{THE AND} Friends Edition

199 conversation cards for friends, from The Skin Deep.

You have friends you've known fifteen years and talk to about four subjects.

It's not that there's nothing else there. It's that you established the terms in 2011 and nobody's brought a new topic since. So you do the bit, you catch up on the logistics, you say we should do this more often, and you go home.

{THE AND} Friends Edition is 199 cards for the rest of it.

How it works

Draw a card. Read it to someone in the room. Everyone shuts up until they've finished answering.

No points, no turns to lose, no winner. Pass the deck when you're done.

Any card can be passed on, though in this deck, refusing to answer is usually more revealing than answering.

What happens

• Somebody tells a story you've heard a hundred times, except this time you get the real ending
• You find out what your friend actually thought of you when you met
• The one who deflects everything with a joke accidentally says something true
• A disagreement you've been politely stepping around turns out to be interesting
• The night goes an hour longer than anyone meant it to

When to bring it out

Game night once the party's thinned out. Hour four of a drive. The cabin weekend. The dinner where everyone stays too long. A reunion with someone you haven't seen since before the kids.

Works with two. Works with eight.

Common questions

How many people do you need?
Two is enough. It's good up to about eight, past that, people stop listening and start waiting for their turn.

Is this an icebreaker for people who just met?
It works, but it's built for people with history. The questions assume you already know each other and go from there.

Does it get heavy?
It can. It all depends on who's playing and how deep you want to go.

How is this different from the Family Edition?
Friends is written for people who chose each other. Family is written for the table you were born at, same spirit, different assumptions about what's already been said.

Bring it to the next thing. Draw one card and see if anyone lets you stop at one.

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