Improv games for irreverant grown-ups on wilderness camping trip?

July 14, 2016 8:49 AM

I'd about to head out on wilderness backpacking trip with some good friends over the weekend.

A few of us have taken improv classes and we had great fun brainstorming campfire games the last time we went backpacking. What are your recommendations for fun improv games to play around the campfire? Extra points for games we can play while we are hiking. We are a group of 5 people in our mid-30s.

posted by Captain Chesapeake to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (8 answers total)

Do you mean actually sitting around a campfire? So no running across the middle?

For things like this I really really love Cheat Your Own Adventure.

It's simple, fun, casual and suited to sitting around a fire with time to kill. Make up a story together in the style of a Choose Your Own Adventure/ Fighting Fantasy book. You can do any genre with a single protagonist. It does need dice but I'd recommend just using a dice roller app on a smart phone.
http://mcleanfamilyonline.co.uk/CYOA.pdf

In a similar vein any kind of story telling thing would work:
One word story, story story die

Bunny Bunny obvs.

Here is a site with lots of different improv games:
http://improvencyclopedia.org/
posted by Erberus at 9:27 AM on July 14, 2016

How about a LARP you can play after you've put up your tents?

The Climb
posted by ursus_comiter at 9:32 AM on July 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Key point is that I'm overwhelmed by improv game sites with dozens of games listed. I'm looking for your personal recommendations for what you found really fun and smart. Thanks.
posted by Captain Chesapeake at 10:30 AM on July 14, 2016

For sheer simplicity, I really like made up scenes between two people where there is some limitation in how you communicate. Examples would be each person only speaking in questions or perhaps only using monosyllabic words.

For three person scenes I was recently introduced to something that I think was called Statements and Questions. In this 2 of the people are given a short question and a short statement. Example:
Person 1: Are you ready?
Person 1: I have it.
Person 2: What is that?
Person 2: That looks nice.
These two people can only speak those words whereas the third person is given the scene location/occupation/etc. and is able to say anything at all to keep the scene moving along.
posted by mmascolino at 11:02 AM on July 14, 2016

If you can find room for maybe twelve small dice, Fiasco is absolutely brilliant. A bit more structured than 'pure' improv but it makes for a heck of a good time for shared storytelling.
posted by Phineas Rhyne at 2:45 PM on July 14, 2016

Telephone Pictionary.

It can be as kid-friendly or as adult as you want.
posted by tivalasvegas at 3:36 PM on July 14, 2016

The question game works pretty well. 2+ players, they can only speak in the form of questions, but their questions need to tell a logical story, e.g.:

What are you doing?
What does it look like?
Why are you shaving your dog?
et al.
posted by craven_morhead at 10:34 AM on July 15, 2016

Best answer: Mind meld!: Two people count down from 3 and, at the same time, each say any word that comes to mind. Then, based on those words, you do it again, trying to say the same word as the other person. Keep doing it until you both say the same word. There's a variant for groups where everybody does it and if two people say the same word they are now on a team and take turns playing each round. Eventually you get down to two teams and then when they say the same word and everybody is happy hooray we had fun.

Tell a story one word at a time. Each person just takes one word, go in an established order (circle, normally, but if ya hiking probably no circles).


I'll try to think of more! Lots of improv games require moving around, which isn't great around a campfire unfortunately. But I'll see what else I can come up with.
posted by wemayfreeze at 1:44 PM on July 15, 2016