Turn on, tune in, drop out

A whole-room game from Equinox 68: Turn on, tune in, drop out by Rick Rubenstein (Rubrick) based on a famous quote by Berkeley’s own non-dropout Timothy Leary.

This game might involve psychedelic drugs… or anything else. It’s a guessing game similar to 20 questions.

You’ll need a piece of paper for writing down guesses and questions and keeping track of points.

I will have some thing written down on this piece of paper. Everyone else turns on by writing down a (wild) guess as to what I might have written down.

We’ll then go around the room. The first person gets to ask one yes/no question about my target thing. For example, “is it bigger than a breadbox?” If it is, then everyone whose guess (the thing they’ve written down) is also bigger than a breadbox gets 1 point. If it’s not, then everyone whose guess isn’t bigger than a breadbox gets 1 point. Essentially, you score points for your thing being similar to the one I have in mind. (If the question doesn’t really apply, or is only kinda sorta true, then no one gets any points.)

I recommend you keep track of the previous questions and whether they were Yes or No.

After this, everyone will have a few seconds to write down a new guess (if they choose), and cross off their old one. This is tuning in. Only your most recent guess is relevant (but you keep the points from all your previous guesses).

This continues around the room until some bold person (who can be anyone, not necessarily person whose turn it is to ask a question) thinks they know what the target thing is. They raise their hand, and then get to make a guess. If they’re right, the round ends, and they get a 10 point bonus. Everyone else who also had the target thing written down (but wasn’t brave or quick enough to raise their hand) gets 5 points. Then the round ends.

If the guesser was wrong, they drop out. They can no longer ask questions or score any points. And the round continues.

We’ll do as many rounds as we have time for (or until we stop having fun).