Three-Dragon Ante

At the beginning of play, the dealer separated the 70 suit cards from the 15 Legendary Dragon and 15 Mortal cards. The 30 special cards were then shuffled and 10 cards were drawn. The 70 suit cards and the 10 special cards were then shuffled together. Each player drew a hand of 6 cards (during play they can hold a maximum of 10 cards).

The game consisted of rounds called "gambits" that involved betting and building sets of cards that competed with one another. The first phase of the gambit was a round of betting, or "ante", when players placed bets determined by random card draws on the stakes at the center of the table. It then proceeded to the second phase, when players took turns in placing cards in front of them to form "flights". At the end of three rounds, the player with the strongest flight collected the stakes. In addition, certain cards granted special moves whose effects could shape a single play or the dynamics of the entire gambit.

"Flights" were a set of three cards. "Color Flights" were grouped by the same dragon color suit (e.g. three Silver Dragon cards). "Strength Flights" were grouped by the same card value (e.g. three Dragon cards of different color suits worth "5"). A "Fellowship" was a group of three Mortal cards.

When playing at a standard casino table, players stake 50 tokens and make three Intelligence checks (adding proficiency bonus only if they are proficient in Three Dragon Ante) for strategy across the rounds, one Charisma (Deception) check for bluffing, and one Wisdom (Insight) check for reading their opponent’s hands.

They total the five checks and minus 60 from the total. The difference is what they’re up or down in tokens after three rounds of play, or about a half-hour. If any of their rolls was a natural 20 they double any gains, a natural 1 and they double a loss.