Conversation and Impromptu Games

August 28, 2008 7:13 AM

What are some fun impromptu games--I'm thinking like Punch Buggy, or Not It? AND, what are some fun conversation games--like Would You Rather, or The Dozens, or Questions, or Existential Rock Paper Scissors?
posted by Ollie to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (23 answers total)

Previously
posted by agent99 at 7:35 AM on August 28, 2008

My girlfriend and I invented one that's sort of a takeoff from Punch Buggy that we call Chop-a-Croc. Whenever you see someone wearing Croc shoes you karate chop the other player and name the color of the shoes. Great fun (and bruises!) at zoos, malls, county fairs, and other places with lots of children and tourists.
posted by LionIndex at 7:36 AM on August 28, 2008 [3 favorites]

There's a word game we used to play in the car that was always fun. The first person had to have a word in mind and start by stating the first letter of that word. The second person also had to have a word in mind and would state the second letter of their chosen word. This would continue back and forth until a whole word was spelled out, in which case the person stating the last letter of the word would lose. You could challenge the other person if you thought they were stating random letters and didn't actually have a word in mind.

Another one my boyfriend and I play sometimes is choosing between two people to sleep with. Most people play this game using two very beautiful people, but we do the opposite. I get him with Sandra Day O'Conner every time. He'd rather sleep with a troll than with O'Conner.

What is Existential Rock Paper Sissors??
posted by Nathanial Hörnblowér at 7:44 AM on August 28, 2008

I'm Going on a Picnic

Much fun, and very telling about the group you're with. A favorite item, courtesy of the show Daria is always "The Cryogenicaly Frozen Head of Walt Disney".
posted by piedmont at 7:50 AM on August 28, 2008

Best answer: We play a game called But Her Face! wherein one is to imagine someone who is a perfect romantic match for another participant except for one defect.

My personal favorite is one my friend came up with - She's your dream girl in every way but she has one long blue curly hair jutting from the center of her chest that she treasures, will not cut or trim, and wants you to call Sweet Blue. Go for it or not?
posted by palindromic at 8:11 AM on August 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks for these! I guess I should clarify that by "impromptu" games I mean those where one person starts playing before the other person even knows the game's started--"chop-a-croc" is great. And by conversation games I mean either games that spark conversation, or those that result in absurd explanations or justifications, like forcing someone to explain why he'd rather bunk with troll than Sandra Day O'Conner.
Existential Rock-Paper-Scissors has each player state a noun and then why that noun beats the other player's noun--so like why Chuck Norris would beat Jack Bauer, or why a toaster beats a tennis racket, or whatever. A third player is the moderator and makes the call.
posted by Ollie at 8:15 AM on August 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

One I play with the kids is what we call the Alphabet game. The first person names something that starts with a letter (typically A). The next person must repeat the items that have come before and then name something that begins with the next letter to follow in the alphabet. Each person continues in this way until someone can't remember an item and loses.
posted by mcarthey at 8:17 AM on August 28, 2008

Fuck, Marry, Kill.

Come to think of it, that would be a good game to play at meetups. Cortex, Jessamyn, Mathowie. Go.
posted by bondcliff at 8:25 AM on August 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

My wife and I play a game called "That's You!" It's like Punch Buggy, except instead of a VW Bug you look for the crazy homeless, the morbidly obese, and people forced to wear unfortunate costumes. In lieu of punching, you just say "That's You!" (or "That's your boyfriend! You lloooooovvveeee him.") and the other person has to figure out who you're talking about.

It's not an especially nice game.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:03 AM on August 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

On long road trips, the generally accepted game is that by being the first person to append the surname of your compatriot to a freeway exit sign, they have to have a child and give them those first and middle names. For example, in Florida, you might yell "El Dorado Omega Johnson!" and your friend Dave Johnson would have to name his kid El Dorado Omega.
posted by klangklangston at 9:28 AM on August 28, 2008

Please, it's called "Fuck 'em, Chuck 'em, or Marry 'em."

But the real best one is That's Not Cholera. One person is "it" and says the word "cholera" repeatedly. Everyone listens. As soon as the person says a word that ISN'T "cholera," you jump in and say "THAT'S NOT CHOLERA." The first person to say it wins and gets to be the "cholera" sayer for the next round.
posted by wemayfreeze at 9:46 AM on August 28, 2008 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: Sperose--we call that Not It!
posted by Ollie at 10:01 AM on August 28, 2008

Nathanial, that game is called Ghost. One of my favorites.
posted by widdershins at 10:14 AM on August 28, 2008

I Pinch, which is just like Punch Buggy, but with Honda Elements and pinching (originated with Honda's pinch obsessed Gil the Crab from the elementandfriends.com web site).

There's Your Date, AKA YOURS. Same as Robocop's not nice That's You game up-thread.
posted by Scoo at 10:35 AM on August 28, 2008

Death is not an option: Each player proposes a pair of people (or other things), one of whom the other player has to choose to hypothetically have sex with. The fun is in modifying the pair to make it an impossibly distressing choice.

Game with no name: All of the participants in the game make a hand gesture that looks like an upside-down OK sign (thumb and forefinger in a ring, other fingers extended). The object is to catch another player looking at your hand while it's in this position. The hand must be below the victim's waist to count. The victim gets punched. So fun. I did make the mistake of teaching my pre-teen cousins this game, which they took to their small school (where my aunt is also a teacher) and ended up getting detention in perpetuity for starting the trend. Heh.
posted by LittleMissCranky at 11:25 AM on August 28, 2008

ha ha, my friend and I always play the "That's you" game. Wherever we are, like at a museum we'll find the funniest painting or at an amusement park if we see the tattooed alligator woman or at the movies we'll pick the most insane looking monster and gleefully exclaim "That's you!" to each other. Whomever else we're with is usually annoyed as all hell, but we laugh our brains out.
posted by silverstatue at 1:38 PM on August 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

On long car trips, my kids and I play "Unfortunately...", where one person says something random, such as: "Unfortunately, all of the oceans have turned to ketchup." The next-in-line prefaces their response with "...but fortunately". "But fortunately, when the giants come to eat us, they'll have lots of ketchup for dipping."

A good game to start without announcing is the question game (like in Whose Line is it Anyway?), where everything said has to be a question. The first person to say something that's not a question loses. Do you know how fiercely competitive my sister and I can get when it comes to meaningless games? Are you challenging me?
posted by ebee at 1:45 PM on August 28, 2008 [4 favorites]

LittleMissCranky—You forgot the other part of that game. When a person is making the ring with their fingers, if you can shoot your finger down into the hole without looking at it (or being caught looking at it), you get to punch them.

We called this game "Fuck you!"
posted by klangklangston at 1:48 PM on August 28, 2008

Rather than the nose game/Not It, my friends use Altitude--everyone hits the floor and whoever is left sticking up has to do the undesirable chore.

This is in effect the same as "Down, Mr. President!" which is when somebody suddenly yells "Get down, Mr. President!" and everyone dives to the ground. Last up gets shot.

For a conversation game (sort of), there's "No Sex, or Cats for Fingers?" Everyone has to decide, and justify, whether they would rather have no sex for the rest of their lives or have cats attached to their hands instead of fingers. Fair questions include: Are they finger-sized kittens, or normal sized cats? Who would have sex with someone who had cats attached to their hands? And can the cats have sex? It can get surprisingly heated.
posted by hippugeek at 4:32 PM on August 28, 2008 [2 favorites]

klangklangston -- you're completely right. How did I forget?
posted by LittleMissCranky at 9:23 PM on August 28, 2008

Are you playing with people who have seen a million movies?
Try Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. We used to do this by each person thinks of an actor, but doesn't tell until everyone's got one. Then everyone blurts their out, and the first person to connect them by the "Mine was in movie with person who was in movie with person who was also in movie with Yours! I win!" formula. Harder to join two random ends (Charlie Chaplin, James Earl Jones) than one random end to Kevin Bacon.
posted by bartleby at 3:59 PM on August 29, 2008

Not sure if these qualify, but a couple of entries here remind me of the game from "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" where you start with a letter of the alphabet, and each player alternates sentences starting with each subsequent letter, on and on until you get back to the first letter ("Hello, how are you?" "I am fine, and you?" "...Just great. What's up?" "......K...ryptonite! I found some Kryptonite!" "Lex Luthor must've forgotten it.")

Another one I liked was the "question" game, where each sentence of a conversation could only consist of a question, which usually end up being of the rhetorical variety.
posted by TheSecretDecoderRing at 1:36 AM on August 31, 2008

Looking at the "two players, no board" thread linked below, I came across another "Whose Line" game, where each player alternates adding one word after another to form sentences. Although I think on the show it was done in the form of a song.
posted by TheSecretDecoderRing at 1:41 AM on August 31, 2008