Polterfass

Polterfass – also published as Barrel Dice – is a fast-moving game of beer-drinking. Not literal beer-drinking, but gambling on the Innkeeper having enough beer for everyone. If they don’t, they keep it for themselves…

Each player is given a deck of eight bidding cards numbered from 0-7. The starting player is the Innkeeper, and when you’re the innkeeper you ignore your own cards. Instead you take the dice – which are shaped like barrels – and shake them in a cup before revealing them. The barrels are numbered from 2-9 and represent the amount of beer the Innkeeper has this round. Two smaller barrels can be used to either double the amount in a barrel of the Innkeeper’s choosing, or cancel a barrel out entirely. When the barrels are revealed, only the upright barrels are counted – ignore any that are lying on their side. The total is how much beer you have – although at this point you don’t reveal whether you’ll use any small barrels as doublers or cancellers!

All the other players now make a bid for how much beer they want, by playing 1 or 2 cards face-down on the table.

Then the Innkeeper has a choice – you can roll the remaining barrels, or choose not to. Having lots of beer is good, because you’ll get any left over after everyone else has taken their share. The catch is that if all the barrels land on their sides, you are essentially bust and get nothing. If you choose not to re-roll, then you’re hoping instead the other players will collectively go bust, by asking for too much beer (or have all played it rather safe and left you with a lot of leftovers). If the players collectively bust, the Innkeeper gets all the beer, and whoever asked for the most has to pay that amount to the player who asked for the least!

The role of the Innkeeper then passes to the left, and a new round begins. The game ends as soon as any player reaches 75 ‘beers’.