[Basic] Skill of the week: Gambling and Games

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

I've seen long arguments about whether something like poker, which most definitely has a strong skill component, should come under Gambling or its own Games specialty; on balance I'd probably go with the latter, though if a player had assumed the opposite I'd let him shift the points on the spot.

There's an article explaining how to run Poker (or similar vying games) in GURPS with extra detail. It says to use the better of Gambling or Games (Poker), with a situational modifier of +1 to the higher of the two if you have points in both, or if you're using Games (Poker) as the higher of the two and have Math (Statistics).

Originally Posted by RogerBW

I think I'd probably use either Games (something appropriate) or Gambling as a proxy for Savoir-Faire (Casino), a skill otherwise so narrow in scope as not to exist. This is simply behaving in such a way as to blend in with other patrons, knowing how you go about getting chips, the conventions of the game you're playing, and so on. (All right, you could probably base it off SF (High Society) too, though a lot of casinos these days have nothing to do with High Society.)

I'm not sure SF (Casino) is a thing. Is there a special skill of Influencing gamblers in a casino-like sub-society? Because I feel that at most SF(Casino) can be used to encourage gamblers into gambling, but not other Influences.
If anything, Games might be a stand-in for a subcultural familiarity or something.