My family, during the holidays, will get together a few times for feast and for good times. And usually this means, after eating, we all sit around and play...BALDERDASH. This is the greatest game for all kinds of people. If you haven't played, it goes like this. The game comes with oodles of cards that contain words, strange real words, from all over the world. Your job is to secretly create a definition of one of these words, just at the other players do too. The definitions are handed in, and one by one they are read. Then, after they are read, each person votes for the definition they believe is the actual definition. The actual definition is also in stack of definitions. Some people may actually know the real definition due to their travels around the world, others might actually guess it. But most people will vote for the crazy definitions created by the players. Its real fun..real real fun. This holiday season will be no different. I am already committed to three games of this. Tomorrow, Thanksgiving, will be round one. The next time will be the first Sunday in December when the family gets together for our monthly breakfast at the Hometown Buffet. And the finale will take place on XMAS week; and I intend to win them...ALL!!! And why not? I'm pretty hip, and I seem to write the best definitions. But this year my sister is bringing her new husband. He has never played this game with us, but he has in the past. He may be my toughest challenge. So, this week, I am starting to write down defintions already. I want them ready to go when the game comes. Because I will not lose: I am the reigning champ from 2008 holidays!!! I WILL NOT BE BEATEN!!! Let the Balderdash war begin!!! Or as I call it.. BALDERDASH 2009!!!! HOLIDAY BLOOD BATH!!!!
So, do you want us to come up with fake definitions, or just talk about other games we like to play? Because usually in Balderdash doesn't it help to see the word before you come up with a definition so you can make it sound at least semi-plausible based on the root word or language of origin? That's how I always did it. If we're talking about other games people play during the holidays, we always like playing Cranium. It's like ten different types of games rolled into one, so if someone is less skilled in one area they can still come through in another, which makes it harder for any one person to dominate every game.
yes, I we do play Crainum to. And yes, you can talk about other games too. I will write these defintions down, and never use them, because you are right; the best ones are off the top of the head. We have this new game called APPLES to APPLES. Have never played it, but we will give it a try tomorrow. When i was a kid? I'd go play SPIN THE BOTTLE with my cousins. I guess they dont do that anymore. Rob
With my mom's side of the family, poker was always the game after thanksgiving and christmas dinners. The dishes got cleared, the chips came out and any semblance of holiday spirit was right out the window in favor of 5 and 7 card stud poker games. No wild cards and if draw poker was played, it was jacks or better to open, trips or better to win. And yes, real money was involved. As the grandparents and uncles have passed away, the holiday poker game has gone by the wayside. It was a rite of passage to get to play cards at the big table after dinner. Good times.
Hubby's friends are all hard-core board gaming fanatics. We play games for HOURS, and not easy "party games," either. Every holiday seems to be taken up by a major (12-16 hour) gaming session. Usually, Settler of Cataan, Power Grid, Runebound, or Agricola get played. This year, hubby's really into Pillars of the Earth. I like card games like Phase 10, Bang!, Bohnanza or Munchkin. It's a fun way to pass the time. San Juan is my favorite; I totally kick ASS at that one. We might even play some Phase 10 after Thanksgiving this year.
Phase 10. It's kind of like Rummy, but far more irritating. It takes at least 30 minutes to play a full game, depending on how many people play. We've played games that have lasted an hour or more.
I love Apples to Apples, Balderdash, and Phase 10 Twist. I've found that Balderdash is harder with my two best friends because we know each other so well. They can say, "That sounds like a Smiley answer," and most of the time, they are right. Other fun party games include Imaginiff and Catchphrase.
Apples to Apples is pretty fun, it makes for a great casual\party game. Cranium and Balderdash definitely fit into that category as well, as does a game of my sister's call Humm Dingers, which involves trying to guess songs by humming them. I also enjoy some of the more complex German-style games, like Settlers of Catan or Ticket to Ride (though the latter isn't really complex, at all ). My girlfriend and I actually own Power Grid as well, which looks fun, but we've yet to get around to actually playing that... ETA: Just remembered another great party game: Scattergories!
We always wanted to get my dad to play Balderdash. In our family the big holiday game was Scattergories. That's the one where you are given a letter and a group of categories and you have to think of a word in each category that begins with that letter. The fun is people get to vote if the word you came up with really matched that category. My dad wasn't exactly a good player so he would often make up words and try and convince us they were real. Unfortunately he passed a few years ago and we really haven't played since.
We use to play Balderdash during Christmas time but haven't in the last two years. We have old school B-dash when it was just words and not dates, movie titles, etc. Played that version once and it was a lot of fun. Triominos use to get a lot of play generally but one of the double 4 tiles went missing. We still play but you once again we haven't done so much in the last 10 months. Cranium looks fun. Might see about buying that and introducing that as a new gaming tradition.
^^^ Yeah, we used to play Probe waaaay back in the day. We used to play various versions of Trivial Pursuit, but it always came down to a competition between me and two of my cousins and everyone else felt kind of left out, which is why we switched to the more varied Cranium instead, so everyone else had a chance. My cousins and I wanted to compete in VH-1s 'World Series of Pop Culture' together but there was always a work or family conflict that prevented us trying out, and now they're not doing it again. We've done the aforementioned Scattergories and Balderdash, but not as much anymore. Rummikub is one we do a lot now, and organize big tournaments for the whole family (which given how many people are in my extended family is quite an undertaking). The adults get together and play Texas Hold'Em later at night on holidays and birthdays. Usually the families in the OC/LA/SB county area get together once every couple of weeks to play as well.
Tonight we played a new game that I hadn't heard of before. I think it's called something like LCR, which stands for Left-Center-Right. It's played with three Dice that are marked with the letters L, C and R or a dot. Every player starts with three dollars and rolls the Dice. If you get an L, you give a dollar to the player on your left, if you get an R, you give a dollar to the player on your right and if you get a C, you put a dollar in the pot at the center of the table. If you get a dot, you do nothing. The last person with money remaining wins the pot. I lost nine bucks, but it was pretty fun.
We LOVE Apples to Apples, it's our absolute favorite game to play. If you like Balderdash you will enjoy Apples to Apples, especially if your family has a great sense of humor. I've played with some people that play too seriously, actually trying to put in the best words each time. But it's best to play with a mix of people - some who put in serious answers, some who play "strategically" (getting rid of certain cards at certain times and saving others for specific adjectives), and some who put in the wackiest answer they can think of. It results in some really funny rounds and we end up laughing more than actually playing. We don't really keep score, we just play for hours at a time.
I love Apples to Apples, though I'm one of the more "by the book" types as far as playing that game goes. If you can get a larger group of people together, Are You a Werewolf?/Mafia/etc. is pretty entertaining. I played that during Halloween and a number of adjacent people and I declared ourselves the Candy Alliance due to sharing candy amongst ourselves and formed a voting bloc. Hilarious, though maybe you had to be there. I just picked up a word/card game called Quiddler which is proving fairly entertaining...it's sort of a lower-level version of Unspeakable Words, which I really wanted, but think I'll have to order online. As far as more card-oriented games, Fluxx is fun, and if you have a bunch of gamer geeks Munchkin is pretty cool. Why yes, I do have a group of people who I play games with on a fairly regular basis...how did you guess?
We are a family of Scrabblers. Everyone in my family owns at least one Scrabble board, on Travel Scrabble, and one Super Scrabble. We play one on one and as teams, sometimes all day long. When I go home for the holidays an average day begins with a game of Super Scrabble -- wake up and play turns while we eat breakfast, shower, whatever. My little sister is the only person who can beat me (though not often!). When we team up we cream everyone. Actually, I'm playing Scrabble on facebook with her right now.