Motley: A Card Game of Chance

Rather than simply *pretending* to play at cards in posts, a card game has been written for the setting that can be utilized by any character wanting to gamble a bit or just have fun playing a game IC.

## The Basics

The game of *Motley* uses a standard four-suit deck of 52 cards and may be played with two to four people. The object of the game is to discard the cards with the highest values; the person who ultimately wins is the person holding the lowest valued hand after the final betting round. A Joker drawn is worth 100 points, and while the choice of the fool’s card is generally left up to the discretion of the dealer, the standard is the red three [hearts and diamonds], which is always worth 300 points. All other cards are taken at face value.

* An *ante* - the minimum or token bet - is placed into the *pot* at the center of the table prior to the cards being dealt. In order to play, each person must ante up. The minimum bet is decided by the dealer and will vary from game to game.
* After shuffling the deck and allowing any players to cut the cards if they so choose, the dealer distributes the cards face down starting with the player to his or her immediate left and continuing clockwise, one card at a time, until everyone has five cards. The deck is then placed in the middle of the table within reach of all players.
* The player to the dealer’s left may then place an opening bet based on the five cards in their hand, or they may choose to *fold*or get out of the game, forfeiting their ante. Players around the table may then *see* or *call*, placing an amount to match the previous bet into the pot, *raise* the bet by placing more than the previous bet into the pot, or may fold when they realize that their weak hand isn’t worth the additional bet.
* Once the round of betting has returned to where it started with the first player to the dealer’s left - or the next player if someone has folded - two cards are drawn from the deck in the middle of the table, and one card may be discarded. This continues all the way around the table.
* Another round of betting follows in much the same manner as the first. Players may see or call the highest bet of the previous round, raise the stakes further, or fold and leave the game.
* Rounds of bets and drawing/discarding continues a maximum of four times. For four players, if none have folded by the final round, this will use up the entire deck as 13 cards each will have been drawn with four discards, leaving them with a hand of nine cards in the end.
* One final round of bets are placed before hands are revealed, card values tallied, and the winner is named.

## Utilizing Dice Rolls

As cards are largely a game of chance depending on the hand a player is dealt, rolls will factor heavily in this game as well using 52-sided dice. A player knows that they have a Joker in their hand if they roll either a 20 or a 30. The fool’s card shows up whenever a 1 or a 50 is rolled.

All other cards are *not* assigned specific values - rather, whatever else is rolled will be counted towards the final score. However, for the sake of writing the game as it’s being played: black threes [or the black suits of any other fool’s card chosen in lieu of threes] and all suits from four to seven have the lowest values on the scale, eights through Kings in all suits are worth a little more, with deuces and Aces next, then Jokers, and the fool’s cards - red threes in most instances - having the highest values.

*Everyone does their own rolls*, unless someone is holding up the game/thread by not posting - then players reserve the right to have the dealer roll for the missing player. Rolls are done in the Motley thread with the reddit rollbot. Simply have the first player to roll reply to the thread on the Community sub with a post that names the game, the post, or the players involved, and their first roll, and the players involved will simply reply to that comment for the rest of that game/post to keep it one string in the event of multiple games/posts being played at once.

* Rolling for the player’s initial hand of five cards is done in post order or the order that the players are seated left to right from the dealer, with the dealer rolling last. The roll is: [[5d52]] + /u/rollme [1] .
* Subsequent rolls will be: [[2d52]] + /u/rollme [2] , for drawing two new cards from the deck, with players then noting which single card out of their hand they will be discarding.

**Note: When all of the Jokers and the fool's cards have been drawn from the deck (two of any combination of a 1 and/or 50 or a 20 and/or 30 drawn by any player in the game), no more should exist within the deck. Given that we're using a random number generation system however, they could be rolled again. Should this occur, simply take that card at face value for points added to your score.**

## References

1. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/ITRPCommunity/comments/3l36o0/games\_of\_chance\_how\_to\_play\_motley/