Top 13 Best Drinking Board Games
Top 13 Best Drinking Board Games
On weekend game nights, Kendra and I enjoy an adult beverage or two. We view alcohol and board games as a social event, both of which can be extremely fun. This made me start thinking about what kind of games could we alter and turn into the best drinking board games.
Most drinking games’ ultimate goal is to get you drunk. If that’s what you’re looking for, a round or two or King’s Cup and Three Man will do the job. However, I wanted to come up with games that would be enhanced with drinking and not necessarily the whole point of the game.
Our Top Picks for Best Drinking Board Games
In a hurry? Check out our favorites below.
Best Drunk Game
Best Social Deduction
Best Overall
For this list, I chose board games that could be turned into fun drinking games or simply improved with a drinking element.
Before we jump into the list, I feel responsible to add a bit of a public service announcement. I was in the Navy for 5 years, and my liver is still recovering. If you decide to drink, please drink responsibly. Drinking games can be especially harsh with this, and remember the point is to have fun.
Know your limits, and if a player says they can’t drink anymore, then they can’t drink anymore. A lot of games I played in the Navy involved a lot of peer pressure to drink copious amounts of alcohol. Enjoy yourself, have fun, but remember it’s just a game. Be safe.
#1. Red Dragon Inn
Seriously, this game was designed to be played with a tankard of ale in-hand. The Red Dragon Inn is a fantasy board game in which a group of adventurers have already completed their epic quests and have been paid. All that’s left is to hit the inn and celebrate.
During the game, players will issue drink cards and gamble away their earnings. The last player standing is the winner. All that’s required to turn this into a drinking game is to add some beer and whenever a drink card is used, take a drink. It’s an excellent game that isn’t too heavy on rules and already has a system in place to keep track of drinks.
Each player will receive a character card that has some special abilities and stats used to drink and generally mess with the other patrons of The Red Dragon Inn.
- Play Time of 30-60 minutes for 2-4 players
- Base Game in the expandable series of the Red Dragon Inn
- With the game you get 4 unique 40 card player decks, One 30 card...
Throughout the game, players can buy drink cards and gamble-away their hard-earned adventuring booty. The last player standing (or swaying) in the inn is declared the winner. If your character has had too much to drink and passes out, they’re out of the game or if they run out of money, they’re kicked out of the inn and lose.
The theme is silly and any player who has ever dabbled in Dungeon & Dragons will be familiar with sitting at an inn, having a few drinks with their fellow adventurers. It’s great fun and if you’d like to learn more, be sure to check out our full review here!
Versions & Expansions
#2. The Resistance
I really like social games and hidden traitor games. I first met some of my closest friends while playing Avalon.
Avalon and The Resistance are basically the same game but are differently-themed. In either version, each player will get a hidden role: either a good guy or bad guy. The good guys won’t know who is on which team, but the bad guys will know who is on their team.
The game lasts five rounds in which players must send each other out on missions. Every player wants to go out on these missions. The good guys want to go out to make them succeed, and the bad guys want to go out to make them fail. The bad guys also have the option of helping to pass a mission to sow discord and hide among the good guys.
The majority of the gameplay involves the conversation around the table. Players will need to lie or convince everyone at the table that they’re on the good team to convince the other players to send them out on missions.
How to make it a drinking game
A drinking penalty could easily be added to the mission stage.
- If a mission fails, the members of the mission take a drink.
OR
- If a mission fails, everyone NOT on the mission takes a drink.
This can definitely motivate people and give a higher incentive to get on the mission team.
- Losing team takes a drink/shot
- The leader of a failed mission takes a drink/shot
- The resistance redefines social deduction everyone plays till the...
- Your ability to lie to your friends and know when they are lying...
- Not for the faint of heart, or slow of mind but if you are quick...
Avalon and Resistance are already raucous social games and adding a few booze rounds can amp it up. Just make sure everyone’s a happy drunk before playing.
Versions & Expansions
#3. Deadwood
Deadwood is a cowboy shootout game set in the badlands of South Dakota of the Wild West. Each player picks up their own gang and will go around town starting shootouts, gambling, robbing banks, and building up the town.
Players will quickly find out that this town ain’t big enough for the two of you and can resort to having a shootout to try and drive players off spaces that they need.
How to make it a drinking game
The shootouts offer an interesting mechanic to make it a drinking game. The loser of each round in a shootout takes a drink. If a member of your posse dies, you definitely have to take a drink to their memory (pour one out for your homies). I would suggest bourbon for thematic flair.
Deadwood and bourbon are a perfect pairing. I’ve become a big whiskey fan and really enjoy the variety of flavors you can get out of a good bottle of whiskey.
For those of you who don’t know, most regions that make whiskey will have a specific name for it. Scotch comes exclusively from Scotland, and Bourbon comes exclusively from the United States. Each region and distillery will have the cheap stuff and some really incredibly-flavored artisanal whiskey.
- Worker placement game with a quick and deadly twist
- Finish the game as the wealthiest cowboy to win
- Three unique ways to end the game
For Deadwood, if you’re drinking it neat (straight out of the bottle) I would suggest getting something a little more refined than Jack Daniels to sip on. If it’s mixed, then it doesn’t really matter.
#4. BANG! The Dice Game
Dice games make excellent drinking games. If you spill on the dice, just wipe them off and keep going. Dice rules are usually simple enough that players don’t need to spend a whole lot of their limited attention spans on the game, while still having a ton of fun.
BANG! the Dice Game is like a weird mashup between dice game and social deduction game. Players will be given several hidden roles and need to roll dice to shoot the opposing teams.
- Sheriff
- Deputy
- Outlaws
- Renegades
The winning team is usually the last one standing. The sheriff is revealed and needs to kill off the outlaws. The deputies need to support the sheriff and keep him alive. All the outlaws need to kill the sheriff and the Renegades just need to survive until the end of the game.
On each turn, players will be rolling dice to perform actions.
- Shooting other players
- Increasing range
- Getting shot by Indians
- Shooting all other players with a Gatling gun
- All the emotions of BANG! in a handful of dice: BANG! The Dice...
- Five six-sided dice and nine Indian arrows; Will you be bold...
- BANG! The Dice Game is the perfect game for those with a little...
How to make it a drinking game
Turning BANG! the Dice Game into BANG! the Drinking Game is easy. Just substitute life points for drinks. Or if you’re feeling really froggy, you can substitute them for shots.
Expansions
#5. Epic Spellwars of the Battle Wizards
This game is literally too weird to not have a beer open when playing. One of the wizards you can play as is Pisster the Pissed Wizard who carries a giant keg on his back and his magic wand is a massive bladed beer tap… seriously, go get a beer.
Epic Spell Wars is a simple card game where players are dueling wizards making up stupid (or awesome) named spells.
“Bleemax Brainiac’s – Two-Faced – Testikill” is a legitimate spell in the game.
Player’s will be making spells using up to 3 cards. Source (beginning), Quality (middle), and Delivery (end). Each spell has a different magic type and the more cards in the spell that have the same magic type, the stronger it will be.
The game is supposed to be played in rounds and the winner of each round receives a Last Wizard Standing token. Get two of those bad boys and you win the game.
- An explosive spell-casting card game for 2-6 players, ages 15+,...
- The box is cracking at the seams with super-cool art - Game cards...
- Hilarious spell-combining mechanic creates endless gameplay...
Ready to cast some stupid-sounding spells? Get the lowdown with our in-depth review here!
How to make it a drinking game
There are a lot of ways you can add a few drinking rules to this game.
- Drink for every life point you lose.
- Give a drink for every life point healed.
- Drink for dying
- Give drinks for a wild magic card
- Stop drinking and go to bed if you spill all over your cards. You owe me a new game, btw.
Versions & Expansions
#6. Coup
I love bluffing games.
Coup is a bluffing game set within the same world as the Resistance but much quicker and simpler. Players have 2 cards that represent their influence in the government. Each card has a special ability. Players will try to gain money to perform a coup and destroy the influence of the other players. The last player standing with cards (influence) is the winner.
The interesting part about Coup is that you can claim to have any card and use any special ability in the game. You can completely bluff the entire game, claiming whatever you want. If you’re ever challenged and caught in a lie, you’ll lose an influence (a card).
This is a great one. Be sure to check out our full review for strategy tips!
- Age Mfg. Minimum: 120.0 Months
- For 2 to 6 players
- Playable in 15 minutes
How to make it a drinking game
When a player challenges another player, the loser of the challenge definitely deserves a drink (or a shot).
Losing an influence within the government or being on the receiving end of a coup is devastating within the game (and on the psyche). You should probably take a shot to calm the nerves.
Versions & Expansions
#7. Zombie Dice
Zombie Dice is a simple push-your-luck dice game in which players are the zombies.
As zombies, the most important thing in life is eating brains. Each turn, players will start by rolling three dice.
- Shotgun Blasts: Injure you, 3 blasts and your turn ends without scoring
- Brains: Yummy (victory points)
- Feet: The humans ran away.
If you ever roll three shotgun blasts your turn ends with no score.
Every brain that you roll is worth 1 victory point.
Feet means that you can reroll that die.
After every roll, players can press their luck by drawing another dice and continuing to roll any feet dice along with the new dice. If you ever get 3 shotgun blasts… BOOM! Your turn is over and you get no points. There are 3 colors of dice that correspond to different odds.
- Green dice: Have more chances of rolling brains.
- Red dice: Have more chances of rolling shotgun blasts.
- Yellow dice: Somewhere in the middle.
- Self contained game, carry the dice in the cup
- 2+ players
- 15 20 minutes to play
How to make it a drinking game
It’s pretty easy to assign drinks to the dice rolls. If you score some brains, assign drinks equal to the number of brains. If you roll a shotgun blast, take a drink. If you roll 3 shotgun blasts in a turn, finish your drink. It’s going to be a brutal game, but nobody said being a zombie was easy.
Check out our full review of Zombie Dice for the low-down on this fun and lightweight game.
Versions & Expansions
#8. Munchkin
Munchkin is already a game of ridiculousness and stupidity.
Come on… their tagline is
“Go down in the dungeon. Kill everything you meet. Backstab your friends and steal their stuff. Grab the treasure and run.”
You either love it or hate it, but there’s no denying that Munchkin is a classic card game that has endured the test of time.
In the game, players will be kicking down doors by drawing a door card, resolving the card by fighting the monster, placing the card in their hand, or getting cursed (hint: don’t pick up ducks in dungeons).
Players can screw with the other players by attacking them, boosting up monsters, and generally being jerks to each other. Be careful, though, because the players you irritate may be your only hope of survival if you need help in a battle.
Each monster you kill will level-up your character and give you some loot. The first player to reach level 10 wins but it’s going to be a cutthroat journey to the top.
- Complete game playable out of the box
- 3 to 6 players
- 1 2 hours to play
How to make it a drinking game
Munchkin can easily be enhanced with some drinking rules:
- If you’re cursed when kicking down the door, take a drink; 2 drinks if cursed by another player.
- Level-up = Give a drink
- Lose a level = Take 2 drinks
- You can also bargain and trade away drinks when it comes to asking for help in battles.
Our Favorite Versions & Expansions
#9. Drunk Quest
If you want to skip the pretense of a game, you could always try Drunk Quest. It’s a similar game to Munchkin but 100% designed with drinking in mind.
DrunkQuest is basically the same thing as Munchkin, but with built-in drinking. Players get a character card, a realm card, and a handful of treasure cards.
Each turn, players will turn over cards from the monster deck and have to fight the monster that’s shown… sound familiar? Instead of using cards to boost equipment and character stats, the cards instead alter the number of drinks you’ll need to take. To actually kill monsters, players will tally up their scores and abilities granted by cards. The tallied score is how many drinks the player will have to drink to kill the monster.
After a monster is defeated (by drinking) the players will then gain levels depending on the monster’s strength and treasure.
DrunkQuest also includes boss monsters that all players will have to fight together. If the boss monster’s final strength is 10, EVERY player will need to take 10 drinks and nobody gains a level, but everyone will still get treasure.
It’s a hell of a lot of fun. It’s almost exactly like Munchkin, but instead of using equipment values to fight monsters, you’ll need to drink to kill monsters.
- Oversized premium cards
- 2 to 6 players, ages 21+
- Fantasy RPG/adventure theme
Be careful though, I have some Navy buddies that would basically never lose and may even buff the monsters on their turn, just for fun.
The game is currently out-of-print, but there are still some copies floating around. The publishers are currently working on a reprint and collector’s edition update, so keep an eye out for that coming soon.
Expansions
- 100 New cards to take your quest to the next level!
- 4 New Heroes and Realms
- Players can now captain ships and fire drinks at each other
#10. Suddenly Drunk
Oddly enough, Suddenly Drunk claims to be an expansion to (literally) any turn-based game ever.
That’s a pretty bold claim.
Basically, this simple deck of cards can be added to any turn-based game.
The deck of cards is dealt out and throughout the normal game, players will be drawing and playing cards in addition to whatever game you add it to.
Suddenly Drunk includes all the classic drinking rules… like DRINK.
Okay, there’s a lot more to it than that. There are also some interesting minigames and odd rules thrown in that remind me of drinking in college and on deployments in the Navy. All of the classic drinking rules are accounted for here.
- Speak in 3rd person
- Truth or Dare
- Fake your own death (Everyone drinks in your honor).
- Finish your drink or skip your turn
- Odd voices
- Embarrassing stories
If you’re having trouble trying to turn games into drinking games, then this is probably the simplest way to do it. Keep in mind the game is called Suddenly Drunk, not sip the beer mid-game. It’s designed to force you to drink, and it excels at it. You’re going to be drinking a lot so keep that in mind with your audience. If you’re sick of King’s Cup and still want to play a game with booze, this will definitely do the trick.
It definitely makes Monopoly more interesting.
- Easily transforms any turn-based game into a drinking game!
- Add ridiculous rules to you and your friends that they must...
- Construct your own perfect drinking game by adding or removing...
Word of warning: There are 3 expansions for this game… and they’re exactly what you think they are.
- Sexy Expansion
- Hardcore Expansion
- Gross Expansion
Here’s an awesome video of Suddenly Drunk combined with Cards Against Humanity.
Versions & Expansions
Speaking of which…
#11. Cards Against Humanity
Cards Against Humanity is usually pulled out after everyone’s had a few beers anyway. Why not add some drinking to the rules?
One way to spice up an already spicy game is to add a drink or two to every round.
- If nobody laughs at your card, take a consolation drink.
- If a card is particularly heinous the card czar can assign a drink.
- If you have a handful of dumb cards that nobody likes, you can redraw a full hand, but take a big drink.
- A party game for horrible people.
- Comes with 500 white cards and 100 black cards for eternal...
- Includes a booklet of sensible game rules and preposterous...
The house rules added to CAH are pretty much endless and, let’s be honest if you’re playing CAH chances are you already have a beer or cocktail in-hand. You might as well add it to the rules.
(Some) Versions & Expansions
#12. Drinking Dice
Turn any game that uses 6-sided dice into a drinking game with these bad boys. In this game, 8-sided drinking dice are used like 6-sided dice with the values 1-6, but there are 2 special sides to the dice.
- “You drink”
- “They drink”
You can even spice it up by pairing it with the second die.
- Roll a “You drink” and a 3; drink 3.
- Roll a “They drink” and a 6; give away 6 drinks.
Simple, easy to remember (especially while drinking), and fun.
- 24 Dice, 1 Dice Bag, 16 Micro Games.
- Use these 24 custom 8-sided dice to play any of the 16 included...
- 8 sided dice numbered one through six, with two custom sides, one...
#13. Jenga
Jenga is a classic dexterity game that has become a classic drinking game. Simply write a drinking rule on every tile and perform the action on the tile when it’s pulled.
- Drink 1
- Assign a drink
- Waterfall
- Player to the left and/or right… drink
- If you knock down the tower, finish your drink
It’s a lot of fun and simple to learn and play. It does have a progressive difficulty as dexterity goes out the window after a few rounds.
- Pull out a bock without crashing the stack to win at Jenga
- Includes 54 Jenga hardwood blocks, stacking sleeve with...
- Genuine hardwood blocks
Wrap-Up
Anybody can crack a beer and start drinking during a game. For this list, I wanted to add some variety to the gameplay portion of drinking board games.
Most players who have been through college have played Beer Pong, Asshole, or King’s Cup, but I wanted to find some games that were a little more interesting than drink-the-beer.
There’s a lot of social games on this list, and that’s because drinking should be a social event. It’s a time to unwind with some friends and get a little silly. I’ve seen a ton of my friends who are very shy relax while playing social games. They can be some of the most vocal and outgoing people when sitting around a game of Avalon. This is the same concept with which I view drinking games. Some people need a bit of help to get them out of their shell.
Dice games also feature heavily on this list. There’s a reason why drinking games are usually simple. It’s because, by design, players are going to have trouble following super complicated rules after a few rounds.
Drink. Be Merry. Most importantly, be safe.
If you have any favorite drinking games or have a fun idea on how to change a classic board game into a drinking game, we would love to hear it.
Leave a comment below.
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