A daft idea that began with the realisation a mage can summon 5 creatures at once - which coincidentally is the size for a 'poker hand' of beasts...
After casting a lot of summoning spells, we think we have a nearly complete listing of what can be summoned - and if need be, should something so far unobserved appear, we'll find a value for it!
The idea is fairly simple - we pair up mages, each in turn goes into the arena and summons their five, which we score according to the following :
Card 'equivalents' -
Ace - highest card - Chicken (We are the ECL after all...)
King - Alligator
Queen - Snow Leopard
Jack - Scorpion
14 - Giant Serpent
13 - Hind
12 - Rabbit
11 - Polar Bear
10 - Black Bear
9 - Grizzly Bear
8 - Llama
7 - Eagle
6 - Grey Wolf
5 - Pig
4 - Horse
3 - Gorilla
2 - Walrus
Wild card - Slime, counts as anything you choose it to represent!
Hand rankings, highest to lowest :
Five of a kind - all the same creature
Flush - reptile/non mammal.
Four of a kind
Full house - three of one kind of creature, two of another
Flush - all mammal/non-reptile
Three of a kind
Two pairs
One pair
High 'card'.
The second mage comes in, casts their spells - and unless things have been very unusual, we should have a winner!
Should we have enough people and time, the idea is a 'progressive knockout', where winners from one game go on to compete against another winner, until the final two square off - but this may be tricky to do, since 8 people playing means the casting of 110 summon spells, plus the time to get people in the ring, sort out scoring, and do all the other 'admin' stuff! So for the first public session, I'm inclined to say we'll pair up people, and see how many there are and how much time we have before setting out on a full 'tournament' this evening.
(We've also had options suggested, such as the 'house mage' casting twice to give the duellists their first two 'cards', and they then summon either three more to make the five, or five more and keep the best 'hand' from the seven creatures - I'd be interested to hear any thoughts on these, or suggestions for other methods - we're really testing this one out, and have no idea what might work best!)
And regarding betting.... always an attraction, but often tricky to run! You are free to bet on your own success in a match, and to bet on the likely result of a 'duel', as ever Mapper's drawn the job of bookie so to make his life as simple as possible (and keep things fairly quick for everyone!) we'll use the ECL system of minimum bet 10k, rising in increments of 10k to a maximum bet 50k, and the vendor will be stocked with cheques of 10k so you can get the right amount easily. We'll pay back the stake, and the same again in 'winnings' to those who bet on the winner, so you will need to clearly tell Mapper who your are betting on, and how much you bet, before the match begins, so we can make sure the right amounts get paid out. In the extremely unlikely event of a tied game, we'll pay out to all people as if ALL the bets placed won.... so I need to make a bit more cash before Monday to make sure we are properly covered
Planned start is 8PM on Monday 13th Feb, at the O*T arena in Zento, where we'll see how well this works and gauge interest and time, if it's popular enough we would plan on this being another 'fortnightly' event, so poker nights would alternate with ECL matches.
After casting a lot of summoning spells, we think we have a nearly complete listing of what can be summoned - and if need be, should something so far unobserved appear, we'll find a value for it!
The idea is fairly simple - we pair up mages, each in turn goes into the arena and summons their five, which we score according to the following :
Card 'equivalents' -
Ace - highest card - Chicken (We are the ECL after all...)
King - Alligator
Queen - Snow Leopard
Jack - Scorpion
14 - Giant Serpent
13 - Hind
12 - Rabbit
11 - Polar Bear
10 - Black Bear
9 - Grizzly Bear
8 - Llama
7 - Eagle
6 - Grey Wolf
5 - Pig
4 - Horse
3 - Gorilla
2 - Walrus
Wild card - Slime, counts as anything you choose it to represent!
Hand rankings, highest to lowest :
Five of a kind - all the same creature
Flush - reptile/non mammal.
Four of a kind
Full house - three of one kind of creature, two of another
Flush - all mammal/non-reptile
Three of a kind
Two pairs
One pair
High 'card'.
The second mage comes in, casts their spells - and unless things have been very unusual, we should have a winner!
Should we have enough people and time, the idea is a 'progressive knockout', where winners from one game go on to compete against another winner, until the final two square off - but this may be tricky to do, since 8 people playing means the casting of 110 summon spells, plus the time to get people in the ring, sort out scoring, and do all the other 'admin' stuff! So for the first public session, I'm inclined to say we'll pair up people, and see how many there are and how much time we have before setting out on a full 'tournament' this evening.
(We've also had options suggested, such as the 'house mage' casting twice to give the duellists their first two 'cards', and they then summon either three more to make the five, or five more and keep the best 'hand' from the seven creatures - I'd be interested to hear any thoughts on these, or suggestions for other methods - we're really testing this one out, and have no idea what might work best!)
And regarding betting.... always an attraction, but often tricky to run! You are free to bet on your own success in a match, and to bet on the likely result of a 'duel', as ever Mapper's drawn the job of bookie so to make his life as simple as possible (and keep things fairly quick for everyone!) we'll use the ECL system of minimum bet 10k, rising in increments of 10k to a maximum bet 50k, and the vendor will be stocked with cheques of 10k so you can get the right amount easily. We'll pay back the stake, and the same again in 'winnings' to those who bet on the winner, so you will need to clearly tell Mapper who your are betting on, and how much you bet, before the match begins, so we can make sure the right amounts get paid out. In the extremely unlikely event of a tied game, we'll pay out to all people as if ALL the bets placed won.... so I need to make a bit more cash before Monday to make sure we are properly covered
Planned start is 8PM on Monday 13th Feb, at the O*T arena in Zento, where we'll see how well this works and gauge interest and time, if it's popular enough we would plan on this being another 'fortnightly' event, so poker nights would alternate with ECL matches.
