How to Win in Dice Poker


The values of the dice involved are used to break ties. For instance, if you have a 5-5-5-5-5 hand and your opponent has a 6-6-6-6-6 hand, you lose the round. When you lose, you lose any orens you bet on your performance. If you tie, then you replay the round from the beginning with no orens lost or gained. When you win, you get back the orens you wagered and take your opponent's orens, too. Dice poker combines both skill and luck, so sometimes you just won't be able to roll a better hand than the opponent. Just keep trying until the dice fall your way.

One On One: Flotsam

Head into the lower level of the Flotsam inn and speak with Sheridan, a man in red who’s hanging around the perimeter of the fistfighting circle. He invites you to participate in a tournament. If you accept, you basically fight three opponents in sequence, wagering on the outcome. If you’ve made it to this point in the game, you’ve already played the fistfighting mini-game successfully. Just hit the quick time events (QTE) button prompts when they appear onscreen. Remember that each prompt appears roughly in the button’s position on whatever you’re using as your input device. If you’re playing on a PC and using a keyboard, W prompts appear at the top center of the screen. If you’re using an Xbox 360 controller, the Y prompts would appear at the top center. You don’t have to do the fights back-to-back and can opt to go save or pursue another quest between bouts.

Your opponents for One on One: Flotsam are a random opponent for the first round, Fliparse, and then Tidy Tib. Note that no matter who you actually fight for your first round, your journal says you fought someone named Stycho the Sot. After you defeat Fliparse you meet King Ziggy, who invites you to meet him outside the Flotsam inn after sundown. This unlocks the Fight Club quest, which lets you fistfight tougher opponents to earn even more money.

Fight Club

At midnight or later, head to the Flotsam inn’s town square entrance. King Ziggy will be standing off to its left as you approach, where you usually pass three men chatting idly. Make sure you’re carrying as little weight as possible, especially if you didn’t get the Strong Back trait in the first chapter. If you haven’t already done Indecent Proposal , you’re about to stumble on a golden opportunity for looting a difficult-to-access area of the game.

King Ziggy takes you to Loredo’s compound. To enter, you have to agree to surrender your weapons to the guard. They go into a chest where you can retrieve them later. Once inside, take your time and don’t follow King Ziggy too closely. Scan the area repeatedly and take everything that isn’t nailed down. You can’t get the iron frame by looting Loredo’s compound during this quest, but you can take basically everything else of interest you would otherwise have to obtain during Indecent Proposal.

King Ziggy waits patiently for you to finish your looting spree and only moves ahead once you approach him from behind. As he opens up new areas for you, keep scanning and looting. Eventually he leads you into an underground cavern area that you can enter only during this quest. Once you’re there, the game auto-saves.

Now the quest proper begins. It’s just like One on One: Flotsam , only the opponents you face are a bit tougher. After you agree to fight, you face Twigs, One-Punch Matho, Smugface, and Zdenek. You have to do these fights directly back-to-back with no chance to save your progress. If you ever give the “I’ve had enough of this malarkey” response, you simply fail the quest and won’t get any winnings or experience. You get to keep whatever you looted from Loredo’s compound, though.

Before you fight Zdenek, you have a conversation with Loredo where he orders you to throw the fight. If you agree and make sure not to defeat Zdenek, Loredo throws you out of the compound. You get 60 XP and 250 orens. The quest will be marked failed and you find out you caused Dandelion to lose all of his money (again).

If you say “And I’m not a conman,” then the quest proceeds normally. After you beat Zdenek, you get 200 orens and 100 XP. Loredo threatens you on the way out and you should take this threat seriously. After you get the quest XP, immediately go to the gate guard and get your swords back. Make a point of re-equipping all of your armor.

A couple of thugs working for Loredo are going to hang around the door that connects the Craftsman’s District to the town square. They attack you as soon as you draw near to them. They’re unarmored, so they won’t be any threat if you’ve re-equipped all of your gear. It is possible to avoid the thugs by simply going around them, since there are other ways to move from the Craftsman’s District to the town square. They remain inconveniently in that location until you kill them, though. You might as well take care of it now.

Bring It On: Flotsam

This is the arm-wrestling quest for Flotsam, and probably the most lucrative of the mini-game side quests for this chapter. To initiate it, go talk to Zoltan at the inn and pick the dialogue option that has the arm-wrestling icon next to it (“Managed to stay in shape, Zoltan?”). The match with Zoltan is something of a tutorial that you can’t wager on, so you can just repeat it until you get the hang of arm-wrestling well enough to beat him.

After you beat Zoltan, go talk to a fellow named Skinny Sten who sits at the wooden table to the right of the inn’s harbor entrance. You may want to save your game before you face him, since you have to wager orens in this bout. Once you beat Skinny Sten, you get 10 XP and double whatever amount of orens you bet on that round. Skinny Sten’s maximum wager is 15, so you can earn up to 30 orens by beating him. The penalty for losing an arm-wrestling bout is losing twice your bet, which is why it’s a good idea to save before a match. You can hold onto your money by reloading your game after a loss.

Skinny Sten suggests you challenge Wiry Wilks, who is conveniently sitting at the same table. He’s also worth 10 XP to beat and double your bet, up to a max of 50 orens. After you beat Wiry Wilks, you’re urged to take on Big Max. Beating Big Max is worth another 10 XP and up to 60 orens, depending on your bet. Big Max tells you to go look for Bartholomew Bargee in Lobinden, who has never been beaten. He’s your final opponent for this side quest.

You should set out to find Bargee during the day. He’s at the far northeast end of Lobinden, building boats. If you head out at night, Bargee is in his home and will not wrestle you. His minimum bet is 50 orens and his maximum is 100, so you can earn up to 200 orens for beating him. You definitely want to save before facing him, because he’s a far more challenging opponent than anyone you’ve faced before. Once he’s defeated, you get 20 XP and clear the quest. If you beat every prior opponent after making a maximum bet, you’re also 340 orens richer.

All of the other arm-wrestling opponents let you challenge them again freely after you’ve beaten them once, but you can only challenge Bargee once. If you’ve completed this quest, the dice poker quest, and a fistfighting quest, you should unlock the Gambler achievement. By the way, the characters that Zoltan and Bargee mention after you defeat them can be encountered in Chapter 2.