Backgammon is a two-player board game played with counters and dice on tables boards. It is the most widespread Western member of the large family of tables games, whose ancestors date back nearly 5,000 years to the regions of Mesopotamia and Persia. The earliest record of backgammon itself dates to 17th-century England, being descended from the 16th-century game of Irish.
Craps is a dice game in which players bet on the outcomes of the roll of a pair of dice. Players can wager money against each other or against a bank. Because it requires little equipment, "street craps" can be played in informal settings. While shooting craps, players may use slang terminology to place bets and actions.
Dice are small, throwable objects with marked sides that can rest in multiple positions. They are used for generating random values, commonly as part of tabletop games, including dice games, board games, role-playing games, and games of chance.
Yahtzee is a dice game made by Milton Bradley. It was first marketed under the name of Yahtzee by game entrepreneur Edwin S. Lowe in 1956. The game is a development of earlier dice games such as Poker Dice, Yacht and Generala. It is also similar to Yatzy, which is popular in Scandinavia.
Shut the box is a game of dice for one or more players, commonly played in a group of two to four for stakes. Traditionally, a counting box is used with tiles numbered 1 to 9 where each can be covered with a hinged or sliding mechanism, though the game can be played with only a pair of dice, pen, and paper. Variations exist where the box has 10 or 12 tiles. In 2018 the game had a renaissance in Liverpool, England, when it became the house game at Hobo Kiosk pub on the Baltic Triangle. It was popularized by DJ duo Coffee and Turntables and became the most played board game in Merseyside for 4 years in a row.
Pig is a simple dice game first described in print by John Scarne in 1945. Players take turns to roll a single dice as many times as they wish, adding all roll results to a running total, but losing their gained score for the turn if they roll a 1.
Liar's dice is a class of dice games for two or more players requiring the ability to deceive and to detect an opponent's deception. In "single hand" liar's dice games, each player has a set of dice, all players roll once, and the bids relate to the dice each player can see plus all the concealed dice. In "common hand" games, there is one set of dice which is passed from player to player. The bids relate to the dice as they are in front of the bidder after selected dice have been re-rolled. Originating during the 15th century, the game subsequently spread to Latin American and European countries. In 1993, a variant, Call My Bluff, won the Spiel des Jahres.
Farkle, or Farkel, is a dice game similar to or synonymous with 1000/5000/10000, Cosmic Wimpout, Greed, Hot Dice, Squelch, Zilch, or Zonk. Its origins as a folk game are unknown, but the game dates back to at least the mid-1980s. It has been marketed commercially since 1996 under the brand name Pocket Farkel by Legendary Games Inc. While the basic rules are well-established, there is a wide range of variation in both scoring and play.
Dice 10,000 also Greed, Dix Mille, "Reload", 5-Dice is the name of a family dice game played with 6 dice, it is similar or identical to the commercialized Farkle. It also goes by other names, including Zilch, Zilchers, Foo, Boxcar, Bogus, Lewis' Dice and Crap Out.
Pass the Pigs is a commercial version of the dice game Pig, but using custom asymmetrical throwing dice, similar to shagai. It was created by David Moffatt and published by Recycled Paper Products as Pig Mania! in 1977. The publishing license was later sold to Milton Bradley and the game renamed Pass the Pigs. In 1992, publishing rights for North America were sold to Winning Moves Games USA, which acquired the game outright from David Moffat Enterprises in early 2017.
In the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, game mechanics and dice rolls determine much of what happens. These mechanics include:
Mexico is an elimination-style dice game, in which several players agree to play a set number of rounds. After each round, one player is eliminated. When all players but one have been eliminated, the remaining player wins the game. Owing to its extremely simple play-structure, it is generally pursued as a method of gambling, whereby the final remaining player wins the amount of money wagered by each person who was eliminated in earlier rounds. A variant of the drinking game liar's dice known as Mexican or Mia uses similar dice rolls, but has very different game mechanics.
A set of dice is intransitive if it contains three dice, A, B, and C, with the property that A rolls higher than B more than half the time, and B rolls higher than C more than half the time, but it is not true that A rolls higher than C more than half the time. In other words, a set of dice is intransitive if the binary relation – X rolls a higher number than Y more than half the time – on its elements is not transitive. More simply, A normally beats B, B normally beats C, but A does not normally beat C.
Dice notation is a system to represent different combinations of dice in wargames and tabletop role-playing games using simple algebra-like notation such as 2d6+12.
Poker dice are dice which, instead of having number pips, have representations of playing cards upon them. Poker dice have six sides, one each of an Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, and 9, and are used to form a poker hand.
Ship, Captain, and Crew is a drinking game played with five dice. The game can be played with as few as two people, but is usually played in a group of five or more. The object of the game is to roll a six, a five ("captain"), and a four ("crew") with three dice, and get the highest score with the other two dice. In other versions, a four is the "mate" and the remaining dice are the crew.
Yatzy is a dice game similar to Yacht and Yahtzee. It is related to the Latin American game Generala and the English game of poker dice. Yatzy is most popular in the Nordic countries.
Midnight is a dice game played with six dice.
Cacho Alalay is a popular dice game from Latin America. It is similar to Yahtzee/Yatzy. The purpose of the game is to roll five dice and score points from their combinations. The dice are rolled from a leather cup.
The following is a glossary of terms used in tables games, essentially games played on a Backgammon-type board. Terms in this glossary should not be game-specific, but applicable to a range of tables games.
