Letter Roll Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• What's in the Box
• The Object of Letter Roll
• Setting Up
• Playing the Game
• Winning the Game
• Allowable Words
• Letter Roll Variations

What's in the Box

• Seven Letter Roll Dice: two white, three blue, and two orange.
  • The colors of the dice indicate how frequently the letters appear in words:
    • white: frequently used
    • blue: less frequently used
    • orange: infrequently used
• A Blue Two-Minute Timer: standard game
• An Orange One-Minute Timer: fast play game
• Four Letter Roll Pads and four Pencils
• Quick Play Rules

The Object of Letter Roll

Players earn points by listing words which contain the three letters rolled on the Letter Roll dice. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins Letter Roll.

Setting Up

1. Give each player a Letter Roll sheet and a pencil.
2. Choose which timer will be used in the game: the two-minute blue timer or, for a faster game, the one-minute orange timer.
3. Select a player to be the first "roller." Give that player all seven dice and the chosen timer.

Playing the Game

1. The roller selects any four of the seven dice and rolls them.
2. The player to the left of the roller selects one of the four dice rolled and removes it from play.
3. The roller calls out the letters on the three dice in play and each player writes the three letters on the Letter Roll sheet in the first open space.
4. The roller flips over the timer and each player lists as many words containing the three letters as he or she can, within the two minutes. See Allowable Words.
5. When the time is up, all players stop writing. Starting with the player to the left of the roller, each player reads his or her words aloud. Any word that appears on more than one player's list is crossed off of all lists.
6. After all players have read their lists, each player adds the number of words that have not been crossed off and writes that number on the line next to the three letters. This number represents points for that round.
7. The seven dice and the timer are passed to the player to the left of the roller and that player becomes the new roller.

Play continues following steps 1-7 until each player has been the roller the required number of times.

Number of Players	Each Player is the Roller
2-3	3 times
4-5	2 times
6-8	1 time

Illustration (not a rule): the printed example shows a round with the letters P-E-C. Terry's sheet lists pace (crossed out), price, place (crossed out), peace (crossed out), piece, process, scoring 3. Chris's sheet lists place (crossed out), pancake, pace (crossed out), cope, escape, peach, space, peace (crossed out), scoring 5.

Winning the Game

Players total their points. The player with the highest score wins Letter Roll.

In case of a tie, the players with tied scores each select one of the Letter Roll dice. The tied players all roll their dice at the same time and write the letters on their Letter Roll sheets. A player flips over the timer. There will be as many letters as tied players and all letters must be used in each word. The round is scored as usual and the player with the highest score wins.

Allowable Words

• Words must contain all three letters rolled, but the letters may appear anywhere in the word and in any order.
• In addition to the three letters rolled, words may contain any number of additional letters.
• If a letter appears more than once on the rolled dice, that letter must appear at least as many times in each word as it appears on the dice. For example, if two Ts are rolled, each word must contain at least two Ts.
• The complete word must be written on the word sheet but players are not penalized for misspelled words. Words must only be recognizable and the correct spelling must contain the three letters on the dice.
• Any word found in a standard English language dictionary is allowed, except words that are capitalized (proper nouns).
• If a word is from another language, it is allowed if it is commonly used in English and appears in a standard English language dictionary. For example, croissant and amigo are allowed.
• Words with prefixes and suffixes, and plural and past tense words, are all allowed.
• Apostrophes (such as in they'd), hyphens (such as in three-year-old) and abbreviations are not allowed.
• If a word read aloud is found to not contain all three letters, it must be crossed off.

Letter Roll Variations

For younger or less experienced players:

• Use just the white dice or the white and blue dice.
• Reduce the number of dice used from three to two. Three dice will be rolled and one removed. Players will write words which contain the two letters.
• For groups with a range of experience, or skill, set a minimum for the number of letters each word must contain, like six or seven. The more experienced players may only list words that meet the minimum while less experienced players are allowed to list words of any length.

For a more challenging game:

• Increase the number of dice used from three to four. Five dice will be rolled and one removed. Players will write words which contain all four letters.
• Set a minimum for the number of letters each word must contain, start with six and then try seven, or more.