How to play Liar's Dice

Liar's Dice is a bluffing game for two to six players. Each player needs five dice and a dice cup. The goal is simple: be the last player at the table with any dice left.

Everyone shakes their dice and turns the cup upside down on the table, keeping the dice hidden. Each player peeks at their own dice without showing anyone else. One player then opens the bidding.

A bid covers all the dice on the table combined, and states how many dice you believe show a certain value, for example four fives. Play moves clockwise, and the next player must either raise the bid or challenge it. A raise increases the number of dice, or keeps the number and increases the value. After four fives you could bid five twos or four sixes.

If you do not believe the last bid, you call it a lie instead of raising. Everyone lifts their cups, and you count how many dice actually show the value in the bid.

• If at least that many dice show the value, the bid stands and the challenger sets aside one die.
• If there are fewer, the bid was too bold and the bidder sets aside one die.

The player who lost a die starts the next round. Everyone shakes and rolls again, and the bidding starts over.

Lose your last die and you are out of the game. The winner is the last player with dice left. Bids get easier to see through as fewer dice remain in play, so the endgame calls for a different kind of nerve than the opening.

Many groups play with ones as wild, so they count towards every bid. That inflates the bids and makes the counting harder. Another common house rule lets you claim that the current bid is exactly right instead of calling a lie. If you are correct, you get back a die you have lost.

The game goes by many names, among them Doubting Dice, and in Norway it is known as Løgnterninger. The commercial version Perudo adds fixed rules for wild ones and special rounds. If you want to bluff with less equipment, try Mia, which gets by with two dice.

The core game is the same: hidden dice, rising bids and challenges. Perudo is the boxed version sold in shops, and it comes with fixed additions. Ones are always wild, bids on ones follow their own rules, and a player down to a single die triggers a special round. The rules on this page describe the classic game without those additions.

Yes, the rules work fine for two, but the bluffing has less room to breathe with only ten dice in play. The game is at its best with three players or more, when nobody can reason their way to exactly what is sitting on the table.