Party Games to Play in Middle Earth

Original content created by community member: Alderwren

The Dragon Snacks kinship on Gladden holds regular kin parties where games and silliness are the order of the day. After receiving several requests for instructions on how to conduct some of our most popular games, I am writing them down for all to enjoy.

[edit] Games for Three or More Players

[edit] Reverse Tag

Object: To be It at the end of the round.
Time: Three minutes per round. Allow for multiple rounds.
Location: Regular tag playground near the Bree Festival Ground hedge maze.
Volunteers: A referee to watch the clock and determine winners.
Number of players: Three or more
Advance preparations: None

How to play:

1. - All players enter the tag area.
2. - Someone uses the beacon.
3. - Everyone chases It around, trying to become It.
4. - After two minutes, the referee gives the one minute warning signal. The referee signals again at 30 seconds, 15 seconds, and counts down the last five seconds, calling for everyone to stop. Whomever is It, wins.

[edit] Variations:

[edit] Hide and go seek

Designate a burglar to enter the playing field alone and start the beacon, so that the burglar is It. Then have the burglar stealth and hide. After 20 seconds, let the remaining players in to hunt for the burglar. The first person to run over the burglar and ‘steal’ the It arrow wins.

[edit] Hedge Maze Bingo

Object: To be the first to retrieve all the required objects from the maze.
Time: Three minutes per object.
Location: The Bree Festival Ground hedge maze.
Volunteers: A referee and one person per object to retrieve,
Number of players: Two or more
Advance preparations: Acquire one or more stacks of objects to retrieve from the maze. (various specialty ales, for example). Hand one stack to each volunteer and direct them to a spot within the maze where they will stand and hand out items.

I found it helpful to position player alts within the maze an hour or so before party start time, When it was time for this event, the volunteers just switched to their alts and we were ready to go.

How to Play:

1. The referee lists the items to be retrieved from the maze and the names of the volunteers holding them.
2. The referee gives a count down to start the players off.
3. Players enter the maze. When the player finds a volunteer, the player opens a trade window with the volunteer and receives the item that volunteer is holding.
4. The first player to collect all items and turn them in to the referee wins.

[edit] Variations:

[edit] Order, Please!

Players must trade with the volunteers in a given order. For example,

1. find Ghira and receive a flagon of Barleyman’s Best.
2. find Mold and trade the Barleyman’s Best for Green Dragon’s Breath Ale.
3. Find Sulris and trade the GDB Ale for Wooly Stout.
4. Bring the Wooly Stout to Eoheryn outside the maze.

[edit] Very Merry Order, Please!

The items to be collected are sets of two intoxicating drinks. Players must drink one in front of the volunteer before proceeding. (Play fair; keep post processing effects turned on!)

[edit] Chicken Run

Object: To be the first chicken to reach the destination.
Time: At least 30 minutes.
Location: Sandson Farm in the Shire
Volunteers: One referee to stand at the finish line.
Number of players: Two or more

Advance preparations: Choose a destination. We found Bree to be too easy. Esteldin is a bit more challenging without taking too long. Hard-core chicken racers can be given a destination in Forochel, Eregion, or Angmar. Note: chickens cannot pass through portals, so Moria and Lothlorien are out of the question :(

Players should complete enough of the chicken session play quests to be able to get off the farm (two quests) . The quests are fast enough to finish that you can allot ten or fifteen minutes at the start of the event to help players do these.

How to play: Have players turn in to chickens and assemble at the exit from the farm. Give a signal and send them running for the destination! First chicken there or last chicken standing is the winner.

[edit] Variations:

[edit] Chicken Chasers

Have teams of two or more players. One player on each team becomes the chicken and the other team member(s) are responsible for escorting it safely/

[edit] Relay Race

Hold event below, with the first leg of the race completed as chickens.

[edit] Games for Multiple Teams

Optional but fun for all team games: Purchase plain cloaks from an outfitter and dye them various colors. Choose colors that are easy to distinguish (olive, rust, and turquoise, for example) versus visually similar colors like violet, navy, and indigo. Each team gets a colored cloak to equip cosmetically as their team uniform.

[edit] Team Freeze Tag

Object: The team with the most thawed members at the end of the round wins.
Time: Five minutes per round. Allow for multiple rounds. We had twenty or so players busy running, hiding, giggling, and begging for a turn to be It for over an hour.
Number of players: Five or more. The more the merrier.
Location: Freeze tag playground near the Bree Festival Ground hedge maze.
Volunteers: A referee to watch the clock and determine winners.
Advance preparations: None.

How to play:

1. Choose a person to be it for the round.
2. Divide remaining players into any number of teams of equal size.
3. All players stand outside the entry archway to the tag area while It goes in and uses the beacon. Make sure that the bouncing arrow shows up over It’s head. (Aside for punctuation sticklers: I agonized over that apostrophe. Ultimately I decided that It was a proper name and not a pronoun and thus took the apostrophe in its possessive form.)
4. The referee gives a count down for the teams to enter through the arch and get scattered around the play area.
5. On the referee’s signal, It can move away from the beacon and begin freezing people by running over them. Players can thaw team members by standing very close to them for about 3 seconds. Players may not use any special skills (speed buffs, stealth, mounts).
6. After four minutes, the referee gives the one minute warning signal. The referee signals again at 30 seconds, 15 seconds, and counts down the last five seconds, calling for everyone to stop.

Optional additional prizes - Pay It a bounty (cash reward, legendary shard, mithril flake) for each player frozen at the end of the round.

[edit] Variations:

[edit] Fellowed or Not

Allowing each team to create a fellowship makes it easier to find frozen members. Your players may prefer not being fellowed as it keeps people circulating instead of hiding.

[edit] Hunter Hustle

Each team gets a hunter and speed buffs are allowed. Hunters may use camouflage.

[edit] Burglar Breakout

Each team gets one or more burglars and burglars are allowed to stealth.

[edit] Invisible It

It is a stealthed burglar. Additional option: every team gets a loremaster to cast stealth detection.

[edit] Mounted Mayhem

All mounts allowed!

[edit] Scavenger Hunt

Object: To amass a collection of objects worth the most points.
Time: Variable, but at least 15 minutes. We gave it 45 which seemed about right.
Location: Any
Volunteers: At least one person to assign point values and tally points.
Number of players: Two or more

Advance preparations: Prepare a list of items for which points will be awarded. Assign point values based on scarcity, difficulty, or your whim. Items may be specific (Ball of Gunk), a class of items (fishing trophies that are not fish), or hinted at (something that rhymes with ‘wall of junk’) Points may be awarded for every instance of an item or each unique item; it’s your choice.

Determine how you will score items that fit multiple categories: highest point category, every category in which it could be counted, or bonus for fitting two or more.

Sample list from a recent Dragon Snack event:

Each uniquely named beverage -- 5 points.

Each unique color appearing in the name of an item: 10 points.

Each fishing trophy that is not a fish -- 15 points.

One item with a long name -- 2 points per letter in name.

Each unique ranged weapon useable by a minstrel: -- 20 points

One garment that might have been worn by a many-tentacled beast -- 100 points

If conducting the scavenger hunt for kin members, it is helpful to have the list typed up in a text file. At the start of the event, an officer can copy (ctrl + c) the text and paste it (ctrl + v) into a kinship mail for easy distribution and save yourself a lot of repetition. Another option is to use something like Google Docs.

How to play:

1. Assign players to teams. Hunters and wardens and captains should be distributed as evenly as possible.
2. Announce the time limit to gather items.
3. Announce/ and/or distribute the list of items.
4. Start the clock and give players the signal to start gathering. I suggest that you allow any mode of collection (out of personal banks, auction house, mugging passers-by) as it would be impossible to enforce any restrictions. Team members may mail each other items. However, I suggest requiring that all items be freely transferable between players (no bound items).
5. Warn players five minutes before, again three minutes before, and again one minute before the time limit runs out.
6. When the clock stops, a representative from each team must be standing in front of the score keeper with the team’s collection.
7. Tally points by showing items in a secure trade window. This can be time consuming, so I suggest having several scorekeepers if you can. We had six teams and three scorekeepers.

Optional additional prizes - Award prizes for top scorers in a given category

[edit] Relay Race

Object: To be the first team to have a member reach the destination.
Time: At least 30 minutes.
Location: Any
Volunteers: One referee to stand at the finish line for each stage, Ideally a captain capable of summoning.
Number of players: One player per stage per team.

Advance preparations: Acquire a stack of items to be traded between team members as ‘batons.‘ Choose a route and required travel modes. A sample route might be:

Stage One: Mounted race from the Bird and Baby Inn to the middle of the Brandywine Bridge.
Stage Two: Jump off the bridge and swim to the ferry.
Stage Three: Go ashore and run to Tom Bombadil.
Stage Four: Mounted race to the boar fountain in Bree.

Place a volunteer at the end of each stage.

How to play:

1. Assign players to teams.
2. Explain route and allow teams to choose which member will run each stage.
3. Get team members ported or summoned to the start of their stages of the race.
4. Give the stage one racers the special item to carry.
5. When referees announce that all are in place, give the signal to start.
6. As players reach the end of a stage, they must hand off the special item to their team mate.
7. First team to deliver the special item to the referee at the end of the last stage wins.

[edit] Variations:

- Start the first stage as chickens. Chickens cannot carry items, however.

[edit] Mini Games for Instances

[edit] 2.4.7 Tongue Flung!

Object: To take the most trips by toad tongue Location: Toad portion of the 2.4.7 instance

How to play: Keep track of how many times each player is flung by a tongue. The player that spent the most time on the tip of the tongue wins!

[edit] Class Item Time Trials

Object: To beat your prior time. Location: Just inside the portal to CD or Urugarth

How to play: Gather fellows just inside the portal. Count down to start and start stop watch. Kill stuff! Stop the timer when the desired class item pops up on loot roll. Current Dragon Snacks record for a Sigil of War is 11:11; Rune of Winged Dominance is 12:06.

[edit] Bait Box

Object: Be the first player to get Red Wiggler Bait out of a Chest of Chance.