Parlor Games

Jim Moskowitz has developed an updated, modernized, and sigificantly playworthy collection of Parlor Games. Many of the games are "New Games," which probably explains my particular appreciation of this compilation. Others are college sitting-around-the-cafeteria-table-type games. Most are only sketchily described. Some are just hinted at. But there are treasures aplenty.

For example:

Comparatives

Write lots of comparative adjectives (bigger, quicker, calmer,...) on slips of paper. Draw them out two at a time and try to fit a saying to the words, along the lines of "The Bigger they are, The Harder they fall."

For another:

Plenty Questions

One player thinks of something, any noun from "Niagra Falls" to "a subway token" to "existentialism". Other players try to figure out what it is by guessing other nouns. To the first guess, the player will say "no it's not" (or else it was a very lucky guess; start again!). To all subsequent guesses the answer is either "warmer" or "colder" (or occasionally "same temperature"), depending on whether in their judgement the latest guess is closer, in whatever sense they can figure, to the correct answer than the previous closest guess. We've sometimes taken to saying this more explicitly to make it easier to follow, e.g. [with the noun "oyster"] "Is it a steamroller?" "No, it's not." "Babe Ruth?" "Babe Ruth is closer than steamroller". "um... jalapeno?" "Jalapeno is farther than Babe Ruth." "Possum?" "Possum is closer than Babe Ruth"...