Yard dice rules

Roll all six dice. Set aside any that score, then choose: roll the rest for more, or bank what you have and pass. Roll a set of dice with nothing scoring in it and you farkle — the whole turn's running total is gone.

Yahtzee outdoors with six dice instead of five, or five of the six if you want the original odds. Each player gets three rolls per turn, keeping dice between rolls, then must enter a score in one of the thirteen categories — and each category can only be used once, which is the whole game.

The practical difference outdoors is not the rules, it is the scorecard. A paper card on a windy lawn is a lost card, which is why the better giant sets include a reusable scoreboard or bag-mounted tracker. GoSports publishes a scoreboard with its standard giant dice set; the sets that do not include one leave you improvising.

Three dice, each player with three chips. The dice faces tell you to pass a chip left, pass a chip right, put one in the centre pot, or keep it. You only roll as many dice as you have chips, and the last player with any chips takes the pot.

It is the one of the three that genuinely suits a mixed crowd, because there is no scoring and no strategy — a six-year-old and a grandparent play it on exactly equal terms. The dedicated set is published with three dice and 24 coins; the long version is in giant Left Right Center.

“Rules included” is the row worth reading. Only the Left Right Center set publishes that it ships with rules, which is exactly why a page like this one is needed for the other two. The wood-against-foam decision — and it is a real one for hard surfaces and small children — is in wood vs foam yard dice, and the ranked sets are in giant yard dice.