Star Wars Card Games and others

[CalaveraJoe]

Since all the images I'd seen online of the rules were sub-par, I went ahead and did a scan of them. PDF is formatted for 3" x 4" pages (which is the original size), but of a high enough quality that you should be able to manipulate them however you might need.

 

[ShineAugustine]

Quick follow-up but I wanted to point out that I typed something wrong in the Yarith Bespin Casino rules variant, which was pulled directly from a magazine that had the rules printed there (can't recall off the top of my head what magazine/book it was but I think it's listed somewhere and there is a screenshot earlier in this thread). In that version, you do not have the option to add the drawn card to your hand without getting rid of a card. It seems your hand will always be exactly 3 cards and that is why the winning hands in that variant are 3 card combinations.

I may have caught this before and decided to ignore that because it cut off the possibility of the larger winning hands seen in other versions (i can't recall, it's been a while), but in retrospect I think this 3-card style is intended for the Yarith Bespin Rules. I'll be updating my rule sheets soon and will adjust this one to not vary from what is on the original print. Currently I'm digging through the Galaxy's Edge deck rules and will be typing up those and making adjustments to the older ones. When that's all done I'll upload new documents here with all the rule variations we've found and possibly a set of house rules that makes the best of them come together.

 

[MOBLCIBI]

I see what you mean ShineAugustine and totally agree.

Attached are the Yarith Bespin Casino house rules provided by the book Solo: A Star Wars Story: Tales from Vandor originally posted by Culoph:



The fifth bullet point states that during the draw phase, the player has the option to pay 2 credits into the Game Pot to draw a new card.
(I would argue that this implicitly means that the player also has the option to stand for free.)

If the player does draw, then the player has 3 options from there:

1. Discard the new card just drawn.
2. Swap the new card with one of the two cards in their hand (I would assume the old card goes into the Discard Pile, not Draw Pile...)
3. Swap the new card with their Spike Card (once again, the old Spike Card probably gets discarded)

But, yup, you are right ShineAugustine, there is no explicit option to stand after drawing a card.

I believe I am following as far as the scoring hierarchy of winning hands, but here is my interpretation of your proposal:

1. Idiot's Array (Sylop, +2, and +3)
2. Prime Sabacc (+10, -10, and Sylop)
3. Yee-haa (Are we following Galaxy's Edge now? If so, then:
4. (Optionally, we could keep the Straight, but with just 3 cards. The house rules above imply a range "Yee-haa to the Nulrhek". Thoughts?)
5. Sabacc (Zero total sum)
6. Nulrhek variations (Closest total sum to zero with tiebreaker hierarchy)

 

[ShineAugustine]

I believe I am following as far as the scoring hierarchy of winning hands, here is my interpretation of your proposal:

1. Idiot's Array (Sylop, +2, and +3)
2. Prime Sabacc (+10, -10, and Sylop)
3. Yee-haa (Are we following Galaxy's Edge now? If so, then:View attachment 1053702)
4. (Optionally, we could keep the Straight, but with just 3 cards. The house rules above imply a range "Yee-haa to the Nulrhek". Thoughts?)
5. Sabacc (Zero total sum)
6. Nulrhek Variations (Closest total sum to zero with tiebreaker hierarchy)

Yes, this seems perfect and finally makes sense to me why an Idiot's Array is even in Corellian Spike. It always seemed odd to me, but now that I've realized this variant only uses 3 cards at all times, it makes sense as a winning hand. It also makes sense of why Prime Sabacc is the next winning hand (as opposed to Full Sabacc, having four of the tens instead of just two).

Yee-haa makes total sense now that we know what it actually is from the Galaxy's Edge deck, so I think that is perfect there (though I would ignore the GE recommendation about lower integer winning and just apply the normal tiebreaker hierarchy if two Yee-haas are in play).

As for point 4, I'm removing the straight from the rule sheets I've typed up (currently reworking the rulesheets now to make them in line with what we know now, fix some errors, reword things more clearly, and give a little better visual look to them). I had thrown in the Straight simply based on Fort Ypso rules because I didn't see why it shouldn't apply here too. I don't know how I got confused about the number of cards in this variant. In the most recent version of rules I typed up I even wrote a note saying you'd never exceed 3 cards (idk if this was just on my computer and never made it to the version i put online), but still I had the Straight in the scoring hands and there were some things I had written about re-dealing after spike dice rolls where I mentioned noting how many cards each player has so you knew how many to re-deal, without realizing it will always be exactly 3 cards once the spike cards are in play. You're just either going to re-deal the two in-hand cards or both the in-hand cards and the spike, depending on the roll.

If I'm not mistaken, the only straight that would equal zero in Yarith Bespin rules would be a run of 1, 2, 3, which I would wager might end up being a fairly common hand anyway, so I don't think the straight makes much sense here. So, with the heirarchy you posted (minus the one i strikethroughed) I think this rule set is very functional and concise and I feel we've finally "deciphered" the excerpt we got those rules from.

Anyway, the light bulb is on in my head now about this version's number of cards and reason for its scoring hands, and I'm currently re-writing my rule sheet I made to reflect the proper rules and hierarchy. I even wrote a little intro blurb about how the Yarith Bespin Casino version is slightly condensed and always uses 3 cards, so that people can easily identify up-front what makes this one different from others.

Thanks for your input. Do you think we've cracked the case on this one?

 

[MOBLCIBI]

Yee-haa makes total sense now that we know what it actually is from the Galaxy's Edge deck, so I think that is perfect there (though I would ignore the GE recommendation about lower integer winning and just apply the normal tiebreaker hierarchy if two Yee-haas are in play).

If I'm not mistaken, the only straight that would equal zero in Yarith Bespin rules would be a run of 1, 2, 3, which I would wager might end up being a fairly common hand anyway, so I don't think the straight makes much sense here. So, with the heirarchy you posted (minus the one i strikethroughed) I think this rule set is very functional and concise and I feel we've finally "deciphered" the excerpt we got those rules from.

Thanks for your input. Do you think we've cracked the case on this one?

Yes, I think we have definitely figured it out now (assuming no other canon sources come into play)!

I agree about the Yee-haa; let's use the confirmed tiebreaker hierarchy instead of the note from Galaxy's Edge.

Good eye about the 3-card straight, let's just take the Straight out altogether!

However, I do still wonder why there is an implied range "Yee-haa to the Nulrhek" ...

But other than that, nice catch ShineAugustine on discovering that Yarith Bespin house rules limit 3 total cards per player!

P.S. Does this at all inspire you to edit Rock-Lion Cantina to also switch to a 3-card limit?
I personally would not, just so that Rock-Lion is a little more distinct from Yarith Bespin.

 

[ShineAugustine]

Yes, I think we have definitely figured it out now (assuming no other canon sources come into play)!

I agree about the Yee-haa; let's use the confirmed tiebreaker hierarchy instead of the note from Galaxy's Edge.

Good eye about the 3-card straight, let's just take the Straight out altogether!

However, I do still wonder why there is an implied range "Yee-haa to the Nulrhek" ...

But other than that, nice catch ShineAugustine on discovering that Yarith Bespin house rules limit 3 total cards per player!

I'm excited to play-test it out soon. It feels like it would play really nicely and differently considering it revolves around hands of 3. Almost a sort of compact/speed version of the game, for when you're in a hurry to lose all your money... or pick up a new speeder.

 

[ShineAugustine]

Okay I'm back with another analysis. I've looked up this original tiebreaker scoring system from the Solo: ASWS making of Sabacc feature, which is what we've been using in our homebrew rulebooks up til now. I wanted to compare this with the Galaxy's Edge version and address the difference because in the Galaxy's Edge rulebook this system is the same, however, on the ones that say "highest value cards" or "highest value single card" the Galaxy's Edge deck explicitly states that only positive cards are considered in this ranking breakdown. At first this bothered me because it seemed to add unnecessary complication to a system that already seems to work just fine. Upon reflection, I understand why this specification was added now and think that the Galaxy's Edge version is actually a further clarification of this rule and is beneficial to the ranking system.

As for items 3 and 8 on this list (highest value cards), I realized it actually doesn't matter at all if you counted all the card values together or just the positive ones since the result will be the same. For example if your hand is -10, 3, 3, 4 and your opponent's hand is -10, -4, 7, 7. Adding up total values of all cards (as integers) 10+3+3+4=20 and 10+4+7+7 = 28. Your opponent wins . If you did it with just positives the scores would equal 10 and 14. Since a hand valuing zero is always going to have the same amount of points on both sides, then a hand whose total integer value is higher will always have a positive total value that's higher anyway, so specifying to count "only positives" actually just saves you from doing twice as much math and saves time.

It seems to work out similarly when it's for a Nulrhek. If we use this example of hand (A) -3, -4, -1, 9 (total score: 1) and hand (B) -5, -2, 1, 7 (total score: 1) it almost wouldn't matter if you added up all the values as integers or simply the positive values alone. Since the player that has the highest positive value, hand A in this case, will need bulkier numbers in the negative to even it out. If I'm not mistaken I think that the player with the highest positive total would always or nearly always have the larger total score just adding the integers as well. Hand A here has an integer total of 17 and hand B here only values 15. It loses under both systems.

As for items 4 and 7 on this list, (highest value single card), let's say we've got two hands... hand (A) -6, -6, 9, 3 and hand (B) -10, -2, 7, 5. Both total zero points and have a positive total value of 12 (or total integers of 24) and the same number of cards. Which one is the winner? If we went based on the rules from the video then it can get confusing. If you consider "highest value" to mean highest integer value (10) then hand B wins for having the -10, but if you consider "highest value" to not ignore negatives (so -10 is the lowest value card and 10 is the highest) then hand A wins this round for having the 9. It depends on your definition of "highest value", and I think this would vary in how people interpret it. That vague room for variance is the bug in this ranking system shown in the video.

This is why I think the Galaxy's Edge rules make more sense and should be the ones used, since they distinctly clarify what "highest value" means, and it means the highest positive value card(s). This way negative values are never in any case ignored, even during scoring (i.e. they aren't treated as integers instead), which keeps a nice consistency across the game, and also positive cards are consistently considered as slightly more valuable than their negative counterparts.

The Galaxy's Edge clarification on tiebreaker ranking seems like the gold standard to me and the one we should use going forward. What do you think?

 

[garudasWitch]

Just a quick aside while I remember it:
In the movie, Han plays "straight staves" (which is stated as the second best hand in the game...except for pretty much all sources saying otherwise, but that's another story). This same hand is now known as "straight khyron", which got me thinking; what if these are the names of the suits? The listed cards for Straight Khyron in the Toydarian Toymaker rulebook are all triangles, so I feel like it wouldn't be much of a stretch to consider that suit "khyron" and the squares as "staves".
The only hole I see in this is that the hand Han plays has Square Ace and Square Commander, and the Master and Mistress are both Triangles. Maybe straight Khyron is all matching suits (of triangles?), and straight Staves is any mix, or two suits, with Khyron being a higher scoring hand due to being more difficult to put together lmao I dunno I just feel like the suits should have names other than just what shape they are and this made the most sense to me. Circles would be Coins or somethin

 

[ShineAugustine]

Just a quick aside while I remember it:
In the movie, Han plays "straight staves" (which is stated as the second best hand in the game...except for pretty much all sources saying otherwise, but that's another story). This same hand is now known as "straight khyron", which got me thinking; what if these are the names of the suits? The listed cards for Straight Khyron in the Toydarian Toymaker rulebook are all triangles, so I feel like it wouldn't be much of a stretch to consider that suit "khyron" and the squares as "staves".
The only hole I see in this is that the hand Han plays has Square Ace and Square Commander, and the Master and Mistress are both Triangles. Maybe straight Khyron is all matching suits (of triangles?), and straight Staves is any mix, or two suits, with Khyron being a higher scoring hand due to being more difficult to put together lmao I dunno I just feel like the suits should have names other than just what shape they are and this made the most sense to me. Circles would be Coins or somethin

The Galaxy's Edge rules say that "staves" are what the suits are called. So stave = suit according to that, not a specific suit. Each suit is one "stave", possibly owing to the fact that if you laid out all cards in a suit they form one long line/pole/staff (stave).

Of course in the other type of Sabacc deck "staves" is a specific suit out of the four (these are based on Tarot suits). If "staves" is a specific suit in Corellian Spike (rather than all suits) then I think you are definitely right to say the circle would be coins, but then what would the triangles be? Flasks? The flask is the most triangular symbol in the other Sabacc deck (attached a pic of the ones given out at Star Wars Celebration). Corellian Spike is the "older" version of Sabacc right (I think I read this somewhere...)? Maybe it was created before light-sabers were invented/widespread, hence no sabers suit? If you look at the icon for sabers suit in Sabacc it is clearly a lightsaber hilt with an illuminated blade coming out of it against a circular dark backdrop, so I feel like the "sabers" in reference are definitely lightsabers and not an ordinary sword. So if I had to guess suits for Corellian Spike I'd say square = staves, circle = coins, and triangle = flasks.

As for Straight Khyron vs. Straight Staves, I have a couple interesting but unlikely theories too, aside from the one that they're just different names for the same hand. (It's probably this one)

1. Straight Staves is a straight with purely face cards (7, 8, 9, and 10) and is the best possible straight in Corellian Spike, while a Straight Khyron is one with any other run of four numbers. (I have my doubts about this though since in the scoring shown in the Solo making-of Sabacc video they show the exact run of 7-10 and it is labeled Straight Khyron. It appears the same way in the GE deck rules.)

2. Straight Khyron is a straight of mixed suits while Straight Staves is specifically a straight all from the same stave (the GE definition of "stave"), like a Straight Flush in poker. I also find this unlikely since the suits are irrelevant to gameplay in any rule set ever produced, including the movie content, BUT, if this was the case then I would guess many various hands could be "staves" versions if the cards are all one suit and would be better than ones of mixed suits (e.g. you could have a Gee Whiz Staves if they were all the same suit).

3. Straight Khyron is a straight of mixed suits while Straight Staves, Straight Coins, or Straight Flasks is from one specific suit? (this one is more a stretch as it supposes each of the three suits coincide with suits used in the other format of Sabacc, and no in-universe content confirms this).

I also think the word "staves" in this hand vs. the usage of the word "staves" to refer to suits is either A) coincidence, and they are two separate concepts, or, more likely... B) confusion caused by miscommunications and oversights within Lucasfilm, where it started out as one thing and then the word got used where it wasn't supposed to be and became another.

Solo: A Star Wars Story novelization lists Straight Khyron as the second highest value hand (only beaten by Full Sabacc). From the little snippets we see of the winning hand heirarchy in the making of Sabacc featurette from the movie disc we can see the same thing (the top three hands are Full Sabacc, Straight Khyron/Staves, and Gee Whiz). In the Galaxy's Edge rulebook, the winning hands with sylops in them are always better than the winning hands that don't have sylops in them ,knocking Straight Khyron down several rungs.

It's all making my head spin. I think another reason for the changes/discrepencies probably is because they didn't have to fully flesh out the game just to show it in the movie or write that scene in the book, but to market a playable game product, they had to flesh out the rules more. I would assume they changed the ranking to differ from what is canon because it is simply an easier hierarchy to remember and adhere to, making it a bit more practical to actually play.

 

[ShineAugustine]

How do you guys feel about the discarding order during your turn phase? It is worded vaguely in both the Han Solo Card Game and Galaxy's Edge Sabacc.

In the Han Solo game, it reads: Take the top card from the draw pile. If you want to, you can also place a card from your hand on the discard pile.
This version makes no explicit mention of what order you have to do this in, so presumably you could take the draw card and then decide whether to discard anything.

In the GE Sabacc rules it reads: Take the top card from the Draw Pile. You may keep the card or you may discard. If you pick the option of discarding, you must discard before you draw.
This is very confusing and circular writing. I'm guessing they meant that if you want to discard a card from your hand, you have to do it before drawing a new card. It feels unclear to me whether you can discard the drawn card or not, since you "must discard before you draw" implies you can't but "you MAY keep the card or you may discard" implies you can. (but for sure I would say you can't discard, draw, then discard that too b/c it would make your hand shrink).

What do you guys prefer, and what do you think the game creators intended? We never see any discards take place in the movie scene at all, or in the making-of feature, or when they taught how to play it on The Star Wars show... it was never mentioned. Of course, that doesn't mean it didn't just get edited out for brevity. I wish we could get a hold of one of the game's creators, or write to someone at the company to clarify the rules... but I have a feeling it would still clash with other sources and just put us back to square one lol.

 

[ShineAugustine]

Hey all. Here's a post I've been looking forward to making. I've finally compiled and reconciled the new Galaxy's Edge rules with what we knew from other sources.

After some pretty extensive play-testing, and cross-referencing lots of sources to try to make sense of things that weren't worded clearly, here is the version that I've ended up on. This document contains what I'm calling Black Spire Outpost Rules (primarily based on the Galaxy's Edge deck rules, which is sold at Black Spire Outpost), as well as the Yarith Bespin Casino rules (revised now that we figured out it only uses a hand of 3 cards). As for what I was previously calling the Fort Ypso Lodge rules, which were basically just an attempt to follow what was going on in Solo: ASWS, based on that and the Han Solo Card Game, I've actually removed that ruleset entirely and listed an option for it under "optional house rules" since we really don't know a ton about it from canon sources. What we do know though is that Full sabacc, Straight Staves (Khyron) and Gee Whiz! are the top three ranking hands (this is told in one of the novels and shown in the making of sabacc video from Solo:ASWS), so basically the Fort Ypso Lodge rule variation is just to have those three ranked hands at the top of the hierarchy now. I deleted my previous house rules set "Rock Lion Cantna Rules" because I think all the new knowledge I gained about the various rule versions made it obsolete.

I play-tested many different variations on what card you can or can't take on your turn (draw pile, discard pile) and how, and in what order (discard before draw, discard after draw, etc.), and after a lot of testing, the version outlined in the Galaxy's Edge deck turned out to be the most balanced in terms of having varied and meaningful choices that are challenging and involve risks (so it's not just an automated game), but also being able to earn good scores and Sabaccs and special hands fairly often but not TOO often. The rules are described in the sheet, so I'll quit yapping and just drop the file. Hope you enjoy it! This took me days to figure out and reformat and edit. If you have any questions or catch a typo, let me know. Happy weekend!

EDIT: SEE MY LATER POST FOR THIS FILE, AS IT HAS BEEN UPDATED.

 

[MOBLCIBI]

Alrighty, I apologize for being MIA for a few days, but work has picked up recently and I am just now finding time to get back on the forum.
First off, thank you so much ShineAugustine for putting so much time and research into all of this!
I will try my best here to address all your recent posts and respond to each point you made, so bear with me since this will be a longer message.

Positive Cards for Breaking Ties
To start off, let's talk about only considering positive cards for breaking ties.
Your logic definitely is sound and I am on board with you, especially since it seems like it efficiently saves a little time in calculating.
Out of prudence, I made a Python script that confirmed that your theory is true.
Actually, the only criteria required is that the tied hands must have the same total sum.
The number of cards in the tied hands does not seem to matter.
Therefore, I agree that it does seem easier to simply count the positive cards and is a valid alternative calculation method.

Highest Value for Breaking Ties
I want to specifically address the idea of "highest value".
Personally, I believe that the interpretation of "highest value" is simply something that can vary between house rules.

Because, on the one hand, highest absolute value is more risky being that some of your cards deviate away from zero relatively more.
The whole point of the Corellian Spike variant is to get to zero, so having higher absolute value cards is a greater risk requiring more balance.

But, on the other hand, most positive value is more consistent with the preference for positive value cards.

I personally like the idea of preferring absolute values, but I more so like the idea of leaving it up to individual house rules.
After all, certain casinos/cantinas by all means can decide that they will have a preference for negative value cards in their house rules.

Oldest Game
In your chat with our Mandalorian colleague garudasWitch, you mentioned something about Corellian Spike being the oldest variant of Sabacc.
That very well may be true; however, my general impression would be that Standard Sabacc is the first and most ancient variant.
What I, for sure, know from canon is that Sabacc is "perhaps the oldest and most popular card game in the galaxy."
This is straight from Solo: A Star Wars Story The Official Guide:


In addition, the terms "Commander," "Mistress," "Master," and Ace" currently only apply to Standard Sabacc cards 12-15.
I remember there was talk by Muddler of applying those terms to Corellian Spikes' face cards 7-10.
I am open to that, what are your thoughts, everyone?

Full/Pure Sabacc and Straight Staves/Khyron
In the bonus features of Solo: ASWS, the scoring hierarchy uses the terms "Full Sabacc" and "Straight Khyron."
Also in the bonus features, Lando uses the term "Pure Sabacc," presumably instead of "Full Sabacc," which he then uses in the finalized film.
And then, of course, Solo uses the term "Straight Staves" in the finalized film.

First off, I am going to go ahead and say that individual house rules should have the freedom to choose which term they want to use.
Specifically, for the Fort Ypso Lodge house rules, I would use the finalized film versions of "Full Sabacc" and "Straight Staves".
But other house rules, by all means, can use the terms "Pure Sabacc" and "Straight Khyron."

Each casino/cantina should get to decide the title and scoring criteria of each winning hand.
I like the idea of having different terms for the same hand, which introduces cultural uniqueness to different house rules.
But I also like the idea from GreenProtege in which each term applies to a slightly different combination of cards in the hand.

But I agree with you so very much ShineAugustine; we would love to have someone from the film help us out here!

Discard Order
Once again, each house rule should get to decide whether you may draw before discarding or if you must discard before drawing.
Drawing first is a more strategic, skilled approach.
Discarding first is a more tactical, up-to-chance approach.
Each casino/cantina is going to have a preference for one or the other or perhaps even options for both.
For example, a venue on Naboo may prefer drawing first whereas The Underworld on Coruscant might prefer discarding first.

For Yarith Bespin Casino, you draw first.
For Black Spire Outpost, you must discard first.

I agree with you ShineAugustine in that GE worded the draw phase very strangely, which I posted about on here awhile back.
I super appreciate the GE rule booklet, but I agree that it could use a little cleanup.
I am heading on a trip to Batuu soon and hopefully will buy a deck from the Toydarian Toymaker, if they are not sold out.
I will post pictures of the cards and booklet on here if I am able to find a deck on my trip there.

All-in
In the Betting Phase, you include the option for desperate players to go all-in.
In my iterations of the rules, I decided not to include that option, primarily since there is no indication from any sources that that is an option.
Solo does not go all-in on Vandor, he simply over-confidently raises without counting how many credits he pushed into the Game Pot.
To be clear, I am all-in for having last-ditch options such as going all-in for individual house rules.
I merely wanted to point out that there is not yet any canon sources that offer the option to go all-in.
On that note, there is no explicit provision for checking (betting zero credits), but I believe that it is implicitly available as an option.

Additional Yarith Bespin Winning Hand
The fact that the canon source specifically says "ranging from the Yee-haa to the Nulhrek variations" has been bothering me.
It just seems odd to me that a range would be used to omit just one winning hand (Sabacc).
It bothers me further in that you would even need a croupier droid to remind you of that one unmentioned hand, LOL.
To be honest, I do not have a problem with leaving in the 1-2-3 Straight since it is still a decently rare hand.
But if not the Straight, then I would urge that we at least try to decide on one or two winning hands to rank between Yee-haa and Sabacc.

My New Pazaak Deck!!!
I just purchased a set of cards featuring the other major Star Wars card game Pazaak!
I purchased them from an Etsy shop named CoryphefishEmporium and the seller shipped almost immediately!
I received the cards within 2 days after purchase, which was an absolute joy after I had such a poor 6-month experience with TheSoloStore...



After play testing, Pazaak is definitely a faster paced game and has a considerably different dynamic from Sabacc.
I gladly welcome any discussion on this forum regarding Pazaak and believe it is worth getting to learn!

The rules for Pazaak are pretty well laid out in Legends, specifically in the video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.
Here is the Wookiepedia article that goes through those rules.
There is not much in the way of canon put into this card game, at least as of yet...
Although the canon article on Wookiepedia does mention that Pazaak was played in Maz Kanata's castle on Takodana, which is pretty cool!

Standard Sabacc Deck Coming Soon!
I also purchased a deck of Standard Sabacc cards using provided graphic design images of the cards and by ordering from makeplayingcards.com.
There is a seller on the marketplace of the website selling several versions of the Standard Sabacc deck as well:
Standard Deck
Standard Deck - Dark Theme
Standard Deck - Cheaters' Edition

There is also a Corellian Spike seller on that marketplace too:
Corellian Spike Deck

Just a heads up, I chose not to purchase any of those decks since they used the Legends value for the face card "The Star".
In Legends (and canon Star Wars: Rebels) it is -17, but in a canon novel it is -10.

I used the free-to-use deck that Muddler referenced here:
SabaccDeckTEXTALT - Google Drive

Here is a full step-by-step walkthrough on exactly how I got the Standard Sabacc deck:
Star Wars Card Games and others

Philosophy of Determining Rules
My general philosophy in all of this is:
Initially determine what canon (with reference to Legends) sources tell us, since they are the prime authority.
Then, in areas where there is ambiguity or no existing answer whatsoever, leave it to the fans' preference for each individual house rule.

This allows us fans the freedom and fun to make our own house rules, just like how you did with Rock-Lion Cantina.
After all, fan ideas bring so much more depth and culture and sometimes even become official canon concepts, which is super neat!

To be honest, I was a little shocked when I read that you decided to remove Fort Ypso and, more so, Rock-Lion house rules.
I was extremely impressed from your work and greatly admired your creative precedent of making up your very own house rule!
I personally am going to keep Fort Ypso and Rock-Lion since I and those I have played with already enjoy them so much.
I completely understand, agree, and am the same way in wanting to be as accurate to canon as possible.
But that does not restrict us fans from filling in the gaps and branching out on our own creative license.
If anyone following our forum wants to go ahead and make their own house rule, then I am all for that!

 

[garudasWitch]

Standard Sabacc Deck Coming Soon!
I also purchased a deck of Standard Sabacc cards using provided graphic design images of the cards and by ordering from makeplayingcards.com.
There is a seller on the marketplace of the website selling several versions of the Standard Sabacc deck as well:
Standard Deck
Standard Deck - Dark Theme
Standard Deck - Cheaters' Edition

EXCELLENT, that solves my executive disfunction problem quite handily! I tried running a "high quality" set of card faces through that paritcular site and it REALLY didn't like any of the images, saying they were "too low quality" and warning that the cards might come out looking bad

 

[MOBLCIBI]

Glad I could help garudasWitch!
Just a heads up, I chose not to purchase that deck since it used the Legends value for the face card "The Star".
In Legends (and canon Star Wars: Rebels) it is -17, but in a canon novel it is -10.

I used the free-to-use deck that Muddler referenced here:
SabaccDeckTEXTALT - Google Drive

And, once again, here is the link to the custom card creator website I used:
https://www.makeplayingcards.com/design/custom-blank-card.html

Here is a full step-by-step walkthrough on exactly how I got the Standard Sabacc deck:
Star Wars Card Games and others

 

[garudasWitch]

This actually inspired me to try and get it custom made again, looks like it was only having issue with the image sizes coz I was using my phone; they work just fine on my PC heh
Coz it costs the same I'll just chuck the right pics into the marker on that site and use the canon value for the Star, ty for the heads up I had no idea oops

 

[Mara Jade's Father]

How do you guys feel about the discarding order during your turn phase? It is worded vaguely in both the Han Solo Card Game and Galaxy's Edge Sabacc.

In the Han Solo game, it reads: Take the top card from the draw pile. If you want to, you can also place a card from your hand on the discard pile.
This version makes no explicit mention of what order you have to do this in, so presumably you could take the draw card and then decide whether to discard anything.

I really dislike this rule. I feel it gives the player way too much control of their hand and takes out a good deal of chance. It makes it too easy to come up with a hand that is at 0 or close to it.

In the GE Sabacc rules it reads: Take the top card from the Draw Pile. You may keep the card or you may discard. If you pick the option of discarding, you must discard before you draw.
This is very confusing and circular writing. I'm guessing they meant that if you want to discard a card from your hand, you have to do it before drawing a new card. It feels unclear to me whether you can discard the drawn card or not, since you "must discard before you draw" implies you can't but "you MAY keep the card or you may discard" implies you can. (but for sure I would say you can't discard, draw, then discard that too b/c it would make your hand shrink).

It would seem you have 3 option when it's your turn, you can either...

1. Add a card to your hand
2. Swap out a card from your hand with one from the draw pile (keeping the same amount)
3. Reduce the amount of cards from your hand (assuming you hand at the time has 3 or more cards)

I think when they say...

If you pick the option of discarding, you must discard before you draw.

... I do not think it is referring to the discard option of the draw card, it is if you are considering reducing your hand size. Let's see if I can explain it.

I think you have to make one of three choices when it is your turn...

1. add card count to my hand (possible staying with the same number) OR....
2. reduce card count to my hand (possible staying with the same number) OR...
3. pass

If you consider adding to the card count of your hand, you can draw from the draw pile. Once you draw, you can now...

1. keep the draw card and increase the count of cards in your hand OR...
2. discard with the draw card or an old card from your hand keeping your card count the same

If you consider reducing the card count of your hand (assuming you have 3 or more cards in your hand), you must discard a card from your hand first. Now you can..

1. draw from the draw pile (even if you have Sabacc, you may want to try to get a Sylop for a stronger hand). Once you draw, you can now...
   1. keep the draw card and and regain your previous card count of your hand before the discard OR...
   2. discard with the draw card or an old card from your hand keeping your hand at the reduced count.

However, I don't like the idea of having the option to compare which cards you want to swap out after a draw. I think it should simply be.

Add card to hand = draw a card
Reduce card from hand = discard
Swap a card = Discard a card, then draw your replacement card
Pass = do nothing

 

[MOBLCIBI]

Yup, I agree Mara Jade's Father; allowing the player to draw first does remove some of the chance.
And it also does make it slightly easier to get a zero total sum.
That is why this approach is a more casual, friendlier way to play, which is exactly why Yarith Bespin and the Han Solo Card Game did it that way.

I like the idea of having to discard first since it adds to the volatility of Corellian Spike that occurs due to Sabacc Shifts.
But I also support the idea of drawing first for certain house rules that would prefer that method instead.

Anyways, very good analysis of the GE rules!
I really appreciate you providing an excellent perspective on all that!
I look forward to play testing using your recommendations to see how it increases the challenge and dynamic of game play!

 

[MOBLCIBI]

Just to follow up with you ShineAugustine, I used a Python script to confirm your theory is true.

"Highest value cards" will give the same result for both the:

1. sum of the absolute values of all cards in the hand and
2. sum of only the positive value cards in the hand.

Interestingly, the only criteria for this to work is that all tied hands must have the same total sum, which is the first tie-breaking rule.
It actually does not matter if the tied hands have the same number of cards or not.

So there you have it, you can efficiently just count the sum of only the positive cards for the third tie-breaking rule!
Good eye ShineAugustine; I am glad we were able to confirm that alternative calculation method here!

However, "single highest card value" still is up to house rule decision since they must decide on either highest absolute value or most positive value.

 

[garudasWitch]

Looking over the rules provided in the Toydarian Toymaker deck, the hands Nulrhek and lower all win in a tiebreaker with the highest positive value card. In fact, some of the lower ranking Sabacc hands do the same. I'm not sure I see the confusion?

 

[MOBLCIBI]

Looking over the rules provided in the Toydarian Toymaker deck, the hands Nulrhek and lower all win in a tiebreaker with the highest positive value card. In fact, some of the lower ranking Sabacc hands do the same. I'm not sure I see the confusion?

You are right garudasWitch.
All we are saying is that there is some ambiguity in the Solo: ASWS bonus features on which way it went.
GE decided that it was always the highest positive value card.
But there is nothing stopping other house rules besides GE from using the highest absolute value card instead.
In fact, a house rule could even decide to modify or rearrange the order of the tie-breaking rules.