12 No Purchase Needed Dinner Party Games for Adults

Looking for dinner party games for adults to spice up your night and prevent that post-dinner fatigue? We got you! The best part? They won’t cost you a dime.

Dinner parties are the perfect way to get all your friends together and enjoy an evening full of brilliant conversations over delicious vegan appetizers, mouthwatering main dishes, and desserts like Swedish chocolate cake.

But apart from the food, a great dinner party needs the right entertainment – and what better way to entertain a large group of people than by playing games together? They challenge people’s creativity or stir up some spicy conversation or simply allow people to feel like a child or teenager again. We’ll show you the best no-budget dinner party games for adults.

1. Who Am I?

Who am I is a classic party game for every age group. All you need is some paper to stick to your foreheads. You may have some post-its at home, but otherwise, some old paper and tape will do. Once everyone has a piece of paper, they think of a character they’d like to assign to their seat neighbor, for example, a celebrity, politician, or artist. 

To give this game a little twist, you can also decide on different categories beforehand. Some examples include animals, people in your friend group, family members, or characters from your favorite series. Just let your creativity flow and have fun with it. After deciding on a category, everyone writes a character of choice on the piece of paper and attaches it to the forehead of their seat neighbor. Make sure this person doesn’t secretly have a glimpse.

Now it’s time to go in rounds. The person with the first turn can now ask questions to guess their assigned character. These questions can only be answered with Yes or No. Some examples would be asking: Am I male or female? Do I play in the series XYZ? Am I a millionaire? To add a little incentive, you could think of a prize for the winner (the first one to guess their character correctly) or you could use this game as a base for your next costume party: Everyone dresses up as their character from Who Am I.

2. Never Have I Ever

Never Have I Ever might bring back some teenage memories, but who says this game can’t be turned into a fun dinner party game for adults too? While it’s originally a drinking game, it surely works with any beverage, including alcohol-free alternatives.

Once each guest has their beverage of choice in front of them, it’s time to start: Everyone holds up five fingers. Now you can take turns starting a sentence by saying “Never have I ever” and then following it up with something you’ve never done.

For example, “Never have I ever gone skydiving.” Anyone in the room who has done this already has to lower one of their five fingers and take a sip of their beverage. The person that all fingers down first “loses”, but essentially the game isn’t about winning or losing but more so about learning more about each other, bonding, and unpacking fun stories.

3. Classic Dinner Party Game for Adults: Charades

Charades is another timeless dinner party game that can be played in many different variations and is ideal for a larger group. Plus, you can be almost sure that everyone in the room is familiar with this. Split the group into two teams and ask every team to write down clues they want the other team to act out and guess.

The clues are placed in a bowl or hat for each team. Now it’s time to start and take turns guessing and acting out. Decide on a time together and set a timer for a certain amount of minutes. That’s how much time each team has to act out and guess as many items as possible. The team who guessed the most items correctly in the end wins!

4. Pictionary

Some of your party guests may not be into acting, but into drawing instead. The game works exactly the same as charades, but this time you let players draw the term and guess it from that. No further tips or explanations using words are allowed! 

5. Host a Murder Mystery Party

Murder mystery parties have become popular dinner party games for adults in the past few years. It’s essentially a party event where guests work together to solve a fake murder. This one requires a little more planning, but can be done without any costs too! Here’s how to go about it:

1. Pick a theme: Think about how many guests are going to attend and what their interests are. There are many templates online to get inspired. 
2. Create a storyline: Whether you want to get creative and write a compelling and mystical story yourself or look up an existent story is up to you. Based on this, you create descriptions of each character involved. 
3. Invite your suspects: Time to assign characters to your guests and send the prepared descriptions to them. Include what they should wear, but make sure it allows for clothes that everyone has at home. Have a look at these DIY Halloween costume ideas for some inspiration. 
4. Time to play: Make sure to stay in character throughout the night and solve the crime together. Ideally, you as the host take on the role of a narrator.

6. Two Truths and a Lie

Another simple dinner party game for adults is Two Truths and a Lie. It can be played very quickly as a quick ice-breaker, but of course, you can also continue playing this dinner party game for adults for as long as you’d like. It’s quite simple, so you could even do it over your dinner plates.

The first person to start tells two truths and one lie about themselves. Next person guesses which one is the lie. You’ll continue until everyone had a turn. This game is great to get to know each other better and find things out you may not have known about your friends. 

7. Would You Rather

This dinner party game for adults is also a great way of getting to know each other better! And also a good way to see whether you have a good feel for how your friends would go about certain situations. The concept is pretty easy. You’ll go around the dinner table in rounds again.

The first player starts by asking a question starting with “Would you rather…” and finishing it by presenting two options, such as:

• Would you rather become a millionaire by starting your own business or by winning the lottery?
• Would you rather be a celebrity for a day or a child again?

Your ideas have no boundaries here. You can have everyone answer the same question or assign specific people until everyone had a turn.

8. Truth Or Dare

This dinner party game for adults may bring back old high school memories, making it perfect for a group of close friends. All you need is a bottle to spin while everyone else sits around in a circle. The person who the bottle points towards has to perform a task or answer a question, chosen by the other participants.

This is your time to get a little silly, dance in front of the neighbor’s yard, perform a 90s hit in front of your friends or finally find out about that work crush you suspected one of your friends has. As with all the games, make sure to respect the boundaries of your friends and don’t push people too much.

9. Name That Tune

Want to boost the group’s mood with some good tunes but aren’t done playing games just yet? This game combines the two. You can either have players hum or sing a few notes of a song and have the other ones guess, or you could just play the first few notes of a song from any streaming platform. Whoever guesses the most songs wins!

10. Categories

Categories is a quick and easy but fun game where everyone takes turns to think of a specific category, for example: Car brands, types of candy, things you can find at the thrift store. The next person then has to name something in that category and the round keeps going until no more words come up.

11. DIY Twister

While most of these dinner party games for adults have you sit down around the table, we made sure to include some that will have you move a bit! Making a DIY Twister board is one of them. Simply look for an old piece of fabric, such as an old bedsheet, and draw a large Twister board on it using markers or any type of leftover color you may still have sitting around. Now put a bottle in the middle of the field and spin it. Wherever it lands, players have to put their hand or foot on the color and so on.

12. Freeze Dance

Another dinner party game to get adult guests moving is Freeze Dance. Play some hits and have everyone show off their funkiest dance moves. Then unexpectedly stop the music and have everyone freeze. Repeat the same procedure every few seconds. Whoever moves, is removed from the game, and the last person standing wins. 

Read More:

• 15 Post-Turkey Thanksgiving Activities for Adults
• 12 Eco-Friendly Garden Party Ideas
• 10 Simple, Tasty Vegan Party Food Ideas

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Tags: Dinner Guide Indoors Practical Tips