Stuck in the Mud Rules

Stuck in the Mud (also known as Drop Dead) is a luck-driven, easy dice game that is playable by groups both small and large.

Object of the Game

The object of Stuck in the Mud is to be the first player to score 500 points.

Components

• Five 6-sided dice
• Pencil and paper for scoring

Number of Players

2 or more

How to Play Stuck in the Mud

Choose a player to take the first turn. After that, play proceeds in a clockwise manner around the table.

Begin your turn by picking up and rolling the five dice. One of two things will then happen:

• If any of the dice rolled a 2 or a 5, your roll is “stuck in the mud” and you score zero points for that roll. Set aside the dice that rolled a 2 or 5. They are considered to be in the mud pit.
• If none of the dice rolled a 2 or a 5, sum up the numbers on all the dice rolled and add the result to your score.

Dice that have been placed in the mud pit remain there until the end of your turn and may not be used.

Roll again if you have any dice remaining that are not in the mud pit. Continue as above, scoring for rolls that do not include a 2 or 5 and moving dice that roll 2 or 5 to the mud pit.

Your turn ends once you no longer have any dice to roll because they're all in the mud pit. Remove all dice from the mud pit and pass them to the next player.

Example of play:

It's Dee's turn, and she picks up and rolls the five dice. She gets the following results: 1,1,3,3,5. Uh oh! She rolled a 5, so her roll is stuck in the mud. She scores zero points for it and she places the “5” dice in the mud pit.

Since she still has four dice remaining, she continues her turn by picking up the four dice and rolling them. This time she rolls a 3,3,4,6. She didn't roll any 2s or 5s, so she adds up the numbers on all the dice. She scores 16 points for the roll (3+3+4+6=16)!

She still has four dice so she rolls them again. This time she gets 1,4,4,4. That's 13 more points, and none of the dice have to go to the mud pit! So far for this turn she has scored 29 points (16 from her second roll and 13 from this roll).

She once again rolls the four dice, but this time she gets 2,2,5,5. All the dice must go to the mud pit and her turn ends.

Winning

The first player to reach 500 points is the winner! At that point the game ends immediately.

Variants

Set Rounds

At the beginning of the game all players decide how many rounds the game will last, such as five. A round ends when all players have had a turn. The player with the highest score at the end of the all the rounds is the winner.