Truth or dare

House rules for a game that stays kind

Truth or dare goes wrong in one predictable way: somebody at the table writes the dare, and it is aimed. Drawing from a set that was written before anybody sat down takes that out. Nobody can tailor a question to the person who has to answer it, and the worst the evening can produce is a silly voice or a story about a haircut.

The two rules worth saying out loud before you start are that anybody may pass, and that a pass costs nothing. Another one is a button here for exactly that reason, and the count of how many have been passed on is on screen so nobody has to keep track or feel watched doing it.

Sleepovers, youth groups and long car journeys

One phone in the middle of a circle is all this needs, which is what makes it work in a tent, in a hall or in the back of a car. Type the names once and the bottle points at a real person rather than at a space, so nobody has to remember whose turn it was after the fourth interruption.

The names come from the same shared list the secret role cards and the turn order use, so a group that plays a few things in a night types them once. If a dare needs a clock, the countdown timer is the page to put beside it, and the penalty wheel is the same idea for forfeits rather than questions.

What the grown-ups set is, and is not

The second set is labelled office-party level, never rude, and that is the whole of it. Chores nobody does, habits nobody admits to, the worst journey you have taken, an impression of somebody at the table. There is nothing about drinking in it, nothing about anybody's body, and nothing that asks somebody to do a thing they could be hurt doing.

It is never what the page opens with, and this is the important part: a link somebody sends you cannot turn it on. The share link carries the family set and stops there, so a page opened by a child opens family safe every time, whatever the person who sent it was playing.

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