LogFAQs > #932910044

88. Balderdash (1984)

Category: Player vs Player
Genres: Party game, word game, guessing game, trivia game
Rules complexity (0 to 7): 1
Game length: 30 minutes
Experience: 2-3 plays over 2-3 sessions (2017-2018) with 5-6 players
Previous ranks: NR (2016), NR (2018)

Summary - A rotating "host" player draws a card with a real but obscure word on it ("wadmiltilt," as a first result from Google) and everyone secretly submits a nonsense definition of it. The host reads all the definitions (including the real definition, printed on the card) and everyone simultaneously guesses which one is real. You get points for guessing correctly or for others guessing yours correctly.

Experience - I played Balderdash a few times with a loose-ish friend group that's a little too big to play most heavier games. (We also met at a cafe that didn't really have a lot of table space.) It's... pretty fun?

I considered dropping Balderdash from the rankings, because it's obviously not a hobby game (playing it will "feel" more like Pictionary or Cards Against Humanity) and because it feels so clearly different from one, and I don't feel strongly about it. (I probably omitted it in 2018.) On the other hand, it has a clearly game-y design.

Design - Balderdash has a pretty classic design and draws from a fairly classic source of trivia: the English language. It's a published version of typical parlor games. But making up stuff in attempts to get others to guess your fabrication is definitely "game-y," as people have a sensible and objective goal. Balderdash smartly uses words that are absurdly obscure with often ridiculously specific meanings, allowing wacky and serious answers both to be chosen. (It also has really obscure proper nouns.)

The strategy in Balderdash, like in so many games that draw on outside knowledge (trivia games and word games and creative games), is largely based off an outside skill as well. Balderdash rewards knowing how others think, but it also punishes you if you don't know how to write like a dictionary. Making a grammatical mistake in Balderdash essentially ensures no one will pick your definition.

One major and unfortunate quality of life aspect of Balderdash is that it relies on handwriting/narration. Because you don't want to identify the correct answer by handwriting, there has to be a host player each round to collect submissions. And then people need to listen to the host read them instead of being able to read them themselves. It's unfortunate, but I feel Balderdash would be probably smoother, and very possibly better, as a Jackbox-style game. (Jackbox, of course, has variations on this.)

Future - In a game like Balderdash, the game is over if you know all the words. That said, no one in my group has ever known one of the cards, there are many cards, and unless you play it a ton in a very short amount of time, odds are against remembering these words well enough for replayability to become an issue due to knowledge.

I'll never thirst to play Balderdash, but I might prefer it at times to other options. And I suppose there's always a chance that someday I hit upon a really fun play of it.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness