Nothing to prepare: ideas 1 to 5
1. Never have I ever. Going round the table, each person says something they have never done. Those who have done it raise a hand and pay a sip or a point. 3 to 15 players, ten minutes or the whole evening. What gets the laughs: the hand you did not expect, and the explanation demanded on the spot.
2. Would you rather. One person sets an impossible choice, a life without music or without cheese, and everyone votes by a show of hands. Whoever is alone in their camp has to argue for it. 3 to 12 players. What gets the laughs: the absurd dilemma, and the person defending their pick like a closing argument.
3. Most likely to. Someone reads a line, who is most likely to forget a birthday, and on three everybody points at someone. The most pointed-at owns it, with a point, a dare or a sip. 3 to 12 players, five minutes per batch. What gets the laughs: the whole table against one person, who protests. Our game The Most Likely To asks them from the phones, and our guide lists a hundred of them.
4. The forbidden word. At the start of the evening, ban a common word: yes, no, or the host's first name. Anyone who says it pays, and anyone can call it. 3 to 20 players, until everyone forgets. What gets the laughs: the fall of the most confident, two sentences in.
5. Categories round the table. Someone calls a category, car brands, cheeses, capitals, and each person gives one word in turn. The first to stall loses the round. 3 to 12 players, two minutes per category. What gets the laughs: the blank on a subject everyone knows, and the categories that drift towards exes.
With a deck of cards: ideas 6 to 9
6. The Pyramid. Each player gets four cards and predicts each one before seeing it, red or black, higher or lower. Then fifteen cards form a pyramid, turned over one at a time: whoever claims the same rank picks someone to drink, and the person picked can challenge. A bluff caught out means double. 2 to 12 players, ten to twenty minutes. What gets the laughs: the bluff on the top card, and the memory that fails at the final guesses. The full rules have their own guide.
7. The Circle. The 52 cards are laid in a ring, face down, around a glass. You draw one on your turn, and each rank has its ritual: the ace starts a waterfall, the 5 sets a new rule, the 8 ties you to a mate, the 10 calls a category. Each king pours into the central glass, and whoever draws the last king drinks it. 3 to 12 players. In our online version the game ends at the second king, ten to fifteen minutes, and breaking the circle, drawing a card next to one already taken, costs two sips, then three, then five. What gets the laughs: the rule from the 5 that bans saying yes, forgotten thirty seconds later.
8. Cheat. The whole deck is dealt out. The first player lays one or more cards face down and announces their rank, two aces, and the next player must lay the rank above, or lie. Anyone can call cheat: the cards are turned over, and whoever was wrong picks up the pile. 3 to 8 players, fifteen minutes. What gets the laughs: the nerve of someone laying four queens while looking you in the eye.
9. Kemps. Two teams of two, four cards each, a secret signal agreed with your partner. Cards rotate through the middle; when you hold four of a kind, your partner has to shout kemps on seeing your signal, before the other team spots it and shouts counter-kemps. Four players. What gets the laughs: the signal that is far too obvious, and the partner who never sees it.
With your phones: ideas 10 to 13
10. The Aperitif. Our aperitif game in the strict sense: a run of cards read out loud, drawn from a bank of more than 150 dares. A card is sips to hand out, a vote, a duel, a confession, a dare, or a rule that lasts several cards, until the card that announces its end. Everyone reads the card on their own phone, only the host moves to the next one, no phone gets passed around. A session is 30 cards, finale included, 50 in marathon mode, count on half an hour. You need at least 3 players: with two, the three-person cards drop out of the draw and the game goes flat, our tables showed it and the minimum was raised. Up to 12. What gets the laughs: the standing rule, your majesty to address anyone, and the tally of slips.
11. Stop the Bus. One letter, five categories, everyone writes at the same time, and the first to fill all five boxes stops the round. A unique answer scores two points, a shared one scores one. 2 to 12 players, one to three minutes per round. Online, the points count themselves. What gets the laughs: reading the answers out, especially with the party categories. Our eighty categories and the letters to leave out are in the Stop the Bus guide.
12. The Killer game. Everyone secretly gets a target and a mission: make them say a word, make them hold an object. Mission done, the victim confirms it, and you inherit their target. 3 to 30 players with The Assassin, which deals out targets and missions on the phones. What gets the laughs: the move that was far too visible, and the paranoia that spreads through the table after the first victim. The rules and a hundred mission ideas have their own guide.
13. The pocket blind test. One phone and a list of tracks the host plays for five seconds each. The first to give the title or the artist scores, a wrong answer costs a point. Teams from six players up. 3 to 20 players, one song per minute. What gets the laughs: the person who knows every lyric and has never remembered a single title.
To print or to improvise: ideas 14 and 15
14. The hat. Everyone writes five names of characters, famous or sitting at the table, on folded slips in a bowl. In teams of two, you get your partner to guess as many slips as possible in thirty seconds. Three rounds with the same slips: talking freely, then with a single word, then miming. 4 to 12 players, twenty to thirty minutes. What gets the laughs: the third round, where one gesture is enough because everyone remembers the word from the second.
15. Aperitif bingo. Before the guests arrive, print a grid of sixteen boxes with what is bound to happen tonight: someone talks about work, someone knocks over a glass, the host says they did not prepare anything. Everyone ticks quietly, the first to line up four boxes calls bingo and proves each box in front of the table. 4 to 20 players, the whole evening in the background. What gets the laughs: the box ticked behind the back of the person who triggered it, who protests.
How many players, how long
With three, everything works except Kemps and the hat. Votes turn into duels: go for categories round the table, cheat and the Pyramid, which even plays with two. The Aperitif starts at three.
From four to eight, almost everything works: votes mean something, the Pyramid gets lively without dragging, the hat and the blind test are played in teams.
Above eight, keep what does not need turn-taking: never have I ever, the forbidden word, bingo, and the Killer, which goes up to 30 on The Assassin. Drinks before dinner take ten to fifteen minutes of continuous play, then the background games take over.
With or without alcohol
The Pyramid, The Circle and The Aperitif carry an Alcohol badge on PlaySobr, and their cards talk about sips. We do not hide it: these are drinks rituals, written the way tables play them. Out of our 14 games, they are the only three.
Without alcohol, the sip becomes a point or a dare, and none of the fifteen games changes its rules. Decide before the first card, not halfway through. Our alcohol-free party games guide lists the games that never needed a glass.
For a mixed table, start with the games where nobody notices who is drinking: the hat, Stop the Bus, the Killer, the blind test. The card rituals come next.