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.

First, how to play: Every person at the party gets an index card. They are to write their names at the top of the card. Then, they are to write three things about themselves on the card. One should be true; the other two should be false. Nothing on the card should indicate which choice is true and which ones are false (i.e. no circling numbers or items, no underlining, etc.).

One person (likely the host) will then serve as the emcee. Each person will get a turn to hand his or her card to the emcee. (Alternatively, he or she can collect all of the cards at once, and then read out the person’s name to announce his or her turn.)

The emcee will read the three declarations to the crowd while the person whose turn it is stands up. Everyone has to vote on which item is true by a show of hands.

The trick is—and you can announce this before play begins!—that everyone should pick something that doesn’t seem like something they would do as both their true AND false items—or, to mix it up with something that they might do as a false item to throw others off. For example, I usually used shaving my head or shooting at beer cans as my “truth”—both stupid things I did in my youth—and mixing up facts for my “false” items, such as the age when I was first published, or jobs that I may or may not have had.

To introduce a bit of drinking into the game, when people get an answer wrong, they can take a drink.