The Gamesters of Dinnertable

[radiantfracture]

I need a game.

My full family visited me, all six of them, parents, brother, sister-in-law, two nephews aged 21 and 2, last weekend.

The one thing we all, from age 2 to 72, at all sorts of levels of ability and distraction, can do together is go to a restaurant. I had to refuse to order food twice because I just couldn't eat any more.

I need a game. A game we can play at a cafe or restaurant or dinner table. I have many requirements.

Of course I want to invent the game myself, but five weeks may not be quite enough time.

Some Parameters, In No Particular Order

1. No fiddly bits a small person could swallow or put up their nose
2. Played in rounds so you can easily drop in or out
3. Playable by at least 6 players
4. Playable without lots of reaching over the table
5. Playable on limited table real estate (probably involves not too much putting things down on the table (maybe just by the dealer))
6. Played in turns rather than free-for-all, to avoid spillage
7. Actually fun
8. Strategy for my brother
9. Randomness for me
10. Doesn't have to be playable by the 2-year-old, but would be nice if he could grow into it

A card game or dice game, adapted, might work -- maybe something like Dixit or Apples to Apples / CAH, a matching game of some kind, where each person makes a match attempt or a bid or something that's then compared/evaluated.

In the past we have had table success with King of Tokyo and San Juan, but both of these are not workable with the 2-year-old.

We could play a cell phone or tablet game in turns but that isn't very interactive -- it's more like sequential solitaire.

Collaborative or competitive -- both are good.

Any thoughts, either in terms of actual games, adaptations, or designs?

I am thinking of adaptations such as wearable points. Ex. instead of putting down counters or tokens to count your score / position, I was thinking there ought to be a silly hat for whoever was winning. I mean, a pencil is okay. Written scorekeeping is okay. I just like silly hats.

{rf}

Comments

[ursula]

You'd need an amanuensis for the two-year-old, but my family used to play a game that's sort of a variant of Telephone and works well around tables. Each person gets a sheet of paper and writes a phrase at the top. You pass the paper to the person to the right, who illustrates your phrase, then folds the paper so only their illustration is visible. The next person captions the illustration, and folds the paper again. Keep going until the papers have completed a full circuit, then unwrap.

[radiantfracture]

Oh, I love it! And the big nephew is an artist, so that's extra good.

I was trying to think of something in that exquisite-corpse vein but couldn't quite see how it would work.

Could maybe do it on a pad of paper and flip the pages for ease.

[dreamshark]

In Minneapolis we call that game "Moneyduck" for some reason. I was going to suggest that one myself. One big advantage is that you don't need to bring a game with you, just a few sheets of paper and some writing implements. Notably, there are no winners and losers in this game, yet it is amazingly fun.

[radiantfracture]

I think it would work well for my crowd! I'm thinking maybe about carrying around some small notepads for the purpose.

[purplecat]

Doesn't really have 8. but various variants on charades work well at the dinner table. With mixed ages you can make sure the whatevers you have to mime have a range of accessibility so 5 year old gets a kids show they know to mime and so on...

[radiantfracture]

That's true -- we do that on holidays with decent success. Good idea.

[elusis]

Or Pictionary. Or the version my great aunt came up with where everyone has to draw a concept using only chewing gum and toothpicks, or with their eyes closed, or holding the pen in their teeth.

[radiantfracture]

Oo I like the teeth. Maybe blindfold crayon-in-teeth pictionary. Only it might set a bad example for the child.

[sovay]

Any thoughts, either in terms of actual games, adaptations, or designs?

I do not play very many games at all, but one of the only times in my life I have really, seriously enjoyed a game at a party was Superfight. Obviously I would not recommend playing with the blend of geek pop culture and NSFW expansion decks that we used if you have a two-year-old involved, but the basic set-up offered me an ideal ratio of storytelling and kibitzing, the round-by-round nature of the game meant that players could drop in and drop out any time they felt like it, the communal aspect meant that players were never penalized for not getting all the references—it wasn't a gatekeeping game—and I found the available combinations of characters, attributes, and arguments consistently hilarious without the risk of actually getting bitten by something that keeps me away from Cards Against Humanity. An entire living room full of people was chiming in at the height of it. I'm not sure if there is any strategy involved beyond being able to make funny and cogent arguments, but surrealism definitely carried the day in several rounds. And you could always make adaptations. I suspect the group I was playing with did.

(The game I played and still remember happily three years later, I was undefeated champion for three rounds as a dominatrix wearing nothing but an infinitely extendable strap-on. Eventually I lost to Captain Kirk with some irrelevant attributes because Erin Horáková had not yet published "Kirk Drift" and therefore there were no available arguments against Kirk always getting the girl of the week, plus something about the Mirror Universe. Non-heteronormativity was restored a round later when Kirk was definitively trounced by Baby Jesus who was literally flaming gay and we had an entire conversation about "The Cherry Tree Carol" because the kibitzing really is built in. The game was eventually won by Level 90 Nikola Tesla armed with a gravity gun; who was going to fight that?)

genius

[radiantfracture]

This is a revelation.

a) Oh boy does my brother love arguing.

b) This seems like it could be adapted into a great classroom exercise for teaching argumentation?

c) I did not know this game, but it has all of the structural properties I was hoping for. Thank you!

Re: genius

[sovay]

c) I did not know this game, but it has all of the structural properties I was hoping for. Thank you!

You're welcome! I'm so glad!

Re: genius

[radiantfracture]

I really like this idea of teaching argument from the game -- play the game, write out your best argument, and then subject it to various tests of soundness...

Re: genius

[sovay]

I really like this idea of teaching argument from the game -- play the game, write out your best argument, and then subject it to various tests of soundness...

I would love to see what happens when you try this with a class. Please report back?

[marycatelli]

Rory's Story Cubes.

Roll some of the dice. Continue the story with the pictures you rolled included. Let the next person roll them. (Choose a number for the game -- everyone rolls that many.)

[radiantfracture]

Cool, thank you!

[watervole]

That's a good one. For a large group, have more than one set in circulation.

[elusis]

Contract rummy? https://www.pagat.com/rummy/ctrummy.html Played often, for hours, at restaurant tables by teens and adults in my past.
A2A would be my other idea.

Last suggestion would be "dirty bingo" though it requires preparation:

1) Everyone gets as many cards as they want to try to handle.
2) The caller sets a timer for a time limit (e.g. 45 minutes)
3) The caller calls relatively fast - part of the fun is having to scramble to keep up.
4) When someone calls "Bingo," they get to choose a WRAPPED gift from a pile, but they may not open it.
5) After the first "Bingo," you keep playing without returning any numbers to the hopper. Meaning "Bingo" will start to come very fast and soon almost every turn will be new "Bingo" calls. Each one also takes a wrapped gift but doesn't open it.
6) After a half dozen or so "Bingo" calls, switch to "cover all" - first one to cover their whole card gets Bingo.
7) When the gift pile runs out, people can steal wrapped gifts from previous winners (this is the "dirty" part).
8) Once someone wins at "cover all," return all the numbers to the hopper, and everyone can get new cards or play with the same ones (if you're using pips instead of dabbers).
9) Play until the timer runs out.
10) When the timer runs out, everyone keeps whatever gifts they have and opens them.

Requires: Bingo set, dabbbers or pips (might be an "up the nose" concern, in which case use dabbers and disposable cards), a timer, a stash of creatively-wrapped gifts, the weirder and more creatively-wrapped the better (a good time for the box-in-box-in-box trick, etc.) A mix of nice things someone would genuinely enjoy (bath stuff, snacks, etc.) and weird "white elephant" type gifts is fun.

[radiantfracture]

We too used to play a variant of this called present bingo, sometimes with the addition of opening the gifts when first grabbed or at some point during the game.

[elusis]

What I like about Dirty Bingo is that the competition is fierce, and yet ultimately pointless, because you might wind up with everyone fighting over a package that turns out to contain a very nice set of hot cocoa flavors and matching mugs, or you might be fighting over a wind-up penguin dressed like a pirate that dances to an ABBA song, but you won't know until the very very end.

[thewayne]

I picked up a dice game from Kickstarter a few years ago called Dice of Crowns, it fits in what was commonly known as a Sucrets tin. The cover describes it as "Roll the dice! Backstab friends! Seize the crown!" Recommended for 2-6 players and says ages 10+, but that's really overstating it. VERY easy game to play, and huge amounts of fun. Wife and I were in Phoenix last month for her birthday, Phoenix Symphony were doing a live performance of Nightmare Before Christmas while the film played, it was very cool. Afterwards the three of us were waiting at a restaurant for our fourth to show up, we played this game for an hour! One game lasts 5-15 minutes, a bit longer with more people.

Roll seven custom d6. They come up a skull, a dagger, a scroll, or a crown. You keep a crown or dagger. Get three daggers and your turn is over: you've died of intrigue. Get three crowns and you get a chit (turn is over, pass the dice): three chits and you've gained the crown and won the game. Getting a skull or scroll you pass those dice to other players and they roll. If they get a crown, they keep that die for their turn and they keep it as if they rolled a crown! If they roll a dagger, they assign it as a dagger and give it to whoever they want. Any other roll goes back to the player whose turn it is and they get to re-roll until they've gained three daggers or three crowns or have too few dice to complete those conditions.

It is a very raucous game, very simple to learn, good for 2-6 players, HUGE amounts of fun, and easily kept in your pocket. We got a lot of mileage out of it when I was working at an Air Force base and we were idle while waiting for computers to finish imaging before we could re-box them or install them. Aside from the dice, it does have small tokens in the form of the chits that you accumulate, needing three to win the game.

BTW, I have a game review blog at High Altitude Game Design, but I've been rather idle there for the last year due to illness. I'm much better now and will hopefully get back to it soon.

[radiantfracture]

Thanks! That does sound fun and fairly straightforward.

I should have said, but the 2-year-old doesn't have to be able to play -- just be prevented from wreaking havoc.

Sorry you've been ill -- I'll check out the reviews!

(That performance sounds really cool.)

[thewayne]

I didn't know it, but apparently symphonic performances of movies with the scores struck are pretty common these days!  I've heard of the San Francisco SO also doing it, Phoenix also had scheduled a couple of the Harry Potter films, a Star Wars film, and I believe Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom!  It was by no means cheap, though matinees were less expensive than night, but it was quite an experience. We went to my lung doctor today, haven't seen him in three years.  He said it looks like my sinus problems are resolved and thinks my coughing may be from my asthma needing a change in control meds, so we changed them up and I start the change tonight.  We shall see what happens in the forthcoming days!

I wouldn't expect the 2 y/o to play, just for players to be careful with the dice and chits around it!  Don't want there to be a need to find out if someone knows how to perform the Heimlich on one that young! Oh, there are optional rules to complicate it up a bit, but I've never bothered with them.

[notyourwendy]

Cockroach poker! https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/11971/cockroach-poker

Not a single thing to do with actual poker, there's no language dependent component, takes up little to no table space, and is quite hilarious if people really get into it.

[radiantfracture]

My brother would love anything that involved bluffing and generally psyching other people out.

[notyourwendy]

Werewolf/Mafia might be up his alley then. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_%28party_game%29 I learned it from Zarf as Werewolf, so I've always gone with the 'two werewolves, start on a day phase' rules.

There are specialized decks and such out there, but it can be played with a regular deck of cards or just stuff written on index cards.

[radiantfracture]

Thanks! Amongst my friendgroup we play Werewolf (as the plural for some reason? Werewolves?), so I might want to keep it Our Thing (see what I did there), but it's a good suggestion qua game.

[notyourwendy]

Well, I've always played with a pair of werewolves, so I don't see why you shouldn't address it in the plural.

It always surprises me how different Werewolf can be from group to group. Everyone has their own Thing (yes, I see what you did there).

[watervole]

Apples to apples.

the only game I ever got my mother to play! Even she liked it.

[watervole]

It's a great conversation game as everyone debates whether Golf ball size hail is more evil than Hitler.

The debates get really ingenious on occasion.

One card is drawn for the subject - evil, scary, wonderful, etc.

Each player plays a card face down from their hand of seven (which might contain grand canyon, high school showers, a rainbow, sharks, Pearl Harbour, my love life) . Teh player whose turn it is, gets to shuffle the entries, look at them consider people's arguments, but make their own choice.

It's the reasons for the choices that make the game fun.

[radiantfracture]

That's one that worked with my almost gameless grandmother, too.

[watervole]

Matschig https://boardgameprices.co.uk/item/show/5135/matschig

It's a little known card game of throwing mud pies, but over the last 25 years it is also one of the most-played games in our house.

It's simple, but it's FUN.

[radiantfracture]

Mud pies!

[watervole]

You have a hand of seven cards, some sand, some water. You combine two of them to make a mud pie and throw that pie at any player you choose.

He gets hit by the pie unless he has enough umbrellas to fend them off.

He then gets to throw a pie at anyone he likes.

It often develops into tit for tat and has everyone else laughing, until someone runs out of ammunition and then play passes to the next player.

It plays quickly, had loads of laughs and is enjoyed by everyone from children to grandparents.

The aerodynamics of the mud pie are half the fun. If you can play a 'duck' card, then you duck and the pie hits a player of your choice (not excluding the person who threw it at you!).

Easy rules, lots of laughs, and takes up very little space.