Pick Games Your Funniest Friend Can Win

Learn the two-question test that tells you if a game rewards the fastest hand or the funniest answer, plus four house rules that fix the fast ones.

The games your funniest friend wins are the ones decided by a vote or by the quality of an answer, never by whoever's hand moved first. Trivia, charades, and buzzer games are races, and races crown the quick. Bluffing games, read-aloud games, and anything scored by the room's reaction are judgments, and judgments crown the funny.

Think about the last family trivia night. Your cousin Dana, who does impressions at dinner and once had an entire funeral laughing, never got her hand up in time. Her uncle Keith, who has never once been funny on purpose, won. That's not a flaw in Dana. It's a flaw in the game you picked.

The good news is that the flaw is visible before you play.

The two-question test

Before you open any box or browser tab, ask two things about the game.

• Does anyone get rewarded for being first? Buzzers, shot clocks, "first correct shout takes the point." If yes, the fastest player holds an edge no punchline can beat.
• Does the room get to overrule the result? Can players vote, laugh, argue, or talk their way into changing an outcome? If the result is fixed and mechanical, the funny person is decoration.

Yes to the first, no to the second? Speed game. Built for Keith.

Some common ones, sorted:

• Speed: buzzer trivia, timed charades, most guess-the-drawing games, anything where an app screams at you to tap faster.
• Judgment: everyone writes an answer and the room reads them aloud, bluffing games, "best punchline takes the round" formats, anything scored by applause.

One thing to say out loud before round one of anything: "Hands stay down until I finish the question." It costs nothing, and it takes the race out of the room for the people who were never going to win it.

Three mechanics that put the funny one in first

When you're choosing what to play, hunt for these. Any one of them moves the night from reflexes to wit.

• The room is the scoreboard. When the whole table votes on which answer was best, the funniest answer collects the points. No referee, no appeals process, no buzzer.
• The score counts something other than seconds. Fewest words used. Most people fooled. Most convincing lie. These measure quality, and quality is where the funny people live.
• Someone has to bluff. Give one player a secret and a reason to lie beautifully, and your funniest friend finally gets a stage.

That's close to the blueprint behind Games With Words, the free browser game at games-with-words.com. Game two, Ghost Writer, is one long vote. Everyone answers the same prompt on their phone except the Ghost, who never sees the prompt and has to bluff an answer that fits. The room reads the answers aloud and votes on which was written blind. A caught Ghost gets one guess at what the question even was. The quick player has no advantage here. The convincing one does. It needs at least three people, because the room has to be able to out-vote the Ghost.

Game one, Say Less, flips speed a second way. The Speaker gets a secret word and has to make the room guess it using as few words as possible. Fewer words, more points. The fast player's instinct is to blurt twelve words in two seconds. The witty player thinks for ten seconds and says three. Your score is the words you spent, not the speed you spent them at. It plays with 2 to 12 people, so six cousins and one shy nephew are all covered, and a whole session runs 15 to 35 minutes.

Judgment games have a side benefit worth naming. The shy cousin can write her answer and let the room read it, so she gets to be funny in her own timing instead of performing live. And the person who argues about rules goes quiet, because you can appeal a buzzer, but you cannot appeal a vote the room already made. Nobody installs anything or makes an account either, so the phone at 4% battery can still join by typing the room code and outlast the night.

Four house rules that fix the fast games you already own

You don't have to throw out trivia night. You have to change what it rewards.

• Write before you reveal. Everyone writes their answer down before any are read out. Now it's a test instead of a sprint, and the wrong answers become the best part of the night.
• Tax the blurters. After each question, count silently to five before anyone may answer, and take a point off wrong answers. Keith's itchy hand starts costing him. Dana's five seconds of thought starts paying her.
• Judge with applause. Retire the timer for one round and give the point to the funniest performance, decided by room volume. Watch how fast people start playing for the vote instead of the guess.
• One bonus point for the laugh. Each round, the host awards a single bonus point to whichever answer got the biggest reaction. Arbitrary, slightly corrupt, and it rewires the whole table's incentives by round two.

Then say this once, early, out loud: "Slow answers are allowed here." People who are used to losing races stop trying after a while. Give them permission to take their time, and they will use every second of it.

Tonight, run the two-question test on whatever's on the shelf. If everything on it fails, don't buy anything new: make the room the scoreboard yourself. Keith will still be quick. He'll just be quick at a game that no longer cares.