Knucklebones
A two-player dice duel. Each seat owns a grid of three columns, and each column holds up to three dice. Columns face each other: your left column faces your opponent's left column, and the same for the middle and the right.
What you are trying to do
Finish with the higher score. A game ends the moment either grid is full — all nine spaces occupied — and the higher total wins. Equal totals draw that game.
Setup
One shared six-sided die. Both grids start empty. The first seat to roll is chosen at random. After that, seats alternate.
A turn
1.
Roll the die once. The face stays as rolled for the whole turn. There is no re-roll, no pass, and no taking the placement back.
2.
Place that die in any of your columns that is not already full.
3.
Even when only one column can take it, you still choose that column. The game never places the die for you.
Removing dice
When you place a die, every die of the same face in the opponent's facing column is removed. The dice that remain close up. You never remove your own dice. Other columns, and other faces in that column, stay where they are.
This still happens on the placement that fills a grid. Removals are settled before the game checks who won.
Scoring
Each die scores its face multiplied by how many dice in that same column show the face.
A face that appears once scores its own value. A face that appears twice scores its value, times two, times two. Three of a kind scores its value, times three, times three.
A seat's total is the three columns added together. The highest total a grid can reach is three columns of three 6s: 162. Totals change whenever dice are removed.
A column that holds two or three of the same face is marked ×2 or ×3. That mark is the multiplier and nothing else.
End of a game
The game ends immediately when either player fills all nine spaces, after that placement's removals. The higher total wins. Equal totals draw.
There is no turn limit. Removals can open a column that had been full, so a game can run long.
Matches
Before the first game, choose a match length:
•
Single game (the default). One grid decides it.
•
Best of 3. First seat to win two games.
•
Best of 5. First seat to win three games.
Between games of a match, both grids clear. The seat that started the previous game does not start the next one, including when a drawn game is replayed at once. A draw counts for neither seat, and a match is never decided by a draw.
Reading the table
Your opponent's grid is across the table. Yours is in front of you. The rolled die sits between them, and facing columns line up. Each column shows its score, and both totals stay in view. On your turn, each column you can still play shows the score that column would have after the placement, and how many opposing dice that face would remove.