There’s a series of metagames called the GIPF project (GIPF, TAMSK, DVOON, ZERTZ, YINSH…) that involve a system of ‘potentials’ which are pieces that reflect the other games. To use a potential, you must first challenge your opponent to a subgame of the potential’s source game.
(Imagine a game of checkers, where you can bring in a knight from Chess, but only if you win a game of chess first)
The MASH game was “Double Cranko.” While I was living in Prague, we played it quite often, and it was a lot more fun than you’d think, by which I mean “some.” No, really, it was pretty fun.
You played with as many different games as you could: chess, checkers, cards, chinese checkers, more cards, Uno, Jenga, Parcheesi, etc. Ideally, you play it in as public a place as possible, like a bar or a sidewalk cafe, because part of the fun is the complete mystifycation of onlookers.
If you have a new player, they will generally ask if they can have a quick explanation of the rules. This request should be greeted with a curt “no.” The point is to see how creative you can be playing a game with essentially no rules…okay, no rules whatsoever. Also the point is seeing how long it takes a new player to pick up on the rules or lack thereof. Eventually players develop an elaborate system of meaningless rules, like “jacking the corners”, “beating the bishop”, or “full court press.” The game is over when all players arbitrarily declare one player the winner for some reason, and said winner is conned into believing the rules call for buying a celebratory round for the losers. I’ve never won.
I shared an apartment with my best friend while we were going to the University of Oregon, and our game of choice was Bong-o-trivia-drink-o-rama.
As best I can recall, (and mind you, I recall we played it quite a bit), you played a regular game of trivia, but for every missed question, you got/had to drink.
For every widget you earned, you took a bong hit.
After you got all of your widgets, and were going for the win in the center, each time you missed any answer, you had to take a bong hit.