Yeah, we love to play dice. Especially this game, which being frighteningly easy, is fun to play even while you’re a little hammered.
at the start of every game, every player has eight “lives”. When you lose them all, you’re out of the game. The aim of the game is to lose the least lives possible and be the last one left in the game.
it is played with two dice. The first player casts the dice, and checks the result, but keeps them under the cup so the other player cannot see what’s his score. Once he knows his score, the player has three choices:
-to tell his score as it is.
-to lie and declare a higher score,
-to lie and declare a lower score.
At this point, the cup and the die under it are passed to the next player, clockwise. this player has three possibilities:
– to BELIEVE the player before him, and throw the dice again, without checking what the score was. The round continues, and the new player MUST announce a score that is higher than the one announced before (either telling the truth or lying)
-NOT to believe, thus uncovering the die and checking. if the die are scoring less than what was declared, the previous player loses one “life” and the current player throws the dice again and starts a new round: if instead the score is equal or less than what stated, it is the one checking that loses a life. Then a new hand begins in the same way.
– to RAISE, passing the die to the next player without throwing them again or checking, announcing a score even higher (usually, the score immediately over). the hand continues, the first player is now free of consequence for his declaration and the next player will play only against the one before him. This choice assumes that the one who has made the first declaration has purposefully announced a lower score than the one he has, to favour the player after him, or to hinder the player two positions after.
in any case, the player who does not start a new round HAS TO declare a score higher than the last one declared.
Differently than in most dice games, the dice are not summed: one of the dice will be “units” and the other “tens”. The highest die is always the tens. so a 3 and a 1 will be 31, a 6 and a 5 will be 65, and so on. Couples of the same numbers are worth more than any other score, in order (so, 65 is less than 22 which is less than 33…) and the score of “21” (Tokio) wins over everything else.
if the player that has rolled the dice says “tokio” (21) the next player can eitehr believe him, lose a life and start a new hand, or doubt and check. if the dice really show a Tokio the player who checked loses TWO lives, if not the one who passed it loses just one.
When all lives are lost, the player leaves the game. The last one in the game – or standing – is the victor…
i almost forgot, if you want to play like real pirates, don’t bother with this “lives” nonsense. We pirates play with forfeits, and the one who loses a hand has to drink a shot of rum. The more one loses, the harder the rum, until one gets to Oreste’s deadly pepper rum. This makes the game a tad harder.