Top 10 Board Game Drinking Games

10 Settlers of Catan

• Boozy alternative: "Level the Playing Field"
• Ideal booze: Mead
• Best played with: People who aren't total assholes

Settlers of Catan is the gateway drug for those who want to move past board games available at your local Wal-Mart and into more challenging fare. As you might expect, players with tons of experience nerding their way through the game of natural resource management tend to destroy newbies. Here is a boozy way to level the playing field.

Beginners: Play this version if one or more players is new to the game

Drink:

• if you play a monopoly card on a resource you just traded away
• if you build a settlement that cuts off Longest Road
• if you lie about what resources you have
• if you move the Robber to block two or more players' resource production
• if you ask for clarification on what a player wants to trade after they've already told you

Advanced: Add these rules in when you feel ready, or you're sick of your friends being Machiavellian dicks during game play.

• if you play a monopoly card on a resource you just traded away
• if you build a settlement that cuts off Longest Road
• if you lie about what resources you have
• if you move the Robber to block two or more players' resource production
• if you ask for clarification on what a player wants to trade after they've already told you

9 Guess Who

• Boozy alternative: "Sensitivity Training"
• Ideal booze: Craft beer or artisinal cocktails
• Best played with: The mildly bigoted

No matter your age, you could use a little sensitivity training. This version of Guess Who requires a third person to act as the Political Correctness Monitor (PCM) for the duration of the game. Since Guess Who never lasts more than twenty minutes, this shouldn't be too much to ask.

Drink When:

• if the PCM is offended by one of your questions
• if you attempt to rephrase the question and the PCM is still offended
• Repeat until the PCM approves of your word choice

8 Stratego

• Boozy alternative: "He Was So Young!"
• Ideal booze: Whiskey
• Best played with: World weary souls

The early part of any game of Stratego is spent watching a Marshall (1), General (2), or Colonel (3) decimate the less powerful flanks of your troops. Scouts (9) and Sergeants (7) fall left and right while commanders-in-chiefs barely bat an eye. (For the uninitiated, Miners (8) are valued for their bomb diffusing skills.) This drinking version of Stratego forces you to consider the cost of human life.

Drink When:

• if you lose a Scout or a Colonel.
• When you lose a Scout or Colonel, say something like "He was so young! What a waste!" If you forget to honor your dead, drink again.
• if you are moved by your opponent decrying the horrors of war, drink.

7 Scrabble

• Boozy alternative: "Parts of Speech"
• Ideal booze: The scotch your Lit. professor used to drink
• Best played with: Grammarians

Scrabble is a blast if you're the kind of person who loves to indulge their inner English snob. In designing the Scrabble drinking game, we wanted to make sure it would appeal to those of you get a kick out of correcting people's grammar on Facebook. Here's how it works. If a player lays down a word that is one part of speech (noun, verb, preposition, adjective, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, interject), the next player must throw down a word that is a different part of speech, or they drink.

Drink When:

• if you play a word that is the same part of speech as the last word played
• if you add "s" to the end of word that was already played
• if you use the word "adz" or "qi" because you know you only learned them for Scrabble

6 Sorry

• Boozy alternative: "You're Not Sorry!!"
• Ideal booze: Red Wine
• Best played with: People you haven't wronged in real life

Apologies in Sorry should work like they do in real life: they only work if the person you're apologizing to accepts. If a player tries to bump you back to Start, uttering the obligatory "Sorry," you can respond with a weepy, melodramatic, "You're not sorry!!" and bump them back to Start, keeping your space. Just like in life, there is a price to pay for this sort of behavior. You either have to take a shot or drink a beer after refusing an apology. Next time you do it, it will cost you two drinks and so on.

Drink When:

• if you play a word that is the same part of speech as the last word played
• if you add "s" to the end of word that was already played
• if you use the word "adz" or "qi" because you know you only learned them for Scrabble

5 Risk

• Boozy alternative: "War is Hell"
• Ideal booze: Whiskey
• Best played with: Those with a flair for the dramatic

One of the most annoying parts of Risk is watching two players endlessly battle it out over that one country that gives a player sovereignty over an entire continent. How many times does Kamchatka change hands over the course of a game? Whatever the number, it's too many. Here's how we suggest spicing up the war time deja vu.

Drink When:

• When you gain control of a continent
• When You lose control of a continent

4 Clue

• Boozy alternative: "In the Liquor Cabinet with the Shot Glass..."
• Ideal booze: As listed
• Best played with: People who can mix their booze without puking

Players who guess too often can take the fun out of Clue. These go-getters pop in and out of the same room, venturing guess after guess, even though they know damn well that the crime was committed on the other side of Mr. Body's mansion. If you had to pay a price admission, players would be a bit more selective in their accusations. In this version of Clue, you have to drink upon entering certain rooms. Some rooms force you to drink beer, others require shots, and others demand you consume wine. Be careful where and how often you make your suggestions, or you'll end up doing your best Mr. Body impression by the end of the night.

Drink When:

• Wine when your piece enters the Kitchen or the Dining Room
• Liquor when your piece enters the Billiard Room or the Library
• Beer when your piece enters the Lounge or the Hall

If you have a Clue board with updated or specialized rooms, you can figure out which rooms correspond here or just pick whatever rooms you want.

3 Life

• Boozy alternative: Never Have I Ever In Real Life"
• Ideal booze: Beer
• Best played with: People who aren't too depressed

This drinking game essentially combines the Game of Life with beloved drunken pastime "Never Have I Ever." When you land on a space that describes something you haven't yet done in your own life, you drink. This will likely lead to more drinking after the game, when you all realize how little you've accomplished in your precious time on Earth.

Drink When:

• When you land on a space that describes something you have never done in real life.

Note: This will be more fun if you allow rebuttals from players. For example, a player should be able to make the argument that winning their high school spelling bee is like winning the Nobel Prize. If a majority of players accepts their argument, they don't have to drink.

2 Twister

• Boozy alternative: "Twisted"
• Ideal booze: Beer

Once you're past puberty, the only reason to play Twister is to build sexual tension between players. Any Twister drinking game should acknowledge this. Randomly place stickers, Post-It notes, or labels reading "DRINK" on roughly one out of three colored circles. If a player places a body part on that square, they have to drink. This way, the game will devolve into the orgy you're all hoping for that much faster.

Drink When:

• If you place a body part on a circle labeled "DRINK"

1 Monopoly

• Boozy alternative: "Empty Spaces"
• Ideal booze: Whatever you can drink a lot of
• Best played with: People who can handle money while drunk

One of the worst things about Monopoly is that there are a number of spaces that are absolutely worthless. Chance and Community Chest cards rarely have meaningful ramifications. "Just Visiting" and "Free Parking" are pretty much the worst. Nobody wants to own utilities. Let's spice up those turns when you aren't wheeling and dealing.

Drink When:

• You land on Chance or Community Chest
• You land on a utility
• You land on Free Parking or Just Visiting
• You pay Luxury or Income Tax
• You land on an unowned property and do not purchase it

This should expedite the end of the game when players are praying that they land on rent-free spaces. As in real life, if the bank don't get you, the booze will.