But... Why is the Rum Gone?!

I've always been a fan of the Pirates of the Caribbean series for one reason or another so it was a great incentive for me to start iterating a die game which was (apparently) played in the second film - 'Liars Dice' or 'Perudo'

After doing some research (as it has been a while that I've actually watched the films, I found (and instantly remembered) the section featuring it. HERE

The game itself is quite a simple, differing by game type or theme;
each player has a set equal  amount of die which are rolled and hidden from the view of all players. Each player can only see their own set of die.
Each player takes it in turns making bets on the total population of die, of a certain die number in play (including all of the die the player can't see). e.g. six threes, six fours, seven fours,
the bets must increase either by die population or die number each turn (as above).
If the player thinks the previous bet is too ridiculous to be possible they will challenge the previous bet - This is when everyone shows their die and checks to see if the player who placed the bet was wrong or right.
'Right' would be if the total population of die (of the number stated) is equal or more than the amount they bet there were.
'Wrong' would be when the opposite is true.

What happens on 'wrong' or 'right' really depends on how it is played - We played so that if the player is wrong, they will loose one of their die, and if the player is right the challenger will loose one of their die.
when this happens and the next round is played, the player with less die will be at a disadvantage because they can see less of the total number of die available; this creates a negative feedback loop. Our challenge was to try and lessen or remove that feedback loop.


Another mechanic in the game we played was that the number one was "wild" - It stood for any number which is called (and subsequently cannot be bet upon). - referenced in future as "wild ones'

This means there may technically only be four fives and three two's in total, BUT - If there are also three 'wild ones', the total is unexpectedly risen to a possible eight fives and six twos.

In the original rules, the 'wild ones' HAVE to be counted toward the final population of the number which is called - regardless. Unfortunately we didn't read the instructions word by word first time round, and so ended up iterating before playing the game. Are rule was that each player could individually choose whether to count any 'wild ones' they had into the final total when a player was challenged.

This subsequently gave light to a new mechanic - Tactical play.
by being able to choose whether to use your 'wild ones' or not meant that you could possibly raise or lower the population of dice called; this could be to give somebody a better chance, or get somebody to loose more die.
this worked well, but also led to certain members ganging up on each-other.

Then, of course, we played it 'properly' according to the rules we were given.

Our final iteration (because it takes a surprisingly long while playing through!) was having 'open die'
'Open die' were a selection of dice which were independently rolled which everyone could see - regardless.
(a bit like the cards in poker)
The idea of this was that even if players are losing (with perhaps one or two dice left), they can still see a higher percentage of all the dice and therefore make more reasonable bets.

Though we didn't get time to iterate this fully, it seemed to work pretty well (perhaps tweaks to 'open die' population could be made)

Another iteration was unofficial, but we had someone who did not hide their set if die from everyone - This meant that people were comparing two sets of die; theirs, and the unshielded person's die - This, surprisingly had very little effect on the unshielded persons dice-loss rate!

On another note - there will be a new Pirates of the Caribbean Film -  "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides"


Pirates of the Caribbean has got to be one of the only films I know which was based from a theme park ride of the same name - Rather than the other way around.

Entertainment:

I've got a Jar Of Dirt!
Why Is The Rum Gone?