I've always enjoyed playing games, partly because of my competitive nature but also because a good, well-designed game can reveal a lot about the players. And I like revelation.
The first game (not sport) that I was really good at was "Quarters". For some reason I was coordinated in such a way that I could bounce that quarter into a glass of liquid repeatedly. I was scary-good! In college I was the ringer that would be placed in quarters games where money was at stake. It wasn't quite a living, but I was good at it.
Quarters is, of course, a drinking game. I hadn't thought about my Quarters Career in a long time until the other night when I was prompted to recall not just my successes at forcing other people to drink too much after challenging me, but also the moment years ago when I came face-to-face with a person who made my skill look pathetic and also made me look pathetic after being trounced. This defeat put an end to my professional Quarters career. But the memory made me begin to think about games that are good to play with wine on the table.
The following list may just be a list of some of my favorite games. But It's also a list of games that are fun to drink to. Wine is a good accompaniment to these games not because the games demand someone being forced to drink, but because a little liquid lubrication always makes these games more interesting.
1. Jenga
In my experience, there is a certain advantage to having a little bit of wine in your system as you attempt to build a larger structure of blocks by removing blocks from the lower level of the structure. The herky-jerky motion that can be disastrous to the building process isn't quite so pronounced after a hand-calming couple of glasses of Rhone.
2. Apples to Apples
Simple game. Players match one of the nouns they have on one of seven cards with an adjective provided by the person who will judge which of the nouns presented by the players provides the most entertaining match. This is a very revealing game; revealing of players' wits, historical knowledge, cultural knowledge, and even their current disposition. Again, a little wine often helps loosen the players willingness to make odd, but revealing matches. I've learned a great deal about many people playing this game for hours over many bottles of wine.
3. Truth or Dare
Truth or Dare isn't really a game, is it. Nevertheless, it is turn-based, questions are asked and deeds are done. The rules tend to be flexible and often change as the game goes forward. Truth or Dare is a game that held great significance for me and my personal development in my pre-teen and teen years. It has also been a game that has cropped up now and again in my adult years. One version of the game has the person who chooses either "truth" or "dare" drinking a shot of very strong alcohol if they choose to not answer the question or do the dare they say they will do. I'm not a fan of this rule. That said, I can't imagine playing truth or dare today without a good glass of wine nearby.
4. Scattergories
For those of you who know and have played this vocabulary game, you'll probably have noticed that it's a game that also tests one's ability to sell a dubious proposition to your game mates. You have to have a certain amount of wine in you to go about trying to convince a group of people that a "Pommaria" is the name of a tiny, red, stone fruit beginning with the letter P that is only grown on the island of Corsica where it is made into a liqueur that isn't exported.
5. Pictionary
Face it, how much fun is it to watch a person who has had three or four glasses of wine try to draw a picture of "Thought Police"?
