Balderdash

Boot Key Harbor, Marathon, Florida

Party games are popular among cruisers.  Given the lack of 24x7 TV, that's not surprising.   Our favorite game is Balderdash.

Balderdash is a word game.  It works as follows.   We have a stack of cards.  Each card lists 5 real (but obscure) words.  On the back of the cards are the real definitions.

One person is the dasher.  The dasher chooses a card at random, and another person selects a number 1-5.  The dasher reads the word aloud and spells it.

Now each player takes a slip of paper and writes his/her name, plus a made up definition for the word.  Meanwhile, the dasher looks at the real definition and writes that on a slip.  Then the dasher collects all the strips.  If 6 people are playing, there a 6 slips and at least one of them is guaranteed to have the correct definition.   The dasher reads them all aloud.  Then people vote.   Each votye for the definition I wrote, gives me one point.  A vote for the correct definition, gives the voter two points.  Zero correct votes gives the dasher three points.

The game is hilarious, primarily because of the diverse and imaginary definitions that people make up.  A bit of alcohol shared triples the fun.

I like to play the game for laughs rather than points.  To me, a home run is to write something on my slip so funny that the dasher is unable to read it out loud, and just giggles instead.

By the way, we found a brand new Balderdash game in the book exchange.  It was in the original box, unopened.  We don't need it.  If you would like that game free, let us know and I'll send it.