What If Questions to Ask: 165 Funny and Thoughtful Cards

165 open what if cards with a follow-up on each, plus a mix-up game played with paper slips.

What If Questions to Ask: 165 Funny and Thoughtful Cards

Read it out and let one person answer. Show follow-up asks a second question. The Space key presses Next question.

Powers and magic · Easy

What if you could teleport, but only to places you have already been?

Show follow-upHide follow-up

Follow-up Where do you go first, and where do you go most often?

See all 165 questions

Print gives slips to cut apart, up to 120 questions at a time.

Kind or tone

Level

All 165 questions are in play.

More options

No repeats: a question you have seen stays out until you press Start over.

Seen 1 of 165

Next step Deal a would you ratherMix up a story instead

How it works

These what if questions to ask have no options on the card, so every answer is the player's own, such as What if nobody needed sleep? Each of the 165 cards hides a follow-up that keeps the talk going.

Ask, listen, then show the follow-up

Press Next question and read the card out. Let one person answer in full, then press Show follow-up for a second question, such as Which day, and would you change anything in it? The Kind or tone row has four themes of 25 to 27 cards, 61 What would you do if cards, and two tones: Funny (73) and Thoughtful (92).

The what would you do if game, with paper slips

Everyone writes a What would you do if question on one slip and their own answer on another. Shuffle the questions in one bowl and the answers in a second. Each player draws one of each and reads the pair out. The mismatch is the joke. Stuck? Pick What would you do if and borrow a card.

Tips

  • One card can fill ten minutes. Go round the table on the same question before you deal another.
  • Pick Funny to warm a group up and Thoughtful once people are talking. A hard card dealt first gets shrugs.
  • Press Print questions and cut the slips for a jar on the table. Each slip carries its follow-up.

Questions and answers

What is a good what if question for a group?

One that changes a single thing and leaves the rest to the player: What if lying were impossible? What if the week had eight days? Pick Thoughtful for 92 cards like the first and Funny for 73 like the second.

What is the difference between what if and would you rather?

A would you rather card gives two options and the group picks one. A what if card gives none, so each player invents an answer and no two match. That makes it slower, and better suited to a small table.

Are these what if questions suitable for kids?

Every card is clean, but many assume a job, a commute or a long memory. The what if questions for kids page has 150 cards written for ages 5 to 12, and no card appears in both decks.

Can I use what if questions as writing prompts?

Yes. A what if is a story premise, and its follow-up is the second paragraph. Pick Time and history for 26 cards that suit alternate history, such as What if photographs had never been invented?, then press Copy the list.

More tools

Random tool Browse Question Games

All 165 questions

Powers and magic 25

  • What if a genie gave you three wishes, and none could be for money? Follow-up: What is the third wish, once the obvious two are gone?
  • What if a soundtrack played to match every moment of your life? Follow-up: What plays when you walk into work on Monday?
  • What if one food of your choice had no effect on your health at all? Follow-up: Which food, and how long until you are sick of it?
  • What if temperature stopped bothering you altogether? Follow-up: Where would you move to?
  • What if you always knew when someone was lying to you? Follow-up: Which of your friendships would it test?
  • What if you could ask one question about your future and get a true answer? Follow-up: What do you ask, and could you live with the answer?
  • What if you could be invisible for one hour a week? Follow-up: Which hour do you pick, and what for?
  • What if you could borrow one skill from anyone at this table for a day? Follow-up: Whose skill, and what do you do with it?
  • What if you could call any object you own straight to your hand? Follow-up: What do you lose most often?
  • What if you could cure any illness by touch, but each cure cost you a day of rest? Follow-up: How do you choose whom to help?
  • What if you could hover six inches off the ground, and no higher? Follow-up: Do you still bother? When?
  • What if you could make one person tell the truth for one minute a day? Follow-up: Who is it, and what is today's question?
  • What if you could pause your own aging for ten years, once? Follow-up: Which ten years do you pick?
  • What if you could read minds but could never switch it off? Follow-up: Who would you stop spending time with?
  • What if you could relive one day of your life as often as you liked? Follow-up: Which day, and would you change anything in it?
  • What if you could see through someone else's eyes for ten minutes? Follow-up: Whose eyes, and what are you hoping to understand?
  • What if you could talk to one kind of animal? Follow-up: Which kind do you pick, and what do you ask first?
  • What if you could teleport, but only to places you have already been? Follow-up: Where do you go first, and where do you go most often?
  • What if you could understand what babies are saying? Follow-up: What do you think they are complaining about?
  • What if you could undo one decision a year? Follow-up: Which decision from this year would it be?
  • What if you could visit your dreams on purpose every night? Follow-up: What would you build there?
  • What if you had a clone who would do half your tasks? Follow-up: Which half do you hand over, and do you trust the result?
  • What if you had a perfect memory and could forget nothing? Follow-up: Which memory would you most want to lose?
  • What if you saw a number over everyone's head, and you chose what it measured? Follow-up: What does it measure, and what is your own number?
  • What if your phone would answer one question a day with perfect truth? Follow-up: What do you ask today?

Time and history 26

  • What if a day had 30 hours? Follow-up: What do you do with the extra six?
  • What if a museum asked you for one object to show people 100 years from now? Follow-up: What do you hand over, and what does the label say?
  • What if every generation had to pass one rule on to the next? Follow-up: What rule does yours pass on?
  • What if everyone could time travel, but only forward? Follow-up: How far do you jump, knowing you cannot come back?
  • What if everyone had to change their first name every ten years? Follow-up: What are you called this decade?
  • What if history remembered you in one sentence? Follow-up: What would you want it to say?
  • What if humans lived to 200? Follow-up: What would you do with your second century?
  • What if photographs had never been invented? Follow-up: Whose face would you struggle to remember?
  • What if the electricity went off everywhere for a year? Follow-up: Which of your skills suddenly becomes valuable?
  • What if the internet had never been invented? Follow-up: What would your job and your weekends look like?
  • What if the printing press had never been invented? Follow-up: How would you have learned what you know?
  • What if the week had eight days? Follow-up: What is the extra day for?
  • What if you could ask your great-great-grandparents one question? Follow-up: What do you ask?
  • What if you could have dinner with any three people from history? Follow-up: Who sits next to whom?
  • What if you could keep only five memories from your life so far? Follow-up: Which is the first one you save?
  • What if you could live in any decade of the last hundred years? Follow-up: Which one, and what would you miss most from today?
  • What if you could make one year of your life last twice as long? Follow-up: Which year?
  • What if you could see one day, 100 years from now? Follow-up: What is the first thing you look for?
  • What if you could send one text message to yourself ten years ago? Follow-up: What does it say?
  • What if you could take one modern object back to the year 1500? Follow-up: What do you take, and how do you explain it?
  • What if you could un-invent one thing? Follow-up: What goes, and what do we lose along with it?
  • What if you could watch a recording of any one day from your childhood? Follow-up: Which day would you watch?
  • What if you could watch one event in history, unseen? Follow-up: Which event, and what are you hoping to find out?
  • What if you had been born 500 years ago with the same personality? Follow-up: What would your job have been?
  • What if you met yourself at age 80? Follow-up: What would they tell you to stop worrying about?
  • What if you woke up aged ten again, with all your memories? Follow-up: What do you do differently at school?

Everyday life upside down 26

  • What if compliments were a currency? Follow-up: Who is the richest person you know?
  • What if every disagreement had to be settled by a board game? Follow-up: Which game do you pick for your biggest argument?
  • What if everybody's mood showed as a color above their head? Follow-up: What color are you on a Monday morning?
  • What if everyone could hear your thoughts for one day? Follow-up: Where do you hide?
  • What if everyone had to grow a fifth of their own food? Follow-up: What do you grow, and what wilts first?
  • What if everyone had to move to a new city every five years? Follow-up: Where do you go first?
  • What if everyone had to pick a uniform at 18 and wear it for life? Follow-up: What is yours?
  • What if everyone looked identical? Follow-up: How would you recognize your friends?
  • What if food came as one pill a day? Follow-up: Which meal would you miss most?
  • What if humans had tails? Follow-up: What would chairs and trousers look like?
  • What if humans hibernated for three months a year? Follow-up: What do you do in the last week before?
  • What if lying were impossible? Follow-up: Which everyday conversation gets hardest?
  • What if money did not exist? Follow-up: What would you trade, and what is an hour of your time worth?
  • What if music did not exist? Follow-up: What would weddings and long drives sound like?
  • What if nobody could be anonymous online? Follow-up: Would the internet be kinder, or just quieter?
  • What if nobody could own more than 100 things? Follow-up: What is first on your list, and what goes first?
  • What if nobody needed sleep? Follow-up: What would the world do between midnight and 6 a.m.?
  • What if people's ages were secret and impossible to guess? Follow-up: What would change about how we treat each other?
  • What if phones only worked for one hour a day? Follow-up: Which hour, and what do you do with the rest?
  • What if strangers learned one fact about you as you walked past? Follow-up: Which fact would you choose?
  • What if the weather were the same every day, and you got to choose it? Follow-up: What do you pick, and what would you miss?
  • What if you could only speak 100 words a day? Follow-up: Who gets most of them?
  • What if you had to eat the same three meals forever? Follow-up: Which three?
  • What if you had to sing everything you said one day a week? Follow-up: Which day do you pick, and which meeting do you dread?
  • What if your daily screen time were printed on your shirt? Follow-up: Would you change the number or the shirt?
  • What if your home had one extra room that nobody else could enter? Follow-up: What is in it?

School and work 27

  • What if a machine did your job from tomorrow, and you were still paid? Follow-up: What do you do on Monday?
  • What if email vanished overnight? Follow-up: What do you do with the first free hour?
  • What if every adult swapped jobs with a stranger for one week a year? Follow-up: Which job do you hope to draw?
  • What if every school day began with an hour that was not a subject? Follow-up: What is the hour for?
  • What if every workplace let its staff vote in one new rule a year? Follow-up: What do you propose?
  • What if everyone had to retire at 40 and start a second, different career? Follow-up: What is yours?
  • What if everyone spent one year waiting tables or working a till? Follow-up: What would it change about customers?
  • What if everyone worked from a different country each year? Follow-up: Where is your first posting?
  • What if grades had never existed? Follow-up: Would you have worked harder or less?
  • What if meetings were banned? Follow-up: How would your team decide anything?
  • What if resumes could list only failures? Follow-up: What is at the top of yours?
  • What if school started at age ten? Follow-up: What should children do with the years before?
  • What if school taught only five subjects, and you picked them? Follow-up: Which five?
  • What if the working week were three days long? Follow-up: What do you do with the fourth day?
  • What if there were no weekends, but every working day ended at 1 p.m.? Follow-up: Do you take the deal?
  • What if you could restart your career from day one, knowing what you know now? Follow-up: Same field, or something else?
  • What if you could sit in on any workplace in the world for a day? Follow-up: Where, and what do you want to see?
  • What if you had to give a 20-minute talk with no notice? Follow-up: What is your topic?
  • What if you had to go back to school for one year, in any grade? Follow-up: Which grade, and why?
  • What if you had to hire your own replacement? Follow-up: What is the one question you ask?
  • What if you had to run a one-hour workshop on the thing you know best? Follow-up: What is it called, and who signs up?
  • What if you had to work beside your best friend every day? Follow-up: Would the friendship survive?
  • What if you were paid by how happy your work made other people? Follow-up: Would you earn more or less than now?
  • What if your boss were ten years old? Follow-up: What is the first new office rule?
  • What if your first job had been your only job? Follow-up: Where would you be now?
  • What if your old school reports were read out at job interviews? Follow-up: Which comment would come up?
  • What if your pay were set by a vote of your coworkers? Follow-up: How would you behave differently on Monday?

What would you do if 61

  • What would you do if a bird stole your sandwich? Follow-up: Chase it, or respect it?
  • What would you do if a letter arrived for someone who lived in your home before you? Follow-up: Do you try to find them?
  • What would you do if a quiz show let you phone one friend? Follow-up: Who do you call, and for which subject?
  • What would you do if a stranger handed you a locked briefcase and ran? Follow-up: Do you open it?
  • What would you do if a time traveler offered you one trip, now or never? Follow-up: Past or future?
  • What would you do if a wrong-number text invited you to a stranger's wedding? Follow-up: Do you reply?
  • What would you do if an old friend you lost touch with called tonight? Follow-up: What do you say first?
  • What would you do if someone handed you the keys to a food truck? Follow-up: What do you sell, and what is it called?
  • What would you do if the lights went out in the middle of a party you were hosting? Follow-up: Which game can you play in the dark?
  • What would you do if the person you were ten years ago walked into the room? Follow-up: What would surprise them most?
  • What would you do if the power went out at home for three days? Follow-up: What do you eat first from the fridge?
  • What would you do if you arrived at a party and knew nobody? Follow-up: What is your opening line?
  • What would you do if you could keep only one suitcase of everything you own? Follow-up: What goes in first?
  • What would you do if you could not use the internet for a month? Follow-up: What do you miss by day three?
  • What would you do if you could start again in a town where nobody knew you? Follow-up: What would you change about how you introduce yourself?
  • What would you do if you could take one class for free, in anything? Follow-up: Which class?
  • What would you do if you could write one new law for game night? Follow-up: What is it, and who is it aimed at?
  • What would you do if you forgot someone's name halfway through a chat with them? Follow-up: Own up, or bluff to the end?
  • What would you do if you found a door in your home that you had never noticed? Follow-up: Open it now, or wait for daylight?
  • What would you do if you found a riddle on a note inside a library book? Follow-up: Solve it, or write one back?
  • What would you do if you found a wallet with $300 in it and no ID? Follow-up: Does the amount change what you do?
  • What would you do if you found out you had a twin you had never met? Follow-up: What is your first question for them?
  • What would you do if you found the diary you kept at 13? Follow-up: Read it aloud, or hide it for good?
  • What would you do if you got home and all your furniture had moved one foot to the left? Follow-up: Who do you tell, and would they believe you?
  • What would you do if you had one minute in any shop to keep what you could carry? Follow-up: Which shop?
  • What would you do if you had to cook dinner for a famous chef tonight? Follow-up: What is on the plate?
  • What would you do if you had to delete every photo you own except ten? Follow-up: Which one is safe without a second thought?
  • What would you do if you had to enter a talent show next week? Follow-up: What is your act?
  • What would you do if you had to give a toast with ten seconds' notice? Follow-up: What is your first line?
  • What would you do if you had to give up one of your five senses for a day? Follow-up: Which one, and what would you plan for that day?
  • What would you do if you had to go a whole day without saying the word I? Follow-up: How long would you last?
  • What would you do if you had to host dinner for six strangers? Follow-up: What do you cook, and what do you ask them?
  • What would you do if you had to move abroad next month? Follow-up: Where do you go, and what is the hardest goodbye?
  • What would you do if you had to plan a birthday party on a budget of $20? Follow-up: Whose party is it, and what is the cake?
  • What would you do if you had your whole town to yourself for a day? Follow-up: Where do you go first?
  • What would you do if you met someone with your exact name and birthday? Follow-up: What is the first thing you compare?
  • What would you do if you overheard strangers planning a surprise for someone you know? Follow-up: Can you keep it to yourself?
  • What would you do if you ran your town for a day? Follow-up: What is your first decision?
  • What would you do if you stepped into an elevator with your hero? Follow-up: You have 30 seconds. What do you say?
  • What would you do if you swapped homes with a friend for a month? Follow-up: What would they find odd about yours?
  • What would you do if you were asked to name a new street in your town? Follow-up: What is the name, and who will complain?
  • What would you do if you were chosen to send one message into space? Follow-up: What does it say?
  • What would you do if you were given a billboard in your city for a month? Follow-up: What goes on it?
  • What would you do if you were given a second go at one conversation? Follow-up: Which conversation?
  • What would you do if you were given a year off, fully paid? Follow-up: What happens in month one?
  • What would you do if you were handed $10 million tomorrow? Follow-up: What is the first thing you would not change?
  • What would you do if you were handed the music for a six-hour road trip? Follow-up: What is the first song, and who complains?
  • What would you do if you were locked in a shopping mall overnight? Follow-up: Which shop do you head for first?
  • What would you do if you were made principal of your old school? Follow-up: Which rule goes first?
  • What would you do if you were offered a one-way ticket to Mars? Follow-up: Who would have to come with you?
  • What would you do if you were put in charge of a brand new holiday? Follow-up: What does everyone do on it?
  • What would you do if you were snowed in for a week with everyone in this room? Follow-up: Who cracks first?
  • What would you do if you were stranded on an island with the person on your left? Follow-up: Who builds the shelter, and who finds the food?
  • What would you do if you were the only person who remembered yesterday? Follow-up: What would you try to prove first?
  • What would you do if you woke up fluent in a language you never studied? Follow-up: Which language do you hope it is?
  • What would you do if you woke up invisible? Follow-up: How do you prove to anyone that it is you?
  • What would you do if your best friend asked you to start a business together? Follow-up: What is the business, and who is the boss?
  • What would you do if your flight was cancelled and you had 24 hours to fill? Follow-up: Do you stay in the airport or head into the city?
  • What would you do if your phone died in a city where you knew nobody? Follow-up: What is your first move?
  • What would you do if your suitcase got swapped with a far nicer one? Follow-up: How long before you hand it in?
  • What would you do with a whole Saturday, $100 and a flat phone battery? Follow-up: Who, if anyone, do you bring along?
How this list was compiled

Written by the Game Night Generator editors on 2026-09-20. Every card is an invented situation with no options and no right answer; x.a is a follow-up question, not an answer. Screened by script and by hand against the site's clean-deck rule: nothing sexual, no alcohol, drugs, self-harm, weapons, gambling, religion or party politics, and no card names a real person. A script compared every card with every other dataset on the site, by exact text and by word overlap, including what-if-questions-for-kids: no card is shared. Licence: own work