Kings
Kings is a very popular drinking game that uses a standard deck of playing cards (it is also known as King’s Cup, for reasons that will soon be clear). Shuffle a deck of cards, spread down on a table. Place a party cup, in the center of the table. Go around the table drawing cards one at a time. Each card has a different action associated with it. Follow the rules as they are listed below.
Rules
2 Take 2 Drinks, or You
Simple. Take 2 drinks, or you choose a person to drink.
3 Give 3 Drinks or Me
Simple. Give 3 drinks. You can can give a drink each to Tom, Dick, and Jane, or you can give all 3 to Tom. For “Me” you take a drink.
4 Floor
All players must touch the floor. The last person to do so must drink.
5 Guys
All the boys take a drink.
6 Chicks
.All the girls take a drink.
7 Never have I Never
The person who draws this card says something they’ve never done. Whoever has done this, takes a drink. There’s another variation on this rule. You can have everyone start with 3 fingers held up. If you’ve done the action, put a finger down. The first one to lose their fingers drinks.
8 Make-A-Rule
The drawer of this card gets to make a rule and a punishment for breaking that rule. I’ll give you a couple of ideas. There’s a Thumb Master rule where the drawer becomes the thumb master and when they put their thumb on the table (unnoticeably), the last person to do so has to drink. There’s also the ‘Drink, Drank, Drunk’ rule where you can’t say any of these words. You can also have the ‘Orgasm Rule’ so that whenever someone says a certain rule, they have to fake an orgasm.
9 Bust-A-Rhyme
The drawer starts with one line, and in succession, everyone rhymes with the last word of the line. If you repeat what’s already been said or take too long to come up with something, you drink.
10 Social
Everyone drinks!
J Categories
The drawer starts with a Category and an example and everyone in turn comes up with another example. Again, if you repeat what’s already been said or take too long, you drink. For example, I (being the drawer), would say ‘the category is N.B.A. Teams’. I would give the example of the Lakers, and so on…
Q Questions
You start by making eye contact with someone and asking them off-the-wall questions. The point is to do this fast and to make the person laugh. Whoever laughs first drinks. In some groups, the first person to answer one of the questions, or make any statement other than a question, drinks instead.
K Kings
Pour some of whatever you’re drinking into the center cup so that it fills up a 1/3 of the cup. The game ends when the last King is drawn and the bearer has to pound the cup. This works best when people are drinking various drinks (beer, liquor, etc.)
A Waterfalls
Before you start the waterfall, everyone should fill their drinks. Here’s how it goes. Everyone starts drinking when the drawer of the card starts. The person to their left can’t stop drinking until the person to their right stops. As you guessed it, the person to the right of the drawer is screwed.
Simple game. Have fun and impress your friends.
Variants
There are probably as many variants of Kings as there are groups who play the game. For starters, any action whose name isn’t somehow connected to the associated card (9 is almost always “Bust-a-Rhyme”, and K is always the same) can be associated with any other card (for instance, A is “Make-a-Rule” and 7 is “Waterfall”). Also, in some circles, 4 is “Whores” (women drink) and 6 is “Dicks” (men drink). Another value is then assigned to 5. This variant is especially popular at fraternities.
In addition, in some groups, the cards will be arranged in a ring around the cup. The first player to “break the circle” (that is, draw a card that leaves a gap in this ring) must pound the King’s Cup, regardless of how many Kings have been drawn. The deck is then shuffled, and a new ring formed. Alternatively, if everyone has had enough, the game ends. This rule is nearly always treated as optional, as if the circle is broken early, the concoction in the King’s Cup will be neither especially large nor especially foul.
A selection of variant rules follows.
Variant Rules
A In Your Face
You take a drink.
3 Three’s Company
Social. Everyone takes a drink.
5 Hand Jive
Make a gesture, then point to someone. They repeat the gesture, add one of their own, and point to someone else. First person to make a mistake in repeating the sequence drinks.
8 Pick a Mate
Pick another player. Both of you take one drink.
8 Dare
Dare another player to do something. If they won’t, they drink (generally more than once).
J Back
The previous person in the rotation takes one drink.
Q Quickness
All players must put their thumbs on the table. The last player to do so takes one drink.
Note that any of the rules can be assigned to any card, so long as an appropriate name for the action is chosen.