Liar's Dice

Kids!

Well it's been a few weeks, hasn't it? I know, I know, I'm sorry, but I've been quite the busy beaver as of late.

But that's all in the past, let's focus on the now. And what an exciting "now" it is: it's Halloween night!! In honor of this fine holiday, I've decided to share my second favorite game (maybe we'll talk about my first favorite some other time) and latest obsession with all of you fine folks.

Sidebar: Since it is Halloween after all, I do feel obligated to tie this blog in with the holiday somehow. So be on the lookout...hopefully I'll come up with something by the end of the blog.

Without any further ado, allow me to present you, the fans:

Liar's Dice

Liar's dice can be played in groups of between 4 and 8 people, and the only equipment you need is one large, opaque cup per person and six dice per person (d-6's for all you M:TG/D&D nerds out there).

To begin, everyone sits around a table and rolls all of their dice in their cups, Yahtzee-style. Then, without showing their dice, players flip the cup face-down on the table so the dice are covered by the cup. Players can look at their own dice at any time by lifting up one side of the cup, but can't look at their opponents' dice.

Someone starts the game by calling a bet about the TOTAL number of dice they think are under all of the cups combined. For example, if there were 6 players, (36 dice total) an opening guess of "five 3's" (that is, five dice out of all 36 have 3's on them) is a very reasonable bet. Players continue making guesses in a similar fashion, proceeding in a counterclockwise order, but they must "raise" the guess the previous player made. There are three ways one can "raise" a guess:

1) Players may guess the same quantity of dice, but guess a higher pip than the previous player. (Dice terminology sidebar: the dots on dice are called "pips".)

For example: If the player to my left made a guess of "4 fives", a raise of "4 sixes" would be kosher.

2) Players may guess a higher quantity than the previous guess, but guess ANY pip.

For example: If the player to my left made a guess of "3 twos", a raise of "4 ones" would be acceptable.

3) Combining rules 1) and 2), players may raise both pip and quantity in a guess.

Guesses do not have to move in a sequential order, raising from a quantity of 1 to a quantity of 4 is allowed, as is a pip raise from 2 to 5.

If, during a player's turn, they think that the previous bet was incorrect, they may call "bullshit" (or BS for the PG-13 version) on the last guess. When bullshit gets called, all players reveal their dice and it is determined whether or not the BS-ing player was correct. If correct, the player who called bullshit loses a dice, which gets placed in the middle of the table. If the last guess was incorrect, the guesser loses a dice in the same fashion.

It is important to note that if there are MORE than the guessed quantity of dice, the player who called bullshit still loses. So a guess of "five 6's" is really a guess that there are "AT LEAST five 6's under all of the cups".

A round ends after a player calls bullshit and someone loses a dice, and the next round starts with the person who called bullshit. Play continues until there is only one person left, the winner.

Now, LD is, as all good games should be, easy to learn, but very difficult to master. Maybe next week we'll talk about some strategy. And I guess I'll share the obligatory story (that has a fun little ring to it) of how I came to be in HP2, although I'm sure all of you clever kids out there could probably piece 90% of it together from everyone else's entries.

Obligatory Halloween Tie-In: Oh hey! My roommate and his girlfriend are dressed-up as a pirate and a wench, respectively. Liar's Dice got popularized by its brief appearance in Pirates of the Caribbean II. Nice!

Seeya kids,
Snuggles

Oh yeah, and I was just kidding about the M:TG diss, I love Magic. But I was serious about D&D. Just kidding. But seriously.