Ahoy mates, I have a fun pirate themed dice game for you today. The Ship, Captain, Crew game is a fun one that players of all ages will love. You don’t need to add the pirate theme if you don’t want to but we find it fun to add to the game.
Other names for it include Battleship, Mariner, Ship Captain Mate and Crew, and 6-5-4. The game has a similar feel to it as Midnight, Slam dice and Garbage dice. All fun games!
In this post, we’ll cover what you need, the rules, how to play and all the variations I could find for Ship, Captain, Crew. Let’s roll into it.
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What You Need Ship Captain Crew
You will need five dice and a score sheet. We love playing so everyone has their own set of dice in their favorite colours. If you need some new dice (because one can never have enough dice, right?) you can shop dice here; Canadians here.
Playing Ship Captain Crew
First, you will need to decide who goes first. You can do this by a high die roll or you could add to the pirate theme by voting on who has the best pirate voice.
The object of the game is to collect the most cargo or treasure as you can. But first you will need a ship (6), a captain (5) and a crew (4) before you can collect treasure.
On your turn, roll all five dice. You are looking for a 6 that represents the ship. If you roll a 6, set it aside. If you haven’t rolled a ship, you need to reroll all the dice. On the other hand, if you have a 6 or ship, you can look for a captain. If you have a 5, you have a captain and can look for a crew or a 4. If you don’t have a 5 then set aside the ship and reroll the rest of the dice.
You must roll the ship, the captain and the crew in order. After all you can’t have a captain with no ship and you can’t have a crew with no captain. You only have three rolls per turn.
Once you have a 6, 5, 4 set aside it’s time for the cargo or treasure. The last two dice are the treasure and will be your score for the round. If you rolled the 6, 5, 4 in the first or second roll, then you can choose to keep the sum on the reaming dice as your treasure score or you can choose to reroll the last two dice to see if you can get a better score.
If after three rolls you don’t have a ship, a captain or a crew, you score zero as your treasure score.
Play keeps going in a clock-wise direction with players rolling and trying to get the best treasure score as they can to add to their score.
Winning Ship Captain Crew Dice Game
The player who reaches 100 treasure points is the winner. For a shorter game you can play to a score of 50 treasure points.
Sample Game
Player one rolls 6, 5, 3, 3, 6 on her first roll. She will keep the 6 and 5 and reroll. She rolls a 6, 1, 1 and will reroll all of the dice. This time she rolls a 4, 3, 2. She will end her turn with 5 points.
Player two now rolls 5, 4, 3, 5, 3 and will have to reroll all the dice. Roll two is 3, 2, 1, 4, 5 and he will need to roll all of the dice again. On his third roll he gets a 6, 3, 3, 1, 1. Although he got a ship he did not get a captain or crew and will score 0 for the round.
Player one now rolls 6, 5, 4, 3, 1. She will set aside the 6, 5,4 and reroll the 3 and 1. She rolls a 1 and 6 and decides to stop with a score of 7 for an overall score of 12.
Player two now rolls 6, 5, 5, 2, 1. He sets aside the 6 and 5 and rerolls. Now he rolls a 4, 5, and 3. He chooses to take a score of 8.
At the end of the two rounds player one has 12 points and player two has 8 points.
Game Variations
Single Turn
For a short game, everyone gets just one round of play. The player with the most treasure points at the end of the round is the winner.
Bow to Stern
This game variation of Ship, Captain, Crew is played the same except for you need a 1, 2, 3 in that order instead of 6, 5, 4.
Shifting Cargo
In this rule change, when you have the 6, 5, and 4 you can choose to reroll just one die. So if you have a 6, 5, 4, 6, 1 you can keep the second 6 and just reroll the 1.
Dropping Anchor
For this game variation, when you roll the 6, 5, 4 and keep your treasure points without using all of your rolls, you get a point for each roll that you didn’t use. For example, if you roll a 6, 5, 4, 3, 4 on your first roll you can score 7 plus 2 points for the two turns you didn’t use.
Playing Ship Captain Crew for Chips
In this game you use poker chips or candies or other markers. To start a round, everyone places a chip into the center. The winner of that round wins the chips in the middle.
Points
When playing for points only the top three scores earn points. When you have the most treasure at the end of the round, you get three points. If you have the second highest amount of treasure you get 2 points and the third highest gets 1 point. Before starting, decide on how many points it will take to win the game.
Admiral’s Choice
In this variation, the winner of the round gets to choose who will be the first player in the next round.
Fun Ahoy!
The Ship, Captain, Crew dice game is a fun game that players of all ages will love. Try all the different variations when you want to mix things up.
For more fun dice games check out the Mafia dice game, Shark Bite, and Come on Six. Be sure to visit the Family Game Shelf Shop for tons of fun with seasonal and original games like our Whacky Putt mini golf dice game and Dice Sticks.
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