Liar's Dice variants

One old game, many houses. These are the versions you'll meet — where they came from, how they differ, and which knobs this house lets you turn to play any of them.

Underneath the names, the engine never changes: hidden dice, a bid about the whole table, and a call that stops the round and counts. What the variants argue about is what a lost round costs, whether ones are wild, and which extra call is allowed.

Dudo — the Peruvian original

Centuries old and South American. Aces are wild, bids climb, and “¡dudo!” — Spanish for “I doubt” — forces the count. A lost round costs a die, and a player with no dice left is out. Every version below descends from it, ours included.

Full Dudo rules →

Perudo — the boxed edition

The trademarked retelling of Dudo, sold in a box with cups and a rulebook that settles the arguments traditional tables settle themselves. It writes down two rules in particular: palifico, the handicap round where a player down to one die opens on a fixed face and aces stop being wild, and calza, the exact call. If you've played Perudo you already know this game.

Full Perudo rules →

Red Dead Redemption's liar's dice

Rockstar's saloons play the classic dice-loss game: five dice each, ones wild, lose a die per lost round, last player holding dice wins. It is Dudo with the Spanish filed off, and it is where a great many players first met the game.

The lose a die house rule reproduces it exactly — turn it on and you're playing the frontier version, minus the cheating NPCs.

Pirates of the Caribbean

The tense three-way aboard the Flying Dutchman is straight Liar's Dice: each player bidding on every die at the table, wild ones, one call to end it. What the film changes is only the stakes — years of service rather than a die — which, as it happens, is closer to this house's revolver than to the traditional game. The rules that scene plays by are the ones on our rules page.

Cacho, Cachito, Dadinho

The same game under the names it travels by. Cacho and cachito are what Chile and Bolivia call it — cacho is the leather cup itself — and Brazilian tables know it as dadinho. Rules drift from town to town, mostly around whether aces can be bid and what a lost round costs, but a player from any of them can sit down at any other and be playing within a round.

The house rules you can set

Every table here is dealt from the same deck of options, chosen by whoever creates it:

Dice per player: 3, 4 or 5

Shorter or longer evenings; 5 is the classic.

Ones wild: on or off

On is traditional. Off is not a small change — it halves how often a die helps you, and the bids that were safe become reckless. See the strategy page for what the swing is actually worth.

Chambers loaded: 1 to 6

How hot the revolver runs. One round is the gentleman's game; six is a statement.

Lose a die on a lost round: on or off

The Dudo and Red Dead economy — survival gets harder as you bleed.

Spot-on calls: on or off

Perudo's calza, paid in lead: name the count exactly and everyone else loads as for a lost round and pulls; miss and you do.

Turn timer: 10 to 60 seconds

How long the table waits before bidding for you.

House bots: any empty seats

Two players and four bots is still a six-way game.

Spectators: on or off

Whether anyone who isn't seated can watch the felt.

Which one should you play?

New to the game

Leave everything at the defaults: 5 dice, ones wild, one round in the cylinder. It is the fastest version to learn and the least punishing to lose.

You know it from Red Dead

Turn lose a die on and you are home.

You know it from a Perudo box

Defaults, with spot-on left on — that is calza.

You want a short, brutal evening

Three chambers loaded. Half the table is gone inside twenty minutes.

You want the pure reading game

Ones off. The numbers get thin, the bids get honest, and there is nowhere to hide.

Open a table and set it however you like — free, in the browser, 2–6 players.