About Farkle

Farkle is a folk dice game built around a simple loop: roll six dice, set aside anything that scores, and decide whether to bank your points or roll the remaining dice for more. If a roll scores nothing, you farkle. The turn ends and any points you had not yet banked are lost.

That tension between greed and caution is the whole game. The rules fit on a napkin, yet every turn asks a real question about risk. That is why the same game shows up at family reunions, campouts, and after-dinner tables around the world.

No one knows exactly where Farkle was first played. Like many folk games, it spread by word of mouth long before anyone wrote the rules down. The core idea, scoring combinations on dice and choosing when to stop, appears in traditional games across many cultures.

Dice themselves are ancient. Before standardized cubes, people rolled knucklebones and other natural objects for games and divination. Six-sided dice became common in many regions, and combination-scoring games followed naturally from tavern and parlor play.

The version most North Americans know today likely took shape in the twentieth century through family gatherings and regional house rules. A commercial edition called Pocket Farkle appeared in 1996, but the underlying game remains public domain, which is why every table seems to have its own scoring chart.

The name is part of the folklore. One popular story holds that the game reached North America aboard French sailing ships in the seventeenth century. Another Texas tale claims early players used dried farkleberries instead of dice, the small bluish-black berries native to the southeastern United States.

A fanciful legend credits an English nobleman, Sir Albert Farkle, with bringing the game to Iceland in the 1300s. Historians treat that story as invention, but it shows how much personality the game has accumulated.

What most players agree on is simpler: to farkle is to roll a bust, a worthless spread that wipes out an ambitious turn. The word became the name, and the name became the moment every player dreads and remembers.

Farkle rewards both luck and judgment without demanding a rulebook the size of a codex. Newcomers understand the goal within minutes; veterans still agonize over whether to roll one more time with three dice left and eighty points on the line.

Because Farkle traveled mouth to mouth rather than through a single publisher, it picked up dozens of names and local tweaks. The game you learned as a child may score straights differently from your neighbor's, and both of you may be "right."

In Warhorse Studios' Kingdom Come: Deliverance, and again in Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, the tavern minigame is called Dice, and the in-game codex names it Farkle. Henry of Skalitz can sit at dice tables across Bohemia, wager groschen, and push his luck against tavern regulars while the rest of the kingdom waits outside.

The loop is familiar: roll six dice, set aside anything that scores, then roll the remainder or bank your turn total. Roll nothing useful and you bust, losing every point from that turn. Use all six dice in scoring combinations and you may cast all six again, but a single dead roll still clears the whole turn.

KCD's scoring chart is its own beast. Singles still pay 100 for each 1 and 50 for each 5. Three of a kind pays face value × 100 (three 4s = 400; three 1s = 1,000). Four or more of a kind doubles the previous tier: four 4s = 800, five 4s = 1,600, six 4s = 3,200. Partial straights score 500 for 1–5 and 750 for 2–6; a full 1–6 run pays 1,500. Three pairs does not score, which surprises many players arriving from Classic rules.

That distinctive chart is why KCD fans hunt for ways to keep playing after they leave the tavern. Farkle Online includes a Kingdom Come: Deliverance scoring preset so you can match the minigame at a private table with friends, bots, and none of the loaded dice.

Farkle is not chess. The dice do not care about your plan, but experienced players still develop instincts. Banking early when you are ahead protects a lead; pressing with few dice left is often wiser than chasing a huge turn from scratch.

House rules matter as much as strategy. A table that penalizes three farkles in a row plays differently from one that does not. A break-in score changes opening turns. Always confirm the chart before the first roll.