Frontier Antics
You’ve finished dinner, the sun is setting, the fire is blazing, and some yahoo breaks the silence saying you should play a game. Well, that’s not too bad of an idea, you’re pleasantly comfy, no one is going to be willing to grab the Monopoly board from under the kids’ bed. So what are you playing? The best campfire games should be easy to explain, understand, and set-up – the best require little to no equipment or having to get up from your chair.
And remember, just because it isn’t explicitly a drinking game, doesn’t mean it can’t become one.
1. Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon
Number of players: Unlimited!
How do you play? This ones pretty easy to understand, and works great for the movie lovers of the group. The game works with the idea of six degrees of separation, which is the concept that you can connect everyone in the world through only six linked personal connections. For this game players pick an actor or entertainer and link them to Bacon through shared roles with other actors in as few moves as possible. (You can do this with any other match-up of celebrities too, can you link the Rock to Lady Gaga?) For example: link Kevin Bacon to Jennifer Lawrence:
Jennifer Lawrence was in Passengers with Chris Pratt, Chris Pratt plays Starlord in Guardians of the Galaxy, Kevin Bacon guest starred in the Guardians of the Galaxy
2. Word Association
Number of players: Unlimited!
How do you play? Choose a random or arbitrary word and go around with each player saying an associating word, with the following player associating to that word and so on. For example: Fairy->Tinkerbell->Peter Pan->Neverland. Continue until someone cannot land on a new word within a set of time (usually 5-10 seconds), that person is then out. Play resumes with a new word chosen and you continue until you have a winner.
3. Truth or Dare
Number of players: Unlimited!
How do you play? On a player’s turn they must choose Truth or Dare. If the player chooses Truth and does not wish to answer they may then do a Dare or take a shot (if you’re drinking that is). General rules may vary between groups, but usually it’s bad form to have a player answer a question as a dare, just saying.
4. Werewolf
Also called ‘Mafia’ this is a social deduction game, where the werewolf wins by killing the majority of the villagers, or the villagers win by killing the werewolf. You can buy boxed versions of this game but can easily do it yourself with a pen and paper.
Number of players: 6-10
How do you play? At the start of the game each player receives a secret role. The Mayor who leads the group, the Werewolf, with everyone else as Villagers.
Variations (these can be fun for larger groups): An additional player is the Tanner who works with the Villagers but wins the game if they are killed by or in place of the Werewolf.
An additional player is the Seer who during the night phase can ask if another player is the Werewolf.
The game works in phases: Day and Night. During the Night phase all players but the Mayor close their eyes. The Mayor then has the Werewolf open their eyes and choose one of the Villagers to kill, they would then close their eyes afterwards. If you are adding the Seer, they would open their eyes next and silently point to a player to see if they are the Werewolf. The Mayor will then indicate yes or no.
During the Day phase, the Mayor will announce which of the Villagers is dead. If the Seer is killed, they cannot speak if they correctly or incorrectly guessed the Werewolf, if the Tanner is killed they immediately win and a new round is begun. If neither of these happen and just an average Villager has died, players will then debate on who they think the Werewolf is. Once a majority vote is done the Mayor ‘executes’ the chosen player who reveals if they were the Werewolf or not. If a consensus can not be made, another Night phase is undertaken. Play repeats until the Werewolf is discovered and killed, the Tanner is killed, or the majority of Villagers are killed (down to 3 players.)
*As the Mayor, have some fun with the narration. What’s the day like, how did the Werewolf’s victim die during the night, was Mrs. Lawrence seen dallying with the butcher yesterday while her husband worked the fields?
5. Medusa
Now this one is explicitly a drinking game, so here it goes:
Number of players: Try and limit this to max 10, for health reasons.
How do you play? Set up a table with as many shot glasses as there are players, (it helps to have this be a rounder area so everyone can see the rest of the group easily). Each shot glass should only have as much alcohol as players are comfortable consuming in one drink, with the knowledge they’ll likely consume multiple glasses during the game.
To begin, everyone closes their eyes until the end of a count. When a signal is given, everyone opens their eyes and must look in the face of another player. If you make eye contact with the other player you must yell “Medusa!” the first to shout it is exempt from drinking. (in other variations, both players must take their drink). Any player not looking at someone looking back at them is safe. The game repeats until all the drinks at the table are empty.
*This game can result in quite a bit of drinking, be sure you do so responsibly.
Do you have any favorite campfire games? What will you be playing next time?
