Let’s play Herd Mentality, the game that rewards groupthink

Party games are full of titles that encourage creativity and innovative thinking. In fact we’ve played quite a few of them on our board game show Overboard. However, the latest one we tried was It does not reward being special. Actually, it’s the exact opposite. The Herd MentalityThis party game is simple to master and emphasizes conformity. It was a lot of fun to play.

Each round The Herd Mentality The process is straightforward: The group draws a question card and has it read aloud. These might be factual questions (name an animal that starts with “P”) or questions of opinion (name the best dessert). You may have multiple choices.).

Everybody writes their responses, together with the questioner, onto a piece paper. Importantly, the answers do not have to be personal opinions. They should reflect the opinion of the group. The answers are then revealed to everyone simultaneously, and the scores are added. A point is awarded to each player if more than one or all of the participants answer in the same fashion. All others receive nothing. If the group is split down the middle (or three or four ways if you’ve got a big enough group) then no one receives points.

A special punishment is available for players who answer completely unique questions: The pink cow. A player who receives the pink cow tchotchke cannot win the game. They can only hope that another player will be the one to win in a subsequent round. The pink cow will stay put if there are multiple answers.

The game continues until one player receives eight points (so long as they don’t have the pink cow). It’s also only ever one player who wins the game. If multiple players score eight points in a turn, then the required score to win the game is increased by 1.

While the game is easy for anyone to learn, playing it well can prove more difficult than you might think. Picking what you think is a consensus answer isn’t straightforward, but even when you’re the odd one out it’s a whole lot of fun discovering how everyone approaches the questions in the game (which are remarkably varied). This video was enjoyed by many. You can also check out Overboard on our YouTube channel.