1. Put the empty glass or coaster in the middle as a marker. Nothing goes in it and nobody drinks from it. Spread the whole deck face down in an unbroken ring around it.
2. Going clockwise, each player draws one card, does what it says, and leaves it face up in a discard pile. Break the ring while drawing and you take a sip.
3. Number cards: 2 = Give (name someone, they take a sip). 3 = Take (you take a sip). 4 = Floor (last person to touch the floor sips). 5 = Thumb Master (put your thumb on the table whenever you like; last to copy sips). 6 = Duel (name someone, count to three, both throw rock-paper-scissors; loser sips). 7 = Heaven (last person to raise a hand sips).
4. Face and high cards: 8 = Mate (pick a partner; they sip when you sip, until someone else draws an eight). 9 = Rhyme (say a word, go around rhyming; first to repeat or stall sips). 10 = Categories (name a category, go around; first to blank sips). Jack = New Rule (add a rule anyone can break; it stands until the game ends). Queen = Question Master (anyone who answers your questions sips until the next Queen).
5. Ace = Waterfall. Starting with the drawer, each player in turn takes one sip, one at a time around the table. Nobody races anybody and nobody keeps going.
6. King = the game clock. The first three Kings drawn each earn the drawer one free pass to use later. Whoever draws the fourth King ends the game and picks what happens next: playlist, next game, food order.
7. Sober version: play with water, soda, or coffee. The game does not change and nobody needs to announce they are not drinking.
8. One sip means one sip. Anyone may pass on any card with no explanation and no penalty.

House rule: Bitch Love rule: the Jack who writes a new rule has to obey it first. Break your own rule inside two turns and it dies with you, and you take the sip.

1. Set the wide-mouth glass with a splash of water in it at the center of a hard table. This is the target glass. Nobody drinks from it.
2. On your turn, bounce the quarter once off the table into the glass. Direct throws do not count and neither do double bounces.
3. Sink it and you nominate one player to take a sip, then you shoot again. You cannot name the same player twice in a row. Miss and the quarter passes to the left.
4. Sink three in a row and you may write one house rule for the rest of the game. Sink five in a row and you retire undefeated for the night.
5. If the quarter lands in the glass and bounces out, the shooter takes the sip instead. The table decides ties and the table is always right.
6. One sip means one sip. Anyone may pass on any sip with no explanation and no penalty.
7. Coins are filthy. Keep the target glass well away from anything anyone is drinking and dump it at the end of the night. Hard table only, and no shooting toward faces, windows, or anyone's drink.
8. Sober version: shoot for points instead. First to ten sinks wins, and the loser owes the winner a soda.

House rule: Bitch Love rule: call your target before you shoot. Sink it and they sip. Miss a called shot and you sip, then sit out your next turn while the table replays what you said.

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. Sit in a circle. Pick a starting player and a direction, clockwise.
2. The starting player says "fuzzy duck." The next player says "fuzzy duck." It goes around exactly like that.
3. On your turn, instead of the phrase, you may say "does he?" That reverses the direction of play and changes the phrase to "ducky fuzz."
4. Play now continues the other way with every player saying "ducky fuzz" until someone says "does he?" again, which reverses direction and switches the phrase back to "fuzzy duck."
5. You cannot reverse a reversal. If the player before you just said "does he?", you must say the phrase.
6. Say the wrong phrase, mangle it, hesitate more than about two seconds, or reverse when you are not allowed to, and you take one sip. Then restart from the player who fumbled.
7. Sober version: three fumbles and you are out of the round, last player standing wins. It runs better than the drinking version and everybody knows it.
8. Anyone may pass on a sip or sit out a round without explaining, and nobody asks.

House rule: Bitch Love rule: laugh at your own fumble and you start the next round, first word, whole table watching. Nobody has ever survived that with their dignity.

1. Everyone holds up five fingers. Going around the circle, each player states one thing they have genuinely never done, starting with "never have I ever."
2. Anyone who has done it puts down a finger and takes a sip. The speaker does not drink for their own statement.
3. Put down all five fingers and you are out. Last player with a finger up wins and gets to put one question to the table, which anyone may decline.
4. Statements must be about the speaker's own experience. If you have done it, you cannot say it.
5. No statement may target one specific person at the table or fish for something somebody clearly does not want aired. Aim wide.
6. Any player may pass on any statement, keep their finger up, and skip the sip, without saying why. Nobody asks. That is the rule that keeps the game playable.
7. Sober version: fingers only, no drinking. It runs the same and the confessions are usually better.
8. When it stops being funny for anyone in the circle, the round is over. Someone start a different game.

House rule: Bitch Love rule: any statement that makes the table go quiet costs the speaker a finger. Read the room or pay for 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 holds up ten fingers. Going around the circle, each player says one thing they have never done, starting with "never have I ever."
2. Anyone who has done that thing puts one finger down. If you are drinking, take one sip with it. One sip, not more, no matter how many fingers you have lost.
3. Anyone may pass on any statement without explaining. Passing costs nothing and nobody gets to ask why. That rule is not optional.
4. Keep statements about things people did. Not about anyone in the room, and not about anyone's health, money, or bad year. If a statement makes the room go quiet, the person who said it withdraws it and takes the finger themselves.
5. You are out when all ten fingers are down. Out means you stop dropping fingers and start keeping score. You don't leave.
6. Last player with a finger up wins and picks the next game.
7. Alcohol-free version: play fingers only, no glass involved. It plays identically and the score works out the same. Mixed rooms are fine. Drinkers sip, non-drinkers just drop the finger.
8. Nobody catches up, nobody makes up missed sips, and nobody plays a round they don't want to.

House rule: A statement that gets zero fingers down is a dud. The person who said it drops a finger for wasting the room's time. No sip attached to that one.

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. Sit in a circle. The first player says any letter. Each player after adds one letter to the end of the string.
2. You are building toward a real word of four letters or more, and you are trying not to be the one who completes it. Proper nouns do not count.
3. Complete a word of four or more letters and you lose the round.
4. You may add a letter with nothing in mind. That is allowed and encouraged, but it leaves you exposed.
5. Any player may challenge the person who just went. The challenged player has to name a real word the current string can still become. If they cannot, they lose the round. If they can, the challenger loses it.
6. Whoever loses a round takes a letter: G, then H, then O, S, T. Spell GHOST and you are out, though you keep refereeing and heckling.
7. Last player standing wins. The phone settles any dispute and the phone is never wrong.
8. Drinking is optional: one sip when you take a letter, which is five sips across an entire game at most. With water or a soft drink the game is identical, because the pressure was never coming from the alcohol.

House rule: Anyone who is out has to read every remaining string aloud in the voice of a late-night radio host. The voice does not change once chosen, no matter how long the game runs.

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. Shuffle a 52-card deck. The dealer runs the deck and does not guess. Deal rotates left every round.
2. Round one: each player guesses red or black. Dealer flips one card to them. Wrong guess, one tally. The card stays face up in front of the player either way.
3. Round two, higher or lower than the card you already have. Round three, inside or outside your two cards. Round four, name the suit. Exact ties count as wrong. One tally per miss, four cards each at the end.
4. Tallies are the currency. One tally is one sip of whatever you brought, or one pretzel if you are not drinking. Water counts. Cap it at three sips per round, no exceptions and no arguing.
5. Pyramid: deal 15 cards face down in rows of five, four, three, two, one. Flip them one at a time starting with the bottom row of five. Anyone holding that rank turns the card in and cancels tallies equal to the row's value, one at the bottom row rising to five at the single card on top.
6. Whoever finishes with the most tallies rides the bus. Tie, everyone tied rides together. Lay five fresh cards face down in a row and flip them one at a time. Number card, keep moving.
7. Face card or ace, take one sip, or one pretzel if you are not drinking, and restart the row.
8. Three restarts and the bus lets you off regardless. That is three sips maximum, and nobody needs to be on there all night.

House rule: The bus rider picks the next song and the table has to sit through all of it. Anyone who complains picks the song after that, so the table knows exactly who to blame next.

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.