Help me get to know my sisters better

October 3, 2011 2:05 PM

Sisters Weekend - Yeah! But need help with some getting to know you games.

Three of my 4 sisters and my younger-than-myself aunt go on a weekend getaway every year. We have done it for the last 9 years and every year it has a different flavor. Sometimes feelings get hurt and there are tears, sometimes it is too bland.
One of my sisters and myself would like to have a catching up discussion since we are closer to some than others. The usual games would not work (like tell 2 truths and a lie and we have to guess the lie) since we know each other too well.
Any ideas on fun ways to get people talking?

posted by shaarog to Human Relations (6 answers total)

Casual games that don't take a lot of attention are great for keeping conversations going. Simple card games like UNO or Skip-Bo are great. My family has some of our best talks (and bullshit sessions) over a variation of Shanghai rummy. We also play a lot of a bidding game that we simply call "Numbers", that we first played with Rook cards and adapted to standard playing cards. Other suggestions:

-Quiddler (a card-based spelling game)
-Bananagrams (a tile-based spelling game)
-Pit. No, really. Forget the official rules about keeping quiet, our Pit games always turn into screaming "TWO! TWOOOOOOOOOOO!" at the top of our lungs. No one ever wins, points-wise; we just quit when we're all hoarse, both from screaming so much and from laughing our asses off.
posted by xedrik at 2:35 PM on October 3, 2011

Scruples is a party game in which the players reveal and debate their differing moral instincts. My problem with it has been that it both assumes and generates too much intimacy between the players, but that may be precisely what you're looking for.
posted by foursentences at 3:05 PM on October 3, 2011

There's a Cranium game (same company that makes Apples to Apples) called Whoonu that my family enjoys a lot. Each person has about 7 cards with nouns in their hand (anything from "small dogs" to "Christmas" to "ketchup"). Each person gets a turn as the judge. All the players submit one card from their hand that they think the judge will like best. The judge ranks their favorite things in order and awards points accordingly.

It's fun and you can learn some surprising things about family!
posted by JannaK at 3:52 PM on October 3, 2011

...apparently I lied. Cranium does not make Apples to Apples...Mattel does. Still, they're similar in style.
posted by JannaK at 6:03 PM on October 3, 2011

Wits & Wagers is a cool trivia game for people who aren't good at trivia. You get points for being right, but you can make more points betting on the right answer. It can be a lot of fun and a good ice breaker.
posted by Garm at 6:10 PM on October 3, 2011

Wits & Wagers is a cool trivia game for people who aren't good at trivia.

This is a very fun game, but in my experience it does not start the kind of "getting to know you" conversations that the OP is talking about. However, the same company makes Say Anything, which is the best getting to know you game I have played. Basically one player gets a question card, something like "What would you do if you have a million dollars?", but they do not answer it. Instead, everyone else writes what they think would be the answer on cards, and once all the cards are out, people can bet on which answer they think the player will choose as closest to how they would answer themselves. There are a lot of games that have similar mechanics, but it is done really well in this game, some other games are too complicated (like GiftTRAP) whereas other ones are too simplified (Loaded Questions) but this game strikes a good balance with the streamlined betting system.
posted by burnmp3s at 8:34 AM on October 4, 2011