their Stakes when
they use that Stat, kind of an all-purpose Skill to make the game smoother.

Then they take out up to three more post-its for the different sections in Stakes.

The group is about to fight their arch-rival, the evil necromancer. The Dealer had this battle
planned for weeks and knows everything about the necromancer; for him, he made a complete
character mat, even listing the items he had on his person.

In a town, Amy picks a fight with a guy at a bar. The Dealer wasn’t prepared for this,
and he certainly doesn’t have a character mat for the random drunkard. The Dealer brings
out three sticky-notes and sticks them to the table; on them, he writes Strength, Aim, and
Intelligence, reasoning that a random guy at a bar probably wouldn’t have any Magic
Chips. Under those, he writes ‘Skill: 3’ for Strength, ‘Skill: 2’ for Aim, and ‘Skill: 2’
for Intelligence. He puts a reasonable number of Chips on each one. He takes out two
sticky-notes for the Stakes, since he says the drunk will never use a Buffer.

Whenever the drunkard uses a Skill, the Dealer checks the generic Skill number and lets
him bet up to that many Chips.

When the group wants to climb the mountain, the Dealer just takes out one post-it note,
writes ‘Challenge’ on the top, and puts down some Chips. It doesn’t need a Skill, since it
can’t attack or defend itself. It doesn’t even need a Stakes section, because it only ever has
one Stat to target. It’s just a convenient way to track the Chips at the table.
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This is the pot; it has markers to help keep track whose Chips are whose. You might want to
print out two or three copies, because it helps having extras when you have side pots. Once you’ve
found the winner of the pot, you can just discard all the Chips on the opposing side of the mat.

The Starting Player, Attackers, and Defenders have one marker apiece to place the
Chips representing their Skills. Each Target also gets just one marker; they place their Skill,
Target, and Buffer Chips in the same pile. (Of course, if a stack gets too high, you can make a
second pile; just make sure not to confuse it with someone else’s). The hybrid Defender/Target
markers are for cases with multiple Targets.

In the center is a spot for keeping track of the pooled collection of Points the Gamblers have
earned by winning hands.
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Suggestions
With so many options, the choice can be overwhelming. Here are just a few examples of the
kinds of games you could run, with suggested Stats and other recommendations.

• A Lovecraftion Horror game with Strength, Aim, and Sanity, with Sanity taking the
place of Intelligence. If a character runs out of Sanity due to everyday occurrences, they
just need to sit down and collect their thoughts... but a character who loses Sanity because
of otherworldly creatures might need to be hospitalized, and may never be the same again.
• A political intrigue game where all the players are different countries or villages. They either
take over the world or stop the machinations of another evil empire. The Stats are Culture,
Economy, Military, and Technology. The Turns might be years long, representing the
long-term effects of the characters’ actions.
• An anime-mecha game where all the players work together to control a giant robot. They have
individual character mats, but when they get into the robot, they push them aside and they
all play using the robot’s mat. The robot has Stats like Left Leg, Right Leg, Left Arm,
and Right Arm, and each player gets to play only the Chips from the part of the body they
control.
• A god-game where all the characters are minor deities helping a tribal village against other
deities and the elements, with Stats like Creation, Destruction, Good, and Evil.
• A martial-arts game where the styles are based on the four elements, with the Stats Fire,
Earth, Water, and Air. Losing all the Chips in any of these Stats means a character’s
chi is out of balance, and they lose another Chip from each Stat every day until they can
meditate and regain their center.
• A superhero game with the Stats Strength, Intelligence, and Powers, where a charac-
ter’s superpowers are Skills under Powers.