Killer rules: get your number, then take everyone else’s lives
Killer is the game for the whole pub. Everyone is dealt a number, you have to hit it before you can do anything to anybody, and from then on the only thing on the board worth throwing at is somebody else.
Play Killer, three lives each →
How it works
Every player is dealt their own number from 1 to 20 — traditionally by throwing with your wrong hand, and on this board by a shuffled deal so nobody argues about it. Everyone starts with the same number of lives, usually three.
Before you can touch anybody you have to become a Killer by hitting the double of your own number. Until then your darts do nothing at all.
Once you are a Killer, a double of somebody else’s number takes one life off them — one, never three, even from a treble. Lose all your lives and you are out.
The last player with a life left wins. It works from two players up, but it is a game for a crowd: five or six people, one board, and everyone throwing at whoever is in front.
Why it is the pub’s game
Nobody is knocked out early by being bad at arithmetic, the leader is the person everyone else is aiming at, and a player on one life with a hot arm can take three people out in a visit.
It is also the only common darts game where a player who has not hit their own number yet is completely safe, which is a strategy in itself.
House rules this board plays
The part no other rules page has, because no other site implements them. Each one opens the setup screen with that rule already set.
- Singles open you Half the pubs play it this way: any bed on your own number makes you a Killer, but it still takes a double to take a life. Getting in is easy and killing is not. Set it up →
- Single kills The other half: a double of your own number to become a Killer, then any bed on somebody else’s costs them a life. Hard to get in, brutal once you are. Set it up →
- Your own number costs you Once you are a Killer, hitting your own number again takes one of your own lives — so the number you spent the first half of the game aiming at becomes the one to avoid. Set it up →
- Five lives A longer game for a bigger field, so nobody is sitting down two minutes after they sat up. Set it up →
Common questions
- How do you become a Killer in darts? By hitting the double of your own dealt number. Until you do, your darts do nothing at all to anybody, which makes a player who has not got in completely safe.
- How many lives does each player start with? Three, usually, and five lives is one tap on the setup card. Lose them all and you are out, and the last player with a life left wins.
- Does a treble take three lives? No. Once you are a Killer, a double of somebody else's number takes exactly one life off them, never three, however the dart landed.
Play it
Killer is one of the twenty modes in Friendly Fire Casper, a free darts scoreboard that runs in a browser and keeps working when the wifi drops. It scores the game for you, undoes the dart you typed wrong, remembers who won, and can put the board on a TV while everybody scores from their own phone.