“This Jar” Liar's Dice rules
“Liar's dice” is a game that can be played with any number of players, as long as they have a cup to conceal their dice and a surface to rest the cup upside down on. There are similar games that exist, and there is even some mention of the game in a pirate movie that came out in 2006, or a Hindi movie of the same name. I have created a simple and concise rule set for the game, which can be printed and placed within the container where you keep your dice.
General stuff:
Six dice are used per player with dice cups used for concealment.
Each round, each player rolls a “hand” of dice under their cup and looks at their hand while keeping it concealed from the other players.
Specific’s of “Bidding”:
The first player begins bidding, announcing any face value and the minimum number of dice that the player believes are showing under everyone’s cup facing upward, under all of the cups in the game.
- Variant – Ones can be declared wild, always counting as the face of the current bid.
Turns rotate among the players in a clockwise order. Each player has three choices during their turn: to make a higher bid, or challenge the previous bid—calling out the previous bidder as either “liar” or “fibber” as they prefer. The last option is to state the previous bidder was “spot on”
Raising the bid means either increasing the quantity, or the face value, or both, according to the specific bidding rules used. There are many variants of allowed and disallowed bids; common bidding variants, given a previous bid of an arbitrary quantity and face value, include:
The player may bid a higher quantity of any particular face, or the same quantity of a higher face (allowing a player to “re-assert” a face value they believe prevalent if another player increased the face value on their bid);
The player may bid a higher quantity of the same face, or any particular quantity of a higher face (allowing a player to “reset” the quantity);
The player may bid a higher quantity of the same face or the same quantity of a higher face (the most restrictive; a reduction in either face value or quantity is never allowed).
III. Other notes:
If the current player challenges the previous bid, all dice are revealed. If the bid is valid (at least as many of the face value and any wild aces are showing (if allowed) as were bid), the bidder wins. Otherwise, the challenger wins. The player who loses a round loses one of their dice. The last player to still retain a die (or dice) is the winner. The loser of the last round starts the bidding on the next round. If the loser of the last round was eliminated, the next player starts the new round.
If the challenger declared the previous number was “spot on” and the number count is indeed correct all other players lose a dice and the direction of play reverses. If the challenger is incorrect they lose one of their dice and the challenged player begins the next round.