Short-form games

Party Quirks

A host must guess the audience-supplied peculiarity of each guest arriving at their party.

Short-form games · 4 players · 6–8 minutes

Also known as: Party Guests, Quirks

How to run it

  1. One player is the host and steps away while the audience supplies three quirks.
  2. The host returns and begins preparing for a party.
  3. Guests arrive one at a time, playing their quirk through behaviour rather than announcement.
  4. The host interacts, gradually forms a guess, and dismisses each guest as they identify them.
  5. The game ends when all three have been guessed and shown out.

What it teaches

Playing an idea through behaviour, and giving a partner enough information to succeed with.

Coaching notes

The failure mode is guests being obscure to seem clever. Remind them that the host succeeding is the game — a guest nobody can guess has not won anything.

Where it usually goes wrong. Quirks that are wordplay rather than behaviour, which cannot be played physically at all.

Related reading: character and point of view, short form.

See it played

We do not link individual videos we have not watched end to end, so this is a search rather than a recommendation: Party Quirks on YouTube. Quality varies enormously — prefer recordings from working theatres over tutorial channels.