# talking: a game to learn some secrets about others.
suppose you have a friend or three. i like to imagine such hypothetical scenarios. and further imagine that you throw or are invited to a small party with them. what do you really do there? i don't really like music, dancing, drinking and such. i'm more of a sit in the quiet corner and listen to other people sort of person. maybe play some game. but what game?
ideally it will be a game that isn't too complex and doesn't really require too many props. i very quickly lose interest in games with many rules. and even if you can follow them all, what's the point in playing such a game? i feel it's just killing time. if i am already with people, i'd want a game that focuses on the people instead. it should make it possible for me to learn more about others to see what people they really are. so basically i just want some structured talking instead and the "game" could provide the structure.
one popular simple party game is cards against humanity. there is a list of cards with questions on it, face down. each turn a player (called the czar) turns a question card up and people have to come up with a witty answer to it. each player has 10 cards with pre-written answer cards from which they can choose from. or one could play this even without pre-written answers and rely on people's inner creativity to come up with witty answers. the person who turned up the question card has to pick the wittiest response. the owner of that response wins the round. the answer cards should be shuffled before the czar evaluates to avoid biased selection. this would be harder in the handwritten, artisan answers but one could solve that by writing the responses on a smartphone.
this is quite a fun game, potentially leading to fun times. the downside is that you don't learn much from the other people, only their wittiness. so i was looking for other similar games with more focus on the people themselves. and i found some! and the rules are even simpler. i found two games and they go with the names of "disturbing friends" and "voting game" and sort of came up with my own rules based on the ideas behind these games.
the first game has question cards which contain a question and 2 to 4 answers. a player, the round's czar, turns up a question card. the other players have to guess how the czar will answer the question. the czar must try to answer the question as honestly as they can. often there are no correct answers. in such case the czar must pick the answer closest to their heart. each player has some voting cards each with a number from 1 to 4. every player has to pick their answer and put the corresponding voting card in front of them, face down. once each player has voted, people reveal their vote one by one and finally the czar reveals their answer. the czar wins (or loses depending on perspective) the round if half or more of people didn't guess the answer correctly.
depending on the questions this can be quite fun with unexpected twists. you can have a neutral question like "best pet: cat/dog/fish" and learn what animal the czar likes. the czar also learns what other people's impressions of him are. you can have a more politically motivated question like "gun ownership: yes to all/only license/banned completely" to learn how people think politically. or you can have a question like "polyamory: it's a bad idea/ok but not for me/i am polyamorous" to learn other people's inclinations. the nice thing here is that the game brings up the question, you don't really have to awkwardly bring it up yourself in case you are curious about people's opinions on a topic. or you can have a dirty nsfw question like "my crotch has (select first that apply): jewelry/tattoo/other surprise". this is where the unexpected twists can occur: maybe some people get intrigued by the czar's answer and then the czar flashes their body to the party. that certainly could result in a lot of fun from then on!
the ideal number of people for this game is about 4 so that the czar can see the opinion of 3 people which is not too little, nor too much. but i think a couple or a pair of people could also play this game. in such case the goal remains to guess the other person's answer and see how well the two people know each other and learn more about each other.
the other game is a bit simpler because it doesn't have a czar. you don't have questions here but rather statements. each person gets assigned a distinct number from 1 to n before the game starts. each round the group turns up a statement card. people then have to vote which person is best described by the statement. the round is won (or lost depending on perspective) by the person acquiring the most votes. if there is a tie, people can break that verbally by arguing who should be the winner.
(edit: or one can simply get a point whenever they correctly guessed an answer. the person with the most points is the person who knows their friends the best.)
a neutral question could be something like "... cooks the best". people can then see whose cooking they find the best. a more interesting one could be "... can hold their breath the longest". people might contest the result of the vote and a fun breath holding contest might start. a nsfw statement might be "... wants to hang around naked". people then could then ask the winner "do you really want to be naked" and maybe the party pivots into a fun naked party!
this game is probably best played with 5 people so that there are less chances for ties. but i think this one could be played by a couple too. the couple just decides between each other who wins each statement.
in order to play this game, one needs voting cards. one solution is to take postit notes and write some numbers on them. the other solution is to cut up an a4 paper into small slips and write some number on them. or even less effort would be to find some coins or other small items. when you want to vote for 3, you put 3 coins into your hand under the table and then show your hand when your time comes. one doesn't need elaborate equipment or boards to play these games.
there could be some punishment or reward for the losers and winners each round. ideas:
it doesn't really matter much what it is but if there's some form of feedback then that raises the stakes a bit and makes the game a bit more interesting. the party members much agree on this beforehand so that everybody is comfortable with the punishments.
one could print the question and statement cards but i don't think it's necessary. as long as one has an app loaded with bunch of questions, one could just use a smartphone to present the questions. ideally people should source their own questions. nevertheless i decided to collect some sample questions and statements and make a small tool for it that is convenient to use from a smartphone. i even separated out the nsfw stuff so you can even play this in a family friendly setting. but a warning: the nsfw stuff is quite strong, i believe. only enable it with friends you absolutely trust no matter what happens or people you don't know at all so that there are less stakes in the manner. if in doubt, just look up the list of questions in the source of the webpage before playing the game. the webpage has no dependencies so feel free to copy it somewhere and edit the list of questions in it, e.g. remove the potentially offending ones and add your topics of interest. you can find my tool here:
load that on a smartphone, select your list and put it into the middle of the table and keep pressing next as the rounds progress. it has about 30 cards for each type. if you ever try it then let me know how it went. i never tried this so caveat emptor. maybe i'll have the chance to try this one day (with the nsfw stuff included) and then i can improve it or list more tips here.
edit: btw, i found a similar site with multiple games along the same ideas. it's here: https://psycatgames.com.
edit2: btw, if you are looking for a name for these sort of games, i'd go with "frivia" as in "friend trivia". it's a trivia about friends after all. let me know if there's a better or more popular name for these things.
edit3: i found an even better version: https://askhole.io. very cool name. and they provide their cards for free under a cc license. in case their server goes down, here are their cards: @/askhole.pdf. the pdf includes their recommended game rules too. you can play over web too: http://web.askhole.io.
edit4: so we have tried the askhole questions. they didn't seem to be working as well as my questions. askhole questions are open ended while mine just require a simple choice from the given options. and some questions are quite complex, we couldn't even understand them. and the party found lot of the askhole questions quite boring as they weren't very personal. the complexity of understanding and answering some of them was just not worth the cost. with @/cards if you pick a boring question, you just pick an answer quickly and move on, no need to overthink things. so if you have alcohol involved and thus have reduced cognitive capacity, @/cards might be simpler to play.
edit5: just in case i now incorporated some of the simpler but nice askhole questions into my cards deck. oh, btw, i accidentally came across https://playerten.com/products/the-voting-game which seems to be what i had in mind for the "statements" part of @/cards. it has a nsfw deck too.
published on 2020-04-07, last modified on 2022-04-14
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