This is a dice game which seems complicated, but is incredibly good fun, based as it is on bluffing and lying to your friends. Medieval re-enactors particularly enjoy this game around a campfire, when they’ve spent the evening doing the best part of a bottle of mead and reliving their finest bruises.
You will need two playing dice, an opaque dice cup or beaker with a lid (a beer mat will do) and a life dice or 6 matchsticks for each player, with which to record how many lives they’ve lost.
How to Start
Each player starts with six lives, so everyone turns their life dice so the six is facing up. Player One rolls the two play dice in the cup, has a discreet look, and then makes a decision based on the following three choices…
- Tell the truth and say what he has just rolled,
- Lie and either announce a greater value than the one he has actually rolled, or
- Lie and announce a lesser value (useful if there aren’t many players and there is a good chance play will come around to him again).
The dice are concealed with the lid and carefully passed to Player Two, who now also has three options.
- Believe Player One, in which case he has to roll either the same or higher, without looking. • Call Player One a liar, and look at the dice to see if he was right. If the dice was lower than Player One announced, Player One loses a life. However if it was equal or higher, then Player Two loses a life.
- Pass the dice to the next player; without looking.
This relieves Player One of all responsibility, and the bluff is now on Player Two’s shoulders. Player Three can now either call or believe the pass, or pass it on. Each player must always match or beat the previous value, or pass it on blind and take his chances.
If the game continues all the way round the circle back to Player One, then he cannot continue without raising the score. When a player loses a life he must either lose a matchstick or turn his life dice up to show one less pip. The play then returns to the player who preceded him.
Scoring
The numbers made of mixed dice come lowest, with the highest number always coming first, e.g., 31, 54, 63 etc.
Next come the doubles, running from a low of 11 up to the highest 66.
Highest of all is Mia, or 21; nothing can beat this and if it is rolled or announced, the losing player forfeits two lives.
So, the complete order of rolls runs like this, from lowest to highest 31,32,41,42,43,51,52,53,54,61,62,63,64,65,11,22,33,44,55,66,21.
Strategy
This is much easier to play than it sounds; just remember that you must either trust, or match and beat the player who came before you. And if you can’t, lie, lie, lie! Often the player who follows you won’t want to risk losing a life by challenging you incorrectly and so will accept your call at face value. Likewise, don’t trust anyone else, there is always a good chance they’re lying too. It helps to remember that 62 is a fairly middle-of-the-road score, so you’ve got a good chance of beating it, either on your first roll or using your second blind shot.
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