The Ranking Game

The Ranking Game scale from minus 10 to zero to 10 cockroach cigarette purple sock rose ice cream

This game is best with between two and four players. Each player comes up with a list of ten things. Anything at all: Moscow, golf, Donald Trump, sadness, etc. Once each player has her list, she reads it off while the others write them down, such that each player ends up with a written list of all the things (for two players, 20 things, for three, 30, etc.).

A Book of Surrealist GamesThen the players proceed to silently write down their ranking for the things on the list, in their own opinion, based on how good the things are or how much they like them. The scale is from negative ten to positive ten, including zero in the middle. It’s the normal scale of one to ten, with ten being the best possible, but with zero begin completely neutral and negative ten being the worst possible.

Once all the players have ranked all the items, simply go through the items one by one. Each player announces the score she gave that item, explains why, and a fascinating discussion ensues.

A form of this game was played by the Surrealists in Paris in the 1920s, and is presented in A Book of Surrealist Games along with many other fun and weird parlor games.

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