Sabacc - How's it done in the game?

[Jace_Terrik]

"... with a shaky hand, you reach out to flip the last card over. Sweat beads your brow and you hold your breath. The last card reveals itself...
'The Idiot'.
"An Idiot's Array!" The dealer shouts.
The crowd roars. You grin and reach for your creadits....
But suddenly, the fat hand of a Gamorrean guard grabs your wrist. You just knew you were too lucky."


A great story, of course. But how do you transfer the feeling of this into straight gameplay?
The feel you can accomplish just by sheer good GM'ing.


But how do you work the rules?
Sure, you'll just have your character roll a gambling check, maybe a con or two, and that's it.

But how does the game itself play out?
I'm a complete sucker when it comes to playing cards, but this is clear even to me: Each character is dealt four cards. Money is fed into the pot. A randomizer keeps changing the value of your cards, so even if you start out with a really good set of cards, the flux might get you.

The attempt is to get cards at a total worth of up to 23 points, a Pure Sabacc. If you exceed 23, you basically start counting from scratch. A 24 becomes 1, 25 becomes 2 and so on, right? (I might be even wrong about this. If I am, correct me please!)
Also, an "Idiot's Array" (one card worth 2, one card worth 3 and one Idiot-card) beats a Pure Sabacc.
However, I have two questions that I haven't been able to figure out.

Question 1: How do you factor the interference field into the game?

The interference field basically freezes the card's value you toss into it. The randomizer doesn't affect it. Just how many cards can you toss into a interference field? How does the use of an interference field affect your game?


Question 2: How does the sabacc pot work?

This has been bugging me for a long while. Only an "Idiots' Array" or Pure Sabacc can win the sabacc pot.
Which means there are two pots, the Sabacc Pot and the Hand Pot. But how do these two work in the game?
When you deal a hand, how much money do you put into the Sabacc Pot and how much money is put into individual hand pots?


Man, this is so confusing, I'm not even sure anyone else can understand this post...

[hisham]

I can rightly answer everything you got on there, but I hope this answers at least some of them.
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[Hellcat]

West End Games did put out a set of rules and a deck with one of the sourcebooks, though I don't recall which one it was supposed to be. There should be various rules across the net too, including one that uses regular playing cards. The set hisham posted looks intresting.
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[hisham]

[Hellcat]

At least you have a deck. The only rules I have are for using a regular deck of playing cards.
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[Jace_Terrik]

urf... this didn't help at all...
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[cheshire]

They way that I've handled the pot is that you have to roll as 6 on the wild die to win the pot. A higher roll than the other person without the 6 just wins the hand.

[Zarm R'keeg]

This reminds me, something I don't think I've thought to check since I got to the forums. Anyone have a scan of the 'ol Crisis on Cloud City Sabaac deck around? I had a set of cards (a scan from somewhere, printed on cardstock), once- but no more, and I've eagerly sought to replace them...
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[garhkal]

I played a Sabbac tourn at Origins, using that Crisis on cloud city rules, and it was FUN as heck... Though it made the skill of the character playing a little meaningless, as it was more the PLAYER skill taking the forefront..
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[Rollenspiel]

Not yet, but if they ever want to I'd just teach them the rules for Tarock/Tarocchi, which was a likely inspiration for the game, AFAIK. Tarock is less a gambling game than one of skill -- at least the historical versions I am familiar with.

[Bren]