Farkel (or "Farkle") is the name of a family dice game, purportedly of Texas origin, and if so, named after the farkleberry. It has much in common with the modern game craps except that it uses six dice instead of two.

Equipment

• six dice
• sheet of paper for keeping score

Play

• Everyone starts out "off the table." Each player collects points during his turn, which he may add to his total, or not, depending on how aggresive or cautiously he plays.

• To begin a turn, if the player is "off the table," he rolls all six dice.
  • As he rolls during his turn, the player is looking to score points, in the form of Sets (see figure below).
  • If a roll scores any points, he may set aside each Set he wants to claim points from, and either:
    • roll all remaining dice, hoping to score additional Sets.
    • or if all six dice are put aside into Sets, roll all six dice again, hoping to score additional Sets.
    • or pass play to the next player, if he deems the chance of failure to be too great.
  • If a roll scores no points, the player forfeits the points scored that turn, and play is passed to the next player.

• For a player who is "on the table," he may start by either:
  • rolling all six dice as described above,
  • or picking up the rollable dice from the last person. In this case, instead of starting this turn's scoring from zero, as usual, scoring starts from the score of the last person.

example: Player 1 stops his turn with 700 points, and opts to not roll his remaining two dice. He adds 700 to his score, and it is now Player 2's turn. Player 2 may pick up those two dice, and if he scores anything with them, he adds those points to 700, as his score. Or Player 2 may opt to start with all six dice, and start his own scoring from zero.

• At the end of a turn,
  • If, after rolling, a player is "off the table," and he has scored at least 500 in a turn, he is "on the table."
  • If by this point, a player is "on the table," he can add whatever score he got that turn, to his total.

Scoring and Sets

The following Sets are given for scoring. They are 'atomic,' that is, you cannot put together sets as you are expected to in Yahtzee. That is, if you set aside a 1, and then two other 1's, you cannot claim the score of triple-1's. You can only claim the score of a single 1, plus the scores of two single 1's.

a single 1 : 100
a single 5 : 50
triple of 1's : 1000
triple of 2's : 200
triple of 3's : 300
triple of 4's : 400
triple of 5's : 500
triple of 6's : 600
four-of-a-kind : 2x the score of three-of-a-kind
five-of-a-kind : 4x the score of three-of-a-kind
six-of-a-kind : 8x the score of three-of-a-kind
full house : 1000
three pair : 2500
two triples : 3500
small straight (length 5) : 1000
large straight (length 6) : 2000

Winning

For a good hour of play with five or six people, you might play to 50,000 points.

When the first player crosses that threshold, all other players get one more chance to top that player's score. If a player can, then that player wins. Otherwise, the first player to cross that threshold is the winner.