Truth or Dare

How it's played

In turns, each person chooses: truth, and then answers honestly the question that comes up, or dare, and then does a small challenge. Here the button draws one or the other and whoever presses it reads out loud. It's a game that stands on one thing only, the group's trust: without that it gets awkward within two rounds.

The three rules that keep it fun

You can pass. Anyone, at any moment, without explaining why and without a forfeit: it's the rule that makes people say yes to the others. A game where you can't say no isn't a game.

What comes out stays here. Answers don't get retold outside and don't get brought up the next day. It's the implicit agreement, and it's worth saying out loud at the start, especially if some people in the group barely know each other.

No dares that leave traces. Challenges that end in a message actually sent, a photo, a recording or a post are the ones that stop being funny the next day: what's funny in a living room becomes something else in a group chat. The dares that work best are the ones that last as long as the turn.

With whom and when

With friends it works; at a work dinner, in a classroom or in a group where someone has just arrived, it doesn't: personal questions need a closeness that a button doesn't create. In those cases the right page is Icebreaker questions, which asks things anyone can answer without exposing themselves. With younger players, the game stays good-natured if somebody reads the cards first and leaves out what doesn't suit the age.

Nearby tools

For a one-to-one conversation that really goes deep there is Deep questions; to decide who starts or to make up teams Pick for me and Roll the dice. For a team games night there is also Group stage generator.