How to play Plus and Minus

Plus and Minus is played with five dice, a sheet of paper and something to write with. The game works for two to six players. Draw a column for each player on the sheet, and you are ready to start.

On your turn you roll four times, with fewer dice left for each roll:

1. First roll: roll all five dice. Pick two of them and set them aside. Their sum is your starting score.
2. Second roll: roll the remaining three dice. Set one aside and subtract its value from your score.
3. Third roll: roll the last two dice. Set one aside and add its value.
4. Fourth roll: roll the final die and subtract its value.

The number you end up with is your score for the round. Write it down and pass the dice on.

Say the first roll shows 6, 5, 4, 2 and 1. You keep the 6 and the 5 and start on 11. The second roll gives 5, 3 and 2, and you set aside the 2: 11 minus 2 is 9. The third roll gives 6 and 4, and you keep the 6: 9 plus 6 is 15. The last die shows 3, and 15 minus 3 leaves 12 points for the round.

The strategy takes care of itself: keep high dice when adding and low dice when subtracting.

Play five rounds. After the last one, each player adds up their scores from all their rounds, and the highest total wins the game.

Plus and Minus has no fixed variants, but a few house rules are common:

• Play more or fewer rounds, depending on how much time you have.
• Let the youngest players do the sums on paper, while the older ones keep the running total in their heads.
• Turn the game upside down and let the lowest total win. Suddenly you want low dice on the plus rolls and high dice on the minus rolls.

Yes, a round can end below zero. If you start with two ones and then have to subtract a couple of sixes, a small plus in between will not save you. It does not happen often, but when it does, it is a harmless first meeting with negative numbers for the kids.

Yes, that is more or less the whole point. Every turn is a string of small additions and subtractions, without it ever feeling like homework. Shut the Box and Yatzy are other dice games that give the same kind of practice.