How to Play Liar's Deck (From Liar's Bar) - Full Rules and Variants
- Video Games, Game Design
The following are the rules of the Liar's Deck card game, first introduced in the Liar's Bar video game, based on its in-game tutorials, observations I made from gameplay sessions, and comments from the game's developers.
Note that I have made the following presentational changes from Liar's Bar, which does not affect strategy:
- The King, Queen, Ace and Joker cards have been replaced with Innocent and Liar cards to simplify preparations before each round. (Specifically, the Innocents are equivalent to the Jokers combined with the random table pick each round between the Kings, Queens and Aces, and the Liars to the remaining cards. For reference, Liar's Bar normally includes 6 Kings, 6 Queens, 6 Aces and 2 Jokers in a Liar deck, except for the Chaos variant which includes 5 Kings, 5 Queens and 2 unrelated cards.)
- The revolvers and bullets have been replaced with non-lethal equivalents. (Specifically, live rounds became Lethal cards, and blank rounds became Blank cards.)
Basic rules
Number of players: 2 to 4
Material:
- 1 Liar deck, containing the following 20 cards: 8 Innocents and 12 Liars.
- 4 Revolver decks, each containing the following 6 cards: 1 Lethal and 5 Blanks.
Players should be sitting in a random order, with one of the players randomly designated as the first player of the first round.
Before the start of the game, each player should have a shuffled face down Revolver deck.
At the start of every round, the Liar deck must be shuffled with all of its cards, and 5 cards from it must be given to each player to form their hand. The first player for that round then starts their turn.
During their turn, a player has 30 seconds to either play 1 to 3 cards from their hand face down, or call "LIAR" on the previous player if it's not the first turn of the round. If at least 1 card is played, the turn then goes to the next player, counterclockwise. When a player has played all of their cards, their turns are skipped for the rest of the round. If only 1 player still have cards in hand, they must call "LIAR" on the previous player.
When "LIAR" is called, the cards played in the previous turn by the accused player are revealed. If at least one of the revealed cards is a Liar, the correctly-accused plays a round of Russian Roulette, otherwise the incorrect caller does.
To play a round of Russian Roulette, the player simply reveals the top card from their Revolver deck. If it is a Lethal, they are eliminated, otherwise the revealed Blank is discarded. Eliminated players skip their turns until the end of the game.
If all but 1 player have been eliminated, the game ends with the remaining player winning the game and all other players losing the game. Otherwise, a new round starts. The first player of that new round is assigned to the player that got caught playing a Liar last round, or the player that incorrectly called "LIAR" last round otherwise. If that player has just been eliminated, the next non-eliminated player in turn order must start the new round instead.
Devil variant
In the Devil variant, a single Innocent in the Liar deck is replaced by a Devil card before starting the game.
When playing cards face down, the Devil can only be played by itself. If the Devil is releaved during a "LIAR" call, all other players that still have cards in their hand must also play Russian Roulette along with the caller except for the accused.
When all but 2 players have been eliminated, the Devil becomes an Innocent and no longer has to played by itself until the end of the game.
Chaos variant
The Chaos variant is designed for players to "shoot" at each other instead of just themselves.
Before the game starts, the Liar deck must have the following 12 cards instead of the normal set: 5 Innocents, 5 Liars, 1 Chaos and 1 Master. Also, only 3 cards from the Liar deck are given to each player as their hand each round instead of 5.
During their turn, a player may not play more than 1 card from their hand at a time. If they call "LIAR", the normal consequence before ending the round is replaced by the following depending on the revealed card:
- An Innocent: The caller plays Russian Roulette as normal.
- A Liar: The caller plays Shoot Opponent instead.
- A Chaos: All non-eliminated players play Shoot Opponent simultaneously instead.
- A Master: The accused plays Shoot Opponent instead.
To play Shoot Opponent, a player has 9 seconds to point at a remaining opponent that is either the accused or one that still have a card in hand. Then, the pointer reveal the top of their Revolver deck. If it is a Lethal, the pointed opponent is eliminated if valid, otherwise the revealed Blank is discarded. If a player revealed a Lethal that way and is not eliminated before the end of the same round, their Revolver deck must be reset to their original state from the beginning of the game and shuffled.
If all players have been eliminated, the game ends in a draw.
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