I started playing the Ungame with friends around 1985. I was newly married and living on the West Coast, surrounded by a constellation of friends, acquaintances, and fellow Navy personnel. The group of us played many games, mostly of the strategy genre, from Dungeons and Dragons to Axis and Allies to Fortress America and Risk. The Ungame became a sort of break from strategy, a light-hearted diversion. It was during this period of time that I met my best friend who to this day remains for all intents and purposes my true brother.
For those that haven't heard of it or played it, the Ungame basically consists of a board around which you move your playing piece, two decks of cards with questions, and a six-sided die. You land on one of three types of spaces - Tell It Like It Is (take a card to answer a question), Do Your Own Thing (ask a question of someone, make a comment, or draw a card) or a Hang-Up space which sends you to another space on the board.
Many months later I got divorced (which I don't blame on the Ungame) and I emerged from that experience to participate socially with an ever-evolving group of friends. It became a time of experimenting with the limits of brutal honesty, vulnerability, trust, intimacy, and mutuality. The game which originated with questions like "Say something about America" or "When was the last time you felt afraid?" became a white-knuckle version of truth or dare where the dare was to tell the truth. This was the seed of "Extreme Ungame" which is a name I conferred only recently in retrospect.
Extreme Ungame
Do Your Own Thing - you can ask group questions where everyone but the questioner answers
People must use subsequent turns to find out the questioner's answer if they want to know
No topic is off-limits
The truth must be told, and you must agree to this to play
Modifying the Do Your Own Thing rule so that you could ask a group question where everyone but the questioner had to answer created a very tension-filled game. If someone wanted to find out what the questioner's answer was, they needed to use their next Do Your Own Thing. When you kept landing on Tell It Like It Is, it became rather entertaining.
It was a brutal, anxious, and educational experience. I don't play that way anymore, nor would I recommend it to anyone. My goal now isn't testing limits. It is getting to know people in an environment of love and respect, but I'll describe that in the Extreme Ungame II rules.
Our group didn't spend all our time playing games. We would also do what we affectionately dubbed "24-hour restaurant hopping" which involved visiting Denny's and other 24-hour restaurants all night for conversation and other diversions. It made sense to create a travel version of the Ungame because Trivial Pursuit isn't as fun for everyone and you can only play so much Cosmic Wimpout.
Ungame - Travel Version
Leave the board home, take only the cards and the die.
Each person rolls the die for their turn.
An even roll was Do Your Own Thing (an even number of words)
An odd roll was Tell It Like It Is (an odd number of words)
Hang-Ups were ditched with the board.
Not being a fan of the Hang-Ups spaces, we used the travel version even when we weren't traveling and we used it that way for years. We started giving everyone pencil and paper to write down their thoughts so they wouldn't feel the need to interrupt and wouldn't lose their inspirations between turns.
Two things have influenced the way we play the Ungame today. Maturity and religion. I don't feel the need to test those limits anymore, and now I am a Baha'i, so the last thing I would want to do is make someone uncomfortable or anxious or embarrassed. Since I often play the game with people who don't know each other well or who have a different level of tolerance for self-disclosure, we have amended the game as follows:
Extreme Ungame II
Do Your Own Thing - you can ask group questions, the questioner can choose whether to answer or the group can decide at the beginning of the game whether questioner must answer too
Topics are off-limits to the extent that anyone can refuse to answer a question (without shame)
The truth must be told, but as stated you can refuse to answer
The board is not used, so people can be sprawled around the living room
Every turn is Do Your Own Thing, you can always opt to take a card
One person reads the questions so the decks of cards can be in one place with the reader
Paper and pencil are supplied
Talk is kept to a minimum between turns, but this is flexible depending on who is playing. Those uncomfortable with self-disclosure often need some nervous chatter to stay engaged.
I have experimented with other cards, either home-made or from other games. Loaded Questions can work well. We experimented with Gender Bender and Scruples cards, but found them to be unsuitable or uninteresting. The home made versions I have made are the Baha'i version (which I am still working on) and a Spiritual Version based on the book The Little Book of Big Questions by Jonathan Robinson. I plan to expand the Baha'i version to be an Interfaith version (thanks for the idea, Jeannie). We now have what we call the Bag O' Questions which we can take with us at any time. It contains pencils, paper, and several sets of question cards.
Whenever my best friend and I get together (he is a West-Coaster and I am an East-Coaster) we often spend at least one night playing the Ungame with whoever will join us, and it will often dwindle into the wee hours as people peter out, and us hard-core Ungamers will savor the intimacy, respect, honesty and love that the game has come to represent.
In this post I have left out much of the emotional impact of my experiences playing the Ungame and concentrated on the nuts and bolts. I hope others get enjoyment out of the "house rules" we use. Perhaps some other time I'll share some of the experiences - I can think of two questions in particular that made for memorable nights. In the meantime, I think I'm going to embark on a bit of a memoir, and share a spiritual quest.
I'll leave you with one of my favorite questions. If you could hang a slogan in every house in the world, what would it be?
Think about it.
3 comments:
I suspect we could write a book about those Hard Core Ungame evenings. We were very brutal, partially because of our youth but mostly because, IMO, some of us craved a deep understanding of ourselves and our friends. While there was a certain enjoyment from making somebody in the room squirm with discomfort the greater joy came from the level of sharing and ultimate trust that was built by the sharing, understanding and mutual respect that came out of it all.
Very good times that I would change. As to the answer to your question:
You are Divine
I perhaps shall simply keep silent
Hello. And Bye.
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