Mia is a simple dice game for three or more players with a strong emphasis on bluffing and detecting bluff.
All players start with six lives. Players need to keep track of their lives for instance with help of coins, counting down from 6 to 1 as they lose lives.
The first player rolls the dice and keeps their value concealed from the other players in or under the container. The player then has three choices:
- Tell the truth and announce what has been rolled.
- Lie and announce a greater value than that rolled.
- Lie and announce a lesser value.
The concealed dice are then passed to the next player in a clockwise fashion. The receiving player now has two options:
- Believe the passer, roll the dice and pass it on, announcing a higher value—with or without looking at them. (For a poor liar it may be sensible to not look at the dice.)
- Call the passer a liar and look at the dice. If the dice show a lesser value than that announced, the passer loses a life and the receiving player starts a new round. However, if the dice show a greater or equal value, the current player loses a life and the next player starts a new round.
Note that each player must always announce a value greater than the previous value announced, unless she or he is passed a Mia in which case the round ends.
Scoring
Unlike most dice games, the value of the roll is not the sum of the dice. Instead, the highest die is multiplied by ten and then added to the other die. So a 2 and a 1 is 21 and a 5 and 6 is 65. The highest roll is 21 which is called Mia, followed by the doubles from 66 to 11, and then all other rolls from 65 down to 31. Thus, the complete order of rolls (from highest to lowest) is 21 (Mia), 66, 55, 44, 33, 22, 11, 65, 64, 63, 62, 61, 54, 53, 52, 51, 43, 42, 41, 32, 31.