Gamehelpfourtwenty

420

INTRODUCTION

Players sit across from each other at an initially cleared table. The two players, Red and Blue, take turns maintaining a hand of four dice of their own color. Mark Steere designed 420 in September 2025.

PLAY

Starting with Red, players begin by rolling all four of their own dice, forming their hand. On each of your subsequent turns, you must reroll 1, 2, 3, or 4 of the dice in your hand, and add them back into your hand - one roll per turn.

OBJECT OF THE GAME

The goal is for the dice in your hand to total exactly 20. No more, no less. For example, (6, 5, 5, 4) is a winning hand. It's possible to win the game on your first turn, with a probability of 2.7% - about 1 in 37 plays.

REROLL RESTRICTIONS

• ..4 dice: You can always reroll 4 dice.
• ..3 dice: You can only reroll 3 dice if the remaining die has a value of at least 5.
• ..2 dice: You can only reroll 2 dice if the remaining 2 dice sum to at least 10.
• ..1 die: You can only reroll 1 die if the remaining 3 dice sum to at least 15.

GO OVER AND RESET

If your hand sums to 21 or higher, on your next turn you must reroll all four of your dice (reset).

MONOCOLOR 420

Each player must have their own hand but not necessarily their own color. All of the dice can be standard white dice with black pips for example. Just try to keep the hands separated if they're all the same color.

MULTIPLAYER 420

420 can actually accommodate any number of players. Randomly choose Player 1. Succeeding turns proceed clockwise. In successive rounds, the new Player 1 is to the left of the previous Player 1. The round winners drop out, and the last remaining player buys the drinks.

DESIGN NOTES

I wanted to invent a simple dice game. No score pad, no pencil... No poker chips. No box, no bag... Just dice. And then simple rules. No combinations to memorize. No bids, no bluffs... No showdowns or tiebreakers. But I also wanted strategy. Your decisions should be informed by your opponents’ hands.