2 - 12Play Time
30 minutes
- Dice Rolling
- Push Your Luck
Zilch
This is a fairly simple dice game in the same vein as Farkle or other games in the Traditional Dice Games: Dice 10,000 games family.
Each turn players start with 6 dice and roll them all. Each time a roll is made one or more scoring dice must be removed and the player can chose to stop with the total score they have accumulated or roll on. If no score is made on a roll, the player zilches and all the accumulated score for that turn (not from previous turns)is lost (like Can't Stop). If all the dice are used for scoring then the turn continues with all 6 dice again.
Scores are
5=50
1=100
3 of a kind = kind X 100
On a 6 dice roll: 1,2,3,4,5,6 = 1500
and 3 pairs = 1000 (though six 6s can be 1200 from two triples of 600)
To win a player knocks instead of rolling on their turn and each other player has one turn to pass the leaders score.
Also there is an optional rule for the start: A score of less than 500 can not be kept until you are on the board and if a player Zilches on their first three turns they go negative whatever score they had before the final roll of their third turn and can subsequently stop at any score.
The game is suspenseful as players roll diminishing numbers of dice against increasing odds. It can have longish down time unless you decide to have several players having their turns at the same time with different sets of dice. (faster but less suspenseful).