Drinking Game Design

Standard drinking games are badly designed; if someone does badly, they get drunk, then do worse on the next game, which prompts more drinking. The only people who play drinking games want to drink, but when you lose, you drink, so the incentives don't track anyone's goals.

A better drinking game would have a drink as the prize, meaning that skilful players become lose their skill, and the skill-level evens out until everyone at the evening has reached similar levels of coordination, puzzle-solving, or just whatever the game involved.

Everyone reaching equal coordination and ability also ensures everyone goes 'out' at the same time. One of the many reasons Monopoly sucks is that someone can leave the game half-way through play, leaving them with nothing to due, during an activity which promised something. Drinking games fail here even worse, as a game which pushes an idiot to become more of an idiot will eventually induce vomiting in the kinds of people who play drinking games.

Shot-Glass Chess

I was once gifted chess pieces which were shot glasses. The basic idea was fun - if you take a piece, you drink it. However, shot-glasses immediately imply vodka, and sixteen shots of vodka would floor any Western European. The obvious fix of putting beer in the pawns became less obviously clever once someone leaves the beer in the open for thirty minutes of drunken chess and has to drink it.

So evidently having 'win = drink' does not suffice for good game design.

Time

I think the key is to have an average of one shot per ten minutes, per person. So for five people, each round should last two minutes.

In this scenario, a good player might take the first three shots, so six minutes into the game, even the best players should feel the sting and start to equalize with the group.

Variety and Loser-Games

Pretty much any standard game of skill with easy rules and a clear winner should suffice. For games with a clear loser but no winner, points can be awarded, and top-scoring players take shots.

As an example of a game with just one loser, my favourite word-game is Ghost .