Playing Guessing Laughing

A family party game by Tovey Baker

Playing Guessing Laughing is a game for 3 or more players. Take turns giving clues to get the other players to guess what you're thinking of. Here's the catch: your clues have to ONLY be nouns, verbs, or adjectives.

Getting Ready

Announce that you're going to play Playing Guessing Laughing. If three or more people want to play, go ahead and start. Other people can join in or drop out, no problem.

Choose who'll go first. It should be someone who knows the rules. It should probably be you!

On Your Turn

On your turn, the first thing you do is think of something interesting. It should be something specific and common knowledge. It can be a person, place, thing, event, scientific process, book title, anything you want.

Examples:
The moon landing.
The Grand Canyon.
Photosynthesis.
The destruction of the first Death Star.
The Eiffel Tower.
The Mona Lisa.
The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death.
Chess (the game).
Plate tectonics.
A pterodactyl.
Nature's cutest owl.

Once you've thought of it, roll a die. The roll tells you what kind of clues you have to give. You can give ONLY that kind of clues.

Roll:
1-2: Only nouns.
3-4: Only verbs.
5-6: Only adjectives.

What you can say:
Single words or short phrases, but ONLY that part of speech.

You're allowed to use gestures and sound effects, as long as they go along with the word you're saying.

What you can't say:
Any word that's in the name of your thing. ("Moon" or "landing" If you're thinking of the moon landing, for instance.)

Any word that's a different part of speech.

Even if you can say nouns, you're not allowed to say proper nouns.

If you say the wrong thing, you can keep going, but everybody's allowed to make a loud annoying buzzing noise at you.

If you accidentally say a word that's in the name of your thing, though, you blew it. Fess up and pass your turn.

Example:
For example, you're thinking of the moon landing. You roll a 1: you can say only nouns. You can't say "moon" or "landing." You might say, "the year 1969. Capsule. Astronaut. Step." (You can't say "small step," because small is an adjective.) "Niel Armst—" BUZZZ! You're not allowed to say proper nouns. "Golf. Gravity." Keep going until somebody guesses it, or until everybody gives up.

Scoring:
If somebody guesses your thing, you get a point and they get a point.

If everybody gives up guessing, or if you give up on giving clues, you lose a point.

Passing turns:
Whatever the outcome, when your turn ends, now it's the next person's turn. You can go around in a circle or else you can pass to whoever has an idea for a thing. Just try to give everyone the same number of turns.

The End of the Game

End the game once everyone's had all the turns they want.

If you remember, compare points to see who won.

Nature’s Cutest Owl

Nature's Cutest Owl

The end!

Installment 2017-03-27

Conversations


Topic: You Get a Point and They Get a Point

On 2017-03-27, Vincent wrote:

The scoring rule, where when somebody guesses correctly, you get a point and they get a point, is a great one. It replaces dividing up and taking turns as teams, as in Charades or Pictionary. Instead, everybody always gets to play, and there are no conflicts of interest about either guessing correctly or giving good clues.

We learned it from a marvelous little game called Squint. We habitually adopt it into every otherwise team-based game like this that we can.

On 2017-03-29, Ben Lehman wrote:

I want you to lose your point if you disqualify yourself, like with giving up. Basically, blowing it = giving up. Right now, blowing it on purpose is better, points wise.

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