POTC-DMC Dice Game

[Captain Tito]

Ok me hearties,

How many o'ye has the POTC Dice game?

Is it fun? Is it worth the 20 doubloons (average price I've seen)

Do tell cuz me birfday tis approaching and I always get handed a bit o'plunder to spend and I have been lookin at that game.

Should I go fer it or direct me spendins toward other ports?

[Calico Jack]

The game is, in essence, "Perudo," a "Liar's Dice" game which dates back to the mid 1500s [perhaps farther, but why speculate?]. As such, if the dent to your coin seems a bit much, try searching up Perudo on ye olde internette to find some rules, gather one cup and five dice per player, and have at 'er!

[flying-dutch-man]

exetremely fun! but took me 2 and a half weeks to learn! but know how to play now! play at me weekly pirate night gathering.

[Cap'n Pete Straw]

I have commented on this in other threads.

I purchased the dice game as part of a Three-For-One game at Target (the set is boxed and sold exclusively at that chain). So for $35, I got the dice set, the chess set, and the checkers set (the pieces are actual metal cursed Aztec gold coins!).

For $35, this was an excellent deal... I am thinking about picking up another and stashing it away.

I am a cheapskate, so the $20 price tag is borderline for me.

Of course, you can just go purchase a bunch of dice, acquire some cups (tankards? empty cans of peas? coconut halves?) and make your own version for much less than $20.

Still, the game is a lot of fun. I would not suggest pushing you away from it.

[LongTom]

At Target, the online price for the PotC2 3-game set is US$29.99. That's a pretty good deal, considering the chess and checkers thrown in. By comparison, if you try to build your own...

Dice cups with 5 dice cost US$14.99 apiece at Target. That's nearly sixty dollars to roll your own set for four players, and forget the other games.

At the local variety store, those same (or very similar) dice cups cost US$8.99 apiece. That's about 36 dollars for a four player set, again minus the other games.

Front Porch Classics makes two versions of this game. The first, billed as Liar's Dice sells at Target (online only) for US$24.99. However, the dice cups are strange narrow ones, that I can't imagine work very well. The second version, billed as Dudo has better round cups, and sells on the Target web site for US$39.99.

WalMart has the PotC2 Pirates' Dice game by itself (no chess/checkers) for $12.44. That's clearly the best price, if you don't mind doing business with the Evil Empire. It sells for more like $19.99 other places, as you note.

Dice by themselves are $1.79 for a pack of five. So that's a little over 7 dollars just for the dice. Of course you can improvise cheap (even free) dice cups, if you've a mind to, as Capt Pete Straw says.

Whatever version you end up, it's a lot of fun.

[Ransom]

My husband and I received the Pirate Dice game from his sister as a gift. So far we haven't played it yet. Is it fun for just two people, or is it more of a challenge with four? We're heading for the coast and four days on our boat, and will take the game with us, so I was just curious. I kinda like the idea of sitting out on the back (cockpit?), sipping rum, playing liars dice and listening to the seagulls screaming at each other over by the fish packing plant.

[LongTom]

Is it fun for just two people, or is it more of a challenge with four?

More people make it more challenging. Since there are more dice on the table, there are more ways to make even outrageous bids.

Also, there is more strategy in how to do an opening bid, because you can aim for a specific player to have to foul out (e.g., the one with the most dice left). With two people, you only have the other player to aim at, so you may as well go straight for the highest bid. Ping-ponging the bid between two people is a good way to lose control of it. With lots of players, however, the bid not only often starts out lower, but works its way higher as well, so the game is more dramatic and interesting.

That's not to say that a two person game is boring. But eight people is a riot!

[Iron Bess]

Aye, 'tis a fun game with more playing.

And watching the others try and keep to their seats when they know you have them... waiting for you to call them a liar is such a hoot!

Plays it in the Pirate encampment we do... with the squalling heard all over the Faires.

Can be had on eBay if you search around for a good price that includes shipping for under $25. I like the Disney version becasue of the cups and the barnacles all over them. (Shrug) So sue me.... I'm easily entertained.

[Ransom]

That's the set we have, and yeah, I like the little barnacles.

Thanks for the info. We may play it anyway, just to learn how it goes, then challenge an innocent bystander!

[Hester]

At Target, the online price for the PotC2 3-game set is US$29.99. That's a pretty good deal, considering the chess and checkers thrown in.

Crud! Target won't ship across the border. Canuckaphobic, they are!

'Sprobably just as well ... I still haven't got around to getting a chessboard to accompany the pewter Robin Hood vs. the Sheriff of Nottingham chess set that I ordered from England 2 years ago.

Besides, the dice game seems pretty noisy. When I was a teenager, my grandma used to come for dinner and afterwards she and my mom would play Yahtzee for the rest of the evening. The sound of the dice rattling in the cup used to drive me crazy! (Of course, my boyfriend at the time thought this was a hilariously petty thing for me to complain about, since his family had much nastier habits than Yahtzee.)

As an aside, Yahtzee apparently has nautical Canuck origins:

According to Hasbro, the game was invented in 1954 by an anonymous Canadian couple, who called it "The Yacht Game" because they played it on their yacht with their friends.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahtzee

Anyway, I was very pleased to see that a couple of my houseguests at the cottage this past summer discovered the plain old chess/checkers set in the folding box that I left in plain sight on a shelf, and happily amused themselves with it on the beach, without my even having to suggest it.

Cheers, Hester