Liar's Dice – The Shokingly Tricky Dice Game | Game Rules

Luck of the dice, penalty stones and gambling until the exciting finale: Liar’s Dice is a tricky dice drinking game and perfect for the pub or a game night..

Many names, one dice game: Liar’s Dice, Jule, Mörkeln, Knobeln, Maxen, Meiern or Schocken are regionally different names for the same game. It is a popular dice drinking game in pubs for which there are several game variants. We play Liar’s Dice in the Rhineland version known as “Schocken” (meaning “to shock” in English). Here we present these rules, which guarantee for a lot of fun, as we can assure you… 😉

The Dice Game Liar’s Dice

A game of Liar’s Dice consists of 2 halves of the game, and unless the same player loses in both halves, a sting – the final. In each half of the game and the final, the dice are rolled in turn. The loser of each game deals a turn to his teammates. If the dice fall on the ground to a player, he must also spend a round.

• Players: from 2 players.
• Accessories: ideal is a so-called shock cutlery with 13-17 penalty stones or 13-17 coasters and a huub or half coaster, 1 dice cup and 3 six-sided dice per person.
• Drink: Beer or other beverage of choice.
• Game Objective:In two halves of the game and if necessary a final collect the fewest penalty points – loser is the player who has collected all the tokens / coasters..

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Preparation

Each player gets a dice cup and 3 dice. The shock set with the game pieces or the stack with at least 13 beer mats plus half a beer mat on top is placed on the table. A beer mat or token is a penalty point and the half beer mat, the so-called Huub – marks the loser of the first half of the game.

How Liar’s Dice is Played

Each player gets a dice cup and 3 dice. The shock cutlery with the game pieces or the stack with the at least 13 beer mats as well as a half beer mat on top one puts on the table ready. A beer mat or token is a penalty point and the half beer mat, the so-called Huub – marks the loser of the first half of the game.

This is how Liar’s Dice goes

First, everyone rolls the dice face up; the player with the highest number starts. All players roll the dice and turn the cup upside down without turning their dice cups over and knowing the roll. Now the first player may roll up to 3 times face down. The goal is to roll as high a total score as possible. The other players may not roll the dice more times than the first player in this round.

The first player looks at his roll without the other players seeing the dice and can leave it as it is or re-roll as many dice as he wants. If he does not reroll, the other players do not know what number of dice is hidden under their cups. If the player decides to leave the dice as they are and at the latest when the first player has studied his roll for the third time, it is the next player’s turn in a clockwise direction. Now this player turns over his cup and may re-roll the dice a maximum of as many times as the first player has specified. The round is over when it was the last player’s turn.

Now all players in turn reveal their dice and it is decided who has rolled the highest and who has rolled the lowest number of dice. If two players rolled the same number of dice, the roll of the player who rolled less often counts. If both players rolled the same number of times, then the roll of the player who rolled earlier in the round wins.

After each round, penalty points are distributed until one player has all the penalty points and has lost the half of the game. If the first and second halves of the game lose different players, it comes to the final, the scoring. In the final, only the two players who lost the two rounds play each other. The loser of the final has lost the whole game. He spends one round. 🙂

The Types of Rolls in the Dice Drinking Game Liar’s Dice

When no die has been placed from the roll, they are called hand rolls. In other words, a hand roll is any roll with all 3 dice. A street or a so-called general (see below) can only be rolled as a hand roll! If there is a sequence of numbers on the table that is the result of several rolls, they only count as a single roll.

A player may announce a blind roll before raising the cup. That is, he does not look at his throw and this results in the highest throw being assessed twice the number of penalty stones! If he is unlucky, however, the player may then have the lowest number of dice himself and collect the penalty points.

The Penalty Points in Shock

The highest roll determines how many penalty points the player with the lowest roll gets. A clear list of how many penalty points there are when you can find below!

• Two pairs: 1 penality point (= 2,2,1… – 6,6,5)
• Streets / general: 2-3 penality points (1,2,3… – 4,5,6)
• Three of a kind: 3 penality points (2,2,2… – 6,6,6)
• One pair: 2-6 penality points (1,1,2,,, – 1,1,6)
• Shock Off: all penality points (1,1,1)
• Runt: zero penality points (no combination: 6,4,1)

First you distribute the tokens / coasters from the stick. If these are already all distributed to players, then the winner (player with the highest roll) may push his penalty stones onto the loser. Penalty stones are placed face up in front of each player. If neither the stick nor the winner has the required number of penalty stones, then the winner hands over all the penalty stones he still has to the loser. If all the penalty stones from the stick are thus distributed to players, then only those players play this half of the game who have collected penalty points.

Exception: If a player has rolled a Shock Off – that is 3 times the 1, then the loser immediately gets all the penalty stones and the game half or final is immediately over.

How the Rolls Count

Regionally, there are several variations on how throws count. Before the game starts, you should agree on a variant!

Streets

• Variant 1: The Street with the higher number of points is the higher roll. Example. 2-3-4 is higher than 1-2-3, and 4-5-6 is higher than 3-4-5, etc.
• Variant 2: Every street counts equall.
• Variant 3: The street rolled first is the higher roll regardless of its number of points.
• Variant 4: The fewer throws, the higher the value of the road. Thus, a road in the 1st throw counts more than one in the 2nd, one in the 2nd more than a road in the 3rd throw.

Jule, 4-2-1 or sharp 7

The combination 4-2-1 is called a sharp 7 or Jule. This roll is higher than Shock-6 and lower than Shock-Out and is worth 7 penalty stones.

2-2-1 – the Worst Roll

If a player rolls a 2-2-1, he must immediately spend a turn.

Variant “Bördeschock”

This variant of the game differs from the normal rules, because you can collect 6s and on the 2nd and 3rd roll, if there are 2 or 3 6s, turn them into 1 or 2 1s. The excess 6 goes back into the cup.
This game variant tightens the tempo of the game and shortens the rounds.

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Image source Cover photo: shocks by NoxicTonic at CC BY 2.0

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