Liar’s Dice is a tabletop dice game played in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, while on the Flying Dutchman sailors are shown to be using years on the ship as bets to make it exciting. I’m fairly certain it is an older game in real life.

It is played by multiple people at once. This requires at least two players to work but there can be as many more as you want. I recommend between four and six.

To play you will need:

• A good sized table
• Opaque, cylindrical cups for rolling and covering the dice
• Five or six dice per player

All dice are rolled in and held under the cups at the start of a round. A player will then peek under their cup to see the numbers on the top of their dice, shielding the dice with their hands at all times so other players can’t see.

Players will then take turns to make guesses at the total number of a chosen number that has been rolled on the whole table (two 2s for example). The following guess have to be more extreme than the last (three 2s or five 3s for example). With six players and six dice each the previous numbers would be reasonable guesses so the players could be correct.

If a player’s guess is so extreme that it seems unreasonable (thirty-six 6s for example) then another player can call them a Liar. This ends the round and all cups are lifted revealing the dice. If the Accuser is wrong they lose a die but if the Accuser is right then the Liar will lose a die. A new round will start, this time with one die less.

Once a player runs out of dice they are out of the game. Rounds keep going, starting with fewer dice each time until only one player has any dice left. This last player standing is the winner.