# Games people play. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 16, 2003, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-people-play/169108 "2003-04-16T16:35:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Soup\_du\_jour](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Soup\_du\_jour](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soup_du_jour)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2003, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-people-play/169108/21 "2003-04-18T12:47:29Z")
My brother and I had bunk beds when we were in our younger years (about 4th grade, actually), and so we invented a game we called “ten.” Here’s how it works. Take a pair of socks and roll them up into a ball. Get one person on the top bunk. Get the other person the ball and down standing on the floor. Make sure you have one of those bunkbed guardrails in place. Guy-with-ball runs up and stands on the lower bunk bed and tries to thorw the ball onto the top bunk. Of course, the guy beneath can’t stand up for too long and must eventually retreat to the floor, gravity being what it is. The person to get the ball onto the top bunk ten times in the least number of overall tries wins. Oh yeah, and the person on the top has to try to stop this from occuring. Other rules include: -No grappling or striking. -Play the ball, not the opponent. -Dunking is perfectly legal. Man, that was a fun game. ---
**Author:** ![stolichnaya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bcef8e/32.png) [@stolichnaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stolichnaya)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2003, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-people-play/169108/22 "2003-04-18T13:23:58Z")
Hm, all of our games involved pelting people with tennis balls. Example - **Red-Ass** : A group of two or (many) more has a tennis ball. One player throws the bal against the wall and others catch it. Rules were simple. If you catch the ball off the wall in the air, the person who threw it is “caught” and has to run and touch the wall. If you throw the ball and hit the wall or the runner before they touch the wall with both hands, the runner has to go stand up against the wall while everyone playing gets to peg them once (hence the name). If you touch the ball without catching it (a “bobble”) or if someone intercepts your throw before it hits the wall, you’ve got to run for it. I’ve certainly played red-ass more than any organized sport, we used to play for hours at a time, and there were various “playing fields” throughout the area that were as well known for their idiosynchrasies as Fenway or Wimbledon. ---
**Author:** ![Gundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Gundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gundy)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2003, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-people-play/169108/23 "2003-04-18T15:02:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by stolichnaya \* > \*\*Example - **Red-Ass** : A group of two or (many) more has a tennis ball. One player throws the bal against the wall and others catch it. Rules were simple. If you catch the ball off the wall in the air, the person who threw it is “caught” and has to run and touch the wall. If you throw the ball and hit the wall or the runner before they touch the wall with both hands, the runner has to go stand up against the wall while everyone playing gets to peg them once (hence the name). If you touch the ball without catching it (a “bobble”) or if someone intercepts your throw before it hits the wall, you’ve got to run for it. > \*\* Dude, that’s Butts Up. There was a thread about it somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![stolichnaya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bcef8e/32.png) [@stolichnaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stolichnaya)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2003, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-people-play/169108/24 "2003-04-18T19:40:28Z")
Must be “butts-up” here in the big Midwest, but I grew up in Philly and it was most definitely RedAss there. It’s the first thing I think of when I see the new Trib/SunTimes kiddy papers. ---
**Author:** ![big\_alex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e56c9b/32.png) [@big\_alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/big_alex)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2003, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-people-play/169108/25 "2003-04-19T17:45:44Z")
My sister and I used to play “First one to see…” on long car jouneys. One person would pick something eg. a horse, or a yellow car, and the first person to see it and shout won. Then they could chose next time. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Mook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Mr.Mook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Mook)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2003, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-people-play/169108/26 "2003-04-20T05:47:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ChalkPit \* > \*\*I love making up games. These arent really what you are after, but what the hey, I’m gonna share’em with ya anyway. > > They are ‘homemade’ as stated in the OP, but definately NOT for the kiddies mind you. > > 1st: **Corridor Frisbee**. You need a long corridor with doors at each end. A person stands at each end, guarding their door. The aim is to hit the opponents door, while they try to ‘save’ it. They then try to hit your door. Deflections off the walls are permitted. (When I played this, we were using a part out of a washing machine which approximated a frisbee - worked pretty well as I recall). Can get quite dangerous, so best played while incredibly drunk > \*\* We played a variation of this in college, called “Hall Ball.” same as above, except instead of a frisbee, we used racquetball racquets, a tennis ball, and a bunch of alcohol. ---
**Author:** ![WonTon\_Sean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/54ee81/32.png) [@WonTon\_Sean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WonTon_Sean)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2003, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-people-play/169108/27 "2003-04-20T20:48:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by stolichnaya \* > \*\*Hm, all of our games involved pelting people with tennis balls. > > Example - **Red-Ass** : A group of two or (many) more has a tennis ball. One player throws the bal against the wall and others catch it. Rules were simple. If you catch the ball off the wall in the air, the person who threw it is “caught” and has to run and touch the wall. If you throw the ball and hit the wall or the runner before they touch the wall with both hands, the runner has to go stand up against the wall while everyone playing gets to peg them once (hence the name). If you touch the ball without catching it (a “bobble”) or if someone intercepts your throw before it hits the wall, you’ve got to run for it. > > I’ve certainly played red-ass more than any organized sport, we used to play for hours at a time, and there were various “playing fields” throughout the area that were as well known for their idiosynchrasies as Fenway or Wimbledon. \*\* I’ve always heard it called Peg. I think it’s a regional thing. We often played a variation in which you could only catch it with one hand. If more than one hand touched the ball at a time, you had to drop it and run. ---
**Author:** ![USCDiver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uscdiver/32/354_2.png) [@USCDiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/USCDiver)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2003, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-people-play/169108/28 "2003-04-20T22:51:53Z")
Ok, let me see if I can remember all the rules to a game my brother and I made up as kids… Tape Ball: Two players. One pitching, one batting. First base was the small maple, second base was the batter’s mitt, third was the large shrub, home was the front steps to the house. Scoring was 1 point for a single, 2 for a double, etc. You could stop wherever you felt safe and get that many points. Outs were made by pegging the runner, tagging the base, or for singles, throwing the ball into the tree before the runner could reach first base. Balls hit into the flower bed in right field or into the magnolia tree in left were automatic doubles, over the magnolia tree a triple, into the road a homer, over the road a five point homer. No bunting allowed, no base on balls, 5 strikes was an out, one out per inning. We originally started playing with a ball of paper wrapped in duct tape, but that didn’t go far enough so we switched to a flat tennis ball. One memorable game, I hit one deep to center…as I rounded second my brother had just gotten to the ball so I decided to go for a homer, he just launched it from there and hit my on top of the head as I was one step from home. Bastard. ---
**Author:** ![Dragonblink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Dragonblink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dragonblink)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2003, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-people-play/169108/29 "2003-04-20T23:44:36Z")
One of my friends made a game where she put a bunch of statements on slips of paper, like “You are a Martian”, or “You are the other player’s long lost twin,” or “You are trying to tell the other player as tactfully as possible that their fly is open.” Two people would draw a slip apiece from the bag, we’d start a tape recorder, they’d each read what they were supposed to be and then they got to improv for sixty seconds. The tape recorder is very important, because this game often results in hilarious quotes. The one that comes most immediately to mind is an impassioned cry of “I just want you to zip your zipper before we all get blown to bits!!” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-people-play/169108.md?page=1)