1. Every player gets five dice and a cup. Shake, slam the cup face down, and peek at your own dice without showing anyone.
2. The first player makes a bid: a quantity and a face, like "four fours." That claims there are at least four dice showing that face across every cup on the table.
3. Going clockwise, each player either raises the bid or calls the previous bidder a liar. A raise means a higher quantity, or the same quantity on a higher face.
4. Ones are wild and count as any face. To bid on ones themselves, halve the current quantity and round up. To leave ones and bid a normal face again, double the ones bid and add one.
5. When someone calls liar, every cup comes up and you count. If the bid was true, the challenger loses one die. If it was false, the bidder loses one die.
6. Whoever lost a die starts the next round. Lose all five dice and you are out. Last player holding dice wins.
7. Whoever loses a die takes a sip, and anyone may pass without explaining. Nobody else drinks, which is why this one stays civil longer than most.
8. Sober version: skip the sips and track dice lost on a napkin as a running score across the night. Highest total buys the next round of whatever people are having.

House rule: Bitch Love rule: any player who says "I knew it" after the reveal loses a die on the spot. You did not know it. You never know it.

1. Tear one slip of paper per player. Mark one with an X for the murderer. Leave the rest blank. Fold them, put them in a hat, and have everyone draw one and keep it secret.
2. Everyone mingles and talks normally. The only requirement is that you keep making eye contact. A game where nobody looks up is a game that never starts.
3. The murderer kills by winking directly at one person. If you get winked at, wait three seconds so you don't give the killer away, then announce your death, sit down, and say nothing else. Dead players do not hint, gesture, or make faces.
4. Any living player can call an accusation at any time by saying "accuse." They need a second player to back them within five seconds. If nobody backs them, the accusation dies and play continues.
5. When two players are locked in, they both name a suspect on a count of three. Both correct and the room wins. Either one wrong and both accusers are out.
6. The murderer wins by getting the room down to two living players. Then reveal the slip and deal again.
7. Drinking version: take a sip when you die, and one more if you accuse an innocent person. The alcohol-free version is identical with water or soda, or with no glass at all. The game does not need it.

House rule: Death scenes are graded by the room. If yours gets no reaction, you deal the slips for the next round and you don't get to complain about it.

1. Everyone writes five entries on separate slips: names, movies, objects, phrases. Keep them guessable by this specific room. Fold them and put them all in the bowl. Six players gets you thirty slips, which is enough. Past sixty, the rounds drag.
2. Split into two teams. Teams alternate turns. On each turn, one player from the active team pulls slips and gives clues to their own team for sixty seconds.
3. Round one is talk. Say anything except the words on the slip or any part of them. No rhyming, no spelling. Guessed slips go in the team's pile. A pass costs you the slip and it goes back in the bowl.
4. When the bowl is empty, count the piles for points, put every slip back in, and go again.
5. Round two is the same slips, one word only. You say a single word and then your mouth stays shut until they guess or you pass.
6. Round three is the same slips, mime only. No sound at all. This is where the room falls apart.
7. Add up all three rounds. Highest total wins. If you want a fourth round, run it as sound effects only: no words, no miming, just noise.
8. Drinking version: one sip per player on the team that loses a round. Non-drinkers do the same with whatever is in their glass, or skip it entirely. Scoring is unaffected either way.

House rule: Any slip that survives all three rounds unguessed gets read aloud at the end, and whoever wrote it has to stand up and justify the choice to the room.

1. One player is the Wordmaster. They pick a real word, no proper nouns, at least six letters, and announce only its first letter.
2. Everyone else is a Guesser. A Guesser who thinks of any word starting with the revealed letters gives a clue for that word out loud. Describe it, never say it.
3. Any other Guesser who thinks they have identified the clued word says "contact."
4. The Wordmaster then has ten seconds to block by naming the clued word out loud. If the Wordmaster gets it, the clue is dead and play moves on.
5. If the Wordmaster fails to block, the two Guessers count down from three and say their word at the same time. Same word and the Wordmaster reveals the next letter of the secret word. Different words and nothing happens, so someone else clues.
6. Guessers win the moment anyone names the secret word outright. If the room stalls for ten minutes with no new letter, the Wordmaster wins and picks again.
7. Whoever cracks the word takes the Wordmaster chair for the next round.
8. No drinking in this one. It is scored on ego alone, which is enough.

House rule: If two Guessers connect on a word the Wordmaster has never heard of, the Wordmaster reveals two letters instead of one and takes the loss quietly.

1. Everyone writes a well-known name on a sticky note, real or fictional, alive or dead, and sticks it on the forehead of the person to their left without letting them see it.
2. On your turn you ask the room one yes-or-no question about your name. "Am I alive?" counts. "Who am I?" does not.
3. A yes keeps your turn and you ask again. A no ends your turn and it moves to the next player.
4. You may spend a turn on a direct guess instead of a question. A wrong guess ends your turn like any no.
5. House rules: no questions about who wrote your note, no asking whether you are in the room, and no lying to a player about their name. The whole thing collapses otherwise.
6. Guess correctly and you are out of the hot seat. Stay in as a judge and settle the arguments over what counts as a yes.
7. Last person still wearing a note loses and writes the name for the winner in the next round.
8. Drinking version: one sip on a wrong guess. Non-drinkers take the same turn penalty and skip the glass. Either way, one wrong guess is one penalty, no stacking.

House rule: Write a name so obscure that nobody can crack it and you don't get to feel clever about it. You keep wearing that note into the next round and you skip your first turn.

1. Pick a Wordmaster. They think of a word, keep it to themselves, and announce only the first letter.
2. Anyone else who thinks of a word starting with that letter gives a clue for it out loud, without saying the word. Example, for D: "Is it something a bartender does at closing?"
3. If another guesser thinks they have the same word, they say "Contact." The two of them count down from three and say their word at the same time.
4. The Wordmaster can break a contact by naming the clued word before the count reaches zero. If they do, the clue is dead and play moves on.
5. If the contact survives and both guessers say the same word, the Wordmaster must reveal the next letter of the secret word.
6. Keep going, letter by letter. A guesser can also just name the whole word at any point and end the round.
7. Rotate the Wordmaster each round. Someone who never gets a word out has still contributed by heckling.
8. Drinking is optional: the Wordmaster takes a sip each time a letter is pried loose, capped at three sips per round. Play it dry with water, soda, or coffee and the game is exactly as good.

House rule: A clue may reference someone at the table only if it is true and they would happily repeat it in public. Anyone referenced sits out the clue-giving for that round and is allowed to look smug about it.

1. The Dealer finds an obscure word in the dictionary, says it aloud, and spells it. If anyone already knows it, pick another word.
2. Everyone else writes a fake definition on a slip. The Dealer copies the real one, shortened to about the same length and tone so it does not stand out.
3. The Dealer collects the slips, shuffles them, and reads every definition aloud in a flat voice. No performing.
4. Going around the table, each player votes for the definition they think is real. You cannot vote for your own.
5. Score it: one point to a writer for each vote their fake collects, two points to anyone who picks the real definition, three points to the Dealer if nobody finds it.
6. Pass the dictionary left and play again. First to 10 points wins.
7. Drinking is optional: take a sip when you vote for a lie, one sip maximum per round. Non-drinkers keep the same rule with anything in a glass, and the scoring is unchanged either way.

House rule: Any definition that makes the whole table laugh is retired to a running list on the back of a napkin. At the end of the night the list gets read out as a single dictionary entry and the author has to defend it.

1. Before you start, everyone writes three topics on scraps and folds them into a hat. "My worst job." "Pigeons." "The correct way to load a dishwasher."
2. Pick a Chairperson for the round. They hold the timer, they rule on challenges, and they do not speak on a topic while chairing.
3. A player draws a topic and talks for sixty seconds without hesitation, repetition of any significant word, or deviation from the topic. Words in the topic itself may be repeated freely.
4. Anyone may challenge mid-speech by knocking on the table and naming the offense. The Chairperson rules on it, fast. If the challenge stands, the challenger takes the topic and whatever time is left. If it does not, the speaker carries on.
5. One point per upheld challenge, and one point to whoever is talking when the timer runs out.
6. Rotate the Chairperson every round so nobody builds a grudge. Play five rounds, or until someone gets ugly about the dishwasher.
7. Drinking is optional: a sip for the speaker each time a challenge is upheld against them, one sip maximum per round. It plays exactly the same with a soft drink and no one will notice.

House rule: The Chairperson's ruling is final and does not have to be fair. The Chairperson may also ban one word for the entire round, chosen after the topic is drawn.

1. Pick two suspects. Anyone can decline and nobody has to explain why. The rest are detectives.
2. The detectives name a fictional, petty crime. "Who took the last of the lemons." "Who put a fork in the microwave." Never anything a real person at the table actually did.
3. The suspects leave the room for three minutes and build a full alibi together: where they were, who they were with, what they ate, what was on the radio, who paid.
4. While they are gone, the detectives write ten questions. Detail questions beat clever ones. "Which of you sat facing the door."
5. Bring one suspect back and ask all ten. Then swap, with the first suspect out of earshot, and ask the exact same ten in the same order.
6. Compare the answers. Each contradiction is one point to the detectives. Four points convicts.
7. Convicted or not, the suspects pick the next pair. Play until the questions get too good.
8. Drinking is optional: the suspects take a sip for each contradiction, capped at two per round. It runs the same on soda, and sober suspects tell a much better story, which is the entire point.

House rule: The detectives get one Reasonable Doubt token per night. Spend it and a convicted suspect walks free, but the person who spent it has to explain the alternative theory of the crime in full, out loud, without laughing.

1. One deck. Three lives each, tracked with coins or chips. Aces are 11, face cards 10, everything else face value.
2. Deal three cards to each player, put the rest face down as the stock, and turn one card face up beside it.
3. On your turn take the top card of the stock or the top of the discard pile, then discard one. Your hand is always exactly three cards.
4. Your score is the total of your cards in a single suit only. Mixed suits do not add together. Three of a kind of any rank scores 30 and a half.
5. Three cards of one suit adding to 31 is the top hand. Show it immediately. Everyone else loses a life on the spot.
6. Instead of drawing you may knock. Everyone else gets one more turn, then all hands go face up. Lowest score loses a life, and the knocker loses two if they are the lowest. Tied for lowest, everyone tied loses a life.
7. Losing a life costs one sip or one token into the middle. Pick which currency at the start of the night, not hand by hand. Non-drinkers use tokens or water and the game runs identically. One sip per life lost, never more.
8. Out of lives, you are out of the deal. Last player still holding a life takes it.

House rule: Knock on anything under twenty and you announce the number out loud before the reveal. If you were right to knock, nobody says a word for the rest of the hand.

1. Deal the entire deck out. Uneven hands are fine and nobody gets to complain about it.
2. Ranks run in order starting at ace. The player left of the dealer goes first, placing one to four cards face down on a central pile and announcing them: two aces, one ace, whatever the claim is.
3. The next player plays the next rank up. Twos, then threes, on through king and back around to ace. You must play at least one card and you must name the current rank, honestly or otherwise.
4. Any player may call cheat before the next play lands. Flip only the cards just played. If the claim was a lie, the liar takes the whole pile. If the claim was true, the caller takes it.
5. Whoever picks up the pile takes one sip, or one tally if they are not drinking. Same rule for everyone, and water counts. Never more than one sip per pickup no matter how big the pile is.
6. First player to get rid of every card wins, but the win must survive. If you empty your hand on a bluff and nobody calls it, the bluff stands and you have won.
7. If you call cheat wrongly twice in a row, sit out one call. Read the room before you open your mouth.

House rule: You are only allowed one physical tell per night. Pick it early, keep using it, and let the table decide whether it means anything.

1. Six dice, a shared scorepad, and a target of 10,000 points. Play passes left.
2. Roll all six. Each 1 scores 100 and each 5 scores 50. Three of a kind scores the face value times 100, except three 1s which score 1000.
3. Bigger sets: four of a kind is 1000, five of a kind is 2000, six of a kind is 3000. A full 1-2-3-4-5-6 straight is 1500, and three pairs is 1500.
4. After each roll set aside at least one scoring die, then choose: re-roll the dice you did not set aside for more points, or bank everything you have accumulated this turn.
5. Roll and score nothing at all and you Farkle. The entire turn's points vanish and play passes on. Bank early or keep your opinions to yourself.
6. If all six dice end up scoring, that is hot dice. Pick all six back up and keep rolling with your running total intact.
7. You need 500 points in a single turn to get on the board. After that, any bank counts, however small.
8. The first player to reach 10,000 triggers the last lap. Everyone else gets one final turn to beat the number. Highest total takes it.

House rule: Three Farkles in a row and you lose 1000 banked points. It hurts exactly as much as it should, and it stops the table from rolling forever.