Fantasy gambling

[CountVanBadger]

I'm trying to come up with a gambling game for rich, bored people to play in XNPC. Here's what I've come up with:

There's a big multi-tiered fountain, and the base is divided up into a bunch of different sections. The way it's played is, you pay to claim a certain section on the fountain's base, and then you buy balls that are poured into the topmost basin. The balls float, and they fall from one basin to the other, eventually ending up in the base. The water is automatically stirred around in each basin, so the balls can fall in any direction. Every ball that falls in the section of the base that you've claimed equals a payout for you.

How long you get to claim the spot depends on how much money you paid for it. You have to buy a certain number of balls in addition to your spot, but buying more is optional. The more balls you buy, the higher the chance that some will fall into your spot, but it's also a higher chance that they'll fall into the other player's spots. There are three types of balls that are worth different payouts: black is the cheapest and has an equal payout. Silver costs double the amount of a black, and pays out twice as much as it costs. Gold is triple. To put it in real numbers, a black ball costs one fantasy dollar and pays out one fantasy dollar, a silver costs two fantasy dollars and pays out four fantasy dollars, and a gold costs three fantasy dollars and pays out six fantasy dollars. Balls that fall into an unclaimed section of the base pays out to the house.

What do you think?

 

[Emotica]

I'd say introducing games in novels is best done simplistically, especially if there's no visual aid. For instance, Quidditch in Harry Potter is fairly easy to understand, even though the actual sport doesn't really make any sense. They're on a flying broom, they're trying to catch a flying golden ball with wings, and everything else is basically negligible. Easy. Your game was hard to envision for me, and then when I started to get it, there was still more details. That being said, you're writing LitRPG, so I'm far from your demographic. Do LitRPG readers like everything on a chart as a stylistic choice? Is the game easily translatable from that concept? Do your LitRPG readers spin out once it's not about power levels and skill points? That's a Know Your Audience kind of problem, but only because of the genre. For any other genre I'd probably say your game is too complicated. They have to imagine what's going on, keep track of the rules, keep track of the players, and understand the basics of gambling. Once again, maybe a LitRPG reader would see all of these as a plus, not a negative.

The only other feedback I have is that you mentioned this is what bored rich people are doing in your world? While some rich people definitely do things most people would consider boring, is that your intent? Is this the equivalent of a rich person going to a poker game in your world? Something that can be perceived as boring, but is probably fun to them? Or are they narratively super bored? I only ask because even in the real world, bored rich people and rich people doing boring things manifests very differently. You're writing an action series, so I'm just trying to figure out why you'd actually need a brand new non-action game. It'd be much more believable, especially with the bored rich people if lives were at stake, or morality was played with. Does the game actually need to be explained, or is it a backdrop to another scene? Like I admitted, I'm not the proper demographic as far as LitRPG, but if I was reading an action series, I think I'd be questioning why I'm suddenly learning the rules of a fictionalized gambling game if it didn't directly tie into the plot.

Sorry if the advice was unwarranted! It was just super thought-provoking in a worldbuilding/narrative way.

 

[N0xiety]

There doesn't seem to be much of a point to having different balls, unnecessarily complicates it. The silver and gold balls are already pretty much the same, and why would anyone buy the black balls? Simply bad investment as far as odds go. Sure, you can get more balls, but in the grand scheme of things that would be meaningless, your odds are still worse.

This kind of game makes buying more balls than necessary a bad investment. As you have to also buy a spot, but any ball that falls into your spot pays you. Which means buying more balls then necessary to join the game when there are other people playing with you is also bad investment as far as odds go. People who buy more balls are idiots with more money than sense basically, increasing the chances of winning of others while eating most of the cost. Like if i just buy 1 ball, and some idiot buys 100 balls, the idiot likely loses, and i very likely win, the odds are heavily in my favor. Even if just 2 of his balls falls to my section, i win, i get more money than i put in.

Buying balls + buying spots seems just strange too. What does being able to claim a spot for longer even mean if you pay more? Are there no rounds? Like, are balls continuously poured into the topmost layer nonstop for hours? What dictates the rate of balls being poured? Are they poured in instantly as they are bought? Why not just make it simpler, round based? You don't need to buy a spot, you just buy balls, join the round, and get a spot for the round, easy. You can reinvest your balls for the next round if you won, or you can buy more balls if you lost, if not someone else can take your place. And instead of pouring the balls, how about the balls shoot out of the fountain in the middle? Makes it more random and elegant.

And, how does the gambling house ensure they win? The game should be set up in a way that the house always wins by a certain amount of odds in the long term. Short term losses doesn't matter, but overall odds should always be in favor of the house. This can be done accordingly with how many spots are available, and with the house reserving a certain number of them spread in a symmetrical way. If you want to make it more elegant, make the house reserved spots lower than the others, like flowing underground and automatically collected out of sight. It would better emphasize that the house is not a player, the balls that fall into these holes are just lost to the abyss of gambling lol.

Tho, this would mean that the less players there are to claim the open spots, the less of a chance of winning there would be. So, it would be foolish to play when most available spots aren't taken by other players. Like if there are 100 spots, and there are only 5 players, yet the house has 20 spots reserved, the chances of you winning is abysmal. Which causes the problem of people having to wait for others to start playing together with, or they would simply be idiots. Unless, the house reduces their number of spots accordingly with player number, and also put the balls that fall into empty player spots back into the system. These all can be done automatically, or magically, whatever the case may be for your world.