Roll six dice, keep the scorers, and decide every turn whether to bank your gains or gamble them on one more throw.
On your turn you roll six dice and set aside at least one scoring die from each roll. You may keep rolling the remaining dice to build your total, but if a roll produces no scoring dice you Farkle and lose everything earned that turn. Bank to lock in your points. First player to reach the target score wins.
Almost everything said about Farkle's origins is unreliable, and that is worth saying plainly rather than picking the most charming version.
One story credits an English nobleman, Sir Albert Farkle, with playing it in Iceland in the 1300s or 1400s; this is not considered credible. Another has it arriving on French sailing ships in the 1600s, a claim that traces back to a commercial edition's own promotional material. A third points at Texas, where farkleberries grow and could in principle have served as dice.
The one solid piece of evidence is archaeological rather than anecdotal: equipment and instructions for the game dating to the 1700s have been found at Fort de Chartres in Illinois. Beyond that, this is a folk game — carried in families under a dozen different names, which is exactly why no single origin story can be made to stick.
Farkle is a traditional push-your-luck dice game played with six dice. This is an original, free browser version with a computer opponent, online multiplayer and daily and practice modes.