The quick version
Give each person five dice and a cup. Roll secretly, then take turns clockwise claiming at least a certain quantity of one face across all active players. This guide's main rule never lowers either quantity or face: raise one or both, or challenge the immediately previous bid. Reveal every cup; fewer matching dice costs the bidder one die, otherwise the challenger loses one. Roll again with the dice remaining. The loser opens the next round; if eliminated, the next active person clockwise opens. Only one person with dice left wins.
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Give everyone a hidden roll
Seat three to five people around a level table. Each needs five ordinary six-sided dice with faces 1–6 and an opaque, empty cup large enough to shake and cover them: 15–25 dice and three to five cups total. Leave room beside the playing area for removed dice. A soft table mat is optional; no score sheet, phone or timer is needed.
This is an ordinary-dice format based on Sanford Research's undated Liar's Dice: How to Play handout, with explicit host conventions below. It is not the special-star-dice board game or a complete Perudo ruleset. For the main game, ones count only as ones; there are no wild faces, exact-count calls or mid-round rerolls.
Each person rolls one die in public to choose the first opener. Highest starts; as a house tie remedy, only those tied for highest roll again until one wins. Return that die to its owner's five. Everyone then shakes all five dice, settles them on the table under their cup and privately peeks without showing neighbors. Keep the result fixed until challenged.
Explain before starting: bids count everyone's active dice together, not just the speaker's. A player may make a claim their own roll does not support. Only the person whose turn it is may raise or challenge; everyone else waits.
Raise the claim or call the bluff
Name a quantity and a face
The opener says, for example, 'three fours': a claim that at least three active dice show 4. Quantities are positive whole numbers and faces run from 1 to 6. As a house boundary, do not claim more dice than remain in play. Keep removed dice separate and announce the current total at each new round.
Pass the decision clockwise
The next active person must raise or say 'Challenge' to dispute the immediately previous bid. No pass, repeat bid or call against an older claim is allowed. For this main format, neither number may decrease and at least one must increase. After three fours, four fours, three fives and four fives are legal; two sixes and four twos are not. The flexible-face variation changes this rule.
Reveal and count only that face
A challenge ends bidding. Everyone lifts their cup without moving the dice, and the group counts the named face across all active players. For a bid of five threes, an actual count of four makes the bidder lose one die; counts of five or six make the challenger lose one. Equality supports the bid: it is not a tie. Every other player keeps all their dice.
Remove one die and begin afresh
The loser places one die outside the playing area. Everyone still active shakes and privately checks all their remaining dice; discard every old bid. The person who lost the die opens. If that removed their last die, they leave play and the next active person clockwise opens, a house convention for an omission in the handout. Skip eliminated seats on every later turn.
Play the final two-person rounds
Keep the same rules when only two people remain. A person with one die still bids and challenges normally. When only one person has any dice, they win immediately; there is no points total, final extra turn or tied winner. Return all dice for a new game and choose an opener again.
Before the secret rolls, lay out one person's five dice and describe a claim about the whole group. Show that 'three fours' means at least three, then compare it with a pretend reveal containing exactly three fours. The challenger would lose a die. Treat this as an unscored explanation and give everyone five dice again before starting.
Keep the hidden information and decisions clear
Repeat the last bid in quantity-then-face order before the next person acts. If someone says only 'four', ask which quantity and which face they mean before treating it as a bid. Under this main raise convention, sixes can only be raised by increasing quantity. At the maximum quantity of sixes, the next player must challenge.
Correct an illegal raise before the following player acts: the same person chooses a legal raise or challenges the last legal bid. This is a house remedy, not a printed penalty. If an illegal bid goes unnoticed until dice have been exposed, abandon that round without a die loss and reroll with the previous opener. For a tipped die, escaped die or accidentally exposed roll before a challenge, use the same neutral reroll remedy rather than let one player reroll selectively.
As a house table-talk agreement, spectators and eliminated players do not advise an active decision or disclose what they saw. Active players may bluff through their bids, but keep the dice physically hidden. Avoid directing another person's choice. Learning how to handle an uncomfortable decision is part of the game: a challenge asks whether the claim is false, not whether it sounds risky.
Removed dice make the unknown pool smaller, so announce the total each round and look at the dice you actually have now. Keep the first game to the declared rules; change variations between games. Eliminated players may watch quietly or take a break, then rejoin the next game. Agree to stop between rounds if the group needs to leave; an unfinished game has no declared winner.
Softly spoken bids are enough. Dice still make noise, and cups require handling and private viewing; being seated is not a guarantee of access for every group.
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Ideas & Twists
Choose a variation together before you start.
Liar's dice · See main rules
House option · wider choicesFlexible-face raises
Replace only the raise rule: a higher quantity may name any face; with the same quantity, the face must increase. Quantity can never decrease. After three fours, four twos becomes legal, but two sixes is still illegal. This convention appears in other published ordinary-dice rules and prevents bid loops. Keep ones ordinary, clockwise turns, the current-total cap, one-die loss, new-round opener and last-person finish unchanged.
Liar's dice · See main rules
House option · change the countSimple wild ones
Before starting, make every 1 count toward any bid of 2–6 and prohibit bids of ones entirely. A bid of four fives succeeds with two fives and two ones. Use the main raise rule among faces 2–6: neither quantity nor face decreases, and one must increase. Keep five starting dice, the active-dice cap, single-die losses and the same finish. No half/double conversion, special final-die round or exact-count call is added. This is a simplified house option discussed by players, not full Perudo.
Liar's dice · See main rules
House option · smaller starting poolThree dice each
Start each person with three dice instead of five: nine dice for three people, twelve for four or fifteen for five. Each still has a cup. Choose the opener with one of those dice and return it before the first secret roll. Announce the smaller total, then use the main no-wild raise, challenge and one-die-loss rules unchanged. The last person with dice wins. Fewer starting dice reduces the losses needed to eliminate players.
About this guide
Sanford's currently served, undated one-page handout supplies the 3–5 starting group and core round structure. This guide deliberately uses a conservative no-decrease reading of its three listed raises; it does not claim that convention is universal. Cups, ordinary non-wild faces and whole-table counting are also described by Moddable Games, whose different raise ordering appears only in the flexible-face option here. The bid cap, starting tie remedy, eliminated-opener handoff, misplay/exposure remedies and table-talk agreement are house conventions. All three variations are labeled house options. No purchased edition or universal official rulebook is implied.
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