Liar's Dice Rules and Setup

This game consists of 25 six-sided dice and 5 cups and a rules pamphlet. This game allows for 2-5 players to play the game, however with extra dice and cups can be played with any number of players.

To set up the game, simply allocate 5 dice and 1 cup to each player keeping enough space to allow players to shake their dice in their cups as well as keeping some space in the centre of where you'll be playing.

With the game set up as instructed in the Game contents and setup section, all players shake their all their dice inside their cups. Once well shaken all players then place their cups of dice facedown on the play area, each player keeping their dice secret to themselves.

Take time to see your five before starting the round of finding out who will be lying about how many dice of a spoken face value there are among all dice on the area. Once ready, pick a player to go first. On a player's turn, they shall state how many dice of a stated face-value there are among the whole play area followed by the face-value they want to state, trying not to lie about how many dice there are of that face value. A player's turn may go as this: "5 Fours", once this is said their turn ends and play continues to the left.

Once a player ends their turn, say: "5 fours", the player to the left starts their turn. That player has two options, they can either challenge the previous player and call that they're bluffing (or lying), at that point the whole round would end. Their other option would be to state how many dice there are, but they must either raise the face-value of the dice, say: "5 fives", or they can raise the number of dice, and that way they can choose any face-value while increasing the number of dice, say: "6 twos" or "6 sixes". Note that only by raising the number of dice can you lower the face-value of the dice, i.e. "3 fives" can not be lowered to "3 threes", you must raise the number of dice to "4 threes". By raising the bid, your turn ends immediatly and play continues to the left. By calling the previous player out ends the entire round.

Once the round ends with a player calling the player to their right out for lying, all players reveal their dice. Say that a player got called out for lying by biding: "9 fives", with all the players' dice, collectively count the number of fives there are between all players. If there are 8 or fewer fives, then that player has lied, and having been called out loses the round. If there are 9 or more fives, then that player has told the truth and so the player that challenged them is incorrect and so they lose the round. The player who loses the round loses one of their dice and places their lost die in the centre of the play area. Once that is done a new round starts, shake the dice and keep your dice secret, and then the player who lost the previous round will now start the next round.

Keep playing more rounds with each following round there being 1 fewer die in play as one player will remove a die after losing the previous round. Once a player loses all of their 5 dice by losing 5 rounds, they are then out of the game. Once a player is out of the game, the player who challenged that eliminated player, or the player that got challenged by that eliminated player starts the next round.

The last player standing is declared the winner, that being all other players lose all of their dice and the final player has at least 1 of their dice remaining.

Strategies that you can use throughout the game include trying to place high bids of which aren't too high risk, but are high enough so that as the players continue to bid, the play shouldn't end up coming back to you. By doing this, this ensures you will not be challenged or will have to make a much riskier bid later on or end up challenging another player so you aren't at any risk of losing a die. This can be used especially when you have a higher number of dice.

Sometimes when the play comes to you, the previous bid may seem like the highest it could really be that is true, at that point there is no safe play to do. If you would think that at least one of the previous players may be bluffing and as a result the bid is as high as it is, challenging the previous player may be the best option. Another option may be that you raise the face-value of the dice, but not the number of dice, for example the previous player bids: "7 Fours", you might then bid "7 Fives". This is very much a desperate move, however if challenging would be too risky, it may be better to pass the turn to the next player, that way if they raise the bid, the play likely won't return back to you.

In general it is best to have as many dice as you can, that way you have a higher proportion of the total dice in play, then making higher bets becomes less risky as the game progresses as challenging a player with more dice than you is risky given they aren't completely bluffing. It also allows you to safely bid high numbers of a face-value.

One way challenging a player becomes viable is when that player raises the previous bid by face-value when that previous bid seemed like the highest possible bid that's true. The chances are in that case that the player who raised the bid is lying and a challenge would be the best play instead of further raising the bid at a high risk.

Sometimes it may be better to evaluate whether to challenge someone's bid of which contains no face-values of which you hold, or you may wish to continue the bid with your face-value as the risk of challenging them and they aren't lying may be higher than the risk of raising the bid and lying yourself. In general, it's best to avoid challenging, and being challenged, however you should challenge if the risk of raising the bid is too high.

Palifico

In this rule, once a player loses a die and only has 1 remaining die, the next round becomes a Palifico round. In this round, the player who causes the Palifico round starts and makes the first bid. However for this round, the face-value cannot be changed, only the number of that face-value. After the Palifico round ends, the next round resumes as normal given that the player who loses doesn't end up with 1 die remaining.

Aces

In the regular rules, Ones are just like any number. With the addition of the Aces rule, all Ones become Aces which are wild and can denote any face-value. Aces can even be bid during the game, although raising the bid once Aces are bid is different. If you want to bid Aces after someone bids x number of non-Aces, say: "4 Twos", you would have to bid at least half that number, in this instance it would be 2 and then add 1 making the minimum numbwe of Aces you can bid 3, but you can of course bid more Aces than that. If the last bid was an odd number of non-Aces, say: "5 Twos", then you half the 5 and then round down to 2 then add 1, this would make the minimum bid 3 Aces. If you wish to bid non-Aces after a player bids Aces, then the minimum number of any non-Ace value you can bid is the number of Aces bid last turn doubled. For example, if someone bids: "4 Aces", the minimum number of a non-Ace value would be 8, say: "8 Fours". You can raise the number of Aces after a player bids Aces just like raising the number of any face-value. Aces can also be bid in Palifico rounds.

Calza

In this rule, on a player's turn, they can call "Calza", what this means is if the player who calls Calza guesses the exact number of dice from the previous player's bid they regain a die. If the player calls "Calza" and there are any more or any fewer dice than the last bid called, they end up losing one of their dice. The next round begins with the player who called "Calza" the previous round. If a player gets eliminated by calling "Calza", the next rounds starts with the next player in turn.

Reversa

Once a round begins, the player who starts the round can choose to change the direction of the play. Play can either go clockwise or anti-clockwise.