Party Games

When you have a group of people who don’t know each other assembled for an event—a birthday party, a family reunion, your uncle Larry’s bris—things can seem rather awkward at first. Nobody knows each other, people are wondering if they can legally ask someone out—or do so without crossing bloodlines—and it’s like a seventh-grade dance.

You don’t want to resort to name tags because, let’s face it, they don’t help because when you look down at Barbara’s name you think she thinks you’re looking at her boobs. And maybe you are—and why shouldn’t you be? There’s a big sign with her name on them! How can you not stare at that?

There are easier ways of making people get to know one another. Here are some free (or nearly-so) games geared at doing the thing Julie Andrews was so good at doing—getting to know you.

Read more >

Last week I wrote about White Wolf's World of Darkness line of roleplaying games, so I thought I would take the opportunity to talk about one of their simpler properties, a board game called Prince of the City. Released in 2006 as a less involved supplement to the RPG Vampire: The Requiem, this board game is relatively easy to grasp for first-timers but has a lot of room for strategy in the case of long-time players.

Read more >

If you’re familiar with the TV show To Tell the Truth, you know it’s about a few people who all say they are the same person. One really is that person; the rest are lying. The panel on the show must deduce who is the real person among the liars, and it’s usually pretty funny.

The party version is different, but still fun. I remember the first time I played it at a service camp I was attending while in junior high. It was shocking, funny, and a bonding experience all into one. I took that idea and often used it afterwards in leadership camps, parties, trips and other events, and it’s always proved to be at least interesting. Of course, you can spike the party version with a little bit of drinking if you like, but more on that later.

Read more >

charades

You remember charades, right? When you drew something out of a hat and had to act it out, using no sounds but only gestures? The entire game depended on your own acting skills—and if you sucked, like Sarah Jessica Parker did in The Family Stone, everybody hated your guts.

I remember charades being the most fun when they were themed. We always based ours on obscure things like historical people or band names, which can be hard to act out (exactly what do you do to get people to shout “Foghat!”?)

Read more >