• 28 games
  • Checked October 2026

Roaring Twenties Party Games

Parlor games and mixers retold from a 1922 party book, beside speakeasy games with nothing stronger than ginger ale.

Roaring Twenties Party Games

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  1. Conversation by Number1. A conversation program from the 1922 book. Give each guest a numbered card that lists six other numbers, their partners in order.2. The host announces a topic and a catch. A bell rings every two minutes, and everyone finds the next partner on their card.3. The book's catches: say the opposite of what you think, fit your own initials into every answer, or answer in rhyme.4. Its topics include "What do you like best to eat?" and "Will bobbed hair stay with us?" Players: 8 to 40.You need: a numbered card for each guest and a bell.
  2. Spots1. Lucky spots, from the 1922 book. Before the party, the host secretly lists seven or eight spots in the room: behind the piano, against a pillar, on the bottom stair.2. While music plays, guests walk about in pairs, anywhere they like.3. At the whistle, the pair standing on the first spot wins a small prize. The book fined anyone caught alone one cent. Here that guest takes a bow.4. Before the next spot, everyone finds a new partner, and nobody may stand where they stood last time.Players: 12 to 100. You need: a whistle, music, a list of spots and small prizes.
  3. Newspaper Costume Parade1. A costume contest from the 1922 book, where it is called Extry! Each pair gets a newspaper and a roll of tape. The book used pins.2. Pairs have twenty minutes to dress each other as a character from a story or as a trade anyone would know.3. Everyone marches past the judges, and the leader announces each pair by name.4. Give prizes for the best made, the most beautiful and the worst made. The book's prizes run down to a week-old newspaper.Players: 6 to 40. You need: newspapers, tape, scissors and small prizes.
  4. Excuse Me! In Your Own Initials1. A quick-wit game from the 1922 book. The host puts one question to the whole room: "Why weren't you at the meeting last night?"2. Everyone has two minutes to think.3. Each guest answers aloud, starting "Because I was" and ending in words that begin with their own initials. A guest with the initials D. P. W. was dusting purple walruses.4. For a second round, ask: "Why are you leaving so early tonight?" Players: 4 to 20.You need: nothing.
  5. Prohibited Words All Evening1. The forbidden word game, run all night, as the 1922 book advises. Each guest gets a small bag of ten beans at the door.2. Two words are banned until the last game, such as yes and no.3. A guest who hears a banned word collects one bean from the speaker.4. Before the last game, count the beans. The fullest bag wins a box of candy, which the book says need not be opened until its winner gets home. The beans are the host's counters, and nothing else changes hands.Players: 8 to 60. You need: a small bag of ten dried beans for each guest and a box of candy.
  6. Automobile1. A scramble for chairs from the 1922 book. Everyone but one player has a chair. That player is the assembler. Each seated player is given a part of a car, such as the radiator, the clutch, the steering wheel, the gears or the brakes.2. The assembler tells the story of a Sunday drive full of mishaps. Each part that is named gets up and joins a line behind the assembler, hands on the shoulders in front.3. When every part is in line, the automobile drives around the room, faster and faster, until the assembler calls "Honk! Honk!"4. Everyone hurries to a chair. Whoever is left standing is the next assembler.Players: 8 to 24. You need: a chair for every player but one.

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Games from a 1922 party book 16

  • And I: A Name, an Action and a Place 1. A nonsense story game from the 1922 book. Three helpers go around the circle and whisper to every guest: the first gives a name, the second an action and the third a place. 2. The host starts by making one sentence of their own three, with "and I" added to the name: "The mail carrier and I were waltzing in the henhouse." 3. The story goes on around the circle, a sentence from each guest. 4. Nobody wins. Ask the room which pair had the worst afternoon. Players: 6 to 20. You need: nothing.
  • Automobile 1. A scramble for chairs from the 1922 book. Everyone but one player has a chair. That player is the assembler. Each seated player is given a part of a car, such as the radiator, the clutch, the steering wheel, the gears or the brakes. 2. The assembler tells the story of a Sunday drive full of mishaps. Each part that is named gets up and joins a line behind the assembler, hands on the shoulders in front. 3. When every part is in line, the automobile drives around the room, faster and faster, until the assembler calls "Honk! Honk!" 4. Everyone hurries to a chair. Whoever is left standing is the next assembler. Players: 8 to 24. You need: a chair for every player but one.
  • Bag Handshake 1. A handshake mixer from the 1922 book. Give each guest a paper bag to wear on the right hand. 2. Guests shake hands with everyone in sight and say their names. 3. Nobody may stop until their bag has worn through. The bag shows how hard its owner has worked. 4. The book's left-handed mixer is Southpaws: left hands only. A whistle blows now and then, and anyone not shaking a left hand at that moment is caught. Players: 10 to 100. You need: a paper bag for each guest and a whistle.
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Games from a 1922 party book, continued

  • Be Definite! Hands Still 1. A defining game from the 1922 book. The host gives each guest in turn a word that everybody knows and few can define. The book's list includes a goatee, an accordion, a spiral staircase, a deep sigh and a puff of wind. 2. The guest must define it at once, in words. 3. The host does not mention the catch beforehand: no gestures. Anyone whose hands start to draw the thing in the air is given a second, harder word. 4. The room votes for the clearest definition of the night. Players: 4 to 16. You need: nothing.
  • The Changeable Grand March 1. A grand march from the 1922 book. Guests march in pairs around the room to music. 2. At each whistle the leader calls a new way to move, and the line changes without stopping: hippity-hop, fly like birds, on tiptoe, swim, hum, find a new partner. 3. The book's advice is eight or nine changes at most, in three or four minutes. 4. End with one of the book's orders: walk, and sing any song that nobody else is singing. Players: 10 to 100. You need: music and a whistle.
  • Conversation by Number 1. A conversation program from the 1922 book. Give each guest a numbered card that lists six other numbers, their partners in order. 2. The host announces a topic and a catch. A bell rings every two minutes, and everyone finds the next partner on their card. 3. The book's catches: say the opposite of what you think, fit your own initials into every answer, or answer in rhyme. 4. Its topics include "What do you like best to eat?" and "Will bobbed hair stay with us?" Players: 8 to 40. You need: a numbered card for each guest and a bell.
  • Elastic Spelling: A Third of a Goat 1. A spelling game from the 1922 book, in which nobody wants to finish a word. The first player says a letter with a word in mind, and each player in turn adds one more. 2. A player whose letter completes a word becomes a third of a goat. A second slip makes two thirds, and a third makes a whole goat, who must say "Baa" at every turn in place of a letter. 3. Each player may challenge three times in a game. A challenged player has to name the word they had in mind. 4. Our addition: count only words of three letters or more. Players: 3 to 10. You need: nothing.
  • Excuse Me! In Your Own Initials 1. A quick-wit game from the 1922 book. The host puts one question to the whole room: "Why weren't you at the meeting last night?" 2. Everyone has two minutes to think. 3. Each guest answers aloud, starting "Because I was" and ending in words that begin with their own initials. A guest with the initials D. P. W. was dusting purple walruses. 4. For a second round, ask: "Why are you leaving so early tonight?" Players: 4 to 20. You need: nothing.
  • Good-Night Circle Handshake 1. The closing mixer from the 1922 book. After the last game, everyone stands in one circle. 2. The guest nearest the door shakes hands with the neighbor on the right, says good night and moves on around the circle, doing the same. 3. As soon as that guest has passed, the neighbor follows, then the next neighbor, so that the circle peels away behind them. 4. Each guest drops out after going all the way around. By the end, everyone has said good night to everyone. Players: 8 to 60. You need: nothing.
  • Human Adjectives 1. A team acting game from the 1922 book. Each team secretly picks a noun with as many letters as it has players, and each player takes one letter. 2. In order, each player acts an adjective that starts with their letter, and keeps acting until the other team calls it. 3. The guessers write down the first letter of each adjective and read off the noun at the end. 4. The book spells "stone" with silly, tired, ornery, noisy and empty. Then the teams swap. Players: 6 to 16. You need: paper and a pencil.
  • Impromptu Artists: Three-Minute Portraits 1. A drawing game from the 1922 book. Hand out paper and pencils, and give every artist a model sitting across the circle, so that each guest is both. 2. Artists have three minutes to draw. They sign their own names and leave the model's name off. 3. Collect the portraits, shuffle them and hand them out. Each guest writes on the sheet who they think the model is, and the sheet goes to that person. 4. In turn, everyone reads out the artist and the guess. The artist then admits who the model really was. Players: 4 to 16. You need: paper, pencils and a timer.
  • Newspaper Costume Parade 1. A costume contest from the 1922 book, where it is called Extry! Each pair gets a newspaper and a roll of tape. The book used pins. 2. Pairs have twenty minutes to dress each other as a character from a story or as a trade anyone would know. 3. Everyone marches past the judges, and the leader announces each pair by name. 4. Give prizes for the best made, the most beautiful and the worst made. The book's prizes run down to a week-old newspaper. Players: 6 to 40. You need: newspapers, tape, scissors and small prizes.
  • Progressive Nonsense 1. A progressive party from the 1922 book, with a silly contest in place of a card game. Seat two pairs at each table. 2. Give each table its own contest, pair against pair: sew a button onto a scrap of cloth, write a recipe for a pie from memory, tie your partner's necktie, write a limerick. 3. At the bell, the winning pair at each table moves up one table. 4. After six bells, the pair sitting at the head table wins. The book split its contests into jobs for the ladies and jobs for the men. Here every pair does every job. Players: 8 to 24. You need: tables, a bell and the things for each contest: buttons, needles and thread, neckties, paper and pens.
  • Prohibited Words All Evening 1. The forbidden word game, run all night, as the 1922 book advises. Each guest gets a small bag of ten beans at the door. 2. Two words are banned until the last game, such as yes and no. 3. A guest who hears a banned word collects one bean from the speaker. 4. Before the last game, count the beans. The fullest bag wins a box of candy, which the book says need not be opened until its winner gets home. The beans are the host's counters, and nothing else changes hands. Players: 8 to 60. You need: a small bag of ten dried beans for each guest and a box of candy.
  • Smile! The Cap Decides 1. A laughing game from the 1922 book. Two lines face each other. The host holds a cap and tells one line that the inside of the cap is its signal, and the other that the top is. 2. The host throws the cap in the air. The line whose side lands up has to laugh, giggle or simper at once. The other line has to keep straight faces. 3. Anyone in the silent line who smiles crosses over to the laughing side. 4. Throw the cap again every few seconds. After three minutes, the longer line wins. Players: 6 to 30. You need: a cap.
  • Spots 1. Lucky spots, from the 1922 book. Before the party, the host secretly lists seven or eight spots in the room: behind the piano, against a pillar, on the bottom stair. 2. While music plays, guests walk about in pairs, anywhere they like. 3. At the whistle, the pair standing on the first spot wins a small prize. The book fined anyone caught alone one cent. Here that guest takes a bow. 4. Before the next spot, everyone finds a new partner, and nobody may stand where they stood last time. Players: 12 to 100. You need: a whistle, music, a list of spots and small prizes.

Speakeasy party games 7

  • Act Natural 1. Musical statues, with a raid. Before each round, the host names an innocent pastime: a knitting circle, a tea party, a book club. 2. Guests dance while the music plays. When it stops, the host calls "Raid!" and everyone drops into a scene of that pastime and holds still. 3. The inspector, a guest with a paper badge, walks the room. The last guest to freeze, and anyone who laughs, joins the inspector as a deputy. 4. The last three guests still acting natural win. Players: 8 to 40. You need: music and a paper badge.
  • Follow the Cards to the Back Room 1. A card-to-card hunt, the way the 1922 book sends guests to find their partners. Write a trail of four cards for each pair, in that pair's color. 2. The first card might say, "Look on the third shelf of the bookcase." Each card names the place where the next one is hidden. 3. Pairs leave the other colors where they find them. 4. The last card leads to the door of the back room, where the food is waiting. The first pair through the door chooses the next record. Players: 4 to 20. You need: cards and colored pens.
  • Hide the Evidence 1. A hide-and-find game for two teams. One team is the house, and the other is the inspectors, who wait outside the room. 2. The house has two minutes to hide ten paper cups, each marked with a cross, around one room. No cup may go inside a closed drawer or cupboard, and part of every cup has to show. 3. The inspectors have two minutes to find them. 4. Swap jobs. The team that finds more cups wins. On a tie, the team that hid them wins. Players: 4 to 20. You need: ten paper cups, a marker and a timer.
  • Order by Lip-Reading 1. A lip-reading game. The band is too loud for talking, so partners stand on opposite sides of the room. 2. One partner draws a card with an order of four things, such as two ginger ales, one lemonade and a plate of pretzels. 3. That partner mouths the order without a sound and without pointing. The other writes down what they think it was. 4. Score one for each thing that is right, then swap. Play a record while the mouthing goes on. Players: 4 to 30. You need: order cards, paper, pens and music.
  • Password Halves at the Door 1. A partner-finding mixer, like the halves of rhymes that the 1922 book hands out. Write two-word passwords on cards and cut them in half: silver canary, midnight piano, velvet umbrella. 2. Each guest draws one half at the door. 3. Guests find their other half by whispering. Nobody shows a card. 4. Each pair whispers its whole password to the doorkeeper to be let into the back room, where the ginger ale is. The two are partners for the first game. Players: 8 to 40. You need: cards, a pen and scissors.
  • The Secret Knock 1. A memory chain, in knocks. Sit around a table. The first player knocks a short pattern, such as two quick knocks and one slow. 2. The next player repeats it and adds one knock, quick or slow. 3. A player who gets the pattern wrong becomes a lookout, who stops knocking and listens for the next mistake. 4. The last knocker left wins. Their pattern is the knock for the back-room door for the rest of the night. Players: 3 to 12. You need: a table.
  • The Tip-Off Down Two Lines 1. Telephone, scored for accuracy. Two teams stand in lines. The first player in each line silently reads the same tip: "The delivery comes at midnight, in a blue truck, behind the bakery. Ask for Dot." 2. Each player whispers it to the next, once, with no repeats. 3. The last player in each line writes down what arrived. 4. Score one for each detail that survived: the time, the color, the truck, the place and the name. Play three tips. Players: 8 to 30. You need: tip cards, paper and a pen.

Fads of the 1920s, as games 5

  • Charleston Contest 1. A dance contest. The Charleston was one of the popular dances of the 1920s. Put on fast jazz and have everyone dance it as well as they can, alone or in pairs. Nobody needs the real steps. 2. Two judges walk the floor and send dancers to the side with a tap on the shoulder. 3. The dancers who are out clap the beat for the rest. 4. The last three dance one more song. Give them titles: fastest feet, best face, most improved since the first song. Players: 6 to 40. You need: music.
  • Dance Marathon in Three Songs 1. An endurance contest, cut short. Dance marathons began as an early-1920s fad in which couples danced almost without stopping for hundreds of hours. This one lasts three songs. 2. Couples have to keep moving and keep one hand joined. A couple that stops or lets go is out. 3. Before each song the floor judge adds a handicap: dance on one sheet of newspaper, dance back to back, or hold a paper plate between two palms. 4. Every couple still going at the end of the third song shares the win. Players: 4 to 40. You need: music, newspaper and paper plates.
  • Flagpole Sitters 1. A balancing contest. Flagpole sitting was another endurance fad of the early 1920s. Each sitter stands on one foot on a paper plate, the flagpole, with hands on hips. 2. While they balance, the host asks each sitter in turn an easy question that has to be answered in a full sentence: "What did you have for breakfast?" 3. A foot that touches down or leaves the plate ends the sit. 4. The last sitter up wins. Anyone may sit this one out and be a timekeeper. Players: 3 to 20. You need: a paper plate for each player.
  • Hear! Hear! The Bobbed Hair Debate 1. A mock speech from the 1922 book, on one of its own topics. The speaker has to argue against their own opinion on the question, "Will bobbed hair stay with us?" 2. The speaker pauses after every statement, and the whole room must clap and call "Hear! Hear!" 3. The leader watches the audience. Anyone who forgets to clap is the next speaker. 4. Stop each speech after half a minute. Other topics that suit: the motor car is a passing craze, and nobody will ever dance to jazz. Players: 6 to 40. You need: nothing.
  • The Phonograph Runs Down 1. A singing game. Phonograph records carried the tunes of the 1920s across the country. In pairs, one player is the phonograph and the other winds it. 2. The winder turns an imaginary crank at the phonograph's elbow, and the phonograph sings any song that everyone knows. 3. When the winder stops cranking, the record runs down: slower and lower, until it stops. Cranking brings it back up to speed. 4. Each pair performs for half a minute. The room votes for the best phonograph and the cruelest winder. Players: 4 to 20. You need: nothing.

How this list was compiled: Our suggestions for a 1920s party of adults. The wording and the player counts are ours. Seventeen games retell, in our words, games printed in It Is to Laugh: A Book of Games and Stunts (New York, The Womans Press, copyright 1922), read on 12 October 2026 at https://archive.org/details/itistolaughbooko00geis ; each of those says so in its first step. The speakeasy games and four of the fad games are our own. No game involves alcohol and nothing is staked. That the Charleston was a popular dance of the era, that phonograph records spread its music and that speakeasies were the illegal bars of Prohibition was read the same day at https://www.history.com/articles/roaring-twenties-history , and dance marathons and flagpole sitting as early-1920s endurance fads at https://www.historylink.org/File/5534 Licence: own work

How it works

Seventeen of these games for a 1920s party are retold from a book of party games published in New York in 1922, so they are the decade's own. The speakeasy games and four fad contests are new.

Read the full guide

1920s party games and fads

The last set turns crazes of the decade into contests: the Charleston, a dance marathon cut to three songs, flagpole sitting on a paper plate and a phonograph that runs down. Bobbed hair gets a mock debate.

A running order for the evening

1. At the door: Password Halves at the Door, then Prohibited Words All Evening. 2. To mix the room: Spots or Bag Handshake. 3. Sitting down: Elastic Spelling: A Third of a Goat. 4. On the dance floor: Charleston Contest. 5. To close: Good-Night Circle Handshake.

  • Hand out the beans for Prohibited Words All Evening at the door, before anyone has said yes.

Questions and answers

What roaring 20s party games did people really play?

The 1922 book has spelling games, acting games, handshake mixers and grand marches. Human Adjectives, Smile! The Cap Decides, Spots and The Changeable Grand March are retold from it here, and an entry says so where we changed a rule.

What do you play at a speakeasy party?

Games about getting in and not getting caught: Password Halves at the Door, The Secret Knock, Act Natural and Hide the Evidence. A speakeasy was an illegal bar of the Prohibition years. Here the back room serves ginger ale.

Which 1920s party games work for a big crowd?

The mixers. Spots, Bag Handshake and The Changeable Grand March need no teams and no chairs, and the 1922 book lists the march among its games for large groups. Good-Night Circle Handshake closes the evening for the whole room.

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