Paragon's Drinking Game (guide)

This game was taught to us Paragon members by Verdisha, and in Finland it's also known to go by the name "Huikka". As we've played this game many times together, (also in China with Dream), we though we'd share it with the rest of you.

The idea and words of advice:

While playing, you will be drinking a beverage of your choice. Common choices are water, orange juice, or something else...

Sip: the size of a sip is yours to choose. If you feel like it, don't drink that much, if you feel extra thirsty, even a glass can be counted as a sip.

How many people are needed: The game is the most fun when there are more than 3 people playing. If you want to play with more than 10, it might be a good idea to get an extra deck and play with 2 decks.

Preparations: Get a normal deck of cards, remove the jokers, shuffle the deck and either arrange the cards to the table or just have them in one messy pile. Don't keep them piled neatly, as everyone should be able to pick a card of their choice and suffer the consequences.

In the game everyone is sitting together around the cards with their drinks ready. Cards are picked one by one from the table by players. When the game starts, the first player picks a card. The rules go like this:

Rules

If you pick an even number (2, 4, 6, 8 or 10) you have to drink the amount of sips as the card has. For instance, if you pick 6 you'll have to drink 6 sips.

If you pick an odd card (3, 5, 7, 9) you can assign the amount of sips the card has to other players (including yourself). For instance, if you pick 5 you can assign person x to drink all 5 sips, or have 2 people drinking 2 sips and drink 1 sip yourself, or drink all sips yourself or give them out one by one.

Jack is the bathroom card. During the game no one is allowed to go to the bathroom without a bathroom card. If you get one, you can trade or sell it to other players or use it yourself. One bathroom card can only be used once.

Queen is the story card. The player who picks it will start a story with a word. For instance "I". The next player to his left continues the story by adding a word and so says "I play", the one to the left of him adds a word and says "I play in", the next one goes "I play in Paragon" etc. The story goes on as long as someone makes a mistake, when he'll need to drink the penalty of 5 sips.

King is the category card. The player who picks it can think of a category from which people need to name a thing. A good category with people who play World of Warcraft would be for instance "Hunter talents". Then the player who picked the king starts with for instance "Chimera Shot", and the person to his left comes up with the next one. The one who makes the first mistake or can't remember anything new or says a talent that has already been said, drinks the penalty of 5 sips.

When thinking about a category you can always try to make it really hard to others. In one game some of my friends picked "pavement companies in Finland" as the category. I've fallen to that twice already, gotta familiarize myself with more pavement companies I think. Just keep in mind that you need to know the first thing that belongs to the category.

Ace is the rule card. When you get it, you'll be able to make a rule that everyone needs to follow the rest of the game. A basic rule would be "when drinking you have to keep your left hand on the table". A bit harder rule (to remember and execute) would be "every time before you drink, compliment the player to your right". The hardest rules are the ones that have something to do with what people must or can't do while playing overall. One of the hardest rules I've made was "you can't use negative words in the game", which meant that you can't say "can't, no, doesn't, won't; basically x not.

There are 4 aces in the game and the rules "stack", so in the end you'll end up playing with 4 different rules. The player who makes a mistake with the rule (for instance forgets to obey it or does it wrong) has to drink the penalty of 5 sips. During a drinking turn (when someone drinks because of the cards or because of the fine) he can only break one rule once. For instance if a person picks up 6 and forgets to hold his left hand on the table he'll need to drink 5 more as a penalty. If he after that accidentally says "I couldn't remember the rule" and so breaks another rule he has to drink 5 more sips as a penalty. However, if while drinking the penalty for using a negative word he again forgets to hold his left hand on the table, he doesn't need to drink the fine for the missing hand again. However, if someone else for instance says "you are so bad, you can't even remember a single rule" and so breaks the rule and has to drink, and you comment back "no I can't", you'll have to drink the fine again. If you again break other rules while drinking the penalty you'll need to drink the penalty for those as well, so be careful.

Basically the game goes on as people pick up cards in turns, and waits while people play the story, a category card, or drink. In the end, when there are a lot of rules the game (picking cards) usually slows down and it might take more than 10 minutes to get through one turn (1 card) and all the penalties that people get themselves during it.

So, how to make this even more interesting? We've noticed that jack isn't needed in most of the games as they don't last hours (and we allow players to visit bathroom between the games). We've started playing jack as number 11, which means that the player who picks it up can assign the sips to players. Also, if you have a set of awesome rules and you feel like playing another round of drinking game, you can keep the rules for the next round. Having 4+ rules usually slows the game a lot, but can make it even more fun.

I hope you've enjoyed this guide. As for feedback, I'd like you to tell me what would be the most awesome rules you can come up with. Please think it through properly, the most fun and hard rules aren't that easy to come up with. I need some inspiration for the future games. Also, if you know other great drinking games please share them with us.

Happy drinking games!
-xeno & Verdisha