Poker dice/Playing guide

Please note that this is not official Simutronics documentation, but the observations of Teveriel's player intended to provide more detailed information on a rather old and largely undocumented item.

Poker Dice, a Primer

These are special sets of five dice, each having six sides. The first four dice each represent a suit - swords, sceptres, crowns, and gems - with sides representing 9, 10, Knave, Queen, King, and Ace. The fifth die is unique in that it bears the 8 card for all suits as well as a jester and a blank side. Jesters are traditionally wild; I have no information on what the blank side is supposed to represent officially, but for the purpose of "house rules" I treat it as a wild card in the same way as the Jester.

Possible Hands

Because the dice cannot all have the same suit, hands like a "Flush" or "Straight Flush" are simply not possible. The most unlikely hand to achieve on a roll, by far, would be "Five of a Kind," which is only made possible by the existence of the Jester or, using my house rules, the blank side. For brevity's sake, what follows is a listing of possible hands from best to worst possible outcome. Note that I've ranked "Straight" above "Full House;" this is because the probability of rolling a "Straight" is actually lower than a "Full House" due to how the faces are situated.

1. Five of a kind
2. Four of a kind
3. Straight
4. Full house
5. Three of a kind
6. Two pair
7. One pair
8. Bust/High card

Other Thoughts

Another possible intention of the blank side might be to signify the need to reroll due to an incomplete hand. Hopefully these will be revisited at some point with some clarity from the GM(s) who own the script. In the meantime, I believe either the aforementioned house rules or the reroll work well enough with the intended probabilities to be interchangeable according to the preference of the game's host.