How to play Bone Poker
Throw and keep
Each opponent gives you four throws. After a throw, tap the bones you want to keep and throw the rest again, up to twice.
Read the hand
Venus (all four faces different) is the best throw, then Four Alike, Three Alike, Two Pairs and a Pair. Four 1s are the Dog, the worst throw there is.
Beat the target
Every opponent sets a score to reach, and every one has a habit of their own: a Legionary allows only one reroll, an Augur makes a Pair worth nothing.
Call on the gods
Between opponents you spend the denarii you won at the market: god cards bend the rules in your favour, and you can recarve or gild a bone.
Finished runs count towards your Arena skill XP. Nothing in the game can be bought, and the coins you win only exist inside the run. More Ancient Originals
The real game behind it
Romans played with tali, the ankle bones of sheep and goats. A talus can only land on four of its sides, which counted 1, 3, 4 and 6; there is no 2 and no 5. The broad sides come up far more often than the narrow ones.
Four tali were thrown at once. The best throw, with all four faces different, was called Venus; the worst was the dog. Bone Poker keeps those faces and those two names and adds poker-style hands, which no Roman source describes.
