20 Unique Dinner Party Games

Food, drinks, and good company are just the beginning of a fine evening with friends. Have you thought about including a few dinner party games as well? Peerspace is a great resource for ensuring your party goes well, and we’re glad you came for a visit. So check out 20 of our favorite dinner party games for a truly entertaining evening! 

1. Play random word cloak and dagger

Here is a conversational dinner party game that’s harder than it sounds. Give everyone a card at the start of the night with a random word. The challenge is for everyone to use their word as many times as possible without getting caught. If someone guesses the word you’re using, you’re out. While the winner is the person who manages to not only not get caught but use their word many times!

2. Tell a story together with “Once upon a time…”

“Once upon a time” is a great game because everyone gets to contribute and there are no losers. One person starts with “once upon a time,” followed by a single sentence. The person next to them then adds a sentence of their own, and so forth. To keep things somewhat sane, have some scraps of paper with story themes written on them for guests to draw from. The first person to begin has to choose a random scrap to use as the group’s subject!

3. Hire a murder mystery troupe

Is your dinner party going to be a huge affair where many of the guests won’t know each other? Then hire a dinner theater group to put on a murder mystery show! At some point during the night, someone will be “murdered,” leaving everyone scratching their heads, looking for clues, and trying to figure out “who did it?”

4. Play Pictionary together

Pictionary is simple, funny, and fun for anyone playing. All you have to do is divide the dinner party into a few teams and have a person draw a random word they’ve received. See how fast guests can guess what’s being drawn and keep track of each team’s score! 

5. Congratulate people with twisted toasts

Twisted toasts is a fun dinner party game using three random words chosen in advance. Each person playing has to give a toast using those words while making it sound as natural as possible. The winner is the person voted on by everyone to have given the best (or funniest) toast!

What’s like an Airbnb for dinner parties? We tackle that question with verve here.

6. Play eavesdrop bingo during conversations

This dinner party game is fun because you can play it through the course of the evening without doing anything special! Everyone will get a custom bingo card with common phrases on it like “this is delicious” or “how about this weather?” Listen to see when the phrase comes up during someone else’s conversation and mark it down! 

7. Shake out some junk in the trunk

“Junk in the trunk” is a fun game that requires a little standing but is still appropriate for a dinner party environment. You’ll need an empty tissue paper box filled with cotton balls and a bit of string. The idea is to tie the box to someone’s waist. They then have 30 seconds to shake their rear and empty as many cotton balls as they can. The winner is the person who shakes out the most cotton balls.

8. Break out “Cards Against Humanity” for a horribly good time

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/807973989526499693

Cards Against Humanity is a great game for dinner parties where everyone is 18 and over. You can play after the meal – or during if it’s more of a casual affair. Cards Against Humanity is one of Peerspace’s top choices for in-person games to play with friends!

9. See who can get the last word

“Last Word” is a simple conversational game where someone starts with a sentence like “this turkey needs more gravy.” The next person then has to use “gravy” as the start of their sentence. And so forth! If someone can’t come up with a sentence quickly enough, they’re out, until there’s only one person left as the winner! 

10. Be a celebrity for the night with “Who am I?”

You’ll need a few sticky notes or cards you can tape to people’s heads for “Who am I?” Each card has the name of a famous person on it. The person with a card on their head has to ask yes or no questions like “was I in a sci-fi movie?” Eventually, they’ll narrow it down and figure out which celebrity they were.

11. Be polite and follow the dinner rules

“Dinner rules” is an amazing dinner party game for more intimate gatherings. Each person gets to come up with a single rule, like “everyone has to speak in a French accent” or “every sentence has to end in a word with an odd number of letters.” You can make the game last a few minutes, an hour, or the entire evening!

12. Speak quickly with word association

If you want to keep the conversation light, then how about a game of “word association?” After all, everyone only has to come up with a single word without repeating one they’ve heard before! One person starts by saying a word and the next person has to come up with another word that comes to mind that is related to the previous word. The game keeps going until someone chokes or repeats a previously used word. Then they are out and the game continues.

13. Get your jam on with a karaoke party

Dinner parties should have a little music to lighten the mood. A karaoke party is one of the most fun ways to enjoy music with your friends and family! If you haven’t picked out a dinner party venue yet, think about booking one with a karaoke machine. Peerspace has party spots like this event space in Seattle, WA, with a karaoke machine, projector screen, darts, and other amenities.

14. Pretend to be a fine beverage connoisseur with speed sommelier

There’s no need for winners and losers with “speed sommelier,” only laughs for everyone! The idea is to take your chosen drink and come up with fancy-sounding descriptions for it, no matter how ordinary it is. A glass of water could “have glacial crispness with an infusion of essential minerals for a balanced flavor”.

15. Make your voice heard with the voting game

The Voting Game is a great game for groups that know each other well. Simply prepare ahead of time a few question cards to be read aloud. Everyone then anonymously votes for the person that best fits that description. The reader then tallies the votes and announces the “winner” for each round.

Design your next dinner event around one or more of these unique dinner party themes!

16. Get artistic with telephone Pictionary

How about a little drawing as one of the most fun dinner party games once the plates have been cleared? “Telephone Pictionary” starts off with a sheet of paper in front of each guest. Everyone writes a phrase on the paper and then passes the paper on. Everyone has a chance to start drawing that phrase for a set amount of time before passing the paper along. Each piece of paper gets a little drawing input from the entire party before making it back to the original owner for some hilarious takes on the original phrase!

17. Start a compliment chain to everyone know how awesome they are

Compliment chains are a simple enough game by giving meaningful compliments to the person next to you as the evening unfolds. People get to feel seen and appreciated plus it simply feels good to both give and receive compliments!

18. Eliminate each other with a game of “Mafia”

“Mafia” is a great game if you want something a little more involved for your dinner party. Guests are broken up into teams of civilians and mafia members, who both seek to expose and eliminate each other. Check out this breakdown from Talking Plates on how to play a game of Mafia!

19. Get to know each other better with guilty pleasures

“Guilty Pleasures” is a fun game for folks who know each other well, as well as an icebreaker activity for people just meeting each other. Each person has to share their particular guilty pleasure. Once they do, everyone else has to guess why it might be a guilty pleasure. People will naturally want to chime in on how they feel about each answer, building up a fun, relaxed atmosphere for the evening!

20. Go wild with reverse charades

“Reverse charades” is similar to regular charades. The twist is that the entire team will be acting out the word while a single person not acting has to guess the word instead of the other way around. It can get silly quickly with so many people acting.

Dinner party games: conclusion

We at Peerspace have twists on classic games and entirely new ones that are sure to put a smile on the faces of your friends and family. Did you like the dinner party games we came up with? Then take a moment to check out more of our party resources. Especially our dinner party venues near you, if you haven’t yet booked one for your upcoming celebration!

Find unique event venues for your dinner party on Peerspace